“Look at the face of him,” whispered Larry to Wheeler. “The old man has been giving him the rough edge of his tongue.”
“And when that tongue gets going it can certainly flay a man alive,” remarked Wheeler. “I’m sore yet from what he gave the bunch of us. Let’s hurry and get out of this. It’s too much like a funeral around here to suit me.”
McRae in the meantime was unburdening his heart to Robbie. The latter was his closest friend and adviser. They had been teammates in the early days on the old Orioles of Baltimore, when that famous team had been burning up the League. Both of them knew baseball from beginning to end. Together they had worked out most of the inside stuff, such as the delayed steal, the hit and run, and other clever bits of strategy that had now become the common property of all up-to-date major-league teams.
Yet, though as close friends as brothers, they were as different in temperament as two men could be. Robbie caught his flies with molasses. McRae relied on vinegar to catch his. Robbie knew how to salve the umpires. McRae was on their backs clawing like a wildcat. McRae ruffled up the feathers of his men, while Robbie smoothed them down. Each had his own special qualities and defects. But both were square and just and upright, and commanded the respect of the members of the team. Together they formed an ideal combination, whose worth was attested by the way they had led the Giants to victory. Into that wonderful team they had put the fighting spirit, the indefinable something that made them the “class” of the League and more than once the champions of the world. Even when they failed to win the pennant, they were always close to the top, and it was usually the Giants that the winning team had to beat.
Just now, however, the Giants were undeniably in the slump that at times will come to the best of teams, and both McRae and Robbie, who were hard losers, were at their wits’ end to know how to get them out of it.
“We’re up against it for fair, Robbie,” said McRae, as they walked to the gate on their way to the hotel at which the Giants were stopping. “Think of the way the Chicagos are giving us the merry ha ha! We just gave them that game to-day. Looked as though we had it sewed up for fair. People had started to leave their seats, thinking it was all over. Then we turn around and hand the game over to them.”
“It’s tough luck, to be sure,” Robbie agreed. “If Matson hadn’t been hurt, we’d have copped it sure. They couldn’t get within a mile of him. And now as the capsheaf, he’s probably out of the game for a week. But cheer up, Mac. The season’s young yet, and we’ve got out of many a worse hole than this.”
“It wasn’t so much the boys going to pieces in that one inning that makes me so sore,” returned the manager. “Any team will get a case of the rattles once in a while and play like a lot of dubs. What gets my goat are the blunders that Iredell made. As a captain, supposed to use his brains, he did well—I don’t think.”
“It was rotten judgment,” agreed Robbie, thoughtfully. “And what makes it worse is that it isn’t the first time it’s happened. He’s overlooked a lot of things since we started on this trip. Some of them have been trifling and haven’t done much damage. Some of them the spectators wouldn’t notice at all. But you’ve seen them and I’ve seen them.”
“And what’s worse, some of the team have seen them,” returned McRae. “That’s taken some of their confidence away from them and made them shaky. A captain is a good deal like a pitcher. If he’s good, the team play behind him like thoroughbreds. If he’s poor, they play like a lot of selling platers. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s the whole secret of this present slump.”