BASEBALL JOE
CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM
[CHAPTER I]
QUEER TACTICS
“No use talking, Joe, we seem to be on the toboggan,” remarked Jim Barclay, one of the first string pitchers of the Giant team, to his closest chum, Joe Matson; as they came out of the clubhouse at the Chicago baseball park and strolled over toward their dugout in the shadow of the grandstand.
“You’re right, old boy,” agreed Joe—“Baseball Joe,” as he was known by the fans all over the country. “We seem to be headed straight for the cellar championship, and at the present rate it won’t be long before we land there. I can’t tell what’s got into the boys. Perhaps I’m as much to blame as any of the rest of them. I’ve lost the last two games I pitched.”
“Huh!” snorted Jim. “Look at the way you lost them! You never pitched better in your life. You had everything—speed, curves, control, and that old fadeaway of yours was working like a charm. But the boys played behind you like a lot of sand-lotters. They simply threw the game away—handed it to the Cubs on a silver platter. What they did in the field was a sin and a shame. And when it came to batting, they were even worse. The home run and triple you pasted out yourself were the only clouts worth mentioning.”
“The boys do seem to have lost their batting eyes,” agreed Joe. “And when it comes to fielding, they’re all thumbs. What do you think the trouble is?”
“Search me,” replied Jim. “We’ve got the same team we had when we started the season. Look at the way we started off: Three out of four from the Brooklyns, the same from the Bostons, and a clean sweep from the Phillies. It looked as though we were going to go through the League like a prairie fire. But the instant we struck the West we went down with a sickening thud. Pittsburgh wiped up the earth with us. The Reds walked all over us. The Cubs in the last two games have given us the razz. We’re beginning to look like something the cat dragged in.”
“I can’t make it out,” observed Joe, thoughtfully. “Of course, every team gets in a slump sometimes. But this has lasted longer than usual, and it’s time we snapped out of it. McRae will be a raving lunatic if we don’t.”