“Sure thing,” said Joe. “I thought at first I might try to make a clean steal of home. But you know that would have been a hundred to one shot with Axander partly facing me. So I concluded that I might work Henderson. You know what an ice wagon he is. So I razzed him about how slow he was until he began to see red. Then I drew the throw, and he thought he had me trapped. I figured that, all heated up as he was by what I had been saying to him, it would be an immense satisfaction for him to catch me and put the ball on me himself. So I ran just slowly enough for him to keep right on my heels and think every moment he was going to touch me. You saw how the game worked. When at last he woke up it was too late. It was very simple.”
McRae looked at Robbie. Robbie looked at McRae. Then they both looked at Joe.
“S-simple!” stuttered Robbie helplessly.
“Simple!” exclaimed McRae. “Oh, yes! Very simple! Painfully simple! The most brainy bit of ball playing that I’ve ever seen on the diamond. Come on, Robbie, let’s get out of here before Joe thinks of some other simple thing.”
The newspapers the next day devoted columns of their space to describing that wonderful no-hit game and the dazzling exhibition that Joe had given in the box, at the bat, and on the bases. It was generally agreed that the game stood out as one of the most memorable in the annals of the diamond.
The next day Jim turned in another victory in a game that had no eventful feature beyond his own excellent pitching and a homer that the center fielder poled out in the seventh inning.
In the third game, young Bradley was knocked out of the box after pitching a good game for six innings. In the seventh, the Chicagos rallied and knocked his offerings to all corners of the field. Markwith was sent in as a relief and held the invaders down for the rest of the game, but the damage had already been done and the game went into the bat bag of the Cubs.
Merton, in the fourth game, turned in one of the best exhibitions of his career and the Chicagos left the metropolis a somewhat chastened bunch with only one game of the series out of four to their credit.
The St. Louis Cardinals were next, and they held the Giants to an even break, owing largely to Mornsby’s phenomenal work at short and his prowess with the bat. So far that season he had been hitting at a .400 clip, and he slightly increased that average while in New York. It seemed quite evident that he was the man whom Joe would have to beat if he led the league that year.
“That baby is right there with the stick,” remarked Joe to Jim, after one of the games.