“And he’s thinking all the time,” declared McRae emphatically.
The series with the Bostons resulted in an even break. The Braves had been strengthened in the field and the pitcher’s box by the trades and deals they had made in the winter, and they put up an unexpectedly stiff opposition. Joe won one of the games and Jim accounted for another victory, but Bradley was batted out of the box and the Bostons just nosed out Markwith in a hot game that went to twelve innings.
“Well,” remarked Jim at the close of the series, “nine out of twelve isn’t as good of course as seven out of eight, but it isn’t bad.”
“It might be worse,” agreed Joe. “And the encouraging thing is that in all the games our boys played good ball. Even when they were beaten they were not disgraced.”
The fans who attended the games at the Polo Grounds were made up of all classes and conditions of men and boys from the office boys to heads of great business corporations and powers in the financial world.
All of them of course knew Baseball Joe by sight and reputation and many of them were eager to know him more intimately. Men would stop him on the street to congratulate him upon his playing, others were introduced to him in the lobbies of hotels. Some of the acquaintances he made were very pleasant and congenial and he valued them. He was showered with invitations to balls and theaters and social functions.
These he rarely accepted during the playing season because of his rigid adherence to training and his avoidance of late hours. Occasionally, however, he made an exception and dined out, always with the proviso, expressed or understood, that he would eat sparingly and leave early.
At the beginning of the season he had been introduced to two Wall Street men. Their names were Harrish and Tompkinson. They were suave and polished men of the world and entertaining talkers. They were almost daily attendants at the game and took occasion whenever they could to exchange a few words with Joe, for whom they professed an unbounded admiration.
More than once they had invited Joe to dine with them, but he had usually found some way to decline the invitation without offense. One day, however, at the conclusion of the game, they renewed their invitation so pressingly that he hardly saw his way clear to refuse.
“I’ll come,” he said, “if you won’t mind my slipping away shortly after dinner. I’ll have to be like the beggars and eat and run. My men have to be in bed by a certain time and I can’t ask them to do what I don’t do myself.”