“I don’t know whether he’s just bad or is mad,” replied Joe regretfully. “A combination of both I suppose. He’s got the fixed idea that I’ve done him a wrong of some kind and his poor brain hasn’t room for anything else. It’s too bad to see a man that was once a great pitcher go to the dogs the way he has. I suppose he picks up a few dollars now and then by pitching for semi-professional teams. But most of that I suppose is dissipated.”
“Well, you want to keep on your guard against him, Joe,” warned Jim, in some anxiety. “A crazy man makes a dangerous enemy.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any need of worrying about Bugs,” rejoined Joe carelessly. “The chances are ten to one we’ll never run across him again.”
The encounter had rather spoiled their morning, and they hailed a taxicab to take them back to their hotel. There they had lunch and then rode up to the Polo Grounds for the game.
As Joe had predicted, the Bostons that afternoon were out for blood and they evened up the score. Markwith pitched a good game except for one bad inning when he lost control, and hits, sandwiched in with passes and a wild pitch, let in three runs. He braced up after that, but it was too late, and the Giants had to take the little end of the score.
In the next two weeks the Giants met the rest of the Eastern teams, and, taking it as a whole, the result was satisfactory. They had no trouble in taking the Phillies into camp, for that once great team had been shot to pieces. The majority of the Boston games also went to the Giants’ credit. They met a snag, however, in Brooklyn, and the team from over the bridge took four games out of six from their Manhattan rivals. But then the Brooklyns always had been a hoodoo for the Giants, and in this season, as in many others, they lived up to the tradition.
Still the Giants wound up their first Eastern series with a percentage of 610, which was respectable if not brilliant. But now their real test was coming. They were about to make their first invasion of the West, where the teams were much stronger than those of the East. Cincinnati was going strong under the great leader who had once piloted the Phillies to a championship. Chicago was quite as formidable as in the year before, when the Giants had just nosed them out at the finish. St. Louis, though perhaps the least to be feared, was developing sluggers that would put the Giants’ pitchers on their mettle. But most of all to be feared was Pittsburgh, which had been going through the rest of the Western teams like a prairie fire.
“Pittsburgh’s the enemy,” McRae told his men, and Robbie agreed with him. “Beat those birds and you’ll cop the flag!”