[CHAPTER III]
AN ACCUSATION
“Whew!” exclaimed Joe, as he sank into a car seat and placed his valise beside him. “Some doings—those!”
Several passengers looked at him, smiling and appreciative. They had seen and heard the parting ovation tendered to our hero, and they understood what it meant.
Joe waved his hand out of the window as the train sped on, and then settled back to collect his thoughts which, truth to tell, were running riot.
Pulling from his pocket some books on baseball, one of which contained statistics regarding the Central League, Joe began poring over them. He wanted to learn all he could about the organization with which he had cast his fortunes.
And a few words of explanation concerning the Central League may not be unappreciated by my readers.
In the first place let me be perfectly frank, and state that the Central League was not one of the big ones. I have not masqueraded a major league under that title. Some day I hope to tell you some stories concerning one of the larger leagues, but not in this volume.
And in the second place Joe realized that he was not going to astonish the world by his performances in this small league. He knew it was but a “bush league,” in a sense, yet he had read enough of it to know that it was composed of clean-cut clubs and players, and that it bore a good reputation. Many a major league player had graduated from this same Central, and Joe—well, to put it modestly—had great hopes.