“Not unless something happens,” replied his team-mate. “Of course, if another manager wanted you badly enough he would pay the price, and buy you from this club. High prices have been paid, too. There’s Marquard—the Giants gave ten thousand dollars to have him play for them.”
“Yes, I heard about that,” spoke Joe, “but I supposed it was mostly talk.”
“There’s a good deal more than talk,” asserted Charlie. “Though it’s a great advertisement for a man. Think of being worth ten thousand dollars more than your salary!”
“And he didn’t get the ten,” commented Joe.
“No. That’s the worst of it. We’re the slaves of baseball, in a way.”
“Oh, well, I don’t mind being that kind of a slave,” said Joe, laughingly.
He lay back in his seat as the train whirled on, and before him, as he closed his eyes, he could see a girl’s face—the face of Mabel Varley.
“I wonder if her brother told her?” mused the young pitcher. “If he did she may think just as he did—that I had a hand in looting that valise. Oh, pshaw! I’m not going to think about it. And yet I wish the mystery was cleared up—I sure do!”
The training had done all the players good. They were right “on edge” and eager to get into the fray. Not a little horse-play was indulged in on the way North. The team had a car to itself, and so felt more freedom than otherwise would have been the case.
Terry Blake, the little “mascot” of the nine, was a great favorite, and he and Joe soon became fast friends.