[CHAPTER XX]
A TEST OF NERVE
“How are you feeling, Joe?” asked Jim, as the men were dressing in the clubhouse, preparatory to going on the field for the first game of the championship race.
“Like a fighting cock,” answered Joe. “How are you?”
“A bit shaky,” confessed Jim. “My heart keeps coming up in my throat and I have to keep swallowing it all the time.”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” chaffed Joe. “Neither you nor I will have anything to do today but root for the rest of the boys. That’s a moral certainty.”
“You can’t sometimes most always tell,” quoted Jim. “Nothing is certain in baseball.”
“No,” admitted Joe, as he adjusted his belt. “But it’s a cinch that Hughson will pitch today. He always does in the first game. An opening day without Hughson in the box would be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.”
“Gee!” interrupted Larry Barrett as he glanced through the door in the direction of the stands. “Take a squint at that crowd! I’ll bet all New York is here today.”
It was the great day of the season, the day to which the hungry baseball enthusiasts in the metropolis had looked forward all through the winter and early spring. For days the fans had been in an ever increasing fever of excitement. The papers had been full of predictions as to the chances of the New Yorks for the flag. There had been pictures of the team individually and in groups together with their fielding and batting averages. There had been rosy stories of the way they had been “breaking fences” in the training camp, and there were hints that McRae had uncovered one or two “phenoms” who would make the rooters sit up and take notice. The whole population of the city that had a drop of red blood in its veins was on tiptoe with expectation.