[CHAPTER XXVI]
THE SLUMP
The trouble began with Hartley.
On the last Western trip he seemed to lose what little shred of self-control he had left, and began to drink heavily.
His comrades tried to shield him, as Joe and Jim had done on an earlier occasion, but all to no purpose. In his sober moods he was penitent and promised solemnly never to offend again. But his moral fibre had been weakened by self-indulgence, and with every debauch he became the less able to resist temptation.
McRae had pleaded with him and threatened him. He had fully resolved to release him when the season was over, but he hoped to keep him going fairly well till the end of the present year. When Hartley was “good,” he was almost unhittable, and in a close finish he might come in handy.
But of late he had been losing almost every game that he pitched. Twice in one week Joe had gone in when Hartley had been batted from the mound and by superhuman exertions had just nosed out a victory.
Hartley resented this bitterly. He seemed to think that Joe was trying to “show him up.” He glared at our hero whenever they came near each other, growled at him in the clubhouse after the game, and on two occasions of late had tried to trip him.
Joe attributed this to his mental state, and where he would have resented, with his fists if need be, such conduct on the part of another, he passed it over pityingly in the case of Hartley.
“Bugs seems to have it in for me,” he remarked to Jim one day, when they were dressing after the game. “You’d think that after I’d tried to shield him as I did in St. Louis, he’d be grateful, instead of trying to harm me in any way he could.”
“It’s just an illustration of the old motto: ‘Do a man a favor and he’ll never forgive you,’” returned Jim. “The trouble with Bugs is that he isn’t right in the upper story. His nickname fits him right enough.”