“Boston!” ejaculated Joe in surprise. “I didn’t think they had a look in for the flag.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” returned Hughson. “Believe me, that team will bear a lot of watching. They’ve got Rawlings for a manager and he’s one of the most cagey men in the game. He can take a ‘busher’ and develop him into a star quicker than any man I ever saw outside of McRae. I know they say he has a team of cast-offs, but he’s welding them into a winning combination. His weakest spot was the keystone bag, but he’s made a deal with Chicago this winter and got Ebers, the most brainy man who ever played second base. I’ll bet he has the star infield of the league before the year is out.”
“The Giants have good cause to remember Ebers,” laughed Joe.
“You bet we have,” returned Hughson, grimly. “It was his quick thinking that knocked us out of the championship the year that Burkett forgot to touch second. Oh, maybe we weren’t sore that day when we saw our chance to get into the World’s Series go glimmering. We lost at least fifty thousand dollars that afternoon by that one misplay. Poor Burkett himself felt so bad about it that the boys were afraid he was going to lose his mind. The gloom was so thick about the clubhouse that day that you couldn’t cut it with a knife.”
Just then a thick-set man of medium height came through the car and stopped at their seat.
“How are you, Matson?” he asked, pleasantly.
Joe was on his feet in an instant and his hand, outstretched in greeting, grasped that of McRae, the far-famed leader of the Giants.