But no such encouragement came to the Cubs. Try as they might, they could not solve Joe’s delivery. He mixed up his fast ones with an occasional slow one that they broke their backs reaching for, while Joe grinned at them tantalizingly. His hop ball was working to perfection and his fadeaway stood the Chicagos on their heads.
“You’re a lot of old women,” stormed the Chicago manager, Evans, as one after the other of his men came discomfited to the bench. “Why don’t you go in and knock his head off, you bunch of sand-lot boobs?”
“Aw, that feller ain’t a pitcher, he’s a wizard,” growled Burton, the Cub’s heaviest slugger. “He’s got the ball bewitched.”
“Here, let’s see that ball,” shouted Evans, walking out toward the box as Joe was winding up. “Come here, umps,” he added, motioning to the umpire. “I want you to examine this ball and make sure there’s nothing phony about it.”
Joe surrendered it with a laugh. He had never resorted to the tricks used by some pitchers of “roughening” or “shining” or putting resin on the ball so as to give it a peculiar motion. His arm and his head had been his only reliance.
The umpire and manager examined the ball with the utmost care but could find no fault with it. A huge guffaw came from the Giants, as Evans reluctantly handed back the ball, and even the Chicago fans gave him the laugh.
“Satisfied, Mr. Evans?” grinned Joe with elaborate politeness. “Now, just to show you that there are no hard feelings, trot out your rough-necks and I’ll strike them out in order—one, two, three, just like that.”
This he did in jig time and in such a masterly fashion that the Chicago rooters, eager as they were to see the home team win, could not refrain from applauding him. They were beginning to realize that they were watching the performance of the greatest pitcher that had ever walked into the box.
In the very next inning they realized also that they were watching the mightiest slugger that had ever swung a bat, when Joe, with one man on base, caught one of Axander’s fast ones on the end of his bat and sent it screaming over the center-field wall for the longest homer that had ever been clouted on the Chicago grounds. The ice was broken, and the score stood 2 to 0 in favor of the Giants.