“That’s right,” agreed his friend, a grin lighting up his erstwhile gloomy countenance. “The other teams can’t win unless they make runs, no matter what McCarney, Hupft, Lemblow and Company does. And you and I are in a position to see that they don’t make the runs.”
“Shake on that, old pal!” exclaimed Joe, and the two friends clasped hands. “We’re out after the pennant, and it’s going to take a powerful aggregation to stop us.”
“It looks as though you and I would have to turn detectives for a while, and get to the root of this mystery,” said Jim. “I know we don’t have much time for that sort of thing, but some day when we’re neither of us slated to pitch, we can try our hands at the sleuth game, if you think it would do any good.”
“Sure thing,” grinned Joe. “But the way things are going now, we won’t have many days when one or the other of us isn’t going to pitch. The boss is up against it for twirlers, and no mistake.”
McRae was “up against it” in more ways than one. He knew well enough that there was something wrong with his new players. Any man might make a mistake at times, and fumble a ball or muff an easy fly, but when a man is good enough to get into a big league team he is not supposed to do these things often. And Hupft and McCarney had developed a trick of making such blunders at the most crucial periods of the game—at times when an error meant a run or two for the opposing team. He had many anxious conferences with Robson, but no substitutes were available, and while they suspected the center-fielder and third baseman of underhand work, they could not be quite sure.
Had it not been for the sterling work of the other members of the team, the Giants would have been slipping steadily downward instead of holding their place among the leaders. They all played like demons, backing up their pitchers in a manner that brought joy and applause from the fans. In spite of costly mistakes on the part of the new players, the team climbed steadily toward the coveted first position.
As the weather settled down to steady summer heat, Markwith rounded into better form and pitched several steady games, winning three out of five. He was really entitled to that fifth game, but was robbed of it by a bad misplay on the part of McCarney. In the ninth inning the score was 1 to 0 in favor of the Giants, with the opposing team at bat for the last half of the ninth inning. Markwith struck out the first man to face him, but the second one singled between first and second base, and on the next pitched ball stole second.
Markwith watched the runner out of the corner of his eye and saw that he was getting ready to make a dash for third base. Accordingly, instead of throwing the ball to the batter, he suddenly whirled and threw to McCarney at third. By this time the runner was well on his way to third and McCarney should have had an easy put-out. But as the ball smacked into his glove he fumbled it and it dropped to the ground several feet from the base. He made a dash for it, but as he leaned down to lift it he struck the ball with the toe of his shoe, kicking it fifteen feet away.
It looked like an accident, but whether or no, the runner instantly seized his chance and raced for home. Even then McCarney by quick work might have thrown him out at the plate, but his recovery of the sphere was slow, and when he finally did get it and threw it to the bag, the runner had arrived well ahead of it.
This tied the score, and while Markwith held the opposing team down for the rest of the inning without any further runs, the game had to go into extra innings. Finally, in the eleventh, the other team manged to score one more run, which lost the game to the Giants when it should have been won.