"What! Say, Whit, Buffalo is on the card today and we are only three points behind them. If we win both we"ll be leading the league once more. I don"t know about pitching you both games."
"I reckon we"ll be in the lead tonight then," he replied, "for I"ll win them both."
I was about to reply when Dave, the ground-keeper, called me to the door, saying there was a man to see me. I went out, and there stood Morrisey, manager of the Chicago American League team. We knew each other well and exchanged greetings.
"Con, I dropped off to see you about this new pitcher of yours, the one they call the Rube. I want to see him work. I"ve heard he"s pretty fast. How about it?"
"Wait--till you see him pitch," I replied. I could scarcely get that much out, for Morrisey"s presence meant a great deal and I did not want to betray my elation.
"Any strings on him?" queried the big league manager, sharply.
"Well, Morrisey, not exactly. I can give you the first call. You"ll have to bid high, though. Just wait till you see him work."
"I"m glad to hear that. My scout was over here watching him pitch and says he"s a wonder."
What luck it was that Morrisey should have come upon this day! I could hardly contain myself. Almost I began to spend the money I would get for selling the Rube to the big league manager. We took seats in the grand stand, as Morrisey did not want to be seen by any players, and I stayed there with him until the gong sounded. There was a big attendance. I looked all over the stand for Nan, but she was lost in the gay crowd. But when I went down to the bench I saw her up in my private box with Milly. It took no second glance to see that Nan Brown was a bride and glorying in the fact.
Then, in the absorption of the game, I became oblivious to Milly and Nan; the noisy crowd; the giant fire-crackers and the smoke; to the presence of Morrisey; to all except the Rube and my team and their opponents. Fortunately for my hopes, the game opened with characteristic Worcester dash. Little McCall doubled, Ashwell drew his base on four wide pitches, and Stringer drove the ball over the right-field fence--three runs!
Three runs were enough to win that game. Of all the exhibitions of pitching with which the Rube had favored us, this one was the finest.
It was perhaps not so much his marvelous speed and unhittable curves that made the game one memorable in the annals of pitching; it was his perfect control in the placing of b.a.l.l.s, in the cutting of corners; in his absolute implacable mastery of the situation. Buffalo was unable to find him at all. The game was swift short, decisive, with the score 5 to 0 in our favor. But the score did not tell all of the Rube"s work that morning. He shut out Buffalo without a hit, or a scratch, the first no-hit, no-run game of the year. He gave no base on b.a.l.l.s; not a Buffalo player got to first base; only one fly went to the outfield.
For once I forgot Milly after a game, and I hurried to find Morrisey, and carried him off to have dinner with me.
"Your rube is a wonder, and that"s a fact," he said to me several times. "Where on earth did you get him? Connelly, he"s my meat. Do you understand? Can you let me have him right now?"
"No, Morrisey, I"ve got the pennant to win first. Then I"ll sell him."
"How much? Do you hear? How much?" Morrisey hammered the table with his fist and his eyes gleamed.
Carried away as I was by his vehemence, I was yet able to calculate shrewdly, and I decided to name a very high price, from which I could come down and still make a splendid deal.
"How much?" demanded Morrisey.
"Five thousand dollars," I replied, and gulped when I got the words out.
Morrisey never batted an eye.
"Waiter, quick, pen and ink and paper!"
Presently my hand, none too firm, was signing my name to a contract whereby I was to sell my pitcher for five thousand dollars at the close of the current season. I never saw a man look so pleased as Morrisey when he folded that contract and put it in his pocket. He bade me good-bye and hurried off to catch a train, and he never knew the Rube had pitched the great game on his wedding day.
That afternoon before a crowd that had to be roped off the diamond, I put the Rube against the Bisons. How well he showed the baseball knowledge he had a.s.similated! He changed his style in that second game. He used a slow ball and wide curves and took things easy. He made Buffalo hit the ball and when runners got on bases once more let out his speed and held them down. He relied upon the players behind him and they were equal to the occasion.
It was a totally different game from that of the morning, and perhaps one more suited to the pleasure of the audience. There was plenty of hard hitting, sharp fielding and good base running, and the game was close and exciting up to the eighth, when Mullaney"s triple gave us two runs, and a lead that was not headed. To the deafening roar of the bleachers the Rube walked off the field, having pitched Worcester into first place in the pennant race.
That night the boys planned their first job on the Rube. We had ordered a special Pullman for travel to Toronto, and when I got to the depot in the morning, the Pullman was a white fluttering ma.s.s of satin ribbons. Also, there was a bra.s.s band, and thousands of baseball fans, and barrels of old foot-gear. The Rube and Nan arrived in a cab and were immediately mobbed. The crowd roared, the band played, the engine whistled, the bell clanged; and the air was full of confetti and slippers, and showers of rice like hail pattered everywhere. A somewhat dishevelled bride and groom boarded the Pullman and breathlessly hid in a state room. The train started, and the crowd gave one last rousing cheer. Old Spears yelled from the back platform:
"Fellers, an" fans, you needn"t worry none about leavin" the Rube an"
his bride to the tender mercies of the gang. A hundred years from now people will talk about this honeymoon baseball trip. Wait till we come back--an" say, jest to put you wise, no matter what else happens, we"re comin" back in first place!"
It was surely a merry party in that Pullman. The bridal couple emerged from their hiding place and held a sort of reception in which the Rube appeared shy and frightened, and Nan resembled a joyous, fluttering bird in gray. I did not see if she kissed every man on the team, but she kissed me as if she had been wanting to do it for ages. Milly kissed the Rube, and so did the other women, to his infinite embarra.s.sment. Nan"s effect upon that crowd was most singular. She was sweetness and caprice and joy personified.
We settled down presently to something approaching order, and I, for one, with very keen ears and alert eyes, because I did not want to miss anything.
"I see the lambs a-gambolin"," observed McCall, in a voice louder than was necessary to convey his meaning to Mullaney, his partner in the seat.
"Yes, it do seem as if there was joy aboundin" hereabouts," replied Mul with fervor.
"It"s more spring-time than summer," said Ashwell, "an" everything in nature is runnin" in pairs. There are the sheep an" the cattle an" the birds. I see two kingfishers fishin" over here. An" there"s a couple of honey-bees makin" honey. Oh, honey, an" by George, if there ain"t two b.u.t.terflies foldin" their wings round each other. See the dandelions kissin" in the field!"
Then the staid Captain Spears spoke up with an appearance of sincerity and a tone that was nothing short of remarkable.
"Reggie, see the sunshine asleep upon yon bank. Ain"t it lovely? An"
that white cloud sailin" thither amid the blue--how spontaneous! Joy is a-broad o"er all this boo-tiful land today--Oh, yes! An" love"s wings hover o "er the little lambs an" the bullfrogs in the pond an" the d.i.c.ky birds in the trees. What sweetness to lie in the gra.s.s, the lap of bounteous earth, eatin" apples in the Garden of Eden, an" chasin"
away the snakes an" dreamin" of Thee, Sweet-h-e-a-r-t----"
Spears was singing when he got so far and there was no telling what he might have done if Mullaney, unable to stand the agony, had not jabbed a pin in him. But that only made way for the efforts of the other boys, each of whom tried to outdo the other in poking fun at the Rube and Nan. The big pitcher was too gloriously happy to note much of what went on around him, but when it dawned upon him he grew red and white by turns.
Nan, however, was more than equal to the occasion. Presently she smiled at Spears, such a smile! The captain looked as if he had just partaken of an intoxicating wine. With a heightened color in her cheeks and a dangerous flash in her roguish eyes, Nan favored McCall with a look, which was as much as to say that she remembered him with a dear sadness. She made eyes at every fellow in the car, and then bringing back her gaze to the Rube, as if glorying in comparison, she nestled her curly black head on his shoulder. He gently tried to move her; but it was not possible. Nan knew how to meet the ridicule of half a dozen old lovers. One by one they buried themselves in newspapers, and finally McCall, for once utterly beaten, showed a white feather, and sank back out of sight behind his seat.
The boys did not recover from that shock until late in the afternoon.
As it was a physical impossibility for Nan to rest her head all day upon her husband"s broad shoulder, the boys toward dinner time came out of their jealous trance. I heard them plotting something. When dinner was called, about half of my party, including the bride and groom, went at once into the dining-car. Time there flew by swiftly. And later, when we were once more in our Pullman, and I had gotten interested in a game of cards with Milly and Stringer and his wife, the Rube came marching up to me with a very red face.
"Con, I reckon some of the boys have stolen my--our grips," said he.
"What?" I asked, blankly.
He explained that during his absence in the dining-car someone had entered his stateroom and stolen his grip and Nan"s. I hastened at once to aid the Rube in his search. The boys swore by everything under and beyond the sun they had not seen the grips; they appeared very much grieved at the loss and pretended to help in searching the Pullman. At last, with the a.s.sistance of a porter, we discovered the missing grips in an upper berth. The Rube carried them off to his stateroom and we knew soon from his uncomplimentary remarks that the contents of the suitcases had been mixed and manhandled. But he did not hunt for the jokers.
We arrived at Toronto before daylight next morning, and remained in the Pullman until seven o"clock. When we got out, it was discovered that the Rube and Nan had stolen a march upon us. We traced them to the hotel, and found them at breakfast. After breakfast we formed a merry sight-seeing party and rode all over the city.
That afternoon, when Raddy let Toronto down with three hits and the boys played a magnificent game behind him, and we won 7 to 2, I knew at last and for certain that the Worcester team had come into its own again. Then next day Cairns won a close, exciting game, and following that, on the third day, the matchless Rube toyed with the Torontos.
Eleven straight games won! I was in the clouds, and never had I seen so beautiful a light as shone in Milly"s eyes.
From that day The Honeymoon Trip of the Worcester Baseball Club, as the newspapers heralded it--was a triumphant march. We won two out of three games at Montreal, broke even with the hard-fighting Bisons, took three straight from Rochester, and won one and tied one out of three with Hartford. It would have been wonderful ball playing for a team to play on home grounds and we were doing the full circuit of the league.
Spears had called the turn when he said the trip would be a hummer.
Nan Hurtle had brought us wonderful luck.
But the tricks they played on Whit and his girl-fan bride!
Ashwell, who was a capital actor, disguised himself as a conductor and pretended to try to eject Whit and Nan from the train, urging that love-making was not permitted. Some of the team hired a clever young woman to hunt the Rube up at the hotel, and claim old acquaintance with him. Poor Whit almost collapsed when the young woman threw her arms about his neck just as Nan entered the parlor. Upon the instant Nan became wild as a little tigress, and it took much explanation and eloquence to reinstate Whit in her affections.
Another time Spears, the wily old fox, succeeded in detaining Nan on the way to the station, and the two missed the train. At first the Rube laughed with the others, but when Stringer remarked that he had noticed a growing attachment between Nan and Spears, my great pitcher experienced the first pangs of the green-eyed monster. We had to hold him to keep him from jumping from the train, and it took Milly and Mrs.
Stringer to soothe him. I had to wire back to Rochester for a special train for Spears and Nan, and even then we had to play half a game without the services of our captain.
So far upon our trip I had been fortunate in securing comfortable rooms and the best of transportation for my party. At Hartford, however, I encountered difficulties. I could not get a special Pullman, and the sleeper we entered already had a number of occupants. After the ladies of my party had been a.s.signed to berths, it was necessary for some of the boys to sleep double in upper berths.