Baseball Joe In The Big League Part 14

"Don't let me keep you from your game," said Joe to the manager. "Oh, I'll let Campbell finish it for me, he's better at the ivories than I am," and Watson motioned for the centre fielder to take the cue. "I'll see what sort of a room we can give you," the manager went on. "Nothing like being comfortable. Did you have a good trip?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Contract satisfactory, and all that?"

"Oh, yes. And, by the way, Mr. Watson, if it isn't asking too much I'd like to know how you came to hear of me and sign me up?"

"Oh, I had scouts all over last fall," said the manager with a smile.

"One of them happened to see you early in the season, and then he saw the game you pitched against Clevefield, winning the pennant. You looked to him like the proper stuff, so I had you drafted to our club."

"I hope you won't repent of your bargain," observed Joe, soberly.

"Well, I don't think I will, and yet baseball is pretty much of a chance game after all. I've often been fooled, I don't mind admitting. But, Matson, let me tell you one thing," and he spoke more earnestly, as they walked along a corridor to the lobby of the hotel. "You mustn't imagine that you're going in right off the reel and clean things up. You'll have to go a bit slow. I want to watch you, and I'll give you all the opportunity I can.

"But you must remember that I have several pitchers, and some of them are very good. They've been playing in the big leagues for years. You're a newcomer, and, unless I'm much mistaken, you'll have a bit of stage fright at first. That's to be expected, and I'm looking for it. I won't be disappointed if you fall down hard first along. But whatever else you do, don't get discouraged and--don't lose your nerve, above all else."

"I'll try not to," promised Joe. But he made up his mind that he would surprise the manager and make a brilliant showing as soon as possible.

Joe had several things to learn about baseball as it is played in the big leagues.

"I guess I'll put you in with Rad Chase," said Manager Watson, as he looked over the page of the register, on which were the names of the team. "His room is a good one, and you'll like him. He's a young chap about your age."

"Was he in there?" asked Joe, nodding toward the billiard room, where he had met several of the players.

"No. I don't know where he is," went on the manager. "Is Rad out?" he asked of the clerk.

That official, stroking his small blonde mustache, turned to look at the rack. From the peg of room 413 hung the key.

"He's out," the clerk announced.

"Well, you might as well go up and make yourself at home," advised the manager. "I'll tell Rad you're quartered with him. Have his grip taken up," went on Mr. Watson to the clerk.

"Front!" called the young man behind the desk, and when the same freckle-faced lad, who had pointed out to Joe the manager, came shuffling up, the lad took our hero's satchel, and did a little one-step glide with it toward the elevator.

"Tanks," mumbled the same lad, as Joe slipped a dime into his palm, when the bellboy had opened the room door and set the grip on the floor by the bed. "Say, where do youse play?" he asked with the democratic freedom of the American youth.

"Well, I'm supposed to be a pitcher," said Joe.

"Left?"

"No, right."

"Huh! It's about time the Cardinals got a guy with a right-hand delivery!" snorted the boy. "They've been tryin' southpaws and been beaten all over the lots. Got any speed?"

"Well, maybe a little," admitted Joe, smiling at the lad's ingenuousness.

"Curves, of course?"

"Some."

"Dat's th' stuff! Say, I hopes you make good!" and the lad, spinning the dime in the air, deftly caught it, and slid out of the room.

Joe looked after him. He was entering on a new life, and many emotions were in conflict within him. True, he had been at hotels before, for he had traveled much when he was in the Central League. But this time it was different. It seemed a new world to him--a new and big world--a much more important world.

And he was to be a part of it. That was what counted most. He was in a Big League--a place of which he had often dreamed, but to which he had only aspired in his dreams. Now it was a reality.

Joe unpacked his grip. His trunk check he had given to the clerk, who said he would send to the railroad station for the baggage. Then Joe changed his collar, put on a fresh tie, and went down in the elevator.

He wanted to be among the players who were to be his companions for the coming months.

Joe liked Rad Chase at once. In a way he was like Charlie Hall, but rather older, and with more knowledge of the world.

"Do you play cards?" was Rad's question, after the formalities of introduction, Joe's roommate having come in shortly after our hero went down.

"Well, I can make a stab at whist, but I'm no wonder," confessed Joe.

"Do you play Canfield solitaire?"

"Never heard of it."

"Shake hands!" cried Rad, and he seemed relieved.

"Why?" asked Joe.

"Well, the fellow I roomed with last year was a fiend at Canfield solitaire. He'd sit up until all hours of the morning, trying to make himself believe he wasn't cheating, and I lost ten pounds from not getting my proper sleep."

"Well, I'll promise not to keep you awake that way," said Joe with a laugh.

"Do you snore?" Rad wanted next to know.

"I never heard myself."

Rad laughed.

"I guess you'll do," he said. "We'll hit it off all right."

Joe soon fell easily into the life at the big hotel. He met all the other players, and while some regarded him with jealous eyes, most of them welcomed him in their midst. Truth to tell, the St. Louis team was in a bad way, and the players, tired of being so far down on the list, were willing to make any sacrifices of professional feeling in order to be in line for honors, and a share in the pennant money, providing it could be brought to pa.s.s that they reached the top of the list.

Joe spent a week at the hotel while Manager Watson was arranging matters for the trip South. One or two players had not yet arrived, "d.i.c.kers"

being under way for their purchase.

But finally the announcement was made that the start for the training camp, at Reedville, Alabama, would be made in three days.

"And I'm glad of it!" cried Rad Chase, as he and Joe came back one evening from a moving picture show, and heard the news. "I'm tired of sitting around here doing nothing. I want to get a bat in my hands."

"So do I," agreed Joe. "It sure will be great to get out on the gra.s.s again. Have you ever been in Reedville?"

"No, but I hear it's a decent place. There's a good local team there that we brush up against, and two or three other teams in the vicinity.

It'll be lively enough."