For a moment Joe was genuinely alarmed. He was usually so free from pains and aches and he kept himself in such superb physical condition that any marked deviation from this enviable state came to him with a shock. Visions of paralysis darted across his mind. He knew, of course, that this was usually to be dreaded only by the old. Still, men as young as he had sometimes, though rarely, been the victims of a stroke.
This thought, however, he entertained for only a fleeting moment.
“What am I mooning like this for?” he scolded himself. “It’s simple enough. I’ve just had the arm in a strained position and it’s gone to sleep like the rest of me. A bit of a rub, and it will be all right.”
He massaged the arm vigorously with his left hand and in a little while could feel that it was becoming normal again. He kept up the friction until at last all the queer feeling had disappeared.
Then he took a shower bath, rubbed himself down vigorously, gave himself a shampoo, and went down to the dining room, where, after an excellent meal, he found himself feeling as well as ever.
The Bostons were to play the Giants at the Polo Grounds the next day and Joe was slated to pitch.
It was an easy assignment, for the Bostons had been “meat” for him in all the games he had pitched against them this season. They were not an exceptionally heavy batting team, although they had a few noted sluggers on their roster. But Joe knew their idiosyncrasies, and usually when he stepped into the box it was a signal for the Braves “to roll over and play dead.”
“Might as well chalk this game up for us in advance,” remarked Jim, just before the game began.
“No game is dead sure before it is played,” returned Joe. “But I never felt in better form for pitching, and if the boys give me a few runs I guess we can make a go of it.”
The early part of the game was full of promise for the Giants. Joe twirled in superb form and up to the sixth his opponents had made only three hits off him and not a Brave had got as far as third base.
Schiff was in the box for the Bostons and pitched an excellent game. He was a good pitcher, and his eccentricities had provoked many a laugh around the circuit and had won him the nickname of “Crazy Schiff.”
His memory was poor, and one of his oddities was his carrying about of a small notebook which he sometimes consulted when he was faced by a batsman whose special weakness, real or supposed, he had forgotten.
He would study this gravely while the stands rocked with laughter and his opponents jeered at him. But he cared little for that. After he had learned what he wanted he thrust his book back into the pocket of his baseball shirt and wound up for his pitch.
The Giants had their batting clothes on that day, and although Schiff pitched fairly well they had nicked him for four runs by the end of the fifth inning and the game seemed carefully tucked away on ice, in view of the way that Joe was pitching.
Joe himself had accounted for one of those runs on the first occasion he came to the bat. Schiff had never pitched to him before, and looked him over carefully.
He cudgeled his brains to remember what he had been told about Joe’s special weakness, but could not recall anything. Then he had recourse to his little book while the spectators proceeded to jeer him.
He scanned the names in alphabetical order until he got to the Ms.
“Matson. Matson,” he murmured. “Vere iss dot Matson?” He was a German. “Oh, here it vos.”
He looked with some bewilderment and then beckoned to his catcher.
“I got id,” he said to him. “Dere ain’t noddings here about a curve oder a fast ball; so I gif him a base on balls. Dot must be his veakness.”
He was not far wrong at that, and it was the wisest thing he could have done. But unluckily, although he tried his best, one of the balls that he tried to throw wide came within reach of Joe’s bat and he spanked it for a homer, speeding around the bases and denting the rubber while the crowd chaffed Schiff unmercifully.
The first man up in the Boston’s half of the sixth inning, Thompson, clouted a single to left that sharp fielding prevented from being stretched to a two-bagger. Jackson came next, and was given a base on balls.
Joe himself was as much surprised at this as the spectators. It was rarely that he passed a man to first, especially when that bag was occupied and a pass meant putting a man on second. And a thing that increased the oddity of the occurrence was that there had been no strikes sandwiched in between. He had simply thrown four balls in succession, and not one of them had even cut the corner of the plate.
“Here, this won’t do!” he said to himself. “I’ve got to brace up.”
But the bracing up proved to be unexpectedly difficult. Thornhill bunted the first ball pitched in the direction of third. Joe ran over for it, but the ball bounded out of his hand and before he could retrieve it the batter had reached first and each of the two other runners had advanced a base. The bags were full with no one out.
The stage was set for a double play. Ordinarily, under such conditions, Joe would have made the next batter hit a grounder to the infield with a good chance of two going out on a snappy double.
He tried to do it now, but to his consternation found that his arm refused to obey his head and his will. It felt heavy, inert. His fast ball was that only in name. His curves were floating up wide of the plate.
Gunton caught one of them on the end of his bat and sent out a long sacrifice fly to center, on which Thompson crossed the plate for the Bostons’ first run. It was an out for Gunton, but that was simply a bit of luck, for he had met the ball squarely. And on the throw in, the other runners had reached second and third.
McIntyre, one of the weakest of the Boston batters, trotted up to the plate. The Braves had waked up to the fact that something was the matter with Joe. Their arch-enemy had been delivered into their hands.
The crowning proof of this came a moment later when McIntyre poled a mighty home run between right and center driving in two runs ahead of him, tying the score.
The handwriting on the wall was plain.
Joe was through.
He had been knocked out of the box!