When he cornered old Jack at the post office, half an hour before the game was to start, McLaughlin’s proposition failed to arouse the retired manager’s interest.
“I’m done with the game, Peter,” said Kennedy. “I’m just a plain farmer now. As long as I don’t mean to get mixed up with it again, it’s best that I should keep away from the field.”
“Do you know, Jack,” said the hotel man, “folks around here say you’ve got a grouch. They say you’re sore on baseball ’cause you was turned down. We’ve been rather proud of you in this town. When you come home twice after winning the championship we gave you a blow-out both times. You seem to have forgot that.”
“No, I haven’t forgot it, Peter. But when a man has quit a certain line of business, and quit it for good, he’d better cease to monkey with it. With me baseball was a business for a good many years. I own up that I was rather proud of my record at it.”
“And you was so proud of being manager of Big League champs that now you won’t even ask how the little fellers are doing in your own home town. You used to set round my office winters and talk it over with the boys and give them points, but this time you’re changed so folks scarcely know you. Why, there’s Hank Bristol, manager of the Buccaneers, who’s asked for you every time he hit Deering, saying as how he used to know you well and he’d like to put his blinkers on you again. He was some baseball player once himself, and he’s pretty clever at it yet, as fur as our sort of baseball goes. I should think you’d like to see him operate around second base. He’s up to the field right now with his bunch, and he says he’s goin’ to drive another nail in our coffin. His team ain’t only a few points behind the Stars, and Hank reckons the pennant’s as good as nailed.”
“Bristol always did talk a lot with his mouth,” said Kennedy. “If he can’t win any other way, he’ll bluff out a victory.”
It was the sore spot not yet healed which had caused Kennedy to avoid Bristol; for Jack, knowing old Hank would ask questions, was far from eager to furnish explanations regarding his sudden release by Collier.
“Oh, well, do as you’re a mind to,” said McLaughlin, with pretended indifference. “I’ve done some personal favors for you. When we give you that banquet at the hotel last year—”
Flushing, Kennedy interrupted. “If you’re going to put it up to me that way, Peter,” he said, “I’ll go out and watch the game to-day. Perhaps I can give your manager some tips that will help him.”
In this manner it came about that Kennedy saw the struggle that afternoon between the Deers and the Buccaneers and warned the manager of the former team, in the midst of the game, that Bristol’s players had the signals of the locals and were, therefore, forewarned and prepared for every method of attack. This warning, however, was not sufficient to prevent the Buccaneers from winning. In the eighth inning they secured a lead of two runs through their disposition to take chances on the paths, and the failure of the Deering pitcher to hold the runners close to the cushions, and at the end of the ninth they were still one tally to the good, although outbatted and outfielded. With a supercilious, confident grin adorning his homely face, Bristol encountered Kennedy after the clash was over.
“You see how easy it is out here in the bush, Ken, old hoss,” he chuckled. “It’s a reg’lar cinch to make a winning team if you’ve got any mater’al to work with. Before next week’s over we’ll be leadin’. I took it easy to-day. Saved my best pill slinger for the Stars to-morrow. Your poor little Deers are due to find a resting place in a deep, dark hole.”
“Don’t call them my Deers, Hank,” remonstrated Kennedy. “I ain’t got nothing to do with them. If I had—”
“It would be just the same, Jack, old boy. You had a streak with the Blue Stockings, I own up; but it was broke before they put Carson in your place. I reckon you lost your rabbit’s foot. If I’d ever had your chance—”
“You’ve had chances enough in your day,” cut in Kennedy a trifle warmly. “I was about ready to quit baseball, anyhow; that’s why I bought my farm here.”
“Oh, you was always a clever gink holding on to the dollars and salting ’em away,” returned Bristol.
In truth, he was jealous of Kennedy’s success, although he endeavored to disguise the fact beneath a joshing exterior. Such joshing, however, was not calculated to please.
“Let me tell you something, Hank,” said Kennedy. “If the manager of this Deering bunch knew his business he could eat you up. It wasn’t much of a trick to swipe such a simple code of signals, and any sort of runners could steal on a pitcher with a movement like Corey’s. Don’t get so chesty.”
“Old hoss,” retorted the Buccaneer manager, “if you had the Deers it would be just the same, believe me.”
“Perhaps so,” said Kennedy.
Twenty minutes later he was talking with Peter McLaughlin in a private room at the hotel.
“What was that proposition you made to me, Peter?” he asked. “Did you say the town generally thought Sperry inefficient as a manager and wanted someone else?”
“That’s what I said,” answered the landlord. “We’ve talked it over, and you’re the man we’d like to have. Sperry would get out willingly, too. He’s got about enough of it, with everybody kickin’ at him.”
“If you’re giving it to me straight,” said Kennedy, “I’ll stand. You may tell the association that.”
At a meeting of the directors, called that night, Sperry resigned as manager of the Deering baseball team and Jack Kennedy was chosen to fill the position vacated.