CHAPTER XVI
PUTTING THEM OVER
As the two baseball players sauntered down the corridor after supper theychanced upon Iredell. He was sitting at a reading table, intent upon aletter which had attached to it what looked like an official document ofsome kind.
It was a chance for which Joe had been looking, and he gave Jim a sign togo on while he himself dropped into a seat beside the famous shortstop.
"How are you, Dell, old boy?" he said, genially.
"Able to sit up and take nourishment," replied the other, at the same timethrusting the document into his pocket with what seemed like unnecessaryhaste.
"Most of the boys are that way," laughed Joe. "There are just two thingsthat every ball player is ready to do, take nourishment and nag theumpire."
Iredell laughed as he bit off the end of a cigar.
"That poor umpire got his this afternoon," he said. "With McRae on oneside and Everett on the other I thought he'd be pulled to pieces."
"He was sure up against a hard proposition," agreed Joe. "The next hardestwas in a play that happened when I was on the Pittston team. A fellowpoled out a hit that went down like a shot between left and center. A lotof carriages were parked at the end of the field and a big coach dog ranafter the ball, got it in his mouth and skipped down among the carriageswhere the fielders couldn't get at him. It would have doubled you up tohave seen them coaxing the brute to be a good dog and give the ball up. Inthe meantime, the batter was tearing around the bases and made home beforethe ball got back."
"And how did his Umps decide it?" asked Iredell, with interest.
"He was flabbergasted for a while," replied Joe, "but he finally called ita two-base hit and let it go at that."
"An umpire's life is not a happy one," laughed Iredell. "He earns everydollar that he gets. I suppose that's what some of us fellows will bedoing, too, when we begin to go back."
"It will be a good while before you come to that, Dell," Joe replied."You've played a rattling game at short this year, and you're a fixturewith the Giants."
"I don't know about that," said the shortstop slowly. "Fixtures sometimeswork loose, you know."
"It won't be so in this case," said Joe, purposely misunderstanding him."McRae wouldn't let go of you."
"Not if he could help it," responded Iredell.
"Well, he doesn't have to worry about that just yet," said Joe. "How longdoes your contract have to run?"
"A year yet," replied Iredell. "But contracts, you know, are like piecrust, they're easily broken."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Joe sharply.
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all," said Iredell, a little nervously, as thoughhe had said more than he intended. "But to tell the truth, Joe, I'm soreon this whole question of contracts. It's like a yoke that galls me."
"Oh, I don't know," responded Joe. "A good many folks would like to begalled that way. A good big salary, traveling on Pullmans, stopping at thebest hotels, posing for pictures, and having six months of the year toourselves. If that's a yoke, it's lined with velvet."
"But it's a yoke, just the same," persisted Iredell stubbornly. "Most menin business are free to accept any offer that's made to them. We can't. Wemay be offered twice as much as we're getting, but we have to stay wherewe are just the same."
"Well, that's simply because it's baseball," argued Joe. "You know just aswell as I do that that's the only way the game can be carried on. Itwouldn't last a month if players started jumping from one team to another,or from one league to another. The public would lose all interest in it,and it's the public that pays our salaries."
"Pays our salaries!" snapped Iredell. "Puts money in the hands of theowners, you mean. They get the feast and we get the crumbs. What's ourmeasly salary compared with what they get? I was just reading in the paperthat the Giants cleaned up two hundred thousand dollars this year, netprofit, and yet it's the players that bring this money in at the gate."
"Yes," Joe admitted. "But they are the men who put up the capital and takethe chances. Suppose they had lost two hundred thousand dollars this year.We'd have had our salaries just the same."
Just then Burkett and Curry came along and dropped into seats beside thepair.
"Hello, Red," greeted Joe, at the same time nodding to Burkett. "How areyour ribs feeling, after that bear hug you got this afternoon?"
Curry grinned.
"That's all right," he said. "But he never touched me with the ball. Andthat umpire was a boob not to give me the run."
"What were you fellows talking about so earnestly?" asked Burkett, withsome curiosity.
"Oh, jug-handled things like baseball contracts," responded Iredell.
"They're the bunk all right," declared Burkett, emphatically.
"Bunk is right," said Curry.
"What's the use of quarreling with your bread and butter?" asked Joegood-naturedly.
"What's the use of bread and butter, if you can have cake and ought tohave it?" Iredell came back at him.
"Cake is good," agreed Joe, "but the point is that if a man has agreed totake bread and butter, it's up to him to stand by his agreement. A man'sword is the best thing he has, and if he is a man he'll hold to it."
"You seem to be taking a lot for granted, Joe," said Burkett, a littlestiffly. "Who is talking of breaking his word? We've got a right to talkabout our contracts, haven't we, when we think the owners are getting thebest end of the deal?"
"Sure thing," said Joe genially. "It's every man's privilege to kick, butthe time to kick is before one makes an agreement, not when kicking won'tdo any good."
"Maybe it can do some good," said Curry significantly.
"How so?" asked Joe innocently. "No other club in the American or NationalLeague would take us if we broke away from the Giants."
"There are other leagues," remarked Iredell.
"Surely. The minors," replied Joe, again purposely misunderstanding. "Butwho wants to be a busher?"
"There's the All-Star League that's just forming," suggested Burkett, witha swift look at his two companions.
"'All-Star,'" repeated Joe, a little contemptuously. "That sounds good,but where are they going to get the stars?"
"They're getting them all right," said Iredell. "The papers are full ofthe names of players who have jumped or are going to jump."
"You don't mean players," said Joe. "You mean traitors."
The others winced a little at this.
"'Traitors' is a pretty hard word," objected Curry.
"It's the only word," returned Joe stiffly.
"You can't call a man a traitor who simply tries to better himself,"remarked Burkett defensively.
"Benedict Arnold tried to better himself," returned Joe. "But it didn'tget him very far. The fellows that jumped, in the old Brotherhood days,thought they were going to better themselves, but they simply got in badwith the public and nearly ruined the game. This new league will promiseall sorts of things, but how do you know it will keep them? What faith canyou put in men who try to induce other men to be crooked?"
"Well, you know, with most men business is business, as they put it."
"I admit business is business. But so far as I am concerned, it is nobusiness at all if it isn't on the level," answered Joe earnestly. "Agreat many men think they can do something that is shady and get away withit, and sometimes at first it looks as if they were right about it. Butsooner or later they get tripped up and are exposed."
"Well, everybody has got a right to make a living," grumbled Curry.
"Sure he has--and I'm not denying it."
"And everybody has got a right to go into baseball if he feels likeinvesting his money that way."
"Right again. But if he wants to make any headway in the great nationalgame, he has got to play it on the level right from the start. If hedoesn't do that, he may, for a certain length of time, hoodwink thepublic. But, as I said before, sooner or later he'll be exposed; and youknow as well as I do that the public will not stand for any
underhand workin any line of sports. I've talked, not alone to baseball men, but alsoto football men, runners, skaters, and even prize fighters, and they haveall said exactly the same thing--that the great majority of men want theirsports kept clean."
There was no reply to this and Joe rose to his feet.
"But what's the use of talking?" he added. "Let the new league do as itlikes. There's one bully thing, anyway, that it won't touch--our Giants.Whatever it does to the other teams, we will all stick together. We'llstand by Robbie and McRae till the last gun's fired. So long, fellows, seeyou later."
He strode off down the corridor, leaving three silent men to stare afterhis retreating figure thoughtfully.