Chapter 7 GREAT EXPECTATIONS

If a thunderbolt had fallen it could hardly have created more astonishment.

"What's that?" cried Clara, who had come into the room just in time to see the last of the mad dance and hear a fragment of what Joe was saying.

"The Giants, Sis!" exclaimed Joe. "The class of the National League! I'm getting right to the top of the ladder! I'm going to play with the finest team in the biggest city on the most famous grounds in the United States! How's that for a jump?"

"Oh, Joe, that's splendid!" exclaimed his sister, throwing her arms around his neck. "I'm so proud of this big brother of mine!"

"Will it mean such an awful lot to you, Joe?" asked his delighted mother, who could never get quite clearly in her mind the working of the great national game.

"I should say it would," returned Joe. "It's a big advance in a hundred ways. It's the thing that every player in the country dreams about. There are men who would almost give their eyes to have my chance. It's getting into the blue-ribbon class. It's like riding in an automobile after you've had to put up with a buggy. It's like getting a speaking part in a play after you've carried a spear as one of the Roman populace. It's like--"

What heights of eloquence Joe would have reached in his enthusiasm was checked at this moment by the entrance of his father.

"What seems to be the special thing that's turning all you sensible people into lunatics?" he laughed.

Clara flew to him.

"Oh, Dad!" she exclaimed, "it's the greatest thing that ever happened. Joe is going to be a member of the New York Giants. He's just got a telegram telling him about it. Isn't it glorious?"

Mr. Matson's face lighted up. More than the women folks he could understand all it was likely to mean to his son.

He wrung Joe's hand jubilantly.

"I congratulate you with all my heart, my boy," he said. "It's a great step forward in your profession and I know you'll make good on your new team. But how did the matter come about? Didn't you have any idea that it was in the wind?"

"Not the least in the world," answered Joe. "The thing's been carried on so quietly that I haven't seen it even hinted or whispered in the papers. Of course, they don't usually go about those things with a brass band, because they're afraid some other manager may hear about it and try to butt in on his own account. McRae, the manager of the New Yorks, is as foxy as they make them, and he doesn't let the newspapers get hold of anything till he's ready to have them. To think that he's picked me out for his pitching staff!" and Joe again displayed such alarming symptoms of seizing his mother for another whirl that she retreated behind the table.

"Come and eat your dinner, you silly boy," she smiled fondly. "I suppose you'll have to do such a simple thing as eating, even if you are going to play on your wonderful New Yorks."

"Just watch me if you have any doubt about it," replied Joe, as the happy family seated itself at the table.

As can be imagined, there was only one topic discussed and that was the striking change in Joe's fortunes and the new vista that was opening up before him.

"Did you ever have any talk with McRae that made you think he might like to have you on his team?" asked his father, as Joe passed his plate for a second helping.

"Not at all," was the reply. "In the first place I was just a 'rookie' last year, and the older men in the league rather stand aloof from the raw beginners. They don't encourage any familiarity. Not but what McRae has spoken to me though," he grinned.

"Is that so?" asked his mother with interest. "What did he say?"

"Oh, he stood on the side lines while I was pitching against his team and tried to rattle me," laughed Joe. "He told me that I was rotten, that I never could pitch, that I ought to go back to the bushes, that I was going up in the air, that I couldn't see the plate with a telescope, and other little things like that."

"I think he was just horrid!" exclaimed Mrs. Matson, bristling at the thought of the taunts hurled at her offspring.

"Oh, I didn't mind it a bit," chuckled Joe. "It was all in the game. He was simply trying to ride me, to get my goat--"

"Ride you? Get your goat?" repeated his mystified mother.

"You blessed Momsey," cried Joe. "What I mean to say is that he was trying to get me so excited that I couldn't pitch well and then his team would win the game. But it didn't work," he ended grimly, as he thought of that memorable day when he had pitched the St. Louis team to victory and dragged the Giants' colors in the dust.

"Now that I come to think of it though," Joe went on, "I remember that the last time I was in New York, I caught him eyeing me pretty sharply while I was sitting on the bench. I didn't think anything of it at the time, as I was all wrapped up in the game, but it may have been that he was sizing me up with just this deal in mind."

"Does the telegram tell you just whom or what you've been traded for?" asked his father.

"No, that's the exasperating thing about it," replied Joe. "It just says that I've been traded to the Giants but it doesn't give any details. I don't even know who sent it except that it comes from some official of the club. I'm anxious to know, not only from curiosity, but because there may have been some money passed in addition to a player, and in that case I may get a little slice of it for myself."

"Somehow, I don't exactly like the use of the word 'traded,'" said Mrs. Matson, reflectively. "It seems to leave your own wishes out of the matter altogether. Of course, in this case you're pleased, but even if you weren't you'd have to submit to it just the same."

"I feel a little the same way," agreed Clara. "It's almost as though you were so much merchandise, a sack of wheat, a ton of coal, or something of that kind."

"Of course, that is one of the unpleasant features of the game," admitted Joe. "But as a matter of fact, it can't be helped. If every one were left free to act entirely for himself, the big leagues would go to pieces in less than no time. Players would be jumping from one team to another every week, and no manager would know what he had to depend on. There's such a tremendous amount of money invested-you couldn't buy out the Giant club at this minute for less than two million dollars-that the men at the head have to take some means to protect themselves. Some of their methods wouldn't stand the test, perhaps, if they were taken to court, but it would be a very foolish player who would seek a court action. If the baseball players are 'slaves,' as they sometimes like to call themselves, they're the most happy and well paid slaves in the world, and there are lots that would like to change places with them and wear their chains."

"Do you suppose you will get a bigger salary than you had in St. Louis?" asked his father.

"It's almost a sure thing that I shall," replied Joe, hopefully. "If I was worth three thousand dollars a year to the Cardinals, even before I had made good, I ought to get at least four thousand or a little more to start with on the Giants."

"Four thousand dollars!" exclaimed Mrs. Matson, who was so used to the modest figures that prevail in a small town that the amount seemed almost a fortune.

"Not many ministers get as much as that, eh Momsey?" joked Joe.

"And that isn't all," he went on without waiting for an answer. "I've got a much better chance to get into the World's Series on the Giants than I would have on the Cardinals. McRae has won several pennants already and it's getting to be a habit with him."

"Is that because he is a so much better manager than those of the other teams?" asked Clara.

"Maybe not altogether," answered Joe reflectively, "though there's no doubt he's one of the very best. He gets a salary of thirty thousand dollars a year"-here Mrs. Matson gasped-"and I guess he's worth it. But he has some advantages that other managers don't have. In the first place, there's unlimited money behind him and if he wants anything that can be bought he goes after it regardless of price. Then too, New York is the best paying town in the whole league, and it's to the interest of the other clubs to see that the New York team is a good one so as to draw the crowds. So that McRae's attempt to strengthen his team doesn't meet with such stiff opposition as some other manager's might. But the chief thing is that he's allowed to run the team without any interference by the owners of the club. He hires or discharges just whom he likes, and they never make a peep. In that way he can maintain discipline over his players, because they know that whatever he says goes. Oh, he's a great manager all right, and I'm mighty glad to have a chance of playing under him."

"Suppose you do happen to get into the World's Series, will it mean much extra money?" asked Clara.

"I should say it would," answered her brother. "After taking out ten per cent. of the receipts for the first four games for the National Commission, sixty per cent. of the balance goes to the winning club and forty per cent. to the losers. That makes anything from three to four thousand apiece for every member of the winning team, and from two to three thousand apiece for each member of the losing team. It's almost like getting another year's salary just for an extra week's work."

"Just that World's Series money alone would be enough to start a nice little home with and settle down to housekeeping," remarked Clara, with a sly glance at her brother.

Joe laughed, a little sheepishly, and again a flood of color swept over his neck and face.

"Never you mind about that," he said loftily. "Plenty of time to think what I'll do with the money after I get it, if I ever do. But at least I've got a great deal better chance than I would have had on the Cardinals. Not but what I hate to leave the old bunch," he added a little soberly. "I've had a mighty good time this last year, and Watson has treated me white. Most of the others, too, were good fellows, especially Rad Chase. I wish he were going along with me."

"The change is going to be a mighty good thing financially," said Mr. Matson. "But leaving out the money end altogether, how do you figure that it's going to be such an advantage to change from the St. Louis to the New Yorks?"

"Oh, in a heap of ways," replied Joe. "For one thing, I'll be playing before bigger crowds, and that's always an inspiration to a pitcher. Then, too, we're pretty sure to be well up in the race and fighting for the lead, instead of being down in the ruck. You don't know how much difference that makes to a player. Instead of being in the doleful dumps, he's feeling as frisky and gay as a two year old. But the most important thing of all is that with a good club he has smart, snappy fielding behind him, and that makes him feel that he'd pitch his head off to win. With the Giants' brilliant infield behind me, many a hard-hit ball will be turned into an out where with a poorer club it would go as a hit. That helps my percentage. Oh, it will make all the difference in the world. Just watch my record from now on," and Joe swelled out his chest, while Clara mockingly knocked her head on the table to do him reverence.

"Hail to the Giant!" she exclaimed. "Although I don't see that you're any more gigantic than you were before, except that perhaps your head has swelled a little," she added mischievously.

Joe laughed. Laughter came very easily to him today. The world had never seemed so bright to him. Life was decked out in rainbow colors. To be young, to be healthy, to be successful in his chosen calling-what else did he have to ask for?

Just one thing, perhaps. And again he flushed, as he recalled what his sister had said about "settling down to housekeeping."

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