CHAPTER XXIII
THE MAN WHO DENIED HIMSELF
His pitching staff gave Kennedy the most trouble. No matter how efficient a team may be in other departments, it cannot aspire to championship honors unless it has a capable staff of twirlers. Curley, Sullivan, and Heines, the three mound men for the Deers, each and all had some weakness which was a drawback.
Curley was erratic and never to be depended on. One day he might pitch a splendid game, and follow it on his next turn with wretched work. Sullivan had a long swing which gave base runners a big lead and made it almost impossible for the best throwing catcher to keep them from stealing. Nor could old Jack break the man of this swing, for when he tried to do so Sullivan’s short-arm delivery proved to be “pie” for the opposing stickers. Heines had an arm that was good for four or five innings, then broke like the most brittle glass.
In one pinch, with Heines’ wing failing in the fifth and the Deers having a lead of three runs, Kennedy actually went on to the mound himself. Curley had pitched the day before, and old Jack knew Sullivan’s delivery would hand the game over to the enemy. Never in his life had Kennedy attempted to pitch in anything resembling a league game, and he was not the possessor of as much as one little dinky curve. Yet, using from start to finish an underhanded ball, delivered from the knee and shot upward close across the batter’s shoulder, he managed to pull the game out of the fire by a margin of one lonesome tally.
When the Deering fans hailed him as a pitcher Kennedy laughed them to scorn.
“That was the greatest case of horseshoes ever,” he declared. “I couldn’t do it again against a bunch of grammar-school kids. Heines had the Stars dizzy by his speed, and when I handed them up that subway rise they simply broke their backs trying to hit it. If I’d begun the game I wouldn’t have lasted an inning.”
All this time, of course, he was trying to get hold of other pitchers, and, most of all, he desired a left-hander to use against the Buccaneers, who had five left-handed batters. Somehow he got hold of a southpaw by the name of Billy Winkle, who seemed to have speed, curves, and control. His lack of head might have been balanced by the good judgment of Coffin, who was steadily and swiftly improving behind the bat, but Winkle lacked heart as well as head; and in the breaks the uproar of the rooters, combined with Billy’s fear of what was going to happen, invariably cut the guy ropes.
About this time, still eagerly following the career of the Blue Stockings, Kennedy was startled one day when he opened his newspaper and read some black headlines on the first page which told of a railroad disaster in which the Big League team was involved. In the smash seven persons had been killed and twenty-one more or less seriously injured. By rare good fortune the special car containing the ball players had shot down the embankment on its wheels and remained in an upright position after plowing deep into a boggy place at the roadside. It had not been smashed, and, save for a shaking up and a few bruises, not one of the men in that car had been hurt.
Having read to this point, Kennedy drew a deep breath of relief. A moment later, however, he uttered a smothered exclamation of dismay, for the next paragraph stated that one of the players, Lefty Locke, had not been in the car and was missing since the catastrophe. He was not among those killed or injured, and all efforts to find him had proved fruitless.
“Well, I’ll be――jiggered!” muttered Kennedy. “Wasn’t in the car! Hasn’t been found! Well, what’s become of the boy? He was under suspension. I’m afraid――”
He did not state what he was afraid of, but the serious, troubled face which he wore, and his eagerness for further details concerning the disaster, indicated that anxiety over the fate of Lefty remained in his mind.
One evening, two days later, shortly after the arrival of the seven o’clock train in Deering, Kennedy sought Landlord McLaughlin in the Central House to consult with him regarding some matter concerning the team. As old Jack entered the office he saw a man at the desk in the act of registering. There was something strangely familiar about this man’s back, and when the new arrival made inquiries for a room with bath the sound of his voice caused the manager of the Deers to step forward quickly to get a look at his face.
As the clerk was fishing a big brass key from a pigeonhole the guest leaned his left elbow on the edge of the desk and swung part way round, thus bringing himself face to face with Kennedy. The latter gasped, and let out something like a shout.
“Holy smoke!” he cried delightedly. “As I live, it’s Lefty Locke! How are you, son?”
To Kennedy’s astonishment, no light of recognition rose into the man’s eyes, and he made no move to shake the extended hand. Instead, he surveyed the old manager in a puzzled, doubting way, and slowly shook his head.
“I think you’ve made a mistake, pal,” he said. “My name is Stranger――Robert Stranger.”
His mouth open, Kennedy slowly permitted his hand to drop at his side. For something like half a minute he stared steadily at the person who had denied his acquaintance. Suddenly he laughed.
“What’s the joke, Lefty?” he asked. “Put me wise.”
“Really, there’s no joke,” was the grave assertion. “You’ve got me wrong.”
“What’s that?” rasped old Jack. “Do you mean to say you don’t recognize John Kennedy, your old manager?”
Something like an annoyed frown crept into the somber, handsome face of the younger man.
“I tell you,” he said a trifle warmly, “you’ve got me wrong. To my knowledge I never heard of you in all my life. You call me Locke, but my name is Stranger. That’s my monacker――Robert Stranger, Bob for short.”
Kennedy pinched himself. “I’m awake,” he muttered. “There can’t be two men so much alike in the whole world. Besides, he wrote his name on the register with his left hand.”
Suddenly he began to feel a touch of anger. “See here,” he said harshly, “maybe your right name ain’t Locke, but you can’t deny that it’s Hazelton. You can’t deny that you’re a baseball pitcher and that you were under my management on the Blue Stockings.”
“The Blue Stockings?” said the other. “They’re some. I hear plenty of baseball talk. Can’t help it. But I never did take to the game any. Perhaps it sounds like bunk to you, but I never saw a real game in my life.”
“Help!” cried Kennedy. “I’m loony, or he is!”