Red and the bunch got in the next mornin’, which was a Sunday. Most o’ the gang went to church, and if the Lord’d never heard o’ Fogarty and Smitty before I bet He knowed who they was when we got through prayin’. We practiced Monday and went over to Washin’ton that night.
Well, you know what come off. Johnson beat us there and Boehling beat us Wednesday in Philly. With Johnson to come back, twicet if necessary, it looked like a short serious.
And then it begin to rain. It’s a wonder the District o’ Columbia wasn’t washed away. Four straight days of it, includin’ Sunday; and I never seen it come down so hard. A cleanin’ like that might do Pittsburgh or Chi some good, but it looked like wastin’ it in Washin’ton. We was anxious to get the serious over with; and the more it rained, the worse we hated it. We never figured that it was the best thing that could of happened to us!
I’m the guy they’d ought to thank for coppin’ the league pennant. And the rain and me together was what saved us from a awful lickin’ for the big dough. On Sunday night, while we was still layin’ round the hotel in Washin’ton, where we’d been stalled since Thursday, I got my hunch. I went to Red with it.
“Maybe one o’ them fellers could help us out now,” I says.
“What makes you think so?” says Red.
“Well,” I says, “they’ve had time to get back in shape.”
“No use,” says Red. “I was just talkin’ to Smitty in the dinin’ room. He couldn’t even hold his knife. He says his mitt feels just as bad as it did the first day.”
“How about Fogarty?” I ast.
“He ain’t no better off,” says Red. “The worst of it is that neither one o’ them seems to care.”
“Maybe I can wake ’em up,” I says.
“You got my permission to try,” says Red.
Me and Fogarty wasn’t roomin’ together. The trainer was doubled up with him and they had another guy lookin’ out for Smitty. Neither o’ them had put on a suit, but they’d saw us get our two beatin’s from the stand. I found Smitty first and took him into the bar.
“How does it look to you?” I says.
“We’re licked,” says he.
“Don’t be too sure!” I says.
“What do you mean?” he ast me. “What chancet have we got with nobody to pitch?”
“We got somebody to pitch now,” I says.
“Who?” says Smitty.
“Fogarty,” says I. “The doctor says he’s all right and Red’s goin’ to start him tomorrow.”
“You’re crazy!” says Smitty. “The doctor said he wouldn’t be no good till next year.”
“That was pretty near a week ago,” I says. “Besides, that doctor didn’t know nothin’. We had the best doctor in Washin’ton up to see him tonight—the doctor that looks after the President and all the congressmen. He says they’s nothin’ at all the matter with him.”
I left Smitty then and went lookin’ for Fogarty.
I found him in his room gettin’ his poor souper rubbed. I spoke my piece over again. I told him Smitty’d been pronounced cured by the President’s special surgeon and that he was goin’ to start the next day’s game.
An hour later I run into Red, and he was smilin’ like Davis’ wife.
“You’ve did it, old boy!” he says. “They both been after me till I had to duck out in the wet to get away from ’em. They both insist on workin’ tomorrow, and I told ’em I wasn’t goin’ to decide on my pitcher till mornin’.”
“I guess I don’t know nothin’!” I says. “Which one are you goin’ to start?”
“The one that can throw a ball with the least pain,” says Red.
You know the rest of it. The sun shined on us next day, and Smitty shut ’em out and beat Johnson on the wettest grounds I ever seen! I don’t know yet how he gripped a wet ball with that hand, but he done it. And Fogarty’s game Tuesday was even better. If his arm hurt he kept it to himself.
Smitty come back agin Johnson Wednesday and pitched the prettiest game that was ever pitched. Milan and Gandil and them might just as well of used jackstraws as bats, for all the good their swingin’ done. He whiffed plain sixteen men and Johnson’s two-bagger was their only wallop. Nobody didn’t grudge Walter that one, ’cause he pitched a grand game too.
Well, the honor o’ coppin’ the final pastime and winnin’ the title went to Fogarty; and it pleased him about as much as a toothache. Do you know why? ’Cause the papers was full o’ Smitty’s two victories over Johnson and didn’t say much about nothin’ else. Fogarty told me afterward that if he’d thought at the time he’d of refused to pitch Thursday and made Red work him agin the big blond in the seventh game.
“But,” I says, “s’pose Red had pitched Smitty right back and he’d of trimmed ’em and they hadn’t been no seventh game anyway. Then where’d you of been at?”
“That’s right!” he says. “That wop is just lucky enough to of did it, too, even if he can’t pitch up an alley.”
Well, I made a little speech in the clubhouse and collected a purse of a hundred and fifty bucks. I’m goin’ to send it to Jack Barnett as soon as I can get his address. That’ll fix him up on that bet he made with Punch Knoll and give him a little spendin’ money besides. If he hadn’t of told me that stuff in Dayton we’d of been fightin’ the Cardinals for seventh place. And if he’d of told it to some guys they wouldn’t of had sense enough to of token advantage of it.
One o’ the Philly doctors told Red, and Red told me, that we’d prob’ly ruined both o’ them guys for the next season by workin’ ’em in the shape they was in. But I should worry! Between
