“Dougherty says it will be all right in a week,” replied Joe. “He’s rubbed most of the soreness out of them, but I’ll have to favor them for a while.”
“Glory be!” exclaimed Jim with fervor. “If you were out of the game for a long time it would be all up with the Giants. Then they’d go to pieces for fair.”
“Not a bit of it,” disclaimed Joe. “It’s too great a team to be dependent on any one man. I’m only just one cog in a fine machine.”
“Looked like a rather wobbly machine this afternoon,” said Jim, ruefully.
“Sure,” agreed Joe. “The boys did play like a bunch of hams. But every team does that once in a while. The boys will shake off this slump, and then they’ll begin to climb. Remember that time when we won twenty-six straight? What we’ve done once, we can do again. I’m not a seventh son of a seventh son, but I have a hunch that we’re just about due to do that very thing.”
“I hope you’re as good a prophet as you are a pitcher,” replied Jim, grinning. He was beginning to find Joe’s optimism contagious.
Their conversation was interrupted by the coming of McRae. A sudden silence fell over the occupants of the clubhouse, for they knew the danger signals, and a glance at the manager’s face told them that a storm was brewing.
“Giants!” exclaimed McRae, and they winced at the bitter sarcasm in his tone. “Where have I heard that word before? A fine bunch of pennant winners! Why, you couldn’t win the pennant in the Podunk League. Put you up against a gang of bushers, and they’d laugh themselves to death. Any high school nine would make you look foolish. Giants? Dwarfs, pigmies, runts! Easy meat for any team you come across! Champions of the world? Cellar champions! Sub-cellar champions! Just keep on this way, and the other teams will bury you so deep you’ll be coming out in China. I’m going to change my name. I’m ashamed to be known as the manager of such a bunch of dubs.”
Nobody ventured to interrupt the tirade, partly because they felt that he was justified in his anger and partly because no one cared to play the part of lightning rod. When McRae was in that mood, it was best to let him talk himself out.
From the general roast he came down to particulars. He glared around and singled out Curry. That hapless individual evaded his glance and pretended to be very busy in tying his shoe.