The ceremony was a wonder. The hotel employees still tell of it with bated breaths. And Clary was the first man to pump the groom’s hand and wish him all the happiness in the world, and many of them. They made the light noonday meal a festal occasion—a bridal luncheon. Then they all went to the ball park.
The entirely new Mrs. Zimmer sat in the box behind the catcher with the wives of two other members of the team. Zimmer distinguished himself as he had in the old days. The team played air-tight ball; but so did the Buccaneers. When the eighth frame arrived the score stood 0-0.
With one man down in the eighth, and Carey on second, Zimmer cast a prideful smile at his new wife and carefully selected a bat from the layout before the players’ dugout. Clary raised his voice just a trifle and called a curt command.
“Zimmer,” he said firmly, “bunt!”
“Bunt nothin’!” snorted the big outfielder disdainfully. “I’ll slam it out!”
The fans were impatient. The Buccaneers were laying back for a drive.
“I said bunt!”
Zimmer smiled superciliously and started for the plate, swinging two heavy bats.
“Zimmer!”
Charlie turned to find Clary close beside him. The manager’s eyes flashed with the light of victory, of strategy triumphant.
“I might as well explain this to you now as later. Long ago I made up my mind to bring you to terms. And I doped you out to a fare- you-well. It was I who got Carey to bring Myrtle on the trip with the team, and I played her off against you all along. She wasn’t wise, but I was. You’re married. I’m engaged—to the greatest little dame in the world out in Spokane!
“I’m gonna be obeyed after this: get that? You’re a married man, and you can’t afford to lay off. But that’s just what you’re gonna do if you don’t obey signals and orders—warm that bench indefinitely without pay, if I lose my job for it. Think it over between here and the plate—and you bunt!”
Zimmer ambled to the plate dazedly. He turned his head and glanced at Clary’s implacable countenance.
On the second ball pitched he bunted prettily down the first-base line. The surprise of it enabled him to reach first safely, while Carey went to third.
He glanced sheepishly toward the grinning Clary and then to his demure little bride in the grand stand. Then he chuckled.
“Aw,” he muttered, “that boob thinks he’s put one over on me. Why, dog-gone it! I’d even obey a bone-head like him for—her!”
MacGINLEY CATCHES MICE, by A. Lincoln Bender
It ain’t always the slugger that wins the games; and it ain’t always the greatest pitcher that twirls his team to victory; and it ain’t always the star infielder who shoots a double-play in the critical part of the game who deserves the praise that the papers insist on giving.
I mean that it is something more than that. It takes brains and strategy to win from the men who are signed up to the big leagues today. That’s the reason why MacGinley manages the Mammoths now. He ain’t always been a manager you know. Time was when Mac played third and was the best in the business. And it ain’t so long ago, either—only three years.
Do you want to know how he got to pilot the greatest team in the National? I was playing with him then, too, so I know a few things that ain’t public property.
We was going down to the training camp that year when first I saw the start of it. I was just breaking in then, and I had my eyes and ears wide open.
Old Hampden was one of them expense-saving bugs, and we was training with the Birds. Two teams on the same lot, so’s we’d split on the rent.
Jim Donoghy was the manager of the Birds then. And a more uppish man you never laid eyes to. Big Jim could play ball, and he knew it. So did his men, for Jim never tired of telling them all about it.
Well, Caplan, who was our manager then, had a pretty good bunch of rookies down, and it looked like the Birds and us would be fighting it out for the pennant that year. And it was Caplan’s last year in the big tent, too, and he was anxious to win the flag. He had saved his money, and he wanted to invest in a business while he yet had some feelings left. We all knew it—we was all sorry, for Caplan was a great fellow—and we made up our minds that if it was possible to win the pennant we would do it.
But there was no one had the faintest idea then that MacGinley, our star third- baseman, had set his heart on being our next manager. Not that we wouldn’t have pulled strong for him, but just that we never thought of the little pepper-box as a manager. That just shows the kind of brains Mac has got.
I broke in that trip, mainly because old Jenkins was slipping fast, and because my arm was young, and my eye bright. The Mammoths needed a short-stop, and I fitted in to perfection. With Mac alongside of me, and coaching me for all he was worth, I couldn’t help it.
Then, after Caplan whipped us into some sort of shape, we played the usual three games with the Birds. We had done it for the past three years, and there was a great deal of good-natured rivalry among us.
And it was then that I saw the start of MacGinley’s career as a manager.
Big Jim Donoghy, besides being so uppish that his neck was stiff, took a fiendish delight in pulling stuff on the vets. And principally did he like to operate on MacGinley.
It was during the first game of this pre- season series that he made Mac the laughing stock of the whole camp.
We went into the sixth inning at a tie, and Mac first up, bunted for an infield single.
As he crossed the bag, and teetered around Donoghy’s station, he kept up a constant chatter designed to rattle the rookie pitcher in the box.
“Come on—come on,” he yelled, “throw it over to this big stiff, he’ll smear it all up. Throw it low, so’s he’ll have to bend his neck!”
Donoghy sneered.
“Lay off that stuff, MacGinley,” he bit off.
Mac grinned tantalizingly. “Listen to him, boys. Thinks he’s managing two teams. Why, you big stiff, you can’t hardly manage one.”
We gave Donoghy the laugh at that one, and even some of his own players cracked their faces a bit. Then, as Mac kept it up, Donoghy walks to his pitcher, and chinned. Mac howled.
And then Donoghy pulled it. With Mac taking a big lead off the bag, Donoghy signaled and Jones, the rookie pitcher, whirled about, throwing the ball. Mac looked once. Then as he saw Donoghy leap up into the air, he started for second. It looked like a sure wild throw, all right. Then there was a yell.
Donoghy had made the leap intentionally—but the throw was perfect! With an easy motion he heaved it to Stone at second, and Mac was tagged standing up. He stood and for once he lost his usual poise.
At first Donoghy was howling like a schoolboy.
“Look at him,” he bawled, “look at him. He says he don’t need a manager! Ha- ha—he needs a nurse! I guess I put it over on you then, Mac. Just because I jumped ain’t no sign that the ball is a wild pitch. Oh, Mac, who needs the manager?”
The rest of the gang took up the call; they deviled poor Mac like nobody ever was bawled out. Mac’s face became white, and I could see his eyes snap. We lost that game three to two, and it so happened that if Mac hadn’t been caught by Donoghy’s trick of making believe that the ball was a wild pitch, we would have won.
That night, as we crawled into bed, I tried to console with Mac.
“Don’t let it worry you, Mac,” I soothed. “That big stiff just pulled it that’s all—forget it! Go get him!”