Baseball Joe in the World Series

Somehow in that All-Too-Distant Past when I was a boy, the world moved slower, the people danced slower, and it was not only no strain but a privilege to sit through eight quiet, Uneventful innings of a baseball game, knowing that there could be an exciting ninth-inning rally at the end of the rainbow to make it all worth while.Today, of course, all this is over. Our once-grand national pastime has all but fallen prey to the frantic, fast-moving times. Oh, sure, they lowered the mound and tightened the strike zone and eliminated the ritual of the intentional base on balls, but lei's face it, baseball is dead. It's only a matter of time before the feet stop kicking and the heard slops growing an the worms get to work. But, ah, those memories!

To me, there were always three baseball worlds: the world on the rock- and glass-strewn sand lot where we batted around a ball until the cover came off, then we taped it and batted it until the tape me off. Then we batted what was left until die string came off; and the time we got to work on the cork center, the first snows usually fell.

There was also the world of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds, where we sat, watched and cheered ourselves laryngitic while the pros batted around clean white balls.

Then there was the world of baseball fiction. This was where the glamor and excitement really lay. It was here that the clean-cut, clean-limbed, red-blooded youths battled against all odds and villains to save the day for the school nine or the St. Louis Nationals, with some superhuman diamond feat. Anti-heroes? Don't ever mention that word to the likes of writers such as Harold M. Sherman, Ralph Henry Barbour, Zane Grey and Burt L. Standish.

Of all the baseball fiction heroes I can recall, one towers above the rest. His name was Joe Matson and he romped through as heart-stopping and spine-freezing a series of sports sagas as Grosset 8c Dunlap had to offer. Of course, today's cool football crowd and idolaters of the boozing and wenching Joe Namaths would probably sneer at him; but, frankly, I couldn't care less. They can have Broadway Joe. I'll take Baseball Joel

And now, for those of you who do care, I would like to delve into a special corner of my past and share a Baseball Joe book with you. As nearly as I can recall, they used to go something like this:

• • •

"Ho there, Joe! You, Baseball Joe Matson!"

The speaker was John MacCrae, crusty, cantankerous but lovable manager of the New York Giants. He was addressing a slim, manly youth who was warming up his soupbone on the third-base line.

The genial-faced lad turned to his manager and grinned. "A bully day for the seventh game of the world series, eh, Skipper?" said Baseball Joe Matson. "If our luck holds up, I do believe that we shall lick the Yankees all hollow."

"Joe," said the manager, "that pitch you just threw, what was it?"

"Which pitch, Skipper?" asked the young moundsman.

As the possessor of the most startling assortment of pitches in baseball, including, among others, an incurve, an out-curve, a fadeaway, a slider, a sinker, a hop, a floater, a knuckle ball, a fork ball, a spoon ball and a fast ball with 11 speeds, the youth was often hard pressed to keep track of his gifts.

"That last pitch," said MacCrae. "Would you throw it again?"

After ransacking his memory, the youth coolly wound up and hurled the sphere.

"That one?" said Joe. "That was just a plain, ordinary shovel ball."

No, no,"said the manager."It was not a shovel ball."

"I beg to differ with you, Skipper," said the lad firmly but respectfully. "The ball curved in, then out, sailed, hesitated, dropped, skimmed over the edge of the ground, then zipped up knee-high into the catcher's mitt. If that isn't a shovel ball, what is it?"

"Joe," said MacCrae, with rising excitement, "it is true the ball curved in, then out, sailed and hesitated. But if you will recall, while it was hesitating, instead of dropping immediately, it bobbed and pecked at the air for a moment."

"By Jove," said the youth, "you are right. It did bob and peck at the air, at that."

"Baseball Joe Matson," said John MacCrae, clapping his ace hurler affectionately on the shoulder, "you've done it again!"

"You mean," said Joe modestly, "I've invented another new pitch?"

"Exactly," said the manager.

"What shall we call this one?" asked the youth.

"I have it," said the skipper. "A chicken ball!"

As Baseball Joe Matson throws down his glove and goes over to take batting practice, perhaps it would be a good idea to introduce the reader to our young hero.

Not yet out of his teens, Joe had already established himself as a figure to be reckoned with in the ranks of the national pastime. Winner of 39 games without a loss during the season (not to mention his three successive world series victories), he had hurled 12 no-hitters and had an earned-run average of .003. In addition, he was perhaps the only pitcher in major-league annals to bat dean up and play right field on those days he wasn't hurling, having compiled a season's batting average of .517, with 82 four-baggers to his credit. Already there was a strong rumor going around the league that Joe had a good chance of making rookie of the year.

And now, as we return to our young hero, he has just laced his 19th straight practice pitch into the far reaches of the left-center-field stands of the Polo Grounds. "I guess I am as ready as I shall ever be," the youth mused, as he dropped his bat and headed for the dugout.

Spying his manager walking toward him, the lad cried, "Ho, Skipper, where are my teammates? I have not seen them during practice today and I should like to discuss pregame strategy with them."

"Joe," said a noticeably distraught MacCrae, "I fear I am the bearer of sudden bad tidings. Are you plucky enough to take it?"

The youth looked MacCrae dead in the eye. "You may test my moxie," he said manlily.

"I am afraid," said the manager, "that your teammates have met up with foul play."

Twin patches of fire blazed on the cheeks of our hero. "You don't mean to tell me----" he started.

"Exactly," said the skipper glumly.

"They have been kidnaped!"

"I feared as much," said the youth. "Was it the gamblers again?"

"I would not be at all surprised," said the manager.

"But surely," said Joe, "they did not kidnap all of them." "The entire team," said MacCrae.

"Strange, they have never before kidnaped more than one player at a time," said the lad, who himself had been abducted ten times by the rascals during the regular season.

"Which is an indication of how far desperate men will go," said MacCrae, "to achieve their nefarious aims."

"Oh, those rotters!" cried the youth.

"Those bounders! Why must they persist in trying to destroy everything that is fine and good and decent in this, the most noble and exciting game of skill that man has yet devised?"

The manager shrugged his shoulders sadly.

"Don't they know that gambling is illegal?" said Joe. "Can't they read the signs?"

With an unerring finger, he pointed at the Gambling is Strictly Prohibited signs that dotted the grandstand.

"I shall have to tell the commissioner, of course," said the skipper, "which will mean an indefinite--and perhaps permanent--postponement of the final game of the series and another black eye for baseball."

Joe mused for a while. "Skipper," he finally said, "is there no one of the Giants left at all?"

"No one, save you," said MacCrae. Then an afterthought: "And Pop Gallagher, our grizzled, veteran utility catcher."

"This series means a lot to you, doesn't it?" said Joe, putting his arm around the shoulder of his crusty but kindly manager.

"I shall be candid with you, Joe," said MacCrae, his voice cracking with emotion, "it has always been my fondest dream to lead my team to twelve consecutive world-series triumphs. But now...."

He turned his head from Joe, not trusting himself to speak anymore.

"Skipper," said Joe, his mouth a hard, grim line, "I should like to make a humble suggestion."

As Joe began to talk to his manager, a new light of hope suddenly twinkled in the sad eyes of John MacCrae.

The Polo Grounds, the most magnificent structure ever erected for the game of baseball, with provocative horseshoe shape and awesome slanting walls, rocked with the cheers of 55,000 roaring fans as the game was about to get under way.

"Oh, you Giants!"

"Skin those Bronx birds alive!"

"Show those Yankee dubs where we live!"

"Those American Leaguers are a piece of cheese!"

"They've got to produce and they can't stand the gaff!"

(continued on page 182) Baseball Joe in the World Series (continued from page 144)

These and other gruff colloquialisms rang in the air as the loudspeaker announced: "Line-up for the New York Yankees." The nine Yankees were then listed by batting order and position. Then the loudspeaker blared: "Line-up for the New York Giants: Baseball Joe Matson pitching ... Pop Gallagher catching!"

"Razzberries!" shouted an irate fan.

"That's not the line-up for the Giants. That's the battery!"

"What the Sam Hill is going on?" shouted another slangily.

"Look," said another, "I do believe that that is the Giants' line-up!"

He pointed to the single, solitary figure of Baseball Joe Matson standing on the pitcher's mound, grimly firing in practice pitches to his catcher. There wasn't another Giant on the field!

The Yankees' Murderers' Row, unaware of the true reason for the Giants' abbreviated line-up, began to razz Joe mercilessly from the dugout steps.

"You are some cock of the walk, you are!" shouted second sacker Tony Lazzetti hotly.

"Grandstander! Showboat!" cried first baseman Lou Goering.

"Rest assured by the desperate resolve written large on our faces that you shall pay for this bush-league ruse!" shouted mighty home-run hitter Babe Root.

Our hero merely shrugged the criticism off as he continued to fire in his warm-up pitches. When he was finished, he had one last conference with his manager.

"I suppose you realize what an almost insurmountable task lies before you," said John MacCrae.

"Yes, Skipper, I do," said the lad.

"Not only must you prevent the Yankees from getting a piece of the ball for a full nine innings," said the manager, "I fear you shall also have to supply the brunt of our hitting."

"I am certain," said our hero good-naturedly, "that Pop Gallagher will give a good account of himself with the willow."

"Perhaps he would have, before he was grizzled and a veteran," said MacCrae realistically. "But now...."

He allowed the sentence to hang in mid-air.

"Joe, there is one other thing," said the manager. "Should you ever get on base and should Pop not drive you home, you realize that you shall have to leave the base to bat and you shall be automatically out."

"I am well aware of that, Skipper," said Joe.

"Well, Joe," said MacCrae with finality, "you and Pop are going to have to do this all alone."

"Wrong," said the youth. "Have you forgotten that we have a new friend assisting us?"

"Who is that?"said a puzzled John MacCrae.

"My chicken"ball," said the lad simply.

The manager clapped his twirler affectionately on the back and then ran to the dugout.

"Play ball!" cried the umpire.

Digging in at the plate was Earl Cootes, the Yankees' center fielder and leadoff man. Cootes glowered at Joe, spat out tobacco juice and then waved his hickory menacingly. A look of grim determination on his face, Joe checked his signal. Then he called time and signaled for Pop Gallagher to come out to the mound.

Pop tossed aside his mask and trotted out to speak to Joe.

"Pop," said Joe gently, not wishing to upset the grizzled veteran, "how many fingers did you flash?"

"Thirty-two," said Pop nervously. "Ten, three times. Then two. I called for a spoon ball."

"Oh," said Joe, "I wasn't sure. I thought it was forty-two, which is an eleventh-speed fast ball."

"I didn't know you had forty-two pitches," said the astonished veteran.

"Forty-three," said Joe, modestly informing Pop of his new chicken ball.

The backstop, who was in the twilight of his career, gasped with awe.

Joe stared into the grizzled face of the utility catcher. What a tribute it is to tills fine veteran, thought the youth, that at his age he was still doggedly devoting himself to our national pastime. Joe secretly wondered if lie, too, would still be playing baseball when he was 34.

Gallagher went back to the plate and the game began.

Coolly and methodically, Baseball Joe Matson whiffed Cootes and shortstop Mark Kinnick. Then up stepped the awesome Babe Root.

"So you're the fresh young boob who thinks he can singlehandedly dispose of the most murderous array of batsmen that has ever struck terror in the hearts of major-league moundsmen!" growled the mighty Babe, as he swung his mace in a terrifying arc.

Without flinching, our hero faced up to the prodigious slugger. Then he calmly tossed a fadeaway, an eighth-speed fast ball and a chicken ball, and the crestfallen Babe bit the dust.The stands roared. Joe had retired the side on nine pitches!

As the youth stepped the plate for his turn at bat in the last of the first, he noticed Pop Gallagher in the on-deck circle, his gnarled hands shaking nervously. Joe knew immediately what he had to do.

Swinging at his first pitch, perhaps a bit overanxiously, Joe did not get the good wood on the ball, and a home run was denied him. The ball instead dropped into the left-center-field bull pen for a three-bagger.

"I'm sorry I let you down, Skipper," said Joe to MacCrae in the third-base coaching box, as he dusted himself off.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, lad," said the manager. "There's always next time."

When Gallagher popped up. Joe had to leave third base to bat again, thus making it two outs. This time, Joe lined what would have been an ordinary single to left field, but MacCrae, fearing Pop would fail again with Joe on base, foolishly signaled Joe to stretch an ordinary one-bagger into a home run. While, in addition to being an outstanding batsman and hurler, Joe was also a cracker-jack base runner, this time he didn't have a chance, and he was thrown out at home plate by a good four feet.

Slowly the innings ticked by, with the two teams locked in a titanic scoreless duel. While Joe got his share of safeties, he couldn't quite reach the stands, and Pop Gallagher was never capable of driving him home. Meanwhile, Joe was up to the awesome task of keeping the Yankees off the base paths, with his most effective pitching performance yet.

He had one close call in the sixth inning, when Yankee left fielder Bob Muscle topped a shovel ball down die first-base line. Joe dashed off the mound, dove, scooped up die ball barehanded and lobbed it toward first; then, scampering to his feet, he dashed to the bag to take his own toss, a hair ahead of the runner. The stands rocked with cheers for the gritty moundsman.

As the Giants came to bat in the last of die eighth, Joe was visibly tiring under the tremendous strain.

"How do you feel, lad?" asked MacCrae.

"A bit weary," admitted the game youth, "but I shall hold up."

"I don't mind telling you, son," said the manager,"that very few people here feel that you will last much longer. In fact----"

The manager stopped, as if he wanted to say something but changed his mind.

"Skipper, is something amiss? "asked Joe

"Joe," said the manager, "I pray that this will not affect your deadly resolve to triumph, but I have learned that the gamblers who kidnaped your teammates are so certain that you will collapse under this inhuman strain that they have returned here to await collection of their scandalous wagers."

"You mean they are in the stands now?" said the disbelieving youth.

"Six of them, I am told," said MacCrae, "waiting for Baseball Joe Matson to falter, so that they can rake in their evil money from poor, misguided bettors among our fans who, disregarding the laws of baseball, have succumbed to temptation.

"I shall show them!" said our hero, grimly grabbing a bat.

As Joe stepped up to the platter in the last of the eighth, his mouth was set in a firmer line than before. Lifting the bat with his weary shoulders, he pounded it on the plate, then he dug in.

Joe wasted no time. As soon as the first pitch left the mound sman's hand, the youth tore into it. Crack! Ash met horse-hide. Fifty-five thousand fans gasped; a mighty scream rent the air. The white sphere began to climb on a flight never before witnessed by the denizens of the game.

Up, up it flew to dead center field. It cleared the green background screen. It cleared the bleachers. It cleared the clubhouse. It cleared the Scoreboard clock. It was the longest home run ever hit at the Polo Grounds!

"Hurrah, hurrah for Baseball Joe Mat-son, the greatest competitor in the game and also the finest fellow who ever wore shoe leather!" screamed the excited Giant fans as the grinning youth rounded the bases, stamped on home plate and clasped the hands of Pop and John MacCrae.

The Giants were now leading, 1-0.

"Just hold them in the ninth," pleaded the manager, "and we've got the world-series gonfalon for our very own!"

Joe nodded and went out to the mound. The first Yankee batter stepped up lo the plate. Joe looked around very carefully, then, with great deliberation, he went into a slow windup and let the ball fly. A shocked groan emanated from the crowd. The pitch not only missed the plate but it missed the catcher as well and went in a wild, erratic arc into the lower deck of the stands behind first base. During his brief, meteoric career, the young moundsman had unleashed his share of wild pitches (two, to be exact, during a game against Chicago in a windstorm), but never had he thrown such an errant pitch.

"Forget it, old man," said John MacCrae from the dugout. "Accidents will happen."

But the plucky manager could not conceal the growing anxiety that was gnawing at him.

Once again, the apparently tiring Joend hurled the sphere. This one also cleared everything and landed in the third-base stands.

Panic gripped the Giant skipper and the Giant fans were stunned into stupefied silence. What had happened to their hero? Twice more, Joe unleashed exceedingly wild pitches that nestled inthe stands, and the Yankees had their first base runner.

Now it was the turn of the Yankee fans to let off steam and they didn't spare Joe.

"Baseball Joe Matson is a mucker!"

"Back to the bush leagues with all birds who cannot withstand the inordinate pressures of a championship tilt!"

"You're choking in the clutch, Baseball Joe, and I sincerely doubt if you can accept defeat manfully!"

Thus flew the withering jibes from the stands, as John MacCrae went out to talk to his young hurler.

"Joe, old man, is anything the matter?" asked the manager.

"I shall be all right," the twirler assured him.

"But those pitches you threw," said the desperate MacCrae. "They were miles off target."

"I assure you there is no cause for concern," said the weary youth.

"Joe," said MacCrae softly, "do you realize who is coming up for the Yankees now? Murderers' Row!"

Joe gave his manager a steely look and the latter knew there was no point in discussing the matter any further. He trotted back to the dugout.

The mighty Babe Root dug in at the plate. Joe took his stretch and let loose. Once again, the ball slipped from his hand and went soaring toward the stands behind third base. The Yankee base runner trotted to second base on the wild pitch. Our hero stretched and released the ball. For the sixth consecutive time, the ball went on its errant way, this time clear into the upper deck. The Yankee runner gleefully tore around to third.

And so our hero stood in the midst of a dilemma. One more wild pitch and the game would be tied. Should either of the three members of Murderers' Row get on base and score, the Yankees would go ahead and perhaps win the world series. The strain of a grueling season and "the most enervating game of his life had to be taking their deadly toll on the slim but gritty youth. The Giant fans sat sullenly in the stands an dthe manager of the Polo Grounders held his breath. Was this the end of the line? Was he to be denied his 12th straight world-series triumph? Only time would tell.

The young twirler stepped up onto the mound again. He hitched up his trousers, gazed in for his sign, wound up and let the ball fly. It cut the heart of the plate.

The Babe insolently waved a finger to indicate strike one. Again, Joe cut the plate with a fork ball. The Babe held up two fingers. That made strike two. Then the Babe stepped out in front of the plate and dramatically pointed toward the distant right-center-field stands. A shudder went up from the Giant fans. When Babe Root called his shots, he seldom missed.

Joe sized his opponent up and down; then, suddenly, a strange thing happened. Baseball Joe Matson also pointed with his finger. Only he was pointing at his catcher's mitt. And so they stood, the great home-run king and the plucky rookie, each pointing at a different target. The tension was unbearable.

Joe wound up and let fly with a chicken ball. The Babe swung and missed. Baseball Joe Matson had done it again!

Six quick pitches later, Lou Goering and Tony Lazzetti had also whiffed.

Final score:

Giants: 1

Yankees: 0

The Giants had won the series!

The stands erupted with a tremendous roar. Pop Gallagher came running over to Joe, gripped his hand, then, remembering that tradition called for the teammates of a world-series hero to carry that player off on their shoulders, the grizzled veteran got down on the ground, inserted his shoulders under the youth's legs and tried to rise. But, instead, the backstop collapsed to the turf, his old bones not quite up to the task.

After Joe revived his catcher, the two of them and John MacCrae raced happily for the clubhouse through the thousands of ecstatic fans who had clambered onto the field.

When they got to the clubhouse, a surprise awaited them. The Giant team, newly freed from bondage, had just arrived and was congratulating its hero for a task well done.

"You did a great job, old man," said MacCrae to his hurler. "As for that momentary spell of wildness, forget it. It happens to the best of us."

At that moment, a police officer entered. "Mr. MacCrae," he said, "you will be happy to know that we have captured the six gamblers in thestands. All were lying unconscious. Five with blows on the head, one with a blow on the neck."

"I can't understand it," muttered Baseball Joe Matson, louder than he had intended to speak. "A blow on the neck'? I distinctly recall aiming for his head."

The disbelieving manager, who had overheard the remark, gazed at his ace hurler. "Joe," he said, "those wild pitches? You mean ... ?"

But he knew he would get nothing more from his modest young twirler.

Then, in the excitement of the moment, the skipper almost forgot that he had something else to say to the youth.

"Joe," said John MacCrae, "I have been meaning to ask you something. What was that last pitch you threw to Tony Lazzetti?"

"Just a plain, ordinary chicken ball," said Joe. "The ball curved in, then out, sailed, hesitated, bobbed and pecked at the air, and then----"

"No, no," said the skipper, "it was not a chicken ball. Didn't you notice how, right after it bobbed and pecked, the ball spun around in a furious circle?"

And so, at this point, we bid farewell to our young hero, his teammates and his crusty but lovable manager. But I am sure that all of my young readers will be anxious to read the next exciting book in this series, Baseball Joe and His Tornado Ball, or "Making New Chums in the Hall of Fame."