“How’s the old soup bone to-day, Joe?” asked Jim Barclay, pitcher of the Giant team, of his special chum, Joe Matson, king boxman of the same team and known all over the country as the greatest twirler in either league. “Fine as a fiddle, old boy,” answered Joe, better known to American fans as “Baseball Joe,” as he flexed the biceps of his mighty right arm and swung it around and around as though he were winding up. “Feels as though I could pitch to-day, even if I did have my turn in the box yesterday.” “It must be made of iron then, for you certainly had a strenuous time yesterday plastering the whitewash on the Dodgers,” answered Jim admiringly. “It was a hard game, sure enough,” admitted Joe. “Those fellows are tough birds, anyway, and always dangerous, especially when they stack up against the Giants. They had their batting clothes on yesterday, too, and were out for blood from the ring of the bell. Two or three times they had me in the hole, and it was only luck that we turned them back without a run.” “Luck, nothing!” exclaimed Jim warmly. “It was because you tightened up at the critical moments and stood them on their heads. You gave them a sample of the kind of pitching that won the last World Series for us against the Yanks.” “Put it down to the kind of support I got from the rest of the team,” said Joe modestly. “Some of the catches that Wheeler and Curry made were nothing less than highway robberies. That swipe by Zach Treat in the third inning had all the labels of a home run, and it was one of the niftiest bits of playing I’ve ever seen when Curry picked it off the fence.” “It was a whale of a catch all right,” Jim conceded. “But to offset that there was some rotten playing in the infield. McCarney at third acted as though his fingers were all thumbs. Twice he fell down on easy ones, and that high throw over Burkett’s head in the seventh let Ryan leg it all the way to third. It was only that snappy double play that Iredell engineered that kept us from being scored on in that inning.” “McCarney did have a bad day,” admitted Joe. “Hupft, too, let a ball get by him that went for two bases when he ran in to make a catch of Milton’s hit that he ought to have waited for on the bound. He might have seen that he couldn’t make it.” “I can’t quite make out those fellows,” said Jim thoughtfully. “When we got them on that trade with St. Louis, I thought they were going to be towers of strength to the team. They had a good record last year both in fielding and batting, and they certainly played like fiends in the spring-training practice. But since the regular season opened I haven’t known what to make of them. One day they’ll play like stars and the next you’d think they were a couple of bushers.”