Jack Keeper, who seemed slated to hold down the far cushion for the Stockings, was also a youngster Frazer had not seen fit to retain. In the few games he had played with the Wolves Keeper had made a good showing, but the general impression was that the manager had not considered him quite up to Big League caliber. Various other youngsters who had been farmed out to the minors were being used at second and short, and two of them, Blount and Armstrong, from the Cotton States League, seemed to be the most promising. But what an infield it would be, with three-fourths of the players "unripened"! The interest of the fans who read this sort of "dope" turned to the Wolves, who were almost universally picked as probable pennant winners. All this was natural enough. The Wolves had held together before the Federal raids better than any team in the league. Certainly no one who knew much about baseball would have chosen the Blue Stockings in advance for a come-back. But in baseball, and nearly everything else, there is no fixed rule of reckoning that can't be smashed. Plenty of old-timers will say this is not so, just as men assert that there is nothing like luck in the game. The Stockings continued to attract little attention during their tour North, although they won exhibition games regularly and with ease. Jones pitched in some of these games. Locke did not. All the same, no day passed that Lefty failed to get out and warm up with his pitchers. Dillon, Reilley, Lumley, and Savage were the old flingers left with the staff. The "Glass Arm Brigade," it was called. Savage was regarded as the only one of the quartet who possessed the stamina to work through nine hard innings. Counting him out, the team would have to depend on young twirlers. Of course, Locke warmed up merely from habit and as an example for the others. Otherwise he would try to pitch sometimes in a game. The season opened with the Blue Stockings playing against the Dodgers, away from home. Mysterious Jones pitched and shut the Dodgers out, his team making five runs behind him. Even that created no more than a slight flurry, for the Dodgers were chronic subcellar champions. Jones had speed, and it had dazzled them. But wait until he went up against real batters! Reilley and Lumley, taking turns on the mound, succeeded in handing the Dodgers the second game by a one-sided score. Savage went in and captured the third contest, but Pink Dillon dropped the fourth after making a fight for it up to the eighth inning. If that was the best the Blue Stockings could get, an even break, when facing the habitual tailenders, what would happen to them when they tackled the Wolves in the series to follow?