It was the great day of the season, the day to which the hungry baseball enthusiasts in the metropolis had looked forward all through the winter and early spring. For days the fans had been in an ever increasing fever of excitement. The papers had been full of predictions as to the chances of the New Yorks for the flag. There had been pictures of the team individually and in groups together with their fielding and batting averages. There had been rosy stories of the way they had been “breaking fences” in the training camp, and there were hints that McRae had uncovered one or two “phenoms” who would make the rooters sit up and take notice. The whole population of the city that had a drop of red blood in its veins was on tiptoe with expectation.