CHAPTER XIVA TRY-OUT AT FIRST
The Second Team was formed the third week in April. Joe found, rather to his surprise, that he was to be retained with the first squad as substitute infielder and was not to be relegated to the second. That was, certainly, a compliment to his playing ability, and he was duly pleased, but there were moments during the succeeding fortnight when he almost wished that he had been placed on the scrub, since in that case he would undoubtedly have been put at first and would be playing there regularly instead of sitting half of the time on the bench and trying not to hope that Frank Foley would break a finger or sprain an ankle! When Joe did get in it was more likely to be at second base than first, since Buster Healey, the regular incumbent of that position, was playing a decidedly erratic game and Coach Talbot was becoming discouraged with him and was constantly pulling him out in favour of a substitute. Buster had it in him to play fine ball, but thisspring he was badly off his game. Joe was always glad to get a chance to play, and would have gone behind the bat, had he been told to, or even into the outfield, rather than remain on the bench, but he did wish that Bat would give him a chance at first.
Jack suggested once when Joe was mourning the lack of opportunity to exhibit his skill at the first sack that they enter into a deep, dark conspiracy against Handsome Frank. “We might,” said Jack thoughtfully, “decoy him to the soda fountain and slip poison in his drink. Or we might wait for him outside his house some night and stab him full of holes. If we did that it might be best to leave a Black Hand note attached to the stiletto in order to avert suspicion. They’d probably arrest Tony, the bootblack, and might hang him. Tony never did anything to me, and—No, I guess it wouldn’t be fair to have Tony hung. How would a bomb do? We could put it under his seat at school and——”
“And blow ourselves up, too?” asked Joe. “No, I don’t like that idea so much, Jack.”
Jack acknowledged that it had its drawbacks. “Just the same,” he asserted decisively, “something must be done. Frank has a nasty way of grinning at me nowadays, and yesterday hewanted to know if I was feeling well. Said I looked a bit pale. And the funny thing is, Joey, that I don’t feel awfully smart; haven’t for nearly a week. I suppose it’s the warm weather, but if I caught scarlet fever or anything and had to lay off for a couple of weeks I’d lose that bet sure as shooting!”
“Well, I guess you needn’t count on me to help you win it,” replied Joe hopelessly. “Bat seems to think that I’m only good on second, or, sometimes, third.”
“If Buster doesn’t take a brace you’ll find yourself on second for keeps,” said Jack. “I’d like to know what’s the matter with that chap. Last year, and the year before, too, he was a mighty good second-sacker, but now—Great Scott, did you see that heave of his to Frank yesterday? It went three yards wide of the base if it went an inch, and Buster declares that he threw straight as an arrow! And even his hitting is punk. I don’t see Bat’s idea of trying to make a first baseman of Farquhar this season. The kid’s too green for it.”
“Maybe if Healey would brace up,” said Joe, “I’d lose my job at second and might get a chance to substitute Foley. I sometimes wish they’d let me go to the Scrubs.”
“Piffle! At least, you’re a member of the First Team, even if you don’t play all the time, and you’ll get your letter, too, before the season’s over. Next month Bat will be putting you in somewhere for four or five innings at a whack. Then, if you get into the Petersburg game you’ll get your A.”
“Yes, but what’s to keep Bat from getting tired of seeing me sitting around and letting me go long before that?” asked Joe dismally.
“Everything! He’s got to have at least two substitute infielders, hasn’t he? And you’re one of them, aren’t you? Anyway, if you keep on batting as well as you’ve been doing it he won’t dare to let you go. Speaking of that, Joey, I guess we’ve done about all we can with that parlour baseball stunt of ours in the cage. We might as well call that off, I think.”
“Especially as we’ve missed about every other day lately,” Joe laughed.
“I know. It’s too warm now to feel ambitious. All a fellow wants to do at recess is lie on his back and watch the clouds go over and wonder where they get the energy to do it! You can’t say, though, that that scheme of mine hasn’t worked.”
“I don’t try to. It did me a lot of good, Jack.I—I almost think that by next year I’ll be a fairly good hitter.”
“You’ll be that this year if you keep on improving. Tom is the only fellow you can’t hit about as you like. And that’s no disgrace to you, because Tom Pollock is about as good a pitcher as you’ll find in the State, and I’m not excepting professionals, either!”
“Toby told me the other day that Tom has a chance to go to a league team whenever he wants to.”
“I should say he had! Why, three or four teams have been after him. He could get a try-out with Detroit tomorrow if he wanted it. But Tom says he’s going to college next Fall, and, of course, he wants to play ball there.”
“I should think he would. I wish I thought I could go to college, Jack.”
“Why can’t you? In another year you’ll have so much money saved up that you’ll be able to do as you like! The stand’s doing better every month, and the first thing we know we’ll be millionaires!”
“We fooled ourselves about Young, all right, didn’t we? Honest, Jack, I expected long before this that he’d have shown a yellow streak.”
“Me, too. And the funny thing is that I stilldon’t altogether trust him. But everything seems perfectly straight, doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely. I don’t believe he’s done a thing shady except swipe a box of cigarettes now and then. I guess he’s about as good a fellow as we could have found for the job.”
“He sure is. By the way, when we engaged him we said something about giving him a raise, didn’t we, if he got along all right?”
“Yes, we did, and I suppose we’d better be thinking about doing it. Still, he’s been working only about two months. We’ll let it go until next month, Jack.”
“All right. I dare say he isn’t looking for a raise just yet. He hasn’t made any hints to me, anyway. The thing that puzzles me, though, is how he can wear the flossy clothes he does on ten dollars per. He’s almost as beautiful as Frank Foley!”
“I can answer that,” replied Joe drily. “He has accounts with a lot of the stores. A chap came in the other day when I was at the stand and wanted me to pay a bill of sixteen dollars for underwear and ties and things. Thought I was Young. I told him to try again. If he has many bills around town like that one he won’t be with us much longer, I guess, and that’s onereason I think it’ll be just as well to wait a bit longer before we make that raise. It doesn’t do much good to raise a chap’s wages and have him leave you in the lurch a few weeks later.”
“Well, if he’s got creditors after him,” laughed Jack, “he needs the raise pretty badly right now! But I guess you’re right. We’ll wait and see what happens. He’s an idiot to blow in money like that for pink-striped shirts and things. I’d love to hitch him and Handsome Frank up and drive them tandem down Main Street some afternoon!” And Jack chuckled merrily.
“Do you suppose,” asked Joe, after a minute’s silence, “that it would do to ask Bat for a try-out at first? I mean, tell him I’ve played the position and think I could do it again; make a bid for the job to substitute Foley.”
“Don’t do it. Bat wouldn’t like it a bit, old man. Bat’s peculiar that way. Tell you what you might do, though. You might sort of hint something of the sort to Sam. Sam wouldn’t mind it, I guess. I believe I’d do that, Joey, some time before long. As I’ve previously remarked, something’s just got to be done about Mr. Foley if we don’t want him to cop that bet we made.”
“I don’t see,” said Joe innocently, “how that interests me any.Ididn’t bet with him.”
“Why, you—you—you ungrateful chump!” exclaimed Jack. “Do you mean to say that you’re going to leave me in the lurch? Didn’t you agree to oust Frank from first base? Didn’t you——”
“No, I didn’t,” Joe laughed. “That was your idea entirely. Besides, what would I get out of it? You couldn’t cut that bat-case in half, could you?”
“I’ll let you use it on Sundays,” replied Jack generously.
Joe pondered for several days the plan of confiding to Sam Craig his desire to become a first baseman. Once he got his courage almost to the sticking-point, but a troublesome conviction that Sam would think him “fresh” held him back. And then, before he again reached the determination to take the plunge, events made it unnecessary.
During the last half of April, Amesville played three games, one with Grammar School on a Thursday and two with outside teams of no great importance. In the Grammar School contest High School was again easily victorious, although the score was somewhat more even than in the first meeting. The Grammar School pitcher who had been so unmercifully drubbed came backstrong and proved rather a hard nut to crack, holding High School to eight hits for a total of twelve bases in the seven innings he pitched. The score at the end was 8 to 3. The team journeyed to Sinclair one Saturday and played the high school team there, winning easily, with Tom Pollock pitching five innings and Toby Williams four, by the tune of 11 to 5. On the last Saturday of the month Corby High School came to Amesville and was walloped 14 to 6, Carl Moran presiding on the mound for eight innings and pitching very good ball until a tired arm threatened to bring his downfall, and Tom Pollock was hurried to the rescue.
Every afternoon, save when an outside team was to be played, the First Team and Scrubs came together and some very close, hotly-contested battles ensued. Oddly enough, Joe’s first opportunity to show what he could do as a first baseman found him playing with the Scrubs. One afternoon the Scrubs’ regular first baseman was missing and when its shortstop got mixed up at second with Sidney Morris and was helped off the field with a badly-wrenched knee, the Scrubs’ coach, a high school graduate named Meyers, was in a quandary and was forced to borrow a player from the First. The choice fell on Joe,and as Joe was a stranger to the shortstop position Meyer put his third baseman there, transferred his first baseman to third, and put Joe at first. Joe was rather too nervous during the first inning to make much of a showing, but, fortunately, Carl Moran, who was pitching for the Scrubs, held the First fairly tight and Joe was able to get by without anything worse than a doubtful error when he failed to get a wide throw in time to make the out. But in the succeeding innings, five in all, he covered the bag in a style which opened Mr. Talbot’s eyes and brought good words from his friends. If he did not have the reach that Frank Foley had, he was so much quicker than that other youth that he quite made up for the fact, while at bat he was easily the superior of that player. Joe did not, however, greatly distinguish himself with the stick that afternoon, for Tom Pollock pitched the whole six innings for the First, and Tom, when he tried, could hold any fellow on the team helpless. Still, Joe did do better than any other member of the Scrubs, getting two hits, one of the scratch variety, as his earnings. The First Team nosed out of the game with a two-run lead, but had to work hard that day for their victory.
The result of Joe’s exhibition with the Scrubsthat afternoon was that two days later he was substituted for Foley in the fifth inning of a game with the Second Team, much to Foley’s surprise and, I fancy, disgust. Again he got through creditably, although a poor heave from Buster Healey got past him on one occasion and led him in the subsequent confusion to himself make a hurried and ragged throw to third. But the misplay did not appear in the results and he more than atoned with two stops that brought applause from the stand and the benches and by lacing out a two-bagger in the fourth inning that sent two runs across.
Jack was jubilant as they walked back to town after that game. “You’ve been and gone and done it, Joey!” he said. “You’ve shown Bat at last that you’re the man for the job! I saw him and Sam put their heads together when you cracked out that two-bagger, and I’ll bet you anything they mean to find a place for you. Why shouldn’t they, anyway? Don’t they need all the batting strength they can get? And don’t you hit a lot better than Foley, or three or four others, for that matter? What Bat’s trying to do now, I guess, is to figure out some way of getting you in the line-up. Well, he will either have to put you at first or second. Hale has made good atthird, all right. If I were he I’d switch Buster and Gordon Smith around. Gordon’s a good shortstop, of course, but I dare say he could play second just as well. That would give Buster a chance to redeem himself, you see. Still, that wouldn’t make a place for you, Joey.” Jack frowned intently a moment and then continued: “No, sir, the only thing to do is to shelve Frank!”
“Don’t be an idiot! Why should he shelve Foley? Foley can play first better than I can.”
“That’s all right. With a week’s practice you could do just as well as he’s doing. And when it comes to batting you’re away ahead of him. And I want to tell you, Joey, that what this team is going to need when we run up against Petersburg is fellows who can roll the pill! Well, anyway, you wait and see. Something will happen to Handsome Frank before long, mark my words. I’m a prophet, Joey!”
“You’re a chump, you mean. Walk up and let’s get somewhere. Speaking of profits, I’d like to find out what ours have been today.”
“All you think of is filthy money,” mourned Jack.
“And all you think of,” Joe retorted, “is that old bat-case!”