CHAPTER XIV.
OUT OF PRACTICE.
A large crowd turned out to witness the six-inning game between the ’varsity nine and Frank Merriwell’s “scrub” team. Yale was anxious about her ball team, for it was not showing up as well as it should, while Harvard and Princeton were said to be in prime condition.
Despite his popularity, Frank had enemies in college, and those enemies were circulating the report that his arm was “broken,” that he had a “dead wing,” and that his day as a pitcher was past. They declared Yale was leaning on a broken reed when it depended on Merriwell to win games.
There were stories about the new pitchers to be brought out by Harvard and Princeton. They were feared not a little.
All acknowledged that Yale was in serious need of a first-class backstop. Stone or Noon might develop all right, but the uncertainty about them was wearing. Hodge, Merriwell’s candidate for the position, was sneered at.
When it was known that Merriwell would get up a “scrub” team and play the regulars, Frank’s enemies hastened to say that the time had come when it would be seen how easy he could be batted. They knew that, as a rule, no pitcher who feels secure of his position on the regulars will take the chance of doing himself injury by pitching his level best for a “scrub” team. Generally, he considers it practice enough for the regulars if he pitches fairly well and lets it go at that. Frank’s enemies thought that was what he would do. They knew little of his plan to make the regulars hustle to win the game.
There was much speculation as to the exact make-up of the “scrub.”
“They say Diamond and Rattleton will play,” said Bink Stubbs, speaking to Sydney Gooch. “They are two of Merriwell’s particular cronies, you know, but neither one of them can play fast ball.”
“What do you care?” laughed Gooch.
“Oh, it’ll be nuts for me. I hope the boys will hammer Merriwell all over the lot.”
When the “scrub” appeared there were exclamations of astonishment.
“Whiskers!” cried one. “Is this to be a comedy game? There’s Bruce Browning. He’ll go to sleep running bases.”
“Doing what?” cried another. “You don’t suppose he’ll run, do you? He wouldn’t run for a doctor if a rattlesnake bit him!”
“Look!” shouted a third. “There’s Dismal Jones! Mommer! But this will be a peach of a game!”
“And there’s Joe Gamp!” gasped a fourth. “When did he ever play ball? Oh, my! my! my!”
“They’ve got him to coach!” laughed the first speaker.
Phil Hardy, captain of the regulars, looked Merriwell’s nine over quizzically.
“Look here, old man,” he grinned, drawing Frank aside, “what sort of a job is this?”
“What?” asked Merry, blankly.
“We are out here for practice, and we want to play against a team that will give us some.”
“Don’t let that worry you. You are going to get all the practice you want, captain.”
“But not with that turnout?”
“Yes.”
“Rats!”
“You’ll see.”
“What’s the use to fool! Why don’t you take the regular ‘scrub’?”
“Because I have a better nine.”
Phil saw, with no little surprise, that Frank seemed to mean it.
“All right,” he said; “but we are not going to play six innings if this gets to be too much of a farce.”
“You may stop any time you like after the third inning,” smiled Frank.
“I know you are going to pitch against us,” said Phil; “but I don’t suppose you fancy you can play the whole game?”
“Not at all. You will find there are others.”
“Why don’t you take somebody in the place of Browning? He will drop dead getting after a ball.”
“Don’t worry about Browning. He’s all right.”
“I know he was a good man once, but he has had his day.”
Frank smiled confidently.
There was a little preliminary practice, as if it was to be a regular match game. Frank got off his sweater and warmed up in earnest, just the same as he would have done had he been preparing to pitch against Harvard.
The “scrub” took the field first. As they went out scores of students shouted at them sportively, and they were the butt of ridicule.
“Where did you find ’em, Merriwell?” shouted a voice. “They are a lot of flubs!”
Frank laughed easily.
“Wait a little,” he advised, “and these flubs will give you apoplexy.”
He looked his men over to see that they were in proper positions, and then, as Cal Jeffers, Yale’s heavy-hitting center fielder, came up to the plate, he motioned for Gamp to move a little farther back.
This caused some laughter, and a voice cried:
“What do you want to put him back for, Merriwell? He couldn’t catch anything, anyway.”
“Oh, he might—by accident,” returned Frank, who seemed ready to talk to anybody. “I have known more surprising things than that to happen.”
Stubbs nudged Sydney Gooch.
“He knows he’s going to be hammered,” said Stubbs. “See him get the fielders back.”
“I hope they will hit every one he throws!” said Gooch, maliciously, as he fingered his throat, thinking how Merriwell’s fingers had felt there once on a time.
Browning had slouched down to first as if going to his own funeral. There was a sad and hopeless look on his face, that made him look even more dismal than Jones.
Frank turned to look at him, and then burst out laughing heartily.
“Come, come, Bruce!” he cried. “It isn’t quite as bad as that. Wake up, now, for I am going to get into gear and shoot ’em over.”
Browning said nothing, but his face did not grow a whit less dejected.
Jeffers poised his bat, and Merriwell faced him. Then the first ball was sent spinning toward the backstop.
Jeffers knew it was a fine thing to hit the first ball pitched, if possible, as it made a good showing for the batter. He went at this one.
He hit it!
Crack!
Away the ball sailed, away over the head of the shortstop, away toward left field.
“I knew he would do it!” cried Bink Stubbs, in delight. “It is a homer! Oh, that will nearly break Merriwell’s heart!”
Down toward first Jeffers scooted.
It was seen immediately that, for all that Merriwell had sent Gamp back, the ball was going far beyond the position held by the left fielder.
Gamp turned and ran for it, but the effort seemed a waste of energy. The spectators laughed to see the long legs of the country boy working furiously as he raced out after the ball.
“If he gets those feet going much faster, he won’t be able to stop for a week,” shouted somebody.
“What’s he think he’s going to do?” laughingly questioned another.
“He’s playing chase with himself!” shouted Sydney Gooch.
Jeffers reached first, and tore down toward second. Surely it was a home run. What a blow for Merriwell.
The ball was dropping now. Gamp was near it, but he could not touch it. He was looking up, trying to locate it. He looked over his shoulder and saw the ball.
Then he made a last spurt that astonished everybody. Still the ball was passing far over his head.
Safe?
Not quite!
Gamp was tall, and he was running swiftly. With a mighty leap, he went into the air after the ball, still going in the same direction. He reached far up with both hands and——
More than a hundred spectators caught their breath. Some rubbed their eyes in amazement. Some muttered exclamations of astonishment.
The ball had struck in Joe Gamp’s hands!
“He’s got it!”
“He’s caught it!”
“Hooray! hooray!”
A few cheered, but the most of those who witnessed the phenomenal catch were dumb with amazement.
For Gamp held the ball, having robbed Jeffers of one of the prettiest hits ever seen on that ground.
Frank Merriwell laughed.
“Well, that’s pretty good for a lumber-heels,” he said, with satisfaction; “but I expected something of the kind from him.”
Cal Jeffers was disgusted when the coacher at third stopped him. He could not believe he was out.
“What’s the matter with you?” he angrily cried. “It’s a home run!”
“Ought to have been,” said the coach; “but that long-legged farmer caught it. See, he’s just throwing it in.”
“He must have picked it up,” said Jeffers.
“He did,” nodded the coach; “picked it up in the air. Finest catch I ever saw.”
“What—he made the finest catch you ever saw? Come off! This is a jolly!”
But Jeffers found it was no jolly, for the umpire declared he was out, and he walked in to the bench, railing at the luck.
Bink Stubbs was gasping for breath. It was some time before he could say a word, and then he faintly cried:
“Take me home to mommer! It always makes me sick to witness a frightful accident like that.”
“Of course it was an accident,” said Capt. Hardy, who was not playing, although on hand in a suit.
“Of course nothing of the sort,” laughed Frank Merriwell. “Might just as well say it was an accident that Jeffers hit the ball, and I do not claim that.”
“We know that wasn’t an accident,” cried Sydney Gooch, getting behind a knot of students as he shouted the words.
“That’s right,” nodded Bink Stubbs, laughing as if it was a joke; “that wasn’t an accident. Merry is easy. They’ll hammer him out of the box.”
He said this openly, but Frank knew him well enough to understand that it was intended for a sneer. Bink Stubbs seldom joked.
Frank paid not the least attention to the cries of his enemies, but caught the ball, which was flung in to him, and took his position in the box.