CHAPTER IIITHE MAN TO PITCH
To the left of the bench, which was set well back against the railing in front of the third-base bleachers, on which a carload of Bancroft fans were bunched, Jock Hoover, the star slabman of the team, was warming up with Bingo Bangs, the catcher.
Hoover, speedy, pugnacious, with an arm of iron, the face of a Caliban, and the truculence of an Attila, was well calculated to inspire respect and fear when on the mound; and his mid-season acquirement by Bancroft the year before had doubtless fixed that team in first position, and marked the assured downfall of Kingsbridge, against whom he was most frequently worked.
In Bancroft, Hoover was admired and toadied; in Kingsbridge he was most cordially hated. More than once his intimidating methods on the latter field had come perilously close to producing a riot, which, had it ever started among the mill men, must have been a nasty affair.
Never in the most threatening moments of therough crowd’s clamoring, however, had Hoover turned a hair. Always through it all he had sneered and grinned contemptuously, apparently inviting assault, and showing disappointment when the better element among the crowd, who cared for the sport as a sport, and knew the harm to the game that a pitched battle must bring, succeeded in holding the hot-headed and reckless ones in check.
Biting off the end of his cigar, Riley stood watching Hoover meditatively. Out on the field the locals were getting in the last snappy bit of preliminary practice, and the game would begin in a few minutes. The manager’s eyes had left Hoover and sought “Butch” Prawley, one of the other two pitchers, when a hand touched his arm, and some one spoke to him. Rolling his head toward his shoulder, he saw “Fancy” Dyke standing on the other side of the rail.
Francis Dyke, a young sporting man of Bancroft, was one of the backers of the team. To him a baseball game on which he had not placed a wager worth while was necessarily slow and uninteresting, even though well fought and contested to the finish. Son of a horseman who had won and lost big sums on the turf, Fancy, apparently inheriting the gaming instinct, had turned to baseballwith the decline of racing. His nickname came through his taste for flashy clothes.
“Don’t you do it,” said Dyke, vapory bits of bluish cigarette smoke curling from his thin lips as he spoke.
“Do what?” grunted Riley in surprise.
“Run in Prawley. You were thinking of letting Hoover squat on the bench.”
“How’d you know that?” asked the manager, still more surprised.
“Saw it on your face.”
“If my mug gives me away in that fashion, I’ll trade it for another,” growled Mike, in displeasure. “But why not pitch Prawley? He can swaller that bunch, one after another, without greasin’. This is our first game here, and Jock ain’t so pop’ler in this town.”
“What do you care about that? It’s our first game here, and we want it, to hold first place. If they should happen to trim us to-day, they’d have us tied.”
With the mutilated and lifeless cigar gripped in his coarse teeth, Riley pulled down the corners of his big mouth disdainfully. “Trim us—with that bunch of scrubs and has-beens! Why, they couldn’t do it if I went in and pitched myself.”
“Take it from me, ’tain’t wise to be so cocksure.I’ve been watching their new pitcher warm up. He’s a southpaw.”
“And a green one from the scrub pastures somewhere. The boys will send him to the stable in about three innin’s.”
“Perhaps. But I walked over in range while he was limbering his flinger, and he’s got a few good benders, not to mention some speed. You don’t want to forget that we’ve got five left-hand batters, and a southpaw that can really pitch may bother ’em some. I reckon that’s just why they’ve raked in this feller Locke.”
“Don’t you b’lieve it. Just spoke to Hutch about him, and Hutch don’t know no more’n you or me. Old Cope signed Locke and the most of the team, and he’d never figger on a lefty worryin’ us because we’ve got so many left-hand hitters.”
“That,” persisted Dyke, “don’t alter the conditions any. This Locke stopped Fryeburg after they blanketed Deever, and Kingsbridge wants this game to-day—bad. I’ve heard some of the Bridgers talkin’, and they’re plenty confident, thinking they’ve got a wiz in this southpaw kid.
“To-morrow’s Sunday, and Hoover can rest,” he added. “He’s hard as nails, and you won’thurt him, even if you have to use him again Monday. Always play the game safe when you can—that’s my motto. I’ll take chances, all right, if I have to, but I’ve never yet let my conscience fret me into ducking a bet on a sure thing. Hoover is the Kinks’ hoodoo, and it ought to be pretty safe with him handing ’em.”
“Safe,” gurgled Riley, highly amused. “I should guess yes. They think they’ve got some players, but, with Hutchinson furnishin’ only four out of the ’leven men they have, as he told me, and Cope diggin’ up the rest, most of ’em holdovers from last year, it’s a joke.
“Why, I let old Cope have Pat Deever, though he thinks he got Deever away from me. Just as I was about to close with Pat, I got it straight that he’d put his wing on the blink for fair, and, by pretendin’ I was hot after Deever all the time, I helped him make a fancy deal with Cope.
“Pat was batted out by the Brownies after fooling ’em along to the seventh with a slow ball that made him sweat drops of blood ev’ry time he boosted it over the pan; but he’s foxy, and he’ll manage to hang on by bluffing ’em that his arm’ll come round soon, see if he don’t,” added Riley. “The only pitcher they’ve got is Skillings, andeven he’s frappéd his wing, pitchin’ the drop all the time, which he has to, as he’s a mark when he lets up on it.”
“You’re manager,” said Fancy, “and I’m not trying to show you; but I hope you’ll play safe by sending Hoover out to start with. If it proves so easy, you can pull him out when you see the game is clinched.”
“All right. Jock’s name is on the battin’ order, and I’ll let him start her off.”