THIRD BASE THATCHERCHAPTER IFOUL!
THIRD BASE THATCHER
It was the last minute of play. The score stood 14 to 14. The teams of ’25 and ’26, the Freshman and Sophomore classes of Pennington Institute, were in a mad scramble on the gym. floor. It was the last game of the interclass basketball tournament and on the victory hung the school championship. Both teams had severely trounced the older teams of the Junior and Senior classes in a series of three games each, and likewise they had humbled each other, each class being credited with a game. This one told the tale, and it had been madly fought from the first whistle, as the score, chalked on the blackboard above the heads of the madly cheering crowd of students who lined the gallery running track, attested.
Suddenly, out of the mêlée of flying arms and legs, panting and perspiring bodies and tense,almost grim, fighting faces on the gym. floor, shot Thatcher, a Freshman forward, a clean-limbed, black-haired boy of rather more than average height. As if by signal from somewhere in the crowd of milling players the ball shot upward and forward and thumped into his hands. Just a step behind him was Gould, the Sophomore guard, slightly shorter, but stockier and as fast as an antelope. His face was set with an unpleasant expression of anger; there was that about him that suggested a determination to win whether by fair means or foul.
Thatcher dribbled the ball once, then poised momentarily and lifted it for an overhead shot at the basket for the winning two points. Gould, in desperation, hurled himself forward, tried to stop the shot, and, failing, fell to the floor with a crash. The ball was describing a graceful arc toward the back board from which it caromed into the basket.
“Foul! He tripped me!” cried Gould as he rolled over on the floor.
The referee’s whistle shrilled just as the ball slipped through the basket, the cords playing a crisp tattoo on its bulging leather sides.
“Foul!” announced the referee. “Basket void. Free shot for the Sophs.”
Thatcher, astonished at the sudden turn of the incident, stood still under the basket for a moment while Hoffman, the Sophomore captain, swept down and gathered in the ball to take it to the other end of the court for the free shot to which the foul entitled him. Suddenly the Freshman forward snapped into angry action.
“Here! Wait! It’s a fake, Mr. Thomas. I didn’t trip him. He fell purposely to make it look like a foul. It was a trick, I tell you. I didn’t touch him.”
“He did. He lies. He tripped me!” yelled Gould, getting to his feet.
Thatcher looked at him coldly, and with the utmost self possession spoke to him.
“You have the effrontery to stand there and say that, Gould, when you know it isn’t true! I’m surprised at your sportsmanship.”
Gould’s face grew livid under the sting of the reproach.
“You lie,” he snorted, “you know you tripped me. Didn’t he, Mr. Thomas?”
The referee, surprised himself at the turn of events, confessed:
“He fell, Thatcher, and it looked to me like an ugly foul. That’s my decision.”
“I can’t blame you, Mr. Thomas, for he did make it look real. He’s a good fakir. If I—”
Gould, enraged now, stepped in front of the Freshman forward, and shaking his clenched fist under Thatcher’s nose, roared:
“I’ll smash your face if—”
“Stop! Enough of that. Get off the floor, both of you. You’re ruled out of the game. Hoffman, shoot the basket,” snapped the referee, realizing suddenly that he had already permitted matters to go too far.
Hoffman toed the foul line, coolly lifted the ball, took careful and accurate aim and shot it upward and forward. The sphere went whirling prettily through the air, thumped against the back board and dropped neatly through the basket. The referee’s whistle sounded. He reached for the ball to carry it to the center again when the timekeeper sounded his whistle and the game was over. The score was 15 to 14 and the Sophomores had won. Pandemonium reigned in the runningtrack gallery where crowds of second year men cheered and stamped and whistled to the consternation of a big group of chagrined Freshmen.
Thatcher, who had lingered on the side line of the court long enough to see Hoffman shoot the basket and win the game, was joined by the four other freshman players and two substitutes and together they made their way to the spiral stairway that led to the locker room in the basement. No one spoke a word for some time until Buck Hart, the captain and center, a second year man but taking some Freshman work in class and thus eligible for the “fresh” team, crossed over to the bench on which Thatcher was sitting and slipping an arm across his shoulder affectionately, said:
“It’s a doggone shame, Jeff, but don’t you take it too hard. You were playing to win, that’s all.”
“Yes, I was playing to win, but I wasn’t playing dirty, Buck. And the worst of it is I believe Mr. Thomas still thinks I tripped him, the dirty fakir that he is.”
“Well—er—ah—he sure fell hard, Jeff. Didn’t you have something to do with it?” asked Buck.
“What! Why, Buck, you wouldn’t think thatof me, would you?” exclaimed Thatcher, a look of pained surprise on his face.
“Well—ah—it looked sort of rough to me. I saw him go down and he was right in front of you. Looked bad to me and I was surprised to thinkyouof any of us should foul so deliberately.”
“But, hang it, Buck, I didn’t. Oh, please believe me, I had nothing to do with it. I never have played dirty in my life and believe me I’m not beginning now. It was he who played dirty. It was a rotten trick. When he saw he couldn’t stop the shot he threw himself down on the floor—fell purposely and then howled that I had tripped him. It was quick thinking on his part all right, but dirty work. He saw that if he could get away with it he would spoil my basket and give his side a chance for a free shot to win the game. And, thanks to his cleverness, it worked out just the way he doped it.”
“Gee whizz, the dirty skate,” exclaimed Cas Gorham, a sub, who had gathered around Jeff, with the rest of the members of the team.
“Gould is a hard loser, I’ve found out. They tell me last year in baseball he pulled some shadytrick and—say—gee whizz—I forgot—this isn’t the last you’ll have to do with Gould. He played third base on the scrub team last year and he’s got it doped out that he is naturally going to inherit that position on the big team this year since Squires graduated. And, by jingoes, that’s the job you are going to try for.” It was Brownie Davis who was speaking, one of the fellows who had been instrumental in getting Thatcher to come to Pennington.
“That’s my regular job. The position I played best on the Y. M. C. A. team last year, you know,” said Thatcher with a smile.
“Sure, we know. Don’t we all remember that was one of the best amateur teams in the state?” said Rabbit Warren, slapping Thatcher on the back.
“Well, that will be your chance to square accounts with him if you don’t get a chance before that,” said Buck Hart. Then he added, “But look out for him, Jeff. If he pulls that sort of stuff he’s as crooked as a cruller. Keep your eye on him. Coach Rice told me to-day he was going to post notices for baseball candidates to report in the gym. for cage practice in two orthree weeks. We’ll be rooting for you, Jeff.”
“Well, maybe I can keep him on the bench or on the scrub team this year. I’ll try mighty hard you bet. But even if I do win the job away from him that won’t take the sting out of this defeat. Honestly, fellows, I’m as sorry as the dickens that I should be the cause of losing the game and the school championship, even though I didn’t play dirty myself.”
“Tut-tut, little one, don’t take it so hard,” said Buck Hart sliding into his trousers. But it was evident to Jeff that he was not the only one of the team who took the defeat bitterly. All of the fellows had played hard and clean to win and for Thatcher to know that he had had the foul called on him, even though it was not his fault, made him feel deeply chagrined. Indeed, it made him bitter toward Gould, who had played so unsportsmanlike, and it made him so disconsolate and discouraged that he had very little more to say in the locker room, hurrying through the ceremony of a cold shower, and dressing as swiftly as he could and seeking his own room in Carter Hall, where he flung himself into a chair and gave over to bitter reflection.