CHAPTER VIIIA WILD PITCH
April at its best is an uncertain month, and April this spring lived up to its reputation. No sooner had the baseball candidates grown accustomed to the feel of soft and springy turf under their feet than a three-days’ rain began and they were forced to retire again to the dim and unsympathetic cage. The track and field candidates defied weather conditions until the cinders held pools of water and the pits became of the consistency of oatmeal porridge. Then the sun shone forth again and, after another day of indoor confinement, the players once more trailed down to Lothrop Field. The diamond was far from dry, but the sun was warm and a little south-east breeze promised its best efforts. Candidates for the second team were called out that afternoon, and Jimmy, whose status with the first was still a matter for conjecture, thought seriously of returning to the fold. Dud, however, refused to sanction the step and so Jimmy grumblingly stayed where he was.
“I know just how it’ll be, though,” he said pessimistically.“They’ll keep me here until Crowley’s got his second team all made up and then they’ll drop me. Oh, all right!” He stretched his legs and leaned more comfortably back against the railing of the stand. “After all, it’s too nice a day to do anything. I pity those poor dubs out there catching flies and wrenching their arms throwing the ball in. Me for the quiet, untroubled life of a substitute outfielder. You’ll have to go in and pitch pretty quick, Dud; Pete’s got his eye on you now; but I’ll just sit here and keep this bench warm and——”
Jimmy’s remarks were rudely interrupted.
“Hi, Logan!” called Mr. Sargent. “Go on out there to left and get your hands on some of those flies. Lively, now! Send Boynton in.”
Jimmy arose with alacrity, casting a despairing glance at Dud, and ambled off. Hugh Ordway, seated further along the bench, got up and joined Dud.
“Awfully pretty, isn’t it?” observed Hugh, nodding toward the wide expanse of new green that led away to the ribbon of river beyond. “Reminds me a lot of home—I mean England.” It sounded as if he was correcting himself, and Dud asked:
“But England is your home, isn’t it?”
Hugh nodded. “I suppose it is, only when I’m here I like to remember that I’m part American, if you know what I mean.”
“Your mother is American, isn’t she?” asked Dud.
“Yes, she was born in Maryland. Her folks have lived there for a long time. It’s a bit odd, Baker, but sometimes I feel as if I were more U. S. A. than British. Being sort of half-and-half like that, a fellow doesn’t quite know where he is, if you know what I mean!”
“I dare say,” murmured Dud. It was the first time that Hugh Ordway had ever approached him, and he felt rather embarrassed. The desire to make a good impression on the other only resulted in tying his tongue up. But Hugh appeared not to notice the fact.
“How are you getting on,” he asked, “with your bowl—your pitching?”
“Just fair, I guess. How do you like it? Baseball, I mean.”
“Crazy about it! I’ll never learn to play decently, I fancy, but it’s a jolly game, isn’t it? What I like best is batting, only I can’t seem to hit the ball very well yet. Myatt fools me every time, you know. I got a couple of good ones off Nate Leddy the other day, though. Are you pitching today?”
“I guess Pete will put me in for an inning or two later. He’s giving us all a chance now. I—I’m pretty rotten so far.”
“Haven’t found yourself yet, I fancy. It takes abit of time, eh? Bert says a lot of us will be dropped to the second pretty soon. I say, Baker, I wasn’t thinking of you, you know!”
“Oh, I’ll get dropped, all right, I guess.”
“Hope not, I’m sure. In my own case I wouldn’t mind a bit. Maybe I could play well enough to make the second. Or a class team perhaps.”
“I thought you—you fielded very well the other day,” said Dud politely.
Hugh laughed. “You’re spoofing, I fancy. I did catch a few, but I was beastly scared of them. Bert says I looked as if I were going to catch them in my mouth! Odd feeling you have when those balls begin to come down, getting bigger and bigger every second, and you’re wondering whether you’ll catch them or if they’ll hit you on the nose! Jolly good fun, though! Corking! Lots more exciting than cricket.”
“Is it? I never played cricket.”
“Oh, no end! Cricket’s a bully good game, too, but it’s a lot more quiet and—er—sedate, if you know what I mean. Well, I’ll toddle. Hope you get on finely, Baker. And drop in some time, eh?”
“Thanks,” answered Dud. Then, as Hugh moved away, he blurted: “Did you really mean that, Ordway?”
“What? Why, of course!”
“Then—then I will. I didn’t know——” Dud’svoice trailed off into silence as he dropped an embarrassed gaze. Hugh smiled and nodded.
“Right-o, Baker! Glad to have you.”
Dud, wishing he hadn’t made such a fool of himself, bent stern attention on his glove until the red had subsided from his cheeks. “He will think me an awful kid,” he reflected. “Asking things like that and—and blushing like a silly girl! And of course he couldn’t say anything else. You won’t catch me going!”
Further self-communing was cut short by Mr. Sargent. “All right, Baker,” called the coach. “Warm up, will you? Brooks will catch you. See if you can’t steady down today.”
Dud squirmed out of his sweater, pulled his glove on and joined Ed Brooks in front of the first-base stand. Brunswick had taken Kelly’s place in the box and it would be Dud’s turn next. As Brooks tossed the ball to him and spread his hands invitingly wide apart Dud hoped hard that he would be able to steady down, but doubted it. As yet the recollection of that impulsive question to Ordway still made his face burn. Consequently when, after pitching a half-dozen easy ones to warm his arm, he began to put on a little speed, he was pleased as well as surprised to find that some of his old control had come back. Encouraged, he made greater efforts to put the ball where he wanted to and, unconsciously,began to “steam up.” But Brooks cautioned him and Dud slowed down.
“That’s pitching ’em,” called Brooks. “They’re all straight, though, Dud, or pretty near it. Try a slant.”
But Dud resisted the temptation to “hook” one and shook his head. Instead, he sent over a slow one that fooled Brooks completely and brought from the latter a laugh at his own expense. “Do it again,” he urged, as he threw the ball back. “I want to get used to those.”
“I’ll wait until you’re not expecting it,” laughed Dud.
There was no line-up today, but first and second-string players were batting and running the bases, taking their places in the field ultimately to let others come in. Weston, Kelly and Brunswick had held the mound for an inning or two apiece, while Ben Myatt and Nate Leddy were trying to improve their hitting, a thing that the latter was rather weak at. Presently the outfielders were called in in a body and others took their places, and changes were made in the infield. Brunswick went to the shower and Dud to the pitcher’s box. Pete Gordon was still catching.
“All right, Baker!” called Pete. “Strike ’em out, boy. Put her over now.”
Neil Ayer fouled one and then landed on the next and went to first, and Bert Winslow took hisplace. The pitchers were not expected to work hard, for a batsman stayed in until he hit or was caught out. Bert was difficult to dispose of, since he cannily refused everything that wasn’t distinctly a strike, and Dud pitched a dozen deliveries before Bert found one he liked and rapped it to deep center. Meanwhile Mr. Sargent was coaching Ayer from first to second and on to third, making him slide to every base even though he was not threatened. When, however, he tried to steal home on Dud’s wind-up, Dud managed to keep his head, send in a fast one and saw Ayer nailed a yard from the rubber.
It wasn’t especially interesting work and some of the hits were screechers into deep right, left or center that the outfielders couldn’t begin to get their hands onto. Dud had not had much experience in fielding his position and was momentarily in fear that a hot liner would come at his head. If one did, he was quite certain he would duck and quite disgrace himself. But when, after some nine or ten batters had faced him, Captain Murtha hit one squarely on the nose and it came straight at Dud, the latter involuntarily put up his hands and, while he didn’t make the catch, knocked it down, recovered it and tossed out Murtha at first. He got a round of applause from the stand for that, which so rattled him that his next delivery shot past Gordona good four feet to his right and let in a runner from third. The batter sent the next one off on a voyage to deep center and took two bases. The base-runners were taking such extraordinary chances and Mr. Sargent was making such a hullabaloo back of first that Dud began to lose his control badly, and he was forced to put exactly eleven balls across before Weston, tired of waiting for a good one, reached for a wide ball and fouled out to first-baseman.
Then Star Meyer faced him and Dud made up his mind to make Star work for his hit. Star viewed the pitcher with amused contempt and Dud felt his cheeks tingle. But he set his teeth and sent a high one across that the batter disdained and followed it with one that barely cut the inner corner of the plate and was just knee-high. Star looked doubtful about it, but Gordon proclaimed it “a daisy, Star! They don’t come any better.” That apparently impressed Star, for he swung hard at the succeeding delivery, which, happening to be one of Dud’s slow ones, crossed the plate almost a second after the swing! Someone laughed and Star frowned haughtily. Dud tempted him with another wide one and then sneaked one across right in the groove and caught the batter napping. Gordon thumped the ball into his glove before he threw it back, a signal of commendation with the big catcher.
“That’s the stuff, Baker!” he called. “That’s pitching ’em, boy!”
Dud tried another slow one and again Star swung too soon and again a laugh greeted the performance. This time, with the ripple of laughter, came a smatter of applause from the handful of spectators on the stand. Star’s countenance lost its haughtiness and his mouth set grimly. Dud decided that he might as well let Star hit and get rid of him, and so he tried to put one over shoulder-high and across the middle of the plate. But something went wrong. Dud was convinced afterwards that his foot had turned on a pebble. At all events, instead of traveling straight and true into Gordon’s waiting mitt, the ball took an erratic slant and brought up against Star’s shoulder. There was speed on the ball and the batter had scarcely tried to dodge it, and now he dropped his bat, clapped a hand to his shoulder and performed a series of most unconventional steps about the plate. Dud started toward him, but Gordon was already at his side and so Dud contented himself with a sincere “Awfully sorry, Meyer!”
But Star, impatiently throwing off the catcher’s hand, turned an angry countenance to Dud. “You meant to do that, Baker! You did it on purpose. I’ll get you for it, too! You can’t——”
But Mr. Sargent interposed then. “Tut, tut,Meyer! It was purely an accident. You must learn to get out of the way of them. Sorry if it hurt you, though. Get Davy to rub it for you. That’ll do for today.”
Star, pausing to cast a final ominous look at Dud, recovered his poise and, rubbing his injury, retired haughtily. Many amused glances followed him, for no one there doubted that it had been purely accidental and Star’s loss of temper had struck them as unnecessary. The incident ended Dud’s usefulness for that day, for his delivery became so wild that Mr. Sargent quickly took him out, putting in Weston to finish the practice.
Dud, yielding the ball shamefacedly, retired to the bench and donned his sweater. He was quite aware of the fact that Mr. Sargent meant him to return to the Field House, but the thought of the irate Star Meyer, who, by the time Dud got there, would doubtless be just getting into his clothes, deterred him. Instead, then, of leaving the field, Dud found a place on the bench and pretended deep absorption in the practice. Presently, though, a better idea presented itself. Across on the other diamond the second was putting in its first day of work under the tuition of “Dinny,” as Mr. Crowley, the assistant physical director, was called. He would, he decided, wander over there as unostentatiously as possible, and so escape Mr. Sargent’s eagle eye. Butit proved a mistaken move, for just at the moment that Dud detached himself from the few idlers on the bench, Mr. Sargent happened to look across the diamond, and his impatient voice quickly followed his glance.
“Baker! Go ahead in! I told you once!”
The fellows on the bench grinned and Dud tried his best to make it appear that he wanted nothing better in life than to do that very thing! But, just the same, once behind the stand and out of view of those on the diamond, his feet moved very slowly along the path. I don’t believe that Dud was a coward, for one may have no stomach for physical combat and yet be brave enough in other ways, but I am quite certain that he wished heartily all the way across to the Field House that the tall and dignified form of Star Meyer would appear at the doorway and proceed homeward before he reached there! But nothing of the sort happened, and when Dud entered the locker-room he was just in time to hear Star finish an account of the recent episode for the benefit of three boys who lolled on the benches in various stages of undress.
“He was afraid to give me one I could hit and so he whanged one straight at me. I wasn’t looking for it and couldn’t get out of the way, and it got me right on the shoulder. He threw it as hard as he could, too, and that arm will be out of commissionfor days. Pete had the cheek to tell me that it was an accident! Accident! Yes, it was—not! You wait till I get a chance at that fresh kid!”