CHAPTER VII
IN THE BASEBALL CAGE
The poker incident caused repeated discussions between the classmates. Melvin was sure Tommy’s method was wrong, though he could not suggest a satisfactory substitute except to thrash Bosworth until he made amends; while Varrell, though disapproving of poker in general, maintained that in this exceptional case the means were excusable. Neither succeeded in bringing the other over to his view.
It happened that Tompkins, who was not bothered by scruples as to his course, was the chief sufferer by it; for additional victims kept turning up with sad tales to have their losses made good by the generous restorer, until Tommy had parted not only with his questionable winnings, but with the surplus of his honestly acquired quarterly allowance as well. This latter fact he did not confide to his friends. It seemed to detract somewhat from the excellence of the joke.
Meantime the baseball practice in the cage was taking the usual course. Besides Flanahan, two or three other fellows were pitching, among them Tompkins. The latter had been pulled out of obscurity by some enthusiast who discovered that he had had experience in the box, and so reluctant Tommy was now forced to take his regular turn in the cage with the rest. Phil did his work with all the energy he possessed, not because he had any real hope, but because his heart and ambition were in the contest, and even the prospect that the battle would go against him did not take away his joy in the fighting.
Flanahan had good sharp curves and high speed. His best balls were a jump at the shoulder and a fine abrupt drop. Tompkins had fewer curves at his command, but he could vary his speed in a most deceptive way, and he showed an ability to put the ball where he wanted it and where the batsman did not like to have it come. Another advantage Tompkins possessed lay in his coolness; gibes from batters or spectators never hurried or confused him, while Flanahan’s quick temper went to pieces under slight provocation. Smith, the best class-team pitcher of the last season, was a third candidate, but ranked unquestionably after Tompkins.
Flanahan’s curves were the delight and admiration of the spectators, who would cluster around the catcher’s end of the cage when Flanahan was pitching, and express their appreciation by manifold ejaculations. Such wonderful rises and drops and shoots, the Hillburyites would certainly find impossible to hit. And so did the Seatonians, for that matter, though the result was really due as much to the wildness of the pitching, and the consequent fear of getting hit on the part of the batsmen, as to the skill of the pitcher. For the most part Flanahan preferred to let some one else pitch for the batting, while he practiced by himself.
The first time Phil came up to bat Flanahan, he had the misfortune to get hit. Phil was a right-hander who batted left, and Flanahan’s wide out off the plate caught the boy in the back as he turned to dodge, and inflicted a painful bruise. The result was to give him a scare that prevented his facing the pitcher for a fortnight, and confirmed Sands in the impression that he was too young and green to be of any use on the school nine. As the cage practice is necessarily limited to pitching, batting, sliding, and handling grounders, and Phil as a candidate for the out-field was not given much chance at grounders, he seemed to have excellent prospect of being dropped from the squad among the first. It was Wallace who saved him from this ignominy.
Wallace was the head coach for baseball at the great university near by,—a graduate a year or two out of college, with an enthusiasm as unprofessional as his knowledge of the game was complete and technical. He could pitch and field and hit; he was a master of the ritual of that mysterious coaching book in which are written all possible details of play under all possible circumstances, and on which the Varsity candidates are examined for their positions as a candidate for a degree is quizzed by the specialists who sit in commission over him. Indeed, Wallace was more of a master than the original authors, for the supplement was of his own making. Though not a Seatonian himself, his baseball sympathies were wide, and his college mates from Seaton had found no difficulty in enlisting his help for the school nine.
He began with grounders which he made the boys take with heels together and elbows between the knees, bending slightly forward as they settled. Some did this instinctively as the most natural way, others went down on one knee or tried to make the hands alone a substitute for a solid wall of arms and legs. With others, again, Wallace found fault for sinking for the ball and rising before they got it. “Settle, get the ball, then rise and throw” was, according to the college expert, the right order of movements for “gathering in” grounders.