“To what?” asked Dick.
“How do I know? That’s what I’m waiting to see.”
CHAPTER XVI
PHIL MAKES HIS DÉBUT
“One strike!” called the umpire. Phil gripped the bat and waited. It was the first practice game, the scrub against the school. Phil had been put at left-field on the scrub; and he was now at bat nervously conscious that it was his first real trial, perhaps his only one, and that Sands was waiting for the pretext to fire him with the first batch of disappointed candidates. Tompkins was also on trial, and while he rubbed the damp ball into a state to grip decently for the next pitch, he considered whether he could afford to give the youngster an easy one to help him out, without interfering with his own reputation. Then he caught Sands’s signal as the crouching catcher wagged his hand between his knees, and answered it with an in-curve. No, there was no place in the Seaton game for favoritism. The boy must take his chance.
Phil’s bat came almost to the plate, but he stopped it short at the first veer of the ball. He had learned from Wallace to watch the ball, but it was Rowley who had taught him to detect the first sign of the veer.
“One ball!” shouted the umpire.
The next one was an out meant to swing over the plate. It swung too far, and Phil had to dodge to save himself, but he did it easily, stepping back just far enough to avoid the ball. There was no sign of fear in the movement.
“Hang a left-hander!” muttered Tompkins; and sent a straight ball over the corner of the plate a little below the shoulder.
With the instinct of a real ball-player Phil knew his ball and met it squarely, dropped the bat and scampered for first. He perceived as he ran that the second baseman jumped for it and missed it, and a moment later as he touched first he saw the centre-fielder stoop and then turn and run. He did not need the coacher’s advice to go down. By the time the centre-fielder got his hands on the ball, the runner was already beyond second; he slid to third with a fine dive, the prettiness of which was not spoiled by the fact that the slide was wholly unnecessary. At third he waited while the three men who followed him at bat went out in quick succession, two as victims of strikes, tempted to hit at balls they didn’t want, and one on a pop fly.