CHAPTER XXVIII.
A PITCHER NEEDED.
For some time, indeed, there had been a feeling of uneasiness and apprehension on the varsity nine. This feeling culminated following the game with Williams in which the youngsters from the hilly country came near administering a most disgraceful trouncing to Yale. Pitcher after pitcher was tried in the box by the Elis, but the Williams lads seemed to find every blue twirler an easy mark. Only for the terrific batting of Henderson, and Cunningham’s freak home run that sent in three men ahead of him, Williams would have scooped the game.
That there was something the matter with Yale’s pitching staff the critics acknowledged. Efforts had been made to keep this fact out of the newspapers, and in some way influence had succeeded in gagging Walter Billings, the college reporter, whose opinions in regard to Yale athletics were highly respected and universally conceded to be remarkably astute. But Billings could be choked off no longer. He grimly declared that it was for the good of the nine and forthwith proceeded to express his opinion in print. From him it became universally known that Yale was far from satisfied with her pitching staff.
“Pumper” Welch, the chief pitcher of the team, was so sore over this that he refused to recognize Billings for several days. Welch claimed that a slight lameness in his arm had prevented him from doing his best in the Williams game. No one could remember of hearing him mention this lameness before he was batted out of the box. More than that, he seemed to have unusual speed that day, but the Williams lads had a taste for speed and simply ate up his fast ones.
In order to do its best a team must have confidence in its pitcher. Without such confidence the players are liable to make the most outrageous errors and in many cases the entire team will get rattled and go to pieces at a critical moment.
Yale dreaded the games that lay before her. The harder ones were to come. If Williams could be defeated only by a fluke home run, what would happen when the blue went up against the crimson? Harvard had the pitchers, and everything seemed to indicate that her team was stronger than it had been the season before when she snatched the championship from Yale in two straight.
Manager, captain, and coaches were worried. Consultations were frequent There was any amount of guarded talk and argument and a great deal of dubious head-shaking. Something must be done, but what?—that was the question.
One balmy morning Dick Merriwell met Billings on the campus. Walter squinted at Dick through his spectacles and then stopped short and called to him.
“Hello, Merriwell,” he said, shaking the freshman’s hand. “How’s trix? Everything going all right?”
“First-rate,” was the cheerful answer.