Dick Merriwell himself, sitting quietly on the bench while the players of the two teams ran through their final practice, was confident of victory; but he had anxieties, too. He knew, what the cheering crowds above him did not, that Jim Phillips had been through enough in the last two days to make it impossible for any ordinary pitcher to do himself justice. But he knew, also, that Jim was by no means an ordinary pitcher. The rest of the team was all right, and Dick felt that Jim could count upon it for perfect support.
While the fielders chased batted balls, getting used to the playing surface of the field, entirely different from that at New Haven, Dick watched Jim shooting curve balls over a practice plate to big Bill Brady. Look as closely as he would, Dick could see no signs of nervousness or distress in Jim’s face. The sophomore pitcher—really a junior, now, since commencement was over, and the classes had all been promoted—had his usual perfect control, and he smiled and joked with Brady as he pitched. Dick gave a sigh of relief, and went out to give a few last orders to the players.
Harry Maxwell, as the most dependable outfielder on the Yale team, had been shifted to right field for the game, since right field is the hardest of all to play at the Polo Grounds. The new concrete stand makes the trouble. A ground ball, hit to right, bounds off the fence at most peculiar angles, and Dick, taking a bat, drove a dozen balls against it, that Harry might learn to judge the probable direction of all such hits. The knowledge might easily save the game, later on, Dick felt, by keeping a hit that an unwarned fielder would allow to be good for two bases, to a single. It was by just such foresight and preparedness that Dick had enabled Yale to win many games that, under another coach, the team would have lost.
In the press box a bell rang abruptly, and in a moment the great crowd settled back tensely to watch the beginning of the contest. The bell was the signal for play to begin, and the blue-clad umpires appeared punctually to the minute, one from each of the two great major leagues, assigned to arbitrate this most important of college games.
Captain Bowen, of Harvard, already arrayed in his chest protector and wearing his big catcher’s mitt, went to the plate to arrange final details with Captain Sherman, of Yale, playing his last game for the blue, and one of the umpires spun a silver quarter in the air.
Sherman called the turn, and sent Harvard to the bat. Jim walked slowly and confidently to the pitcher’s box, and, with one mighty roar of delight from the crowd, the game was on.
Well as he looked, and strong as he undoubtedly was, Jim was tired. His muscles ached, and his eyes hurt as the glare of the sun struck them. But he was determined to win, and he felt that nothing could keep him from doing it. The honor of Yale was in his keeping, and he intended to make no Yale man regret it.
Behind him, as he faced Reid, the first Harvard batter, he heard a rapid-fire chatter from the infielders. Sherman’s deep bass calling, “Steady, old boy, make them work!” was echoed by Carter’s excited falsetto, cheering him on. And the others, Jackson, and Horton, the shortstop, added their voices. But he paid little attention to them. His eyes were fixed on Brady’s hands, playing aimlessly, as it seemed, first with his mask, then with his glove, but really, to those who knew the Yale code of signals, giving Jim his decision on the sort of ball to be pitched.
Thud! The first ball split the plate before it landed in Brady’s big mitt, and as the umpire’s hand went up and he yelled “Stri-i-i-ke one!” the whole right side of the stands, where the Yale rooters were massed, burst into a sea of waving blue flags, while ten thousand throats were split with a wild Yale yell. It was a good start.
But Reid, smiling, his jaws working mechanically as he chewed the gum that baseball players use to keep their nerves steady, was unconcerned. He was too old a hand to be impressed by a single ball, and he knew that in this game a single run was likely to settle the issue. He had faced Jim before, and knew how fine a pitcher he was, and he was determined to wait for the sort of ball he could hit, even if he struck out three or four times before it came to him. Reid was a fine, scientific batsman, too good to care about his average, as long as he made hits when they would count toward runs; and Jim’s reputation worried him no more than did the enormous crowd. He even forgot the crowd—his whole concern was for the diamond, for the pitcher, and for the fielders in front of him.