“Merriwell can handle him any time.”
“It’s always Merriwell, Merriwell, Merriwell!” sneered Pooler. “He is a good man, but most of the fellows seem to think he’s a phenom. It makes me tired!”
“He has done some phenomenal work,” said Parker. “Take the football game with——”
“Oh, that’s ancient history! You fellows don’t seem to get over that football game.”
“He did some fine twirling last season.”
“And spoiled his arm in the last hard game he pitched.”
“It didn’t look that way when he pitched for the ‘scrub’ against the regulars, and made a draw game of it. It struck me that he was in fine trim.”
“He worked for all there was in him that day,” declared Pooler, “and I have it straight that he has been tending his arm since then as if it were a sick baby. He does it up in arnica and witch hazel, and keeps it bandaged all the time. He wasn’t in condition to go in and save the Williams game.”
“He didn’t have to,” grunted Browning.
“He was needed badly enough. It was Hodge’s three-bagger in the ninth that brought in two scores when two men were out, and saved the game. I claim that hit was an accident. That being the case, it was an accident that beat Williams. If Merriwell could have gone in and saved the game, why didn’t they put him in?”