“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Billy Mains.”
“Who’s Billy Mains?”
“He’s a tall, angular Yankee from somewhere down in Maine—Windham is the town, I believe.”
“Where did you see him?”
“With the Bostons.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“He was not given a fair trial. He pitched the last three innings of the opening game at Boston between Boston and Baltimore last season. The first Baltimore batter to face Mains thought he had the jim-jams, sure, for Mains started an outshoot, and, while the batter stood with his stick poised, expecting the ball would pass two feet beyond the plate, the sphere curved in round his neck and glanced off the end of his bat. The fellow was so astonished he dropped his bat and fell down himself trying to get out of the way after the ball had passed. He may have thought from the curves it had that it might turn round and come back his way. I was sitting in the grand-stand directly behind the catcher, so I plainly saw the double curve of the ball. A hundred others saw it, and half of them uttered cries of astonishment. One old man said he had been following baseball for seventeen years, but never had he seen anything like that before. Right then I resolved to find out how to make that curve, and I have been working at it ever since. One day, when I wasn’t thinking of it, I happened to throw an out with a peculiar snap of my wrist. I saw it take the double curve, and I was lucky enough to remember just how I did it. After that I kept at it till I was sure of throwing it when I wanted to, but I tried it so much I came near knocking my wrist out.”
“That’s it!” cried Bart. “That’s how the story started that you had a ‘dead wing.’ The fellows knew you had lamed your arm, but they did not see how you did it with the amount of throwing you did.”