In the outfield, the marvelous fielding of Nippen astonished Merriwell. The gigantic, overgrown fruit picker, in his lumbering fashion, fairly ate up the ground. When he went after a high one, he seemed never to know where it would fall, but when it came down, it invariably plunked into his mitt. He had no science, but he seemed to have luck.
“How do they strike you?” inquired Merry, as he and Clan conferred during a brief rest.
“Pretty promising bunch, Chip. But when they get up against those Clippers, it’ll be a whole lot different. Those fellows can do in their sleep what this crowd has to break their necks over.”
“That’s true, but, just the same, they’ll improve a lot by Saturday.”
Clancy shook his head doubtfully. It was clear that he was not greatly impressed by the Clippings.
The batting practice that followed served to back up Clancy’s opinions. Calling in the outfielders, Frank kept putting over nothing but outs and ins and straight fast ones, yet the batters could not seem to connect.
His coaching helped them a good deal, but nothing wonderful resulted. Nippen seemed to have spent all his energy on the one ball he had struck that morning. Chub Newton could hit nothing. Henderson was afraid to stand up to the plate, and Billy McQuade seemed to have lost his batting eye.
McCarthy, however, fell on the ball, and pounded it viciously until Frank served him up slow floaters, when he failed lamentably. Then Merry put Billy through his paces as backstop, using everything from the double shoot to the jump ball; and the work-out was over.
“It’s a bum lookout,” observed Billy, when they were walking together past the orchard to the house. “We did pretty rotten at bat to-day.”
“Oh, not so bad,” said Frank encouragingly. “We’ll all be nerved up more on Saturday, for one thing. Then remember, Bill, it isn’t the sluggers who win.”