Lefty o' the Big League

by Burt L. Standish

In company with Jean Forsythe, a pretty, breezy Texas girl, Janet reached the baseball park the next afternoon about half past two. They drove down in Jean’s runabout, and the little car had no sooner come to a stop on the turf back of first base than Miss Harting forgot everything but her enthusiasm at the sight she beheld.

The whole field seemed filled with brown-skinned, clear-eyed athletes engaged in the usual practice. A number of them were scattered over the diamond in their regular positions, while some one batted to them. At a little distance others were practicing bunting. Back by the grandstand an old pitcher was warming up easily. Farther on a couple of cub twirlers were doing the same thing, with much more snap and speed. The crack of wood meeting leather sounded rhythmically, intermingled with shouts and joshing laughter. Balls curved gracefully into the sunlight. The air was soft and balmy, and full of the fragrance of growing things. The sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue, and it was springtime.

As the girl’s eyes took in the scene, her heart began to beat a little unevenly; her gloved hands lay quietly in her lap, the fingers tightly interlaced.

“It’s splendid!” she whispered to herself.

It was deeply interesting to one who could delve beneath the surface, and see a little of what lay under that smiling, sunny crust. Here was a veteran whose name was famous from sea to sea, and to whom baseball was the very breath of life, struggling with every fiber of his being against the inevitable. Perhaps no one else had a suspicion that he was passing his prime, but some day—and that soon—his throwing arm would lose its vigor, or his legs fail to take him down to first in the marvelous way they had done for years. After that the toboggan slide; back to the minors for a while, and then to the scrap heap.

To the seeing mind the field was full of little tragedies like this, which might seem cruel, but which were really inevitable. There is no sentiment in professional baseball. One unvarying law of the Big League is the survival of the fittest. As long as a man can fill a position a little better than any other player the manager can secure—and that individual is always on the lookout for new material—he stays on the crest of the wave. Once let him slip back a very little, however, and he sinks beneath the surface, never, or at least rarely, to struggle into sight again.

Happily Janet did not realize all of this, though perhaps she sensed intuitively a little of the hopes and fears, the jealousies and heartburnings, which were inevitable in such a gathering. Presently she saw Lefty waving to her, and answered him with a quick smile and nod. A little later, when the game began, he hastened over to the car, bringing Buck Fargo with him; for he was anxious that his friend should meet the two girls.

The big backstop could stay only a moment, but Lefty remained for several innings, enjoying the enthusiasm of the girls over the game. Toward the end of the fourth inning, however, he arose reluctantly from where he had been sitting on the step of the car.

“I’ll have to start warming up,” he explained. “They’re going to put me in with the beginning of the seventh.”

They both smilingly urged him to win the game for the cubs, said they would wait for him afterward, and watched him cross the field with a lithe, springy step.