“Mebbe you’d like him to toss you one,” suggested Kenny. “He’s got a nice little lob ball that mebbe you can hit.”
Buck Fargo simply smiled that wide smile of his, and waited quietly, his eye on Schaeffer.
“Look out!” shouted the pitcher, as the ball left his fingers the second time.
Fargo dodged instinctively, for the horsehide had started straight at him with burning speed. Only by bending swiftly and holding his bat far over the plate did he escape being hit.
This was one of Schaeffer’s little tricks to disturb the nerve of a batsman. With the finest sort of control, he could usually put the ball wherever he desired, and he chose on this occasion to send it as close to Fargo as possible. He shook his head with an air of relief as if he had feared he might hit the backstop, and was glad he had not.
As he straightened up, Fargo made no comment. He still smiled a little, but a close observer would have noticed that his jaw was a bit firmer and his lids slightly more drooping. If Schaeffer had only stopped to think, he might have realized how many, many times this Big League player had faced just such tricky pitchers before, and how perfectly he must have learned how to treat them.
This thought did not come to him, however. Balancing himself on his toes, he took a wide swing of his arm for speed, and lined the ball over. It seemed to start exactly as the last one had, but, as Fargo quite expected, it took such a sharp shoot that it cut the plate almost in twain.
The big backstop was ready for it. He met it directly over the pan, and sent it whistling above the head of the Texan first baseman, who leaped desperately and in vain for it.
By rapid work, the right fielder got the ball in time to cut the hit down to a single.