“Time enough for that when he’s been through college, Ben. Besides, and meaning no offence, the boy’s too smart to waste himself playing baseball for a living.”
“I don’t know, Bat. Baseball isn’t what it used to be, and ball players aren’t like what they were once. Not that I’m knocking the old-timers, either. I come pretty near being one myself. But there’s a pretty fine, self-respecting lot of men playing professional ball these days. Why, say, it’s just as respectable a profession as—as medicine or law, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. I didn’t mean that. The trouble is a ball player uses up the best years of his life getting nowhere, Ben.”
“I don’t know about that, either. As I said before, it isn’t like it used to be. Ball players are pretty smart nowadays, and by the time they’re getting by they’ve worked up a nice little business on the side or saved up a tidy bunch of money.”
“If they’re the saving kind,” answered the coach with a smile. “You know yourself, Ben, you wouldn’t deliberately advise Pollock to become a professional ball player. Now would you?”
“N-no, I guess I wouldn’t. Still, if there wasn’t anything better——”
“There is, though, for that chap. I don’t know what it is, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders and he’s naturally smart and not afraid of work. If he was my boy, I’d put him into college, give him a couple of years to look around and decide on a profession or an occupation, and then see that he buckled down and worked hard. What’s his father like?”
“Dead. He lives with an uncle out at Derry. The uncle’s a farmer and a bit tight-fisted, they tell me. Maybe Tom will get the property when the old man dies. I don’t know.”
“Well, he’s got two more years at high school. By that time—I’ll have a talk with him some day. I haven’t much money myself, Ben, but I’d scrimp a bit to see a kid like that make good and not go to waste.”
“Why, say; so’d I, Bat. I’m fond of that boy, too. You’ve no idea how plucky he is. Why, when I ran across him at the boarding-house, Bat, he’d been teaching himself to pitch with one of these ten-cent books! And he was doing it, too! Look here, let’s you and me sort of keep an eye on him, Bat. I haven’t a pile of money, either, but I’d spend a little to help Tom through college, if that was what you were thinking of.”