Pleasurably surprised, Tom walked down to the trampled spot where Sidney had stood and tried again. He tried many more times, in fact, and all to no purpose. The ball went swiftly enough, but it went perfectly straight, and all Tom’s efforts to make it repeat its former erratic flight were in vain.
“That’s funny, isn’t it?” he asked breathlessly at last. “It curved before all right. You saw it, didn’t you? Why doesn’t it do it now, Sid?”
“Oh, you probably don’t hold it the same way. Try again.”
Tom tried until he was out of breath and every muscle in his arm ached, and all to no purpose except to amuse Sidney.
By that time it was too dark to see well and he gave it up for the time. When Sidney joined him he was frowning accusingly at the ball.
“I’ll make you do it again,” muttered Tom, “if I have to keep at it all summer. You just see if I don’t!”
[CHAPTER IX]
TOM WANTS TO KNOW
The next evening they were at it again. Sidney was able to pitch an out-curve and a drop and had besides what he called his “slow ball.” The latter, however, didn’t differ much, so far as Tom could see, from any other ball. Besides, Sidney’s slow ball was an uncertain affair since it didn’t always materialise when he expected it to. Of course Sidney was willing and even eager to show Tom what he knew, but, unfortunately, Sidney didn’t know a great deal about the art of pitching a baseball, and what he did know he found it very difficult to expound. He showed Tom how to hold his fingers around the ball to deliver an out-curve, but as the “snap” and the “follow-through” have an immense effect on the ball’s flight, Tom’s efforts weren’t very successful. Still, he did manage, after awhile, to impart an out-curve to the ball and got so he could do it perhaps four times out of ten. The other times the ball generally went wild. Sidney tried to tell him about the motion of his arm and letting the ball slide off the tips of the first two fingers, but Sidney wasn’t very clear in his own head as to the philosophy of it, and so made a poor teacher. When Tom’s arm was tired, Sidney took his place and practised his slow ball with no great success and afterward tried to fathom the intricacies of the in-curve. This, though, was too much for him.