“But why should it? Just because I hold it with two fingers instead of three or four, why should it curve to the left?”
“Because when you let go of it you—wait a minute!” Sidney found his place in the book. “Because you ‘impart to it the rotary motion necessary to make it curve to the pitcher’s left.’”
“Well, but why?”
“Oh, shut up,” sighed Sidney. “You’re too inquisitive. It—it just does, I suppose.”
“Nothing ‘just does’ without a reason,” replied Tom seriously. “And I’m going to find out why. Seems to me if I knew why a ball curves one time and doesn’t curve another, I’d get the hang of it better. Read that stuff again, Sid.”
This time—Eureka! A veritable out-curve plainly visible to the naked eye, as Sidney triumphantly announced. And after that two more in succession! And then something went wrong again and the ball acted quite foolishly.
“You’re tired, I guess,” Sidney said. “Let me have a try while you rest up.”
So Sidney “put over” a few out-curves, making the astounding discovery that he and the book were quite in agreement as to the manner of holding the ball—a fact which he had doubted before,—and subsequently tried a drop with fair success. That slow ball wouldn’t materialise this evening. Then Tom sent Sidney to the fence with the mitt and tried again and again to make that obstinate leather-covered sphere do as he wanted it to. Once or twice it did, but the trouble was that Tom couldn’t discover why it did; or why it more often didn’t. Still, it could be done, and, moreover, he had done it, and that was something! Sidney wanted him to attempt an in-shoot or a drop or some of the other deliveries set forth in the book, but Tom shook his head.
“I’m going to learn that out-curve thing first,” he said doggedly. “When I get so I can do that every time, I’ll try a new one. Some day I’m going to be able to pitch ’em all. First, though, I’m going to find out why—why——”