The batsman stepped back into the box, grinning and tapping his bat against the plate, and Tom looked to Walter for the signal, trying hard not to see the faces of the onlookers in the stand nor to hear their sarcastic comments and advice. Walter held one finger extended earthward under cover of his big mitt as he crouched behind the batter, the signal for a low ball. The batsman was a tall, weedy youth and a knee-high offering was likely to get by him. Tom gripped the ball, fixed his gaze on the lower point of Walter’s body protector, raised his hand well back and swung it forward. Walter leaped a yard to the right and saved the day, for the ball was intent on tearing a hole in the stand. Shouts and hoots and the thumping of feet came from the seats, and Tom, with sinking heart, tried to hide his embarrassment by picking up a pebble and tossing it away, just as he had seen Thorny do. Then the ball came back to him.
“Take it easy, Pollock!” called Walter cheerfully. “Right across now, old man!”
But his fingers called for an out-curve and, with fear and mental trembling, Tom wrapped his thumb and first two fingers about the dirt-stained ball. Back went his arm overhead, up came his left foot, forward swept the hand, turning palm-uppermost as it descended, away went the ball, and Tom, crouching after the throw, watched anxiously. Straight for the batsman sped the ball and then, suddenly, as though responding to a sudden change of mind, it “broke” to the left, the batsman swung and missed, and Walter snuggled the sphere in his big mitt. It was the most pronounced break Tom had ever seen on his efforts, and a vast relief and encouragement came to him. If he could make that out-shoot go, he could certainly put a straight ball where it was wanted! “Strike one!” announced the umpire. The Blues broke into expressions of approval and satisfaction.
“That’s the stuff, Tom! You’ve got him swinging like a gate!” “He couldn’t see it, old man! You’ve got the stuff, all right, all right! Show it to him!” “Fine pitching, Pollock! Keep it up!”
Walter signalled for a high ball over the plate and this time Tom sent it swift and true. The batsman stepped back, hesitated, and swung—and again missed!
“Strike two!” droned the umpire, and, “Two and two, Pollock! Keep at him!” shouted Walter.
A low ball followed and the batsman disdained it. Unfortunately so did the umpire. Walter looked his disgust. “Hard luck,” he called as he tossed the ball back. “It was a dandy, Pollock. Let’s have another just like it!”
On the bases the waiting runners jumped and scurried and shouted, and back of first and third bases leathern-lunged coachers shot a cross-fire past Tom’s ears. “Some pitcher, what, Billy?” called the fellow behind third. “Used to pitch for the Gas House Team, he did! Watch that wind-up! Ain’t it a peach? He’s got everything there is—not!”
“Here we go! Here we go!” chanted the fellow at first. “Watch for a homer, fellows! Don’t tire yourselves running; just walk in! Now! now! now! Hi! hi! hi! There it is!”
Then the coachers’ voices were suddenly stilled, for the batter had swung at an out-curve and missed it by a good three inches, and Tom Pollock had made his first strike-out! That was worth living for, that moment! Tom wondered if the others, the fellows about him and the noisy crowd in the stand, could guess the feeling of absolute rapture that was his as the bat swept harmlessly over the ball. Something was singing inside him and there was a delicious tingle in his fingers and toes. He had pitched in a real game and struck out a batsman! He felt very, very proud and happy just then, and not a little astonished, too. He wished that Sidney might have been there to see it!