The good-natured giant, thus addressed, picked up his bat and came to the plate.
“Get it over the plate now, kid, and I’ll kill it,” he grinned.
A little flustered by this confidence, Bert sent one in waist high, just cutting the corner. Drake swung at it and missed it by six inches.
“One strike,” laughed the coach, and Drake, looking a little sheepish, set himself for the next.
“Give him a fast one now, shoulder high,” ordered the coach. Again the ball sped toward the plate and Drake struck at it after it had passed him and thudded into the catcher’s glove.
“Gee, I can’t hit them if I can’t see them,” he protested, and the coach chuckled.
“No,” he said, as Bert poised himself for a third pitch, “no more just now. I don’t want you to throw your arm out at practice. There are other days coming, and you won’t complain of lack of work. Come out again to-morrow,” and he walked away indifferently, while his heart was filled with exultation. If he had not unearthed a natural-born pitcher, he knew nothing about ball players.
Drake was more demonstrative. While Bert was putting on his sweater, he came up and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Say, Freshie,” he broke out, “that was a dandy ball you whiffed me with. You certainly had me guessing. If that swift one you curled around my neck had hit me, I would have been seeing stars and hearing the birdies sing. And I nearly broke my back reaching for that curve. You’ve surely got something on the ball.”
“Oh, you’d have got me all right, if I’d kept on,” answered Bert. “That was probably just a fluke, and I was lucky enough to get away with it.”