“Well,” laughed Bert, “I don’t suppose the poet ever dreamed of that application, but, all the same, it is one of the most important things in the game to lead off with a man who has nerve and sense enough to wait. In the first place, the pitcher is apt to be a little wild at the start and finds it hard to locate the plate. I know it’s an awful temptation to swing at a good one, if it is sandwiched in between a couple of wild ones, and, of course, you always stand the chance of being called out on strikes. But at that stage of the game he is more likely to put over four balls than three strikes, and if you do trot down to first, you’ve got three chances of reaching home. A sacrifice will take you down to second, and then with only one man out and two good batters coming up, a single to the outfield brings you home.”
“Then, too, you went around the bases in fifteen seconds flat, the other day,” said Dick, “and that’s some running. I noticed Ainslee timing you with his split-second watch, and when he put it back in his pocket he was smiling to himself.”
“Flynn comes second, I see,” said Bert, consulting his list, “and that’s a good thing too. He is one of the best ‘place’ hitters on the team. He has the faculty that made Billy Keeler famous, of ‘hitting them where they ain’t.’ He’s a dandy too at laying down a bunt, just along the third-base line. If any man can advance you to second, Flynn can.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “with Drake up next, swinging that old wagon tongue of his, and then Dick coming on as a clean-up hitter, it will have to be pretty nifty pitching that will keep us from denting the home plate.”
“Last year the team had a general batting average of .267,” chimed in Dick. “If we can match that this year, I guess there’ll be no complaint. As a matter of fact, however, I’m a little dubious of doing that, especially with old Pendleton off the team. But if we come short a little there, I am counting on Bert holding down the batters on the other nines enough to make up for it.”
“If I get a chance, I’ll do my very best,” said Bert, “but perhaps I won’t pitch in a regular game all season. You know how it is with a Freshman. He may have to sit on the bench all the time, while the upper class pitchers take their turn in the box. They’ve won their spurs and I haven’t. They’ve ‘stood the gaff’ under the strain of exciting games, and pulled victories out of the fire. I might do it too, but nobody knows that, and I probably would not be called on to go in the box, except as a last resort. They may believe that I have the curve, but they are not at all sure that I have the nerve. Winters and Benson are going along now like a house afire, and if they are at top speed when the season begins I’ll see the pennant won or lost from my seat on the bench.”
“Neither one of them has anything on you,” maintained Tom stoutly. “Of course they are, in a certain sense, veterans, and then, too, they have the advantage of having faced before many of the players on the other teams. That counts for a lot, but you must remember that Hinsdale has caught for the last two years, and he knows these things as well as the pitchers. He knows their weak and their strong points, the ones that simply kill a low outcurve, but are as helpless as babies before a high fast one. He could quickly put you on to the batters’ weakness. But outside of that you’ve got them faded. You have more speed than Winters and more endurance than Benson. Neither one of them has a license to beat you at any stage of the pitching game.”
“Perhaps it’s your friendship rather than your judgment that’s talking now, Tom,” smiled Bert.
“No,” said Dick, “it isn’t. Tom’s right. You’ve got everything that they have, and then some. Winters’ rise ball is certainly a peach, but it hasn’t the quick jump yours has just before it gets to the plate. My eye isn’t so bad, but in practice I bat under it every time. Even when I don’t miss it altogether, I hit it on the underside and raise a fly to the fielders. It’s almost impossible to line it out. And your fast high one is so speedy that a fellow backs away from the plate when he sees it coming. I don’t know that your outcurve is any better than Benson’s, but you certainly have it under better control.”
“On the dead quiet,” he went on, “I’m rather worried about Winters this year, anyway. I think he’s gone back. He’s in with a fast bunch, and I fear has been going the pace. His fine work in the box last year made him a star and turned his head. It brought him a lot of popularity, and I’m afraid he isn’t the kind that can stand prosperity. He doesn’t go at his work in the right spirit this year. You all saw how he shirked the other day when we were training for wind.”