“How does your arm feel to-day?” asked Dick. “Can you mow them down in the good old way, if you go in the box?”
“Never felt better in my life,” rejoined Bert. “I feel as though I could pitch all day if necessary.”
“That sounds good,” said Dick, throwing his arm over Bert’s shoulder. “If that’s the way you feel, we’ve got the game sewed up already.”
“Don’t be too sure, old man,” laughed Bert. “You’d better ‘knock wood.’ We’ve seen too many good things go wrong to be sure of anything in this world of chance. By the way,” he went on, “who is that fellow up near our bench? There’s something familiar about him. By George, it’s Ainslee,” and they made a rush toward the stalwart figure that turned to meet them with a smile of greeting.
“In the name of all that’s lucky,” cried Dick, as he grasped his hand and shook it warmly, “how did you manage to get here? I thought you were with your team at Pittsburgh. There’s no man on earth I’d rather see here to-day.”
“Well,” returned the coach, his face flushing with pleasure at the cordial greeting, “I pitched yesterday, and as it will be two or three days before my turn in the box comes round again, I made up my mind it was worth an all-night’s journey to come up here and see you whale the life out of these fellows. Because of course that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? You wouldn’t make me spend all that time and money for nothing, would you?” he grinned.
“You bet we won’t,” laughed Dick, “just watch our smoke.”
The presence of the coach was an inspiration, and they went on for their fifteen minutes’ practise with a vim and snap that sobered up the over-confident rooters on the other side. Their playing fairly sparkled, and some of the things put across made the spectators catch their breath.
Just in front of the grandstand, Bert and Winters tried out their pitching arms. Commencing slowly, they gradually increased their pace, until they were shooting them over with railroad speed. The trainer and manager, reinforced by Mr. Ainslee, carefully watched every ball thrown, so as to get a line on the comparative speed and control. While they intended to use Bert, other things being equal, nobody knew better than they that a baseball pitcher is as variable as a finely strung race horse. One day he is invincible and has “everything” on the ball; the next, a village nine might knock him all over the lot.