Naturally there was a big crowd of spectators. Practically every boy in town was present, ready to root for his favorite team, and the grand stand was well filled with older enthusiasts.
When Troop Five won the toss and spread out on the field, Dale Tompkins, with a faint sigh, dropped down on the bench he had ornamented for most of the season. Watching Ranny Phelps walking out to the mound, a wave of envy, pure and simple, swept over him. He wanted to pitch–desperately. At that moment he would have welcomed almost any contingency–even the unthinkable “blowing up” that Court had predicted–that would give him his chance. He had done practically nothing all the season, and it seemed unfair that the last game should come without giving him a single opportunity of showing his mettle.
“What’s the use of trying at all if you never get a show?” he thought disconsolately.
But the mood did not last long. Dale was too keen a baseball fan not to become swiftly absorbed in the game which meant so much to himself and his brother scouts. There could be no question of Ranny’s fine form. For the first five innings not a hit was scored against him. To be sure, several players made first on various errors, but none got beyond third, and in the meantime Troop Five had scored two runs.
“He’s certainly some pitcher!” Tompkins remarked rather wistfully to Paul Trexler, who had taken a seat beside him. “Looks as if we had the game cinched.”
“I hope so. If only he don’t–er–blow up–”
“Blow up!” interrupted Tompkins, sharply. “Does he act like it? You’ve been listening to Court Parker’s rubbish, Paul. I never saw any fellow pitch a steadier game.”
But though he had been swift to deny the possibility, Trexler’s remark lingered in Dale’s mind, and almost unconsciously he began to watch for signs which might confirm it. The fellows that composed the rival team were rather older than the average scout and of a certain rough-and-ready type which made their joshing apt to carry more sting than that sort of thing usually does. So far, however, there had been little in the pitcher’s manner or behavior for them to take hold of, and the stream of commonplace chatter and joking seemed to affect Ranny as little as water does a duck. He took it carelessly, with now and then an apt retort which turned the laugh against the other fellows, and throughout the sixth and seventh innings his work continued to show much of the smooth perfection it had displayed from the first.
It was in the beginning of the eighth that Tompkins’s face began to grow a little troubled. Ranny had several rather noticeable mannerisms, which were especially apt to appear on the flood-tide of success. Whether deliberately or not, he had hitherto suppressed them, but now he seemed momentarily to relax his vigilance.
He had struck out the first batter, and as the second stepped up to face him the pitcher paused, swept the grand stand with a leisurely glance, and then tossed back his head in an odd, rather affected gesture before starting to wind up. The gesture had probably originated on the gridiron, where hair is worn rather long and is apt to trail into one’s eyes; here it looked a bit foolish, and instantly one of the opposition, who was coaching at first base, a red-headed fellow named Conners, seized upon it.