The latter went awkwardly to the plate and a laugh ran through the crowd at the unusual sight.
Joe lobbed one over and the Chinaman swung listlessly a foot below the ball.
“Easy money,” laughed Denton.
“Where’s that good eye you said this fellow had?” sang out Willis.
The second ball floated up to the plate as big as a balloon, and again the wrestler whiffed, coming nowhere near the sphere.
But as Joe wound up for the third ball, the listlessness vanished from the Chinaman. A glint came into his eyes and every muscle was tense.
The ball sped toward the plate. The wrestler caught it fair “on the seam” with all his powerful body behind the blow.
The ball soared high and far over center field, 190 looking as though it were never going to stop. In a regular game it would have been the easiest of home runs.
The wrestler sauntered away from the plate with the same bland smile on his yellow face while the crowd cheered him. He had turned the tables, and the laugh was on Joe and his fellow players.
“But why,” asked Jim, after the game had resulted in a victory for the visitors by a one-sided score, and he was walking back with Joe to the hotel, “did he make such a miserable flunk at the first two balls? Was he kidding us?”