“And Joe Matson did it!” added Spike. “Jove! but I’m glad for his sake! And him only a Freshman, playing on a scrub class team. I’m glad!”
“So am I,” added Jimmie Lee, who joined them.
“Will this get him a permanent place?” asked Ricky. “He’s entitled to it.”
“Well, he’s got his foot on the first rung of the ladder anyhow,” was Jimmie’s opinion. “But it’ll be a good while before he pitches for the ’varsity. He’s got to show the coaches that it was no freak work. Besides he’s got a year to wait.”
“And he can do it!” declared Spike. “I haven’t been catching him these last two weeks for nothing. Joe isn’t a freak pitcher. He’s got control, and that’s better than speed or curves, though he has them, too.”
On all sides there was talk about the result of the practice game. Of course the second nine had, in times past, often beaten the ’varsity, for the element of luck played into the hands of the scrub as well as into those of its opponents.
But the times were few and far between when the first nine had to go down to defeat, especially in the matter of a scrub Freshman pitcher administering it to them, and Joe’s glory was all the greater.
“Congratulations, old man!” exclaimed Avondale, the scrub twirler whom Joe had temporarily displaced. “You saw your duty and you done it nobly, as the poet says. You didn’t let ’em fuss you when you were in a tight corner, and that’s what tells in a ball game. Shake!”
“Thanks!” exclaimed Joe. He knew just what it meant for his rival to do this, and he appreciated it. “You can have a whack at them next.”
“I’m afraid not,” returned Avondale. “You did so well that they’ll want to keep you at scrub, and you’ll be on the ’varsity before you know it.”