“Good work, Matson,” complimented Hatfield. “Can you do it again?”
“Maybe—if I get the chance,” laughed Joe, who was on an elevation of delight.
“Oh, I guess you’ll have to get the chance,” spoke the captain. He did not notice that Weston was close behind him, but Joe did, and he saw the look of anger and almost hate that passed over the face of the pitcher.
“He looks as though he’d like to bite me,” murmured Joe. “And yet it’s all a fair game. I may get knocked out myself. But even then I’m not going to give up. I’m in this to stay! If not at Yale, then somewhere else.”
If Joe imagined that his work that day had been without flaws he was soon to be disillusioned, for Mr. Hasbrook, coming up to him a little later, pointed out where he had made several bad errors in judgment, though they had not resulted in any gain for the scrub.
“Still,” said the head coach, “you don’t want to make them, for with a sharp team, and some of the big college nines playing against you, those same errors would lose the game.” And he proceeded to give Joe some good advice.
When Avondale, the twice-humiliated pitcher, walked off the diamond that afternoon, he was joined by Weston, who linked his arm in that of the scrub twirler.
“Well, we’re both in the same boat,” remarked Avondale. “A better man has ousted us.”