“Oh, it’s early yet,” answered the visiting captain.
But the Resolutes were destined to get no runs in that half-inning. One man popped up a little fly, which was easily taken care of, and the next man Joe struck out cleanly.
He was beginning to feel that he was getting in form again. All that Spring he had pitched fine games at Excelsior Hall, but, during the Summer vacation, at the close of the boarding school, he had gone a bit stale. He could feel it himself. His muscles were stiff from lack of use, and he had not the control of the ball, which was one of his strong points. Neither could he get up the speed which had always been part of his assets, and which, in after years, made him such a power in the big league.
Still Joe felt that he was doing fairly well, and he knew that, as the game went on, and he warmed up, he would do better.
“We ought to win,” he told Tom Davis, as they walked to the bench. “That is if we get any kind of support, and if our fellows can hit their pitcher. What sort of a chap is he?”
“Don’t know much about him. He’s been at it all Summer though, and ought to be in pretty good practice. We’ll soon tell. Len Oswald is first up.”
But that was all Len did—get up. He soon sat down again, not having hit the ball.
“Oh, I guess we’ve got some pitcher!” yelled the Resolutes.
“Even if he isn’t going to college!” added someone, and Joe felt his face burn. He was not at all puffed up over the fact that he was going to Yale, and he disliked exceedingly to get that reputation—so unjustly. But he did not protest.
When the second man went out without getting to first base, it looked as if the contest was going to be a close one, and there began to be whispers of a “pitchers’ battle.”