“A little!” cried Tom. “Say, I’d like to know what sort of a showing we’d have made at Excelsior Hall if it hadn’t been for your pitching! Didn’t you win the Blue Banner for us when it looked as if we hadn’t a show? Pitch! Say if those fellows at Yale——”
“Spare my blushes,” begged Joe, with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m going to college for one reason, more than another, because mother wants me to. Dad is rather set on it, too, and so I’ve said I’ll go. Between you and me,” whispered Joe, as if he feared someone would overhear him, “I have a faint suspicion that my respected mother wants to make a sky pilot of me.”
“A minister!” cried Tom.
“That’s it.”
“Why—why——”
“Oh, don’t worry!” laughed Joe, and then his face grew a bit sober as he continued: “I’m not half good enough—or smart enough. I’m not cut out for that sort of life. All I want is baseball and all I can get of it. That’s my one ambition.”
“Yes, it’s easy to see that,” agreed Tom. “I wonder you don’t carry a horsehide about with you, and I do believe—what’s this?” he demanded, pulling a bundle of papers from his chum’s pocket. “Some dope on the world series, or I’m a June bug!”
“Well, I was only sort of comparing batting averages, and making a list of the peculiarities of each player—I mean about the kind of balls it is best to serve up to him.”
“You’re the limit!” exclaimed Tom, as he tried unsuccessfully to stop Joe from grabbing the papers away from him. “Do you think you might pitch to some of these fellows?”
“I might,” replied Joe calmly. “A professional ball player lasts for some time, and when I come up for my degree on the mound at some future world series I may face some of these same men.”