"The next one won't be a ball!" he muttered fiercely. He sent in a puzzling curve that enticed the batter.
"Strike one!"
"That's better!" yelled Boswell, from the coaching line. "Serve 'em some more like that, Joe."
And Joe did. No one but himself knew the effort it cost him, but he kept on when it was agony to deliver the ball. Perhaps he should not have done it, for he ran the chance of injuring himself for life, and also ran the chance of losing the game for his team.
But Joe was young—he did not think of those things. He just pitched—not for nothing had he been dubbed "Baseball Joe."
"You're out!" snapped the umpire to the first batter, who turned to the bench with a sickly grin.
Joe faced the next one. To his alarm the catcher signalled for a fadeaway. Joe shook his head. He thought he could get away with a straight, swift one.
But when the batter hit it Joe's heart was in his throat until he saw that it was a foul. By a desperate run Russell caught it. Joe pitched the next man out cleanly.
"That's the way to do it!"
"Joe, you're all right!"