“I’ll show you how to throw!” he exclaimed the next moment, and two balls went squarely in the basket. “Now, let’s see you and Matson play it off,” commanded Sam to Tom as though he was in the habit of having his wishes complied with.
Whether it was nervousness or not, or whether he wanted to see his chum do well when Sam was present, was not made manifest, but Tom did not come up to his previous record, and Joe easily won. In fact Joe made a much better score than Sam, and there were several curious glances directed at the pitcher.
“Don’t you want to try it some more?” asked Rodney Burke, and there was mockery in his voice.
“No!” half-growled Sam. “I’ve got to save my arm for the next game. We’re going to win that sure. So long,” and with that he turned and strode away.
“As cheerful as a bear with a sore nose,” remarked Rodney.
Ordinarily but little importance would have been attached to the coming game with the Denville Whizzers, but on account of two previous defeats, Darrell Blackney and George Rankin had several conferences concerning it. The captain and manager were plainly worried.
“Do you wish you had some one else to put in the box?” asked Rankin.
“Well, not exactly,” was the answer. “I haven’t lost faith in Sam, but I do wish we could depend more on him. He’ll pitch fine for several innings and then go to pieces. He tries to use too much speed and too many varieties of curves, I think.”
“By the way, what do you think of young Matson?” asked the captain.