For a moment there was silence and then Sam, stepping up to the umpire, a lad smaller than himself, said:
“Safe, eh? Not in a thousand years! You don’t know how to umpire a game. Safe! I guess not!” and drawing back his fist Sam sent it crashing into the face of the other lad.
CHAPTER XIX
JOE IS WATCHED
There was an uproar in an instant. Players started for Sam and the unoffending lad whom he had struck. There were savage yells, calling for vengeance. Even Sam’s mates, used as they were to his fits of temper, were not prepared for this. The Whizzer players were wild to get at him, but, instinctively Darrell, Joe, Rankin, and some of the others of the Silver Stars formed a protecting cordon about their pitcher.
“Are you crazy, Sam? What in the world did you do that for?” demanded the manager.
“He made a rank decision, an unfair one!” cried Sam, “and when I called him down he was going to hit me. I got in ahead of him—that’s all.”
“That’s not so!” cried the Whizzer captain. “I saw it all.”