“I wonder if I’m the hoodoo?” mused Joe. “They lost the first game I saw them play, and the next one I played in they lost, and here’s this one. I hope I’m not a jinx.”
Then he reviewed his own playing in the two games where he had had a chance to show what he could do, and he had no fault to find with his efforts. True, he had made errors; but who had not?
“I’m going to keep on practicing,” mused Joe. “If I can work up in speed and accuracy, and keep what curving power I have already, I may get a chance to pitch. Things are coming to a head with Sam, and, though I don’t wish him any bad luck, if he does get out I hope I get a chance to go in.”
Following this plan, Joe went off by himself one afternoon several days later to practice throwing in the empty lot. He used a basket to hold the balls he pitched and he was glad to find that he had not gone back any from the time when he and Tom, with the other lads, had had their contest.
“If I can only keep this up,” mused the lad, “I’ll get there some day. Jove! If ever I should become one of the big league players! Think of taking part in the World’s series! Cracky! I’d rather be in the box, facing the champions, than to be almost anything else I can think of. Forty thousand people watching you as you wind up and send in a swift one like this!”
And with that Joe let fly a ball with all his speed toward the basket. He was not so much intent on accuracy then as he was in letting off some surplus “steam,” and he was not a little surprised when the ball not only went into the basket but through it, ripping out the bottom.
“Wow!” exclaimed Joe. “I’m throwing faster than I thought I was. That basket is on the fritz. But if I’d been sending a ball over the plate it would have had some speed back of it, and it would have gone to the right spot.”
As Joe went to pick up the ball and examine the broken basket more closely a figure peered out from a little clump of trees on the edge of the field where the lad was practicing. The figure watched the would-be pitcher closely and then murmured:
“He certainly has speed all right. I’d like to be back of the plate and watch him throw them in. I wonder if he has anything in him after all? It’s worth taking a chance on. I’ll wait a bit longer.”
The figure dodged behind the trees again as Joe once more took his position. He had stuffed some grass in the hole in the peach basket he was using, and again he threw in it.