“Now boys, go in and clean ’em up!” exclaimed Luke, as his men went to bat, allowing the scrub the advantage of being last up. This was done to make the first team strive exceptionally hard to pile up runs early in the practice.
“Don’t any of you fan out,” warned Hiram. “I’m watching you.”
“And so am I,” added Dr. Rudden, the coach, as he strolled up. “You first team lads want to look to your laurels. You have plenty of games to play before the finals to decide the possession of the Blue Banner, but remember that every league game counts. Your percentage is rather low for the start of the season.”
He was putting it mildly. The percentage of Excelsior Hall was exceedingly low.
“Beat the scrub!” advised the coach-teacher.
“They can’t do it with Joe in the box!” declared Tom; and Luke and Hiram sneered audibly. Their feeling against our two heroes had not improved since the event of the initiation.
The scrub nine was not noted for its heavy hitting, but in this practice game they outdid themselves, and when they came up for their first attempt they pulled down the lead of four runs which the school nine had, to one. There was an ominous look on the faces of Luke and Hiram as the first team went to bat for the second time.
“Make ’em look like a plugged nickel,” advised Tom to his pitching chum. “The worse you make ’em take a beating the more it will show against Hiram and Luke. We want to get ’em out of the game.”
“All right,” assented Joe, and then he “tightened up,” in his pitching, with the result that a goose egg went up in the second frame of the first team.