Batting to Win: A Story of College Baseball

by Lester Chadwick

Then there was Pete Backus, known as “Grasshopper,” from his desire, but inability, to shine as a high and broad distance jumper; “Bean” Perkins, a “shouter” much depended on in games, when he led the cheering; Dan Woodhouse, called Kindlings, and Jerry and Joe Jackson, known as the “Jersey Twins.”

Of course, Tom and his two chums had many other friends whom you will meet from time to time. Sufficient to say that he “made good” in the eyes of the coach, Mr. Leighton, and was booked not only to pitch on the ’varsity again, but he had been elected captain, just before the present story opens.

Phil Clinton was the hero of my second volume, a story of college football, entitled “A Quarter Back’s Pluck.” Phil was named for quarter back on the ’varsity eleven, but, for a time it looked as if he would be out of the most important games. His mother was very ill in Florida, in danger of death from a delicate operation, and Phil, and his sister Ruth Clinton (who attended Fairview Institute) were under a great nervous strain.

Langridge, seeing that Tom was beyond his vengeance, tried his tricks on Phil. Together with Garvey Gerhart, a freshman, Langridge planned to keep Phil out of an important game. They “doctored” a bottle of liniment he used, but this trick failed. Then they planned to send him, just before an important contest, a telegram, stating that his mother was dying. They figured that he would not play and that Randall would lose the contest—both Gerhart and Langridge being willing to thus play the traitor to be revenged on the coach and captain of the eleven.

But, with characteristic pluck, Phil went into the game, stuffing the fake telegram in his pocket, and playing like a Trojan, even though he believed his mother was dying. It was pluck personified. After aiding his fellows to win the championship, Phil hurried off the field, to go to Florida to his mother. Then, for the first time, he learned that the message he had received was a “fake”—for his mother was on the road to recovery as stated in a telegram his sister Ruth had received.

Of course the trick Langridge and Gerhart played was found out, and they both left Randall quietly, so that the name of the college might not be disgraced.

But though Tom, Phil, Sid and their chums lived a strenuous life when sports were in the ascendency, that does not mean that they had no time for the lighter side of life. There were girls at Fairview—pretty girls and many of them. One, in particular—Madge Tyler—seemed to fit Tom’s fancy, and he and she grew to be very friendly. Perhaps that was because Tom had rather supplanted Langridge in the eyes of Miss Tyler, who had been to many affairs with him, before she knew his true character. Then there was Ruth Clinton, Phil’s sister. After meeting her Tom was rather wavering in his attachment toward Miss Tyler, but matters straightened themselves out, for Phil and Miss Tyler seemed to “hit it off,” to once more quote Holly Cross, though for a time there was a little coldness between Tom and Phil on this same girl question. When this story opens, however, Tom considered himself cheated if he did not see Ruth at least twice a week, and as for Phil, he and Miss Tyler—but there, I’m not going to be needlessly cruel.

To complete the description of life at Randall I might mention that Dr. Albertus Churchill, sometimes called “Moses,” was the venerable and well-beloved head of the institution, and that as much as he was revered so much was Mr. Andrew Zane, the proctor, disliked; for, be it known, the proctor did not always take fair advantage of the youths, and he was fond of having them “upon the carpet,” or, in other words, before Dr. Churchill for admonition about certain infractions of the rules. Another character, little liked, was Professor Emerson Tines, dubbed “pitchfork,” by his enemies, and they were legion.

I believe that is all—no, to give you a complete picture of life at Randall I must mention that Sidney Henderson, the third member of the “inseparables” was a woman hater—a misogynist—an anchorite—a dub—almost anything along that line that his chums could think to call him. He abhorred young ladies—or he thought he did—and he and Tom and Phil were continually at variance on this question, and that of having girls’ photographs in the common study. But of that more later.

With Holly stretched out on the old sofa, and Phil and Tom in various tangled attitudes in chairs—Phil in the depths of the ancient one—the talk of baseball progressed.