“Well, I wouldn’t do it any more. You see if you can’t reach the toe-plate without going through so many motions. Cut out that second swing of yours, why don’t you? Here’s you.” Ben went through an exaggerated imitation of Dud’s wind-up. “Too much work, see? If you had a man on second, now, you couldn’t do half that, boy; he’d be sliding into the plate before you were through. Get your body into it and stop throwing your arm around. It’s the body that puts the speed into the ball. You want to start easy and work up gradually until, when the ball leaves your hand, you’re at the top of the pitch. The way you do it, Baker, you get a lot of motion up and then lose it before you pitch. And you tire yourself a lot. I couldn’t last five innings if I threw my arms around like that. I hope you don’t mind my criticizing you, Baker.”
Dud didn’t, and tried to say so, but his response was not much more than a murmur. However, Ben went on cheerfully.
“Just at first you won’t have the control you have now, I guess, but after you’ve got on to the hang of it you’ll find you can pitch a lot easier. Just try it, will you?”
Dud’s first attempt was a complete failure, for he started unthinkingly on that second swing, tried to stop it and got so confused that he didn’t even let the ball out of his hand. Ben suggested getting used to the wind-up before trying to pitch, and so Dud twirled and twisted a number of times, uncomfortably conscious of the few loiterers watching through the netting, and finally got so that he was able to reach the moment of delivery without falling over his feet. But when he tried to pitch a few straight balls into Ben Myatt’s mitten he discovered that the change in his method had seemingly spoiled his direction, for more than once Ben had to reach for a wide one or else scoop one off the floor.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Ben. “You’ll get your eye back again. That’s enough for now, I guess. There’s one more thing I’d suggest, though, Baker. You’re trying to pitch too many different things. You were hooking them in and out and dropping them and trying to float ’em, too. You don’t need all that, boy. Not yet, anyhow. You take my advice and learn to pitch a good straight ball. Get so you can send it high, low, in or out or right in the groove. Then learn to change your pace without giving it away to the batsman. After that there’s plenty of time for drops and hooks. I tell you, Baker, the fellow that has control is the fellow the batters hate to stand up to. This thing of having fifty-seven varieties of balls doesn’t cut much ice, old man.” Ben opened the door and gently pushed Dud out ahead of him and they went across to the locker-room. “A chap who can tease the batter with the straight ones, slip one across for a strike now and then, follow a fast one with a slow one and do it all without changing his style is the fellow who wins his games. I’m not saying hooks and floaters and all those aren’t useful, for they are, but I do say that when a fellow’s beginning he ought to pin his faith to just one thing, and that’s control. Don’t be worried if they hit you hard at first; they’re bound to; but just keep on learning to put ’em where you want to, and the first thing you know you’ll be fooling them worse than the curve artist. Practice that new wind-up, boy, and cut out all the unnecessary gee-gaws that just use up your strength. Nine innings is a whole month sometimes and it’s the very dickens to feel your muscles getting sore along about the sixth. So long, Baker. Good luck.”
Dud thought it over while he stood under the shower and while he pulled on his clothes. Maybe Ben Myatt was right, he reflected, but he was a bit proud of his ability to “put something on the ball” and confining himself to straight ones didn’t sound interesting. For a moment he wondered if Ben was trying to steer him away from his hooks and drops so that he wouldn’t prove a rival. Then the absurdity of that suspicion dawned and he smiled at it. In the first place, Ben wouldn’t be in school another year, and in the second place Dud was certain that he would never be able to pitch as Ben could if he kept at it all his life! In the end, by which time he was tying his scarf in front of one of the little mirrors, he decided that Ben’s advice was excellent and that he would follow it, for a while at least.
The next afternoon, Hal Cherry, catching Dud and Kelly, looked a trifle surprised and a bit disgusted, too, when Dud’s delivery suddenly exhibited a strange eccentricity. Cherry had to spear the air in all directions that day, and Mr. Sargent, watching and counseling the fellows, followed Dud’s doings with dubious eyes. Nor was Dud perceptibly more steady the day following, and Brooks, who caught him, protested more than once. By that time Dud was getting discouraged and was strongly tempted to go back to his former more elaborate and far more labored wind-up, and would have done so probably had it not been for Ben Myatt’s brief encouragement after practice.
“Haven’t got the hang of it yet, I see, Baker,” remarked the veteran. “Keep on, though. It’ll come to you in another day or two, I guess. Try not to slow up just before your pitch, boy. That’s your trouble now.”
Pondering that hint, Dud hauled Jimmy out of bed early the next morning and conducted him out back of the dormitory, where, stationed midway between two windows, he made cheerful efforts to get his hands on the balls that Dud pitched him. Many of them, however, bounded unchallenged from the bricks and trickled back to Dud. One particularly wild heave came so near a window that Dud shivered, pocketed the ball and led the way back to the room.
“If,” said Jimmy disgustedly, on the way, “that’s a sample of what you can do with this simplified wind-up you’re telling about you’d better go back to the old stuff. There’s nothing in it, Dud!”