Winning his game

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Neil Ayer fouled one and then landed on the next and went to first, and Bert Winslow took his place. The pitchers were not expected to work hard, for a batsman stayed in until he hit or was caught out. Bert was difficult to dispose of, since he cannily refused everything that wasn’t distinctly a strike, and Dud pitched a dozen deliveries before Bert found one he liked and rapped it to deep center. Meanwhile Mr. Sargent was coaching Ayer from first to second and on to third, making him slide to every base even though he was not threatened. When, however, he tried to steal home on Dud’s wind-up, Dud managed to keep his head, send in a fast one and saw Ayer nailed a yard from the rubber.

It wasn’t especially interesting work and some of the hits were screechers into deep right, left or center that the outfielders couldn’t begin to get their hands onto. Dud had not had much experience in fielding his position and was momentarily in fear that a hot liner would come at his head. If one did, he was quite certain he would duck and quite disgrace himself. But when, after some nine or ten batters had faced him, Captain Murtha hit one squarely on the nose and it came straight at Dud, the latter involuntarily put up his hands and, while he didn’t make the catch, knocked it down, recovered it and tossed out Murtha at first. He got a round of applause from the stand for that, which so rattled him that his next delivery shot past Gordon a good four feet to his right and let in a runner from third. The batter sent the next one off on a voyage to deep center and took two bases. The base-runners were taking such extraordinary chances and Mr. Sargent was making such a hullabaloo back of first that Dud began to lose his control badly, and he was forced to put exactly eleven balls across before Weston, tired of waiting for a good one, reached for a wide ball and fouled out to first-baseman.

Then Star Meyer faced him and Dud made up his mind to make Star work for his hit. Star viewed the pitcher with amused contempt and Dud felt his cheeks tingle. But he set his teeth and sent a high one across that the batter disdained and followed it with one that barely cut the inner corner of the plate and was just knee-high. Star looked doubtful about it, but Gordon proclaimed it “a daisy, Star! They don’t come any better.” That apparently impressed Star, for he swung hard at the succeeding delivery, which, happening to be one of Dud’s slow ones, crossed the plate almost a second after the swing! Someone laughed and Star frowned haughtily. Dud tempted him with another wide one and then sneaked one across right in the groove and caught the batter napping. Gordon thumped the ball into his glove before he threw it back, a signal of commendation with the big catcher.

“That’s the stuff, Baker!” he called. “That’s pitching ’em, boy!”

Dud tried another slow one and again Star swung too soon and again a laugh greeted the performance. This time, with the ripple of laughter, came a smatter of applause from the handful of spectators on the stand. Star’s countenance lost its haughtiness and his mouth set grimly. Dud decided that he might as well let Star hit and get rid of him, and so he tried to put one over shoulder-high and across the middle of the plate. But something went wrong. Dud was convinced afterwards that his foot had turned on a pebble. At all events, instead of traveling straight and true into Gordon’s waiting mitt, the ball took an erratic slant and brought up against Star’s shoulder. There was speed on the ball and the batter had scarcely tried to dodge it, and now he dropped his bat, clapped a hand to his shoulder and performed a series of most unconventional steps about the plate. Dud started toward him, but Gordon was already at his side and so Dud contented himself with a sincere “Awfully sorry, Meyer!”

But Star, impatiently throwing off the catcher’s hand, turned an angry countenance to Dud. “You meant to do that, Baker! You did it on purpose. I’ll get you for it, too! You can’t——”

But Mr. Sargent interposed then. “Tut, tut, Meyer! It was purely an accident. You must learn to get out of the way of them. Sorry if it hurt you, though. Get Davy to rub it for you. That’ll do for today.”

Star, pausing to cast a final ominous look at Dud, recovered his poise and, rubbing his injury, retired haughtily. Many amused glances followed him, for no one there doubted that it had been purely accidental and Star’s loss of temper had struck them as unnecessary. The incident ended Dud’s usefulness for that day, for his delivery became so wild that Mr. Sargent quickly took him out, putting in Weston to finish the practice.

Dud, yielding the ball shamefacedly, retired to the bench and donned his sweater. He was quite aware of the fact that Mr. Sargent meant him to return to the Field House, but the thought of the irate Star Meyer, who, by the time Dud got there, would doubtless be just getting into his clothes, deterred him. Instead, then, of leaving the field, Dud found a place on the bench and pretended deep absorption in the practice. Presently, though, a better idea presented itself. Across on the other diamond the second was putting in its first day of work under the tuition of “Dinny,” as Mr. Crowley, the assistant physical director, was called. He would, he decided, wander over there as unostentatiously as possible, and so escape Mr. Sargent’s eagle eye. But it proved a mistaken move, for just at the moment that Dud detached himself from the few idlers on the bench, Mr. Sargent happened to look across the diamond, and his impatient voice quickly followed his glance.