“We have four other substitutes and I’ll promise three of them for our scrub team, Brown,” Sadler declared.
“All right; that’s seven fellows and we can pick up two more, surely. Let’s hunt them up right now,” demanded Bill.
They did. As it was clearing, they went to the diamond and after a little practice all round at town ball, Bill watching closely, they got into the places best suited to each player and then elected Bill manager and Sadler captain. The big fellow and Dixon had discarded their suits for plain shirt and trousers, and a small collection was taken up for pants and some extra gloves. Mr. Gay gave them a catcher’s mask and some bats.
The next afternoon, the challenge having been formally given, the match between the regulars and scrubs took place, Siebold winning the toss and taking the bases, Mr. Gay acted as umpire.
Maxwell seemed to be in better form than usual. Perhaps because he found a “ragged lot of players,” as Bill put it. The scrubs had not fully got together and they went out, two on strikes, and Sadler’s fly was caught. The regulars went to bat, laughing, Siebold straddling the plate.
Gus stood in the box, smiling. He nodded to little Kerry behind the bat and Kerry inclined his head to the left. Sadler and Dixon were watching closely. Could the new pitcher on whom Brown appeared to stake so much really do anything? If he could send them over the way he boxed, thought Sadler, “good night”! Brown was all the time springing something worth while. That was just why he and Dixon had been willing to make a final kick at Siebold’s arbitrary rulings. And now here was Siebold himself, one of the surest batters in the team, facing the unknown quantity.
Gus put on no gimcracks nor did he make fancy swings. He merely made a step forward, raised his arm to throw and held it about two seconds—then there came across the plate something more like a streak than a ball—so it seemed to Siebold—and little Kerry, who had been squatting, nearly went over backward with the loud plop in his glove. Siebold stood, dazed.
“One strike!” called the umpire.
The ball went back to Gus who took it out of the air as if he were plucking at a snowflake. Again the step forward, the raised arm and the ball came along swiftly at first, then slower, much slower, but keeping up. Siebold’s heart sang. He would take this thing on the end of his bat and lift it beyond any hopes of a fielder’s reaching it—it meant a two-bagger sure. He struck; there was no contact of bat and ball; a fraction of a second later the sound of the ball in Kerry’s glove told him he had “missed it by a mile,” as Sadler bawled it out.
“Two strikes!”