BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN
Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell
PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS
Fascinating Stories of Athletics
A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with the rest of the world.
These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.
They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous right-thinking man.
ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT
101—Frank Merriwell’s Nomads
102—Dick Merriwell on the Gridiron
103—Dick Merriwell’s Disguise
104—Dick Merriwell’s Test
105—Frank Merriwell’s Trump Card
106—Frank Merriwell’s Strategy
107—Frank Merriwell’s Triumph
108—Dick Merriwell’s Grit
109—Dick Merriwell’s Assurance
110—Dick Merriwell’s Long Slide
111—Frank Merriwell’s Rough Deal
112—Dick Merriwell’s Threat
113—Dick Merriwell’s Persistence
114—Dick Merriwell’s Day
115—Frank Merriwell’s Peril
116—Dick Merriwell’s Downfall
117—Frank Merriwell’s Pursuit
118—Dick Merriwell Abroad
119—Frank Merriwell in the Rockies
120—Dick Merriwell’s Pranks
121—Frank Merriwell’s Pride
122—Frank Merriwell’s Challengers
123—Frank Merriwell’s Endurance
124—Dick Merriwell’s Cleverness
125—Frank Merriwell’s Marriage
126—Dick Merriwell, the Wizard
127—Dick Merriwell’s Stroke
128—Dick Merriwell’s Return
129—Dick Merriwell’s Resource
130—Dick Merriwell’s Five
131—Frank Merriwell’s Tigers
132—Dick Merriwell’s Polo Team
133—Frank Merriwell’s Pupils
134—Frank Merriwell’s New Boy
135—Dick Merriwell’s Home Run
136—Dick Merriwell’s Dare
137—Frank Merriwell’s Son
138—Dick Merriwell’s Team Mate
139—Frank Merriwell’s Leaguers
140—Frank Merriwell’s Happy Camp
141—Dick Merriwell’s Influence
142—Dick Merriwell, Freshman
143—Dick Merriwell’s Staying Power
144—Dick Merriwell’s Joke
145—Frank Merriwell’s Talisman
146—Frank Merriwell’s Horse
147—Dick Merriwell’s Regret
148—Dick Merriwell’s Magnetism
149—Dick Merriwell’s Backers
150—Dick Merriwell’s Best Work
151—Dick Merriwell’s Distrust
152—Dick Merriwell’s Debt
153—Dick Merriwell’s Mastery
154—Dick Merriwell Adrift
155—Frank Merriwell’s Worst Boy
156—Dick Merriwell’s Close Call
157—Frank Merriwell’s Air Voyage
158—Dick Merriwell’s Black Star
159—Frank Merriwell in Wall Street
160—Frank Merriwell Facing His Foes
161—Dick Merriwell’s Stanchness
162—Frank Merriwell’s Hard Case
163—Dick Merriwell’s Stand
164—Dick Merriwell Doubted
165—Frank Merriwell’s Steadying Hand
166—Dick Merriwell’s Example
167—Dick Merriwell in the Wilds
168—Frank Merriwell’s Ranch
169—Dick Merriwell’s Way
170—Frank Merriwell’s Lesson
171—Dick Merriwell’s Reputation
172—Frank Merriwell’s Encouragement
173—Dick Merriwell’s Honors
174—Frank Merriwell’s Wizard
175—Dick Merriwell’s Race
176—Dick Merriwell’s Star Play
177—Frank Merriwell at Phantom Lake
178—Dick Merriwell a Winner
179—Dick Merriwell at the County Fair
180—Frank Merriwell’s Grit
181—Dick Merriwell’s Power
182—Frank Merriwell in Peru
183—Frank Merriwell’s Long Chance
184—Frank Merriwell’s Old Form
185—Frank Merriwell’s Treasure Hunt
186—Dick Merriwell Game to the Last
187—Dick Merriwell, Motor King
188—Dick Merriwell’s Tussle
189—Dick Merriwell’s Aero Dash
190—Dick Merriwell’s Intuition
191—Dick Merriwell’s Placer Find
192—Dick Merriwell’s Fighting Chance
193—Frank Merriwell’s Tact
194—Frank Merriwell’s Puzzle
195—Frank Merriwell’s Mystery
196—Frank Merriwell, the Lionhearted
197—Frank Merriwell’s Tenacity
198—Dick Merriwell’s Perception
199—Dick Merriwell’s Detective Work
200—Dick Merriwell’s Commencement
201—Dick Merriwell’s Decision
202—Dick Merriwell’s Coolness
203—Dick Merriwell’s Reliance
204—Frank Merriwell’s Young Warriors
205—Frank Merriwell’s Lads
206—Dick Merriwell in Panama
207—Dick Merriwell in South America
208—Dick Merriwell’s Counsel
In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.
To be published in January, 1929.
209—Dick Merriwell, Universal Coach
210—Dick Merriwell’s Varsity Nine
To be published in February, 1929.
211—Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Players
212—Dick Merriwell at the Olympics
To be published in March, 1929.
213—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Tested
214—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Conquests
215—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Rivals
To be published in April, 1929.
216—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand
217—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Arizona
To be published in May, 1929.
218—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Mission
219—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Iceboat Adventure
To be published in June, 1929.
220—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Timely Aid
221—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Desert
Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Players
OR
HOW THE YALE NINE WON THE
CHAMPIONSHIP
By
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of the famous Merriwell Stories.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1912
By STREET & SMITH
──────
Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Players
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
Printed in the U. S. A.
DICK MERRIWELL’S HEROIC PLAYERS.
──────
CHAPTER I.
INSIDE BASEBALL.
Jim Phillips, industriously making himself a master of certain abstruse problems in mathematics, excited the derision of big Bill Brady, chiefly because it was a warm, lazy spring day, and, therefore, as Bill saw it, entirely out of the question for serious work.
“It’s bad enough to have to go out and do baseball practice,” said Jim’s big catcher. The two were sophomores, and had won fame as the great Yale battery that had humbled every college team with any pretensions to the championship except Harvard. “But I suppose that if we’re going to win that series from the boys in the red socks, we’ve got to do a little practicing.”
Phillips himself paid no attention, but Harry Maxwell, his former roommate, who had dropped in for a call, was willing enough to talk.
“You’re not worrying about those Johnnies?” he said. “Why, Bill, they’ll be easy. We’ve whipped Princeton and Michigan—better teams than any Harvard has played, and better than Harvard, too, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Bill. “I’m no prize pessimist, but I’ve been watching this Harvard team pretty closely, and I’ve noticed that they haven’t had to work very hard to win any of their big games yet. For instance, they beat Cornell two games straight, and did it easy. They gave Pennsylvania the same dose—and we had the time of our lives beating both of those teams. They’ve got a pitcher called Briggs up there at Cambridge, and from the records he’s some pitcher. He played once against Cornell and once against Pennsylvania, and he shut them both out. He’s only pitched about five games this year, because their man from last year, Wooley, is plenty good enough to keep most college teams guessing. But they’ll serve Mr. Briggs up for us, with trimmings, believe me, and if we do any free and fancy hitting while he’s in the box I miss my guess.”
“I haven’t heard much about this Briggs,” said Maxwell curiously.
He knew that Bill Brady’s opinion on any baseball matter was a mighty good one, and that Dick Merriwell, Yale’s universal coach, regarded the big catcher as one of his most useful aides in the development of a championship team.
“That’s because you don’t read the Boston papers,” said Bill. “They’ve been keeping him pretty well under cover—and every one knows why that is, too. They’re saving him up for us. You know how they are up there—beat Yale, no matter what else you do or don’t do. If you can beat Yale, all right. But I was up in Cambridge one day last week, when you fellows didn’t know it, and I managed to see their game with Amherst without being recognized. They sent Briggs in to pitch the nine innings, and what he did to those Amherst fellows was a sin and a shame. They didn’t get a hit or a run. Now, Amherst isn’t much this year. We beat them in a walk, with old Winston pitching, and Sam Taylor doing most of the work for him behind the bat, at that.
“But the thing that got me was that Briggs wasn’t really working his head off at all. He just breezed along, and took things easy, and he’s got a catcher who understands every little trick to make a pitcher do his best—chap called Bowen. I know him well. He was a couple of years ahead of me at Andover, and he taught me a whole lot about the game then. Now he’s a senior at Harvard and captain of the team, and this boy Briggs is his specialty. He’s been spending seven days a week and about four hours a day coaching him, since March. And, take it from me, it’s showing up.
“He’s so much better than any of these pitchers we’ve been running up against that we’ll be lucky to get a hit off him. He can’t pitch more’n two of the games, though. That’s one good thing. They’ll use him at Cambridge in the first game, and shoot Wooley in for the second game here. And, if the series is even, they’ll have Briggs come back at us in New York. They’re willing to drop one game. I’ve told Mr. Merriwell all I know about Briggs, and he’s inclined to think we’re in for the toughest series yet.”
Baseball proved more attractive to Jim Phillips than the higher mathematics. He turned around to Bill Brady.
“What’s this chap got that makes you think so much of him, Bill?” he asked.
“Control,” said Brady. “He hasn’t got your curves—or, if he has, he didn’t show them. But he’s got control, and he can put that ball exactly where Bowen calls for it ten times out of ten. And Bowen knows just where it ought to go, too.”
“H’m-m,” said Jim soberly. “We’re not what you’d call prize hitters this year, Bill. Harry Maxwell here makes a long hit once in a while, and so can Sherman and Jackson. But you’re the only clean slugger on the team. How about it? Can you hit him?”
“Not unless he wants me to,” said Bill cheerfully. “He can keep that ball right under my chin if he wants to. He didn’t show a drop on that ball the other day, but if he’s got one he can fan me about four times. If he can’t, I’ll get a base on balls a couple of times. That’s about the limit of my speed against him. I can’t hit a high ball, and Bowen knows it, too.”
“It might be a good idea for you to learn, then,” said Jim pleasantly. He looked at his watch. “Come along! It’s half past one now. We’ll cut that lecture on political science—we’ve got three cuts left in that—pick up Sam Taylor, and go out to the field. Then I’ll show you a few things about high-ball pitching.”
Brady groaned in mock dismay at the prospect of some extra practice.
“Gee!” he said. “You’re a worse slave driver than Dick Merriwell himself. How about Harry here? He hasn’t learned to hit a fast shoot yet—and he always swipes at them. Doesn’t he need to practice, too?”
“He sure does,” said Jim Phillips. “Come on, Harry. You’re elected, too. We’ve got to try to have a warm reception ready for Mr. Briggs if he’s so especially keen about making trouble for us. Good thing you picked up one of his tricks, Bill. It may mean the difference between winning and losing if we can pick up a run right at the start, before he and Bowen get on to the fact that we’ve corrected some of the weaknesses he’s been counting on.”
Jim Phillips, already assured, by his remarkable pitching, of the captaincy of the next year’s nine, although he would then be only a junior, although few Yale captains are chosen from any but the senior class, had qualities of leadership that made his fitness for that important position very marked.
To induce men like Maxwell and Brady, his intimate friends and classmates, to go out on such a day, when the very air invited them to loaf and rejoice in the lassitude of the weather, was no small feat. It was his magnetism and his persuasiveness that accomplished it; and such qualities do much for a man who must lead other men. In college sports, particularly, a captain should be a leader rather than a driver, inducing men to do what he wants in a tactful way, so that they will be willing and eager, instead of feeling that they are being forced to do their work because of the authority vested in the captain.
Taylor, the senior catcher, once an enemy of Jim Phillips, but now his devoted friend, although Bill Brady had displaced him as the regular varsity catcher, as Jim Phillips had displaced Taylor’s roommate and closest friend, Bob Gray, as the first-string pitcher, proved very willing to go out to the field with them and catch for Jim while the other two practiced with their bats in the effort to become familiar with the curves most likely to be employed by the formidable Harvard pitcher.
At the field they found the diamond already well occupied with freshmen, who, while they awaited the arrival of their coach, were enjoying themselves in a scratch game. The upper classmen immediately impressed half a dozen of the youngsters as fielders, and stationing them in position, began their extra practice.
Dick Merriwell, the universal coach, arrived before they had been long at work, and, soon guessing what they were doing, stood apart and watched them.
“Good work!” he said finally, walking over to them. “Putting in a little practice for the benefit of Mr. Briggs?”
Brady explained what they were doing.
“I’m getting on to the way to slam that high ball out,” he said. “I’ve always stepped back from it before. I got hit on the head by one of those balls when I was a youngster, and I’ve been gun-shy ever since. But Jim’s got the right idea. He marked out a place for me to stand, and he’s been pitching so close to my head that, if I had a beard, he would have rubbed my whiskers off. I see now what my trouble was. I’d always draw away, and by the time I tried to hit the ball, I’d be off my balance, and couldn’t knock it out of the infield.”
Jim sent a high ball whizzing in just after that. Brady shortened his bat and drove the ball on a terrific line right over the third baseman’s head. In a game, such a drive would have been good for two bases at least, possibly three.
“You fellows stole a march on me here,” said Merriwell, with a smile. “That’s the sort of spirit that wins baseball games, too. Be ready, no matter how much trouble it is. It isn’t on the field that baseball championships are won. It’s in the heads of the winners—it’s the men who think about the game and know just what they’re going to do when the emergency comes along.”
Jim Phillips flushed slightly with pleasure. Like all other real Yale men, he had the greatest possible respect and liking for the universal coach. Moreover, Merriwell had aided him since he had been in Yale in several affairs that had looked serious, and he thought much of his praise.
CHAPTER II
JEALOUSY AND ITS RESULT.
Naturally, the Yale student body as a whole didn’t have the inside information about the Harvard team that had been obtained by Bill Brady and Dick Merriwell. Most of the undergraduates thought that Harvard would be beaten easily, for the men who had seen Princeton, Cornell, and Michigan humbled by the blue, had little idea that Harvard could be a more formidable opponent than any of the other nines Yale had defeated. Many of them had read of the feat of Briggs in shutting out Amherst without a hit or a run, but had not taken it very seriously. Yale had not used either of her first-string pitchers against a small college, but had depended upon Winston, a substitute, and even so had won very easily. So it was felt that Briggs, fine as his record against the Amherst team had been, had still to prove that he was worthy to be classed with Jim Phillips, who was already hailed by the newspapers as the best college pitcher of the year, and one, who, should he choose to do it, could make a great deal of money by turning professional and playing with some big-league team.
Gurney, a sophomore, voiced the general sentiment as he sat on the famous sophomore fence on the evening of the extra practice which Jim had planned to foil Briggs.
“They can’t touch old Jim,” he said. “I’m going to bet every cent I can raise on the game. This Briggs is all right, but he’ll have to go get a real reputation before he can scare us. Eh, fellows?”
There was only one dissenting voice in the little group that heard the little sophomore’s boast.
“Remember the story of the pitcher that went too often to the well,” said Woeful Watson, known to all Yale as the class pessimist of the sophomores. Watson, no matter how gay the company in which he found himself, always seemed impelled to cast a blanket of gloom over the occasion. “We’ve been depending too much on Jim Phillips. He has to do all the work. It isn’t fair. He’s only human, and some day he’s going to run up against some one he can’t pitch rings around. The rest of the team ought to do more than it does to back him up.”
“Shucks, Woeful!” said Jack Tempest, the sprinter, one of Jim Phillips’ best friends. “Cheer up. The team’s good enough. It isn’t a very hard-hitting team, I’ll admit, but it doesn’t need to get more than one or two runs. If they do that, Jim can attend to the rest of it by himself.”
“All right,” said Watson gloomily. “You fellows have been playing in fool’s luck all spring. Wait until after this series with Harvard is over before you do any crowing, though. You know the darky’s receipt for cooking a rabbit—first catch your rabbit.”
Although Watson could never understand the reason, it was nevertheless true that no matter how earnest his efforts were to make his classmates take a more serious and sober view of life, the effect was usually simply to make them laugh at him. They did so now, fairly exploding, and half a dozen of them formed a ring and danced around him, singing a mocking song, the words of which they seemed to make up as they went along.
Jim Phillips was an idol, almost, with his classmates. It was seldom, indeed, that any man reflected so much credit in his class as the famous pitcher. He was sure, too, to be a star on the football team in the following fall, and they were proud of him. But some of the class, although these were very much of a minority, and seldom made their opinions public, were far from proud. For one reason or another, but mostly because, having failed to win any such measure of success and popularity for themselves, they were jealous of Jim; not a few men in Yale, unworthy of the college as they thus proved themselves to be, would have secretly rejoiced had some disaster overtaken Phillips. Once or twice they had thought that their secret desire was about to be realized, but each time Jim, with the aid of the astute and resourceful Dick Merriwell, had emerged more popular than before.
“Listen to those silly goats,” said one of these disgruntled ones, Carpenter by name, as the dance about Watson continued. “I don’t see why they raise such a fuss about this chap Phillips. He gets all the praise, and fellows who are just as clever as he don’t get a fair chance. If you want to get along here at Yale, you have to be an athlete. Otherwise you can’t accomplish anything.”
Carpenter wore glasses, that made his staring eyes very prominent. He was thin, and there was certainly nothing athletic about his appearance. He usually had a book with him, and it was his boast that before he was graduated he would earn the title of the best student in his class. And he resented bitterly the fact that, so far, Jim Phillips was the principal stumblingblock in his path toward the honor he coveted.
Jim was as good a student as he was an athlete; but Carpenter, who was more concerned with bare facts and figures than with reasons why things he learned were so, had convinced himself that the reason that Jim consistently outshone him in the classroom and after examinations was that the professors displayed favoritism as a reward for Jim’s successes in athletics.
“I think you’re right, Carpenter,” said the man he had addressed, one of his own type.
In college, such men are known as grinds. For them the college life has no meaning. They devote themselves entirely to their books, doing nothing to improve themselves by association with other students, and taking no part in the athletics that would give them a healthy body—quite as important a part of college training as that of the classroom, did Carpenter and his kind only understand it.
“But I don’t see what you’re going to do about it,” added Carpenter’s friend.
“I’d like to put something over on Phillips,” said Carpenter viciously. “He needs something to take him down a bit. He thinks now he’s the biggest man in Yale. If you ask me, I think he puts on an awful lot. I know he’s a good pitcher, but he poses as a saint, too, that would never do anything wrong. I’d like to try him on that—see if he’s really as good as he’s made out to be.”
“You’re a fine pair,” said a new voice. “Loyal to a classmate—that’s real Yale spirit.”
Startled at being overheard, Carpenter and his companion, Shesgren, looked up. They were amazed and confused to see that the man who was speaking to them was Parker, a junior, and known as a big man in his class. He was an athlete, though not a baseball player, football being his sport. Indeed, there was even a chance that he might be captain of the football team the next fall. Danby, the man elected after the last season, had been forced to leave Yale for family reasons, and the election to pick his successor had not yet been held. Parker was one of three candidates. For him to have heard what they said, Carpenter and Shesgren were convinced, would mean a lot of trouble for them.
But, after looking at them contemptuously a minute, Parker smiled.
“I don’t know that I blame you much, at that,” he said. They plucked up at that, surprised as they were to hear him say it. “I must confess that I get rather tired myself sometimes when I hear them chanting the praises of this fellow Phillips. He’s done pretty well, but he’s got an awful lot to do yet before he’ll be entitled to all the honors every one here seems determined to give him. For instance, there’s this baseball captaincy. Every one says he’s sure to be elected—and that’s a bad precedent, and a dangerous one.
“We’ve done well in athletics here for years, but we’ve had the practice of electing seniors to captaincies, and, when it’s worked as well as it has, I don’t see any reason for changing around now and putting a junior in to run a team as important as the baseball nine. Steve Carter’s the man for captain. If Phillips does as well next year as he has this, there’ll be no one to oppose his election in his senior year—and he ought to wait until then.”
“After all,” said Jack Tempest, who had overheard the last few words of what Parker had said, “that’s a matter for the baseball team to decide, isn’t it, Parker? They elect their own captain, and class feeling won’t enter into it. There are only three sophomores on the team, and Jim himself, I know, will vote for Carter, if he runs. Brady and Maxwell will vote for Jim, I suppose, and so will Carter. Jackson is a junior—I don’t know what he’ll do. Gray and Taylor are seniors—so’s Sherman, and some of the others.”
Parker turned and looked at Tempest in a coldly, insolent way that brought the Virginian’s hot blood to his cheeks in a flush of anger.
“I don’t remember saying anything to you, Tempest,” said Parker. “I was talking to two friends of mine here. When we want the benefit of your advice, we’ll be able to ask you for it, you know.”
Tempest was furious. He raised his hand as if he would strike the junior who had insulted him, but his common sense prevailed. He was not afraid of Parker, although the football man, a guard, weighed fifty pounds more than did the slight young Southerner, and was one of the strongest men in Yale as well. But he knew that a brawl there on the campus would do no good, and might annoy Jim Phillips. So, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked off, although Parker’s sneering laugh, which he heard plainly as he walked away, made it almost impossible for him to resist the temptation to return, and, at any cost, have it out with the bully and coward, who had struck at him through his friend.
“These infernal sophomores are getting to think they own the college,” said Parker angrily, utterly unmindful, it seemed, of the fact that it was to two members of the class he insulted that he was speaking. But he knew his men, and that they would not dare to resent anything he might say. “Are you two fellows in earnest about Phillips? Would you like to see him shown up? If you are, come along with me. I’ve got a plan that may prove what sort of a chap he is at bottom.”
Scarcely believing in their good fortune in securing an ally as powerful as Parker, the two treacherous sophomores gladly accepted his invitation.
CHAPTER III
A FLATTERING INVITATION.
Jim Phillips, his reputation firmly established as the best college pitcher in the East, and, since his defeat of the Michigan team, in the whole United States, was hardly surprised when, the day after the conference between Parker and the two sophomores, of which, of course, he knew nothing, he was asked by the captain of the team of the New Haven Country Club to pitch for that nine against the Boston Athletic Association nine the next day.
Jim, like many other Yale athletes, had been elected an honorary member of the country club, and so was eligible to play on any of its teams. But he had not taken the time to make use of the club since his election, as he had been busy in practice for Yale teams. His first impulse was to decline outright Captain Hasbrook’s request, and he even started to do so. But Hasbrook pleaded so hard that Jim finally agreed to reconsider and to consult Dick Merriwell on the subject.
“I’m under Mr. Merriwell’s orders, of course,” said Jim, “and I can’t do anything of this sort without his permission. Frankly, I don’t think he will let me play for you. This game with Harvard is pretty important, you know, and we aren’t going to have an easy time with them, by any means.”
“I’ve thought of that, of course,” said Hasbrook. “I’m an old Yale man myself, you know, and I played on the team when Merriwell was captain. So I think I may have some weight with him. I’ll try, anyhow. And I really think it will do you good to run up against that Boston bunch. They’ve got a lot of old Harvard men on their team, and I’ve heard that there will be one or two of this year’s team. They won’t have this man Briggs that they’re counting on so heavily, but they’re better off than we are in pitchers. Holmes, the only man I could count on to do any really good pitching, has hurt his arm, and that’s why I’m so keen about getting you. Winston’s a member of the club and I suppose there’ll be no difficulty about getting him to pitch, if you can’t help us out. But I’d rather have you, naturally, because old Winston, while he’s willing enough, wouldn’t last three innings against that bunch of sluggers that’s coming down from Boston.
“They’ve got to look on this game every year as a sort of alumni game between Yale and Harvard, you know, and, of course, they’ve got a lot more men to draw on than we have—Boston being big enough to swallow New Haven and a couple of other towns our size. So they’ve been beating us for the last three years.”
Jim, as he had told Hasbrook, had little hope of being allowed to play. But he was anxious enough to do so. He remembered Hasbrook well as a member of the good-government party that had helped the Yale students mightily when the city had tried to stop the cheering at Yale Field, and the idea of giving Harvard men a chance to crow, even if they were out of college, was displeasing to him.
Brady, it seemed, had received a similar invitation from Hasbrook. He came, soon after the country club man had left Jim, to tell him about it. He, it seemed, had accepted, making only the provision that Merriwell’s consent would have to be obtained. But Bill was a horse for work, and there was not the same reason for saving him that tended to make it unlikely that Jim would be allowed to play.
They went to see Merriwell together, Jim’s anxiety to play being greatly increased when he found that Bill Brady would be his catcher. The idea of pitching to a strange catcher had been one of the things that had prompted his first refusal.
Hasbrook was an old friend of Dick Merriwell’s, and when the two sophomores found the universal coach they learned that he already knew their errand. He seemed a little doubtful.
“I think the game would do you both lots of good,” he said. “This Boston team is made up altogether of old Harvard varsity men, and they’ve been playing baseball on a system at Cambridge for fifteen years. When you play one Harvard team, you know them all. That’s one reason I was willing to consider this matter. But I’d rather have had the game come at least a week before the big match. I’m only afraid you’ll overdo things, Jim.”
“I won’t let him work himself to death, Mr. Merriwell,” promised Brady. “He’ll do just what I signal him, you know, and I’ll see that he saves his arm. We don’t have to take chances in this game, because it doesn’t really matter whether we win or not. If we can win, without hurting ourselves, why we’d like to do it, of course. But every one will understand that we can’t take chances for the country club when we’ve got to play for Yale against Harvard. Even Hasbrook and the others out at the club wouldn’t like that. They’d rather lose themselves than see Yale licked, if it came to a choice.”
“All right, then,” said Dick. “I’ll give my consent—on one condition. If you feel tired during the game, Jim, and as if you were putting any sort of a strain on your arm, you’ve got to promise to make Hasbrook take you out, no matter what the score is. And I count on you, too, Brady. If you see that Jim is hurting himself, you’ve got to see that he gets out of the game. You may be able to tell better than he can himself. I’d be at the game, but I’ve got some important business to attend to in New York, and it won’t be possible for me to get there. That’s why I’m hesitating so much. Winston can go out to the game with you, and if Jim has to go out, he can take his place. I think he’d do better than Hasbrook expects, too. He’s improved a lot since the beginning of the season, and I’ve seen a lot of college teams that would be glad to have him.”
“I guess that’s right,” said Brady. “But then any man who knows how to curve a ball at all would turn into a good pitcher with you to coach him, Mr. Merriwell.”
The news of Merriwell’s permission to the two sophomore stars to form the battery for the country club against the famous amateur team from Boston, caused great excitement. The country club members were overjoyed. They saw a chance to get revenge for the defeats of the last few years. With quiet confidence, they made up a purse and sent it posthaste to Boston, to be bet on their team, with its powerful reënforcements. The newspapers printed the story. And from Cambridge came rumors that every effort was being made to induce the Harvard coach to allow Briggs to pitch for the Bostonians.
Dick Merriwell shook his head when he heard that.
“I hope he won’t,” he said. “If I’d thought there was any chance that Briggs would pitch for them, I wouldn’t have consented to let Jim go in. It would be too much like letting the Yale-Harvard game be played ahead of time.”
But those rumors were speedily set at rest. There was no chance for Briggs to play, and, moreover, as the Boston men saw it, they needed no undergraduate pitcher to give them the victory. For Hobson, the famous Hobson, who had pitched Harvard to a championship in three successive years while he was still in college, was back in America from a trip abroad, and in the very pink of condition for any sort of a game. And he had been promptly drafted by his old club.
“Now you will have your work cut out for you, Jim,” said Dick Merriwell, with a smile. “I know Hobson well, of old, and if you beat him, you certainly need have no fear of Briggs or any one else that’s in college now. Also, if he beats you, you needn’t feel disgraced. You know his record, of course.”
Out at the country club, Jim Phillips and Brady practiced for the first time with Hasbrook and the other men who made up the team, arranging signals and other details for the game. A new batting order had to be made up, too, and Hasbrook, who knew how formidable a batter Brady was, put him in as fourth man, with Jim Phillips to follow him. A great many members, going out to play golf or tennis, decided to watch the baseball practice instead, and the big porch of the country club was deserted. Almost deserted—not quite, for in a corner, hidden by some plants, sat Parker and his new sophomore friends, Carpenter and Shesgren.
“It’s worked, so far,” said Parker, drawing in luxuriously on a straw that protruded from a long, fizzy glass. “He walked right into it, and even his friend Merriwell couldn’t see the danger. I don’t blame him. He thinks our little friend Phillips is all he should be. He’ll have quite a shock when he wakes up and finds out.”
“What have you got against Merriwell, Parker?” asked Carpenter.
He, like almost every other Yale man, both liked and respected the universal coach, who had certainly done great things for the blue since his Alma Mater had called him back to take general charge of all her athletic teams; supervising all of them, and coaching the more important teams himself. Carpenter was unable to understand why Parker, himself an athlete, and, therefore, better able to understand than most of his fellow students just how much the universal coach had done for Yale, should be so bitter against Merriwell.
Parker was more genial than usual with his sophomore allies, whom, as a matter of fact, he secretly despised. He had been drinking iced drinks all afternoon, and they had had a distinct effect upon him.
“Why, I’ll tell you, Carpenter, my boy,” he said. “I’m likely to be captain of the football team here next fall, see, and I want to be the real captain. Look at old Tom Sherman. What’s he got to say about the baseball team? It’s all up to Merriwell. Same way with Murchison. He was elected captain of the crew. Has he got anything to do with the way the crew is run? Not so you could notice it. It’s Mr. Richard Merriwell who dictates everything.”
“Well, that’s because they let him do it, isn’t it?” asked Shesgren.
“They haven’t any choice,” said Parker. “Every one here thinks he’s just about right on everything. He can’t do anything wrong. If he falls down hard once, and gets shown up in this business, he may have still enough to keep on being universal coach, but he won’t be a dictator, the way he has been. Anyhow, Phillips won’t captain the baseball team, and that will reduce Merriwell’s pull a little.”
He finished his drink and ordered another.
“Now, then,” he said, “are you two friendly with Phillips?”
“Hardly,” said Carpenter. “He simply lets us alone. He started to act as if he wanted to be friendly with me once, but I soon saw that he was doing it just to make it easier for him to beat me out in the work, and I dropped him.”
“Same here,” said Shesgren. “He talks a lot of sickening rot about how all the men in the class ought to stick together and be friendly—and then goes and does mean things behind our backs. That’s the only way he ever gets a good stand in his studies. Why does he try to hog everything, anyhow? We don’t mind how prominent he is in athletics. We came here to get good degrees. My father promised me a thousand dollars if I was one of the first two men in the class—and the way things are going now I won’t be able to get that. Phillips and Brady work together all the time, and just because they are way up in athletics the faculty favors them all the time.”
“Never mind all that,” said Parker. “Have to drop your personal feelings for a while if you want to get square. I want you two fellows to go back to New Haven this evening and call on Phillips. Make any excuse you like. Say you came in to talk over your work or something. Be chummy with him. Make him ask you to come again.”
The two sophomores protested violently. “Why should they?” they asked.
But Parker had returned to his stern and superior manner. He had had enough to drink to make him ugly, and his overbearing manner so frightened the sophomores, since they were weaklings, physically, no matter how bright they might be mentally, that they gave in.
“You go do as I say,” growled Parker. “Then come to my room and tell me how you got along. I’ll tell you then what to do next. Got a little business to attend to here.”
He shooed them away, and then sat down again to wait until a stranger appeared, looking around to see if he were observed.
“Safe enough,” said Parker. “Been waiting for you.”
“Are you sure you are right in this?” asked the other. “It doesn’t seem like Phillips at all to do a thing like that. I must say I was surprised when you told me.”
“Well, you’ve got proof, haven’t you?” asked Parker. “He refused to play at first, didn’t he? Then, after I saw him, he agreed. He’s out here now, practicing with the team. You go back on your agreement and see how long he stays out here.”
“I don’t like it a bit,” said the other. “However—we want to win, and I don’t see any other way to do it. I’ll stick to the agreement. I guess your plan is the safest. I’ve got to have some sort of a receipt, of course, in case there’s any trouble. But that will be the simplest. It won’t attract any attention, and I don’t see how it could get out, anyhow.”
“No,” said Parker. “I don’t see how it can get out unless one of us splits—and I don’t suppose you’re going to do that, are you?”
“I should say not,” exclaimed the other, so fervently that Parker laughed, which made the man who had just handed him a letter start, as he noticed for the first time that Parker, owing to the drinks he had taken, was far from being himself.
CHAPTER IV
A FARCICAL GAME.
The game with the team from Boston was to be played in New Haven on Wednesday, leaving Jim Phillips two full days to rest and get ready for the test against Harvard on Saturday. That game would be played in Cambridge, however, and would involve a railroad journey of nearly four hours for the Yale team. A special car would be provided, and the team, starting early Friday evening from New Haven, would arrive in Boston in time to sleep comfortably in a great hotel, driving to the field on Saturday morning in a flock of taxis.
On the day of the game with the Boston Athletic Association nine, Bill Brady and Jim Phillips drove out together to the country club.
“Wasn’t that Carpenter I saw come downstairs with you?” Brady asked curiously.
“Yes,” said Jim, laughing. “He and Shesgren called on me last night. They’ve been pretty sore at us, Bill, for getting better marks than they’ve had, but they seem to have made up their minds to take it the right way at last. They were very cordial last night, and Carpenter said he had come in to see if I had been able to get up any good outside reading on that course in European history. I gave him the names of a few books he seemed never to have heard of, and he told me some things I’d only guessed at before. So it was an even trade. When we got through, we both knew more about it than we had before.
“I told him that was the way to go to work—that I didn’t care anything about marks, but wanted to learn the subject. He seemed to be surprised at that—guess he’d never thought of it that way before, but he said I seemed to keep on getting good marks, anyhow, and we all laughed. Then he came around this morning to talk about some things he’d forgotten last night, and stayed quite a while. He seemed mighty nervous about something.”
“I don’t like either of them,” said Brady shortly. “I wouldn’t have much to do with them, Jim, if I were you. You tried to do the square, friendly thing by them before, and they acted as if they were afraid you were going to bite. Let them alone now. Be decent to them if they come around, but don’t go out of your way with them. By the way, did you hear from that tailor in New York? I told him to send you some samples.”
“Yes, I guess so,” said Jim, pulling a number of letters from his pocket. “I got quite a bunch of mail this morning. Registered letter from dad—my allowance, I suppose. He always sends the check in a registered letter, though it’s safe enough without it. He’s a crank about it. Another registered letter, too. Don’t know who else can be sending me money. And a lot of other stuff. I’ll open them now, and see what they’re all about.”
He was busy for several minutes.
“That’s certainly funny,” he said. “I must have been seeing double. I was sure there were two registered letters that I signed for. But I must have been mistaken. There’s only one here.”
“Left it behind, perhaps,” said Brady. “Maybe you dropped it on the floor back in your room. It’s safe enough if you did. I guess we won’t have any more robberies around these parts.”
Brady referred to the theft of some class funds from Jim’s room not long before. The money had been stolen at the instigation of a criminal enemy of Jim’s in such a way as to throw suspicion upon the sophomore pitcher, but Dick Merriwell’s cleverness had foiled the plot and uncovered the real culprit.
“I suppose I did,” said Phillips. “However, I might have been mistaken about the whole thing. I was in a great hurry. The postman was late and I was trying to get my bag packed to take out here—and I talked to Carpenter—all at the same time. I might have just dreamed the other registered letter.”
“Well, we’ll forget it now and think about baseball,” said Brady. “Here we are. I guess we’ll have to get dressed right away.”
The scene of the game was very different from that of most games in which Yale players took part. There were no great stands. Around the diamond a few circus seats had been put up for the ladies, who had turned out in great numbers to watch the play, but the men contented themselves with places on the ground.
The crowd itself, gathered by invitation of the members of the club, made a pretty spectacle; the men being dressed mostly in white flannels and other appropriate summer clothing, and the whole scene was one of great color and animation.
There was no organized cheering when the teams appeared for practice, as at the college games, nor did the teams observe all the usual formalities. Most of the players on both sides were old friends, who remembered other contests when they had been in college, and a good many since those happy days.
The two teams practiced together, sharing the diamond, and laughing at the misplays that each side made frequently, as a number of the men had had little chance, owing to their business duties, to do any practicing.
Brady smiled as he waited to warm up with Phillips; for, on the other side, serving as catcher for the famous Hobson, was Bowen, the Harvard captain.
“He didn’t need to come down here at all,” said Bill to Jim, “but he wants a chance to see you in action. We’ll make him work pretty hard to get any valuable information, though. There’s more ways of killing a dog than hanging him, they say, and I guess we can show him that there are several ways of pitching, too. For instance, the sort of balls you’ll pitch to-day and the sort you’ll pitch on Saturday in the same circumstances. I’m glad we’re here, Jim. I think we’ll have some fun before this game is over.”
It was a true prophecy. There was no fault to be found with the work of either battery. Both pitchers were at their best, but they could hardly be expected to strike out every man who faced them, and the fielding of both the amateur nines was wretched. Hobson and Jim, both inclined to be disgusted at first as they saw easy taps rolling between the legs of the fielders, and allowing the batters to turn sure outs into safe hits, soon saw the humor of it, and laughed as heartily as any one. The Bostonians, depending upon the skill of Hobson, had brought down a weak fielding team, and, while the New Haven team was at full strength, it was no better than its Boston rival, even so. In the sixth inning, the score was tied, each team having made six runs, and of these only one run on either side had been earned.
Rather than allow Bowen to see what Jim could do in a real pinch, Brady had called for a straight ball when Bowen was at the bat with a man on third, and the Harvard captain had promptly slammed out a three-bagger, while Bill himself had selected one of Hobson’s choicest curves and unmercifully hammered it to the furthest boundaries of the field for a clean home run.
Then both pitchers put on their mettle by the miserable playing of the teams behind them, had settled down, and the ninth inning came, with New Haven batting last, without another run for either side. Jim, smiling lightly, had decided to cut loose for the first time in the game, and he had struck out the three Bostonians who had faced him in the ninth on nine pitched balls. Bowen, watching his every move, whistled softly as the feat was accomplished.
“By George!” he said to Hobson, “that fellow Phillips has been under wraps. I wondered what old Brady was about—but I guess Bill has learned a thing or two since I knew him at Andover. He’s been keeping this fellow Phillips on a lead all through the game so we wouldn’t find out anything about him.”
“Did you only just find that out?” asked Hobson, with a laugh. “I knew he was a good pitcher as soon as he pitched his first ball. He’s got the style. He’s got control, too. Unless I’m mightily mistaken, he’s been pitching in a freak style all through the game just to keep you guessing. It takes a pretty good pitcher to do that.”
“Well, you’re just as good as he is,” said Bowen. “Finish them off now, and we’ll try to win in the tenth.”
But there wasn’t to be any tenth inning in that game. Hobson wasn’t quite able to duplicate Jim’s feat. He struck out the two men who batted first, but Hasbrook, swinging wildly, drove the first ball pitched to him to right field, and the Boston outfielder, juggling the ball, dropped it, and then threw so wild that Hasbrook scored the winning run for New Haven.
“That was a pretty weird game,” said Jim, shaking hands with Hobson. “I think you’d beat me in a straight game, with good teams behind us, Hobson.”
“Not in a thousand years,” said Hobson. “I’ve been doing my best, and you were under wraps. However, I hope I’ll have another chance with you. It’s been good fun, anyhow, even if we did lose.”
“Good work, Phillips!” said Bowen heartily. “I bet you won’t give me another straight ball on Saturday with men on the bases.”
The two rivals laughed, and Brady, coming up, joined in the laugh.
“You’ll win that bet, Bowen,” he said. “How are you, anyhow? I haven’t seen you since the old Andover days.”
“Well, we’ll make up for lost time now,” said Bowen. “I’ll see both of you at Cambridge on Saturday, I suppose, and then there again the week after. I can’t wish you fellows good luck—but may the best team win.”
“That’s what we all want,” echoed the Yale men.