The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball

Stories, by Zane Grey

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Title: The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories

Author: Zane Grey

Posting Date: September 27, 2008 [EBook #385]

Release Date: January, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REDHEADED OUTFIELD, OTHER STORIES ***

Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.

THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES

by

ZANE GREY

THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD

There was Delaney's red-haired trio--Red Gilbat, left fielder; Reddy

Clammer, right fielder, and Reddie Ray, center fielder, composing the

most remarkable outfield ever developed in minor league baseball.  It

was Delaney's pride, as it was also his trouble.

Red Gilbat was nutty--and his batting average was .371.  Any student of

baseball could weigh these two facts against each other and understand

something of Delaney's trouble.  It was not possible to camp on Red

Gilbat's trail.  The man was a jack-o'-lantern, a will-o'-the-wisp, a

weird, long-legged, long-armed, red-haired illusive phantom. When the

gong rang at the ball grounds there were ten chances to one that Red

would not be present.  He had been discovered with small boys peeping

through knotholes at the vacant left field he was supposed to inhabit

during play.

Of course what Red did off the ball grounds was not so important as

what he did on.  And there was absolutely no telling what under the sun

he might do then except once out of every three times at bat he could

be counted on to knock the cover off the ball.

Reddy Clammer was a grand-stand player--the kind all managers

hated--and he was hitting .305. He made circus catches, circus stops,

circus throws, circus steals--but particularly circus catches.  That is

to say, he made easy plays appear difficult.  He was always strutting,

posing, talking, arguing, quarreling--when he was not engaged in making

a grand-stand play.  Reddy Clammer used every possible incident and

artifice to bring himself into the limelight.

Reddie Ray had been the intercollegiate champion in the sprints and a

famous college ball player.  After a few months of professional ball he

was hitting over .400 and leading the league both at bat and on the

bases.  It was a beautiful and a thrilling sight to see him run.  He

was so quick to start, so marvelously swift, so keen of judgment, that

neither Delaney nor any player could ever tell the hit that he was not

going to get.  That was why Reddie Ray was a whole game in himself.

Delaney's Rochester Stars and the Providence Grays were tied for first

place.  Of the present series each team had won a game.  Rivalry had

always been keen, and as the teams were about to enter the long

homestretch for the pennant there was battle in the New England air.

The September day was perfect.  The stands were half full and the

bleachers packed with a white-sleeved mass.  And the field was

beautifully level and green.  The Grays were practicing and the Stars

were on their bench.

"We're up against it," Delaney was saying. "This new umpire, Fuller,

hasn't got it in for us. Oh, no, not at all!  Believe me, he's a

robber. But Scott is pitchin' well.  Won his last three games.  He'll

bother 'em.  And the three Reds have broken loose.  They're on the

rampage. They'll burn up this place today."

Somebody noted the absence of Gilbat.

Delaney gave a sudden start.  "Why, Gil was here," he said slowly.

"Lord!--he's about due for a nutty stunt."

Whereupon Delaney sent boys and players scurrying about to find Gilbat,

and Delaney went himself to ask the Providence manager to hold back the

gong for a few minutes.

Presently somebody brought Delaney a telephone message that Red Gilbat

was playing ball with some boys in a lot four blocks down the street.

When at length a couple of players marched up to the bench with Red in

tow Delaney uttered an immense sigh of relief and then, after a close

scrutiny of Red's face, he whispered, "Lock the gates!"

Then the gong rang.  The Grays trooped in. The Stars ran out, except

Gilbat, who ambled like a giraffe.  The hum of conversation in the

grand stand quickened for a moment with the scraping of chairs, and

then grew quiet.  The bleachers sent up the rollicking cry of

expectancy.  The umpire threw out a white ball with his stentorian

"Play!" and Blake of the Grays strode to the plate.

Hitting safely, he started the game with a rush. With Dorr up, the Star

infield played for a bunt. Like clockwork Dorr dumped the first ball as

Blake got his flying start for second base.  Morrissey tore in for the

ball, got it on the run and snapped it underhand to Healy, beating the

runner by an inch.  The fast Blake, with a long slide, made third base.

The stands stamped.  The bleachers howled.  White, next man up, batted

a high fly to left field.  This was a sun field and the hardest to play

in the league.  Red Gilbat was the only man who ever played it well.

He judged the fly, waited under it, took a step hack, then forward, and

deliberately caught the ball in his gloved hand.  A throw-in to catch

the runner scoring from third base would have been futile, but it was

not like Red Gilbat to fail to try.  He tossed the ball to O'Brien.

And Blake scored amid applause.

"What do you know about that?" ejaculated Delaney, wiping his moist

face.  "I never before saw our nutty Redhead pull off a play like that."

Some of the players yelled at Red, "This is a two-handed league, you

bat!"

The first five players on the list for the Grays were left-handed

batters, and against a right-handed pitcher whose most effective ball

for them was a high fast one over the outer corner they would naturally

hit toward left field.  It was no surprise to see Hanley bat a

skyscraper out to left. Red had to run to get under it.  He braced

himself rather unusually for a fielder.  He tried to catch the ball in

his bare right hand and muffed it, Hanley got to second on the play

while the audience roared.  When they got through there was some

roaring among the Rochester players.  Scott and Captain Healy roared at

Red, and Red roared back at them.

"It's all off.  Red never did that before," cried Delaney in despair.

"He's gone clean bughouse now."

Babcock was the next man up and he likewise hit to left.  It was a low,

twisting ball--half fly, half liner--and a difficult one to field.

Gilbat ran with great bounds, and though he might have got two hands on

the ball he did not try, but this time caught it in his right, retiring

the side.

The Stars trotted in, Scott and Healy and Kane, all veterans, looking

like thunderclouds.  Red ambled in the last and he seemed very

nonchalant.

"By Gosh, I'd 'a' ketched that one I muffed if I'd had time to change

hands," he said with a grin, and he exposed a handful of peanuts.  He

had refused to drop the peanuts to make the catch with two hands.  That

explained the mystery.  It was funny, yet nobody laughed.  There was

that run chalked up against the Stars, and this game had to be won.

"Red, I--I want to take the team home in the lead," said Delaney, and

it was plain that he suppressed strong feeling.  "You didn't play the

game, you know."

Red appeared mightily ashamed.

"Del, I'll git that run back," he said.

Then he strode to the plate, swinging his wagon-tongue bat.  For all

his awkward position in the box he looked what he was--a formidable

hitter. He seemed to tower over the pitcher--Red was six feet one--and

he scowled and shook his bat at Wehying and called, "Put one over--you

wienerwurst!"  Wehying was anything but red-headed, and he wasted so

many balls on Red that it looked as if he might pass him.  He would

have passed him, too, if Red had not stepped over on the fourth ball

and swung on it.  White at second base leaped high for the stinging

hit, and failed to reach it.  The ball struck and bounded for the

fence.  When Babcock fielded it in,  Red was standing on third base,

and the bleachers groaned.

Whereupon Chesty Reddy Clammer proceeded to draw attention to himself,

and incidentally delay the game, by assorting the bats as if the

audience and the game might gladly wait years to see him make a choice.

"Git in the game!" yelled Delaney.

"Aw, take my bat, Duke of the Abrubsky!" sarcastically said Dump Kane.

When the grouchy Kane offered to lend his bat matters were critical in

the Star camp.

Other retorts followed, which Reddy Clammer deigned not to notice.  At

last he got a bat that suited him--and then, importantly, dramatically,

with his cap jauntily riding his red locks, he marched to the plate.

Some wag in the bleachers yelled into the silence, "Oh, Maggie, your

lover has come!"

Not improbably Clammer was thinking first of his presence before the

multitude, secondly of his batting average and thirdly of the run to be

scored.  In this instance he waited and feinted at balls and fouled

strikes at length to work his base. When he got to first base suddenly

he bolted for second, and in the surprise of the unlooked-for play he

made it by a spread-eagle slide.  It was a circus steal.

Delaney snorted.  Then the look of profound disgust vanished in a flash

of light.  His huge face beamed.

Reddie Ray was striding to the plate.

There was something about Reddie Ray that pleased all the senses.  His

lithe form seemed instinct with life; any sudden movement was

suggestive of stored lightning.  His position at the plate was on the

left side, and he stood perfectly motionless, with just a hint of tense

waiting alertness.  Dorr, Blake and Babcock, the outfielders for the

Grays, trotted round to the right of their usual position.  Delaney

smiled derisively, as if he knew how futile it was to tell what field

Reddie Ray might hit into.  Wehying, the old fox, warily eyed the

youngster, and threw him a high curve, close in.  It grazed Reddie's

shirt, but he never moved a hair.  Then Wehying, after the manner of

many veteran pitchers when trying out a new and menacing batter, drove

a straight fast ball at Reddie's head.  Reddie ducked, neither too slow

nor too quick, just right to show what an eye he had, how hard it was

to pitch to.  The next was a strike.  And on the next he appeared to

step and swing in one action.  There was a ringing rap, and the ball

shot toward right, curving down, a vicious, headed hit.  Mallory, at

first base, snatched at it and found only the air.  Babcock had only

time to take a few sharp steps, and then he plunged down, blocked the

hit and fought the twisting ball.  Reddie turned first base, flitted on

toward second, went headlong in the dust, and shot to the base before

White got the throw-in from Babcock.  Then, as White wheeled and lined

the ball home to catch the scoring Clammer, Reddie Ray leaped up, got

his sprinter's start and, like a rocket, was off for third.  This time

he dove behind the base, sliding in a half circle, and as Hanley caught

Strickland's perfect throw and whirled with the ball, Reddie's hand

slid to the bag.

Reddie got to his feet amid a rather breathless silence.  Even the

coachers were quiet.  There was a moment of relaxation, then Wehying

received the ball from Hanley and faced the batter.

This was Dump Kane.  There was a sign of some kind, almost

imperceptible, between Kane and Reddie.  As Wehying half turned in his

swing to pitch, Reddie Ray bounded homeward.  It was not so much the

boldness of his action as the amazing swiftness of it that held the

audience spellbound.  Like a thunderbolt Reddie came down the line,

almost beating Wehying's pitch to the plate.  But Kane's bat

intercepted the ball, laying it down, and Reddie scored without

sliding. Dorr, by sharp work, just managed to throw Kane out.

Three runs so quick it was hard to tell how they had come.  Not in the

major league could there have been faster work.  And the ball had been

fielded perfectly and thrown perfectly.

"There you are," said Delaney, hoarsely. "Can you beat it?  If you've

been wonderin' how the cripped Stars won so many games just put what

you've seen in your pipe and smoke it.  Red Gilbat gets on--Reddy

Clammer gets on--and then Reddie Ray drives them home or chases them

home."

The game went on, and though it did not exactly drag it slowed down

considerably.  Morrissey and Healy were retired on infield plays.  And

the sides changed.  For the Grays, O'Brien made a scratch hit, went to

second on Strickland's sacrifice, stole third and scored on Mallory's

infield out.  Wehying missed three strikes.  In the Stars' turn the

three end players on the batting list were easily disposed of.  In the

third inning the clever Blake, aided by a base on balls and a hit

following, tied the score, and once more struck fire and brimstone from

the impatient bleachers.  Providence was a town that had to have its

team win.

"Git at 'em, Reds!" said Delaney gruffly.

"Batter up!" called Umpire Fuller, sharply.

"Where's Red?  Where's the bug?  Where's the nut?  Delaney, did you

lock the gates?  Look under the bench!"  These and other remarks, not

exactly elegant, attested to the mental processes of some of the Stars.

Red Gilbat did not appear to be forthcoming.  There was an anxious

delay Capt. Healy searched for the missing player. Delaney did not say

any more.

Suddenly a door under the grand stand opened and Red Gilbat appeared.

He hurried for his bat and then up to the plate.  And he never offered

to hit one of the balls Wehying shot over.  When Fuller had called the

third strike Red hurried back to the door and disappeared.

"Somethin' doin'," whispered Delaney.

Lord Chesterfield Clammer paraded to the batter's box and, after

gradually surveying the field, as if picking out the exact place he

meant to drive the ball, he stepped to the plate.  Then a roar from the

bleachers surprised him.

"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" exclaimed Delaney. "Red stole that sure as

shootin'."

Red Gilbat was pushing a brand-new baby carriage toward the batter's

box.  There was a tittering in the grand stand; another roar from the

bleachers.  Clammer's face turned as red as his hair.  Gilbat shoved

the baby carriage upon the plate, spread wide his long arms, made a

short presentation speech and an elaborate bow, then backed away.

All eyes were centered on Clammer.  If he had taken it right the

incident might have passed without undue hilarity.  But Clammer became

absolutely wild with rage.  It was well known that he was unmarried.

Equally well was it seen that Gilbat had executed one of his famous

tricks. Ball players were inclined to be dignified about the

presentation of gifts upon the field, and Clammer, the dude, the swell,

the lady's man, the favorite of the baseball gods--in his own

estimation--so far lost control of himself that he threw his bat at his

retreating tormentor.  Red jumped high and the bat skipped along the

ground toward the bench.  The players sidestepped and leaped and, of

course, the bat cracked one of Delaney's big shins.  His eyes popped

with pain, but he could not stop laughing.  One by one the players lay

down and rolled over and yelled.  The superior Clammer was not

overliked by his co-players.

From the grand stand floated the laughter of ladies and gentlemen.  And

from the bleachers--that throne of the biting, ironic, scornful

fans--pealed up a howl of delight.  It lasted for a full minute.  Then,

as quiet ensued, some boy blew a blast of one of those infernal little

instruments of pipe and rubber balloon, and over the field wailed out a

shrill, high-keyed cry, an excellent imitation of a baby.  Whereupon

the whole audience roared, and in discomfiture Reddy Clammer went in

search of his bat.

To make his chagrin all the worse he ingloriously struck out.  And then

he strode away under the lea of the grand-stand wall toward right field.

Reddie Ray went to bat and, with the infield playing deep and the

outfield swung still farther round to the right, he bunted a little

teasing ball down the third-base line.  Like a flash of light he had

crossed first base before Hanley got his hands on the ball.  Then Kane

hit into second base, forcing Reddie out.

Again the game assumed less spectacular and more ordinary play.  Both

Scott and Wehying held the batters safely and allowed no runs.  But in

the fifth inning, with the Stars at bat and two out, Red Gilbat again

electrified the field.  He sprang up from somewhere and walked to the

plate, his long shape enfolded in a full-length linen duster.  The

color and style of this garment might not have been especially

striking, but upon Red it had a weird and wonderful effect. Evidently

Red intended to bat while arrayed in his long coat, for he stepped into

the box and faced the pitcher.  Capt. Healy yelled for him to take the

duster off.  Likewise did the Grays yell.

The bleachers shrieked their disapproval.  To say the least, Red

Gilbat's crazy assurance was dampening to the ardor of the most blindly

confident fans.  At length Umpire Fuller waved his hand, enjoining

silence and calling time.

"Take it off or I'll fine you."

From his lofty height Gilbat gazed down upon the little umpire, and it

was plain what he thought.

"What do I care for money!" replied Red.

"That costs you twenty-five," said Fuller.

"Cigarette change!" yelled Red.

"Costs you fifty."

"Bah!  Go to an eye doctor," roared Red.

"Seventy-five," added Fuller, imperturbably.

"Make it a hundred!"

"It's two hundred."

"ROB-B-BER!" bawled Red.

Fuller showed willingness to overlook Red's back talk as well as

costume, and he called, "Play!"

There was a mounting sensation of prophetic certainty.  Old fox Wehying

appeared nervous. He wasted two balls on Red; then he put one over the

plate, and then he wasted another.  Three balls and one strike!  That

was a bad place for a pitcher, and with Red Gilbat up it was worse.

Wehying swung longer and harder to get all his left behind the throw

and let drive.  Red lunged and cracked the ball.  It went up and up and

kept going up and farther out, and as the murmuring audience was slowly

transfixed into late realization the ball soared to its height and

dropped beyond the left-field fence.  A home run!

Red Gilbat gathered up the tails of his duster, after the manner of a

neat woman crossing a muddy street, and ambled down to first base and

on to second, making prodigious jumps upon the bags, and round third,

to come down the home-stretch wagging his red head.  Then he stood on

the plate, and, as if to exact revenge from the audience for the fun

they made of him, he threw back his shoulders and bellowed:  "HAW!

HAW! HAW!"

Not a handclap greeted him, but some mindless, exceedingly adventurous

fan yelled:  "Redhead! Redhead!  Redhead!"

That was the one thing calculated to rouse Red Gilbat.  He seemed to

flare, to bristle, and he paced for the bleachers.

Delaney looked as if he might have a stroke. "Grab him!  Soak him with

a bat!  Somebody grab him!"

But none of the Stars was risking so much, and Gilbat, to the howling

derision of the gleeful fans, reached the bleachers.  He stretched his

long arms up to the fence and prepared to vault over. "Where's the guy

who called me redhead?" he yelled.

That was heaping fuel on the fire.  From all over the bleachers, from

everywhere, came the obnoxious word.  Red heaved himself over the fence

and piled into the fans.  Then followed the roar of many voices, the

tramping of many feet, the pressing forward of line after line of

shirt-sleeved men and boys.  That bleacher stand suddenly assumed the

maelstrom appearance of a surging mob round an agitated center.  In a

moment all the players rushed down the field, and confusion reigned.

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" moaned Delaney.

However, the game had to go on.  Delaney, no doubt, felt all was over.

Nevertheless there were games occasionally that seemed an unending

series of unprecedented events.  This one had begun admirably to break

a record.  And the Providence fans, like all other fans, had cultivated

an appetite as the game proceeded.  They were wild to put the other

redheads out of the field or at least out for the inning, wild to tie

the score, wild to win and wilder than all for more excitement. Clammer

hit safely.  But when Reddie Ray lined to the second baseman, Clammer,

having taken a lead, was doubled up in the play.

Of course, the sixth inning opened with the Stars playing only eight

men.  There was another delay.  Probably everybody except Delaney and

perhaps Healy had forgotten the Stars were short a man.  Fuller called

time.  The impatient bleachers barked for action.

Capt. White came over to Delaney and courteously offered to lend a

player for the remaining innings.  Then a pompous individual came out

of the door leading from the press boxes--he was a director Delaney

disliked.

"Guess you'd better let Fuller call the game," he said brusquely.

"If you want to--as the score stands now in our favor," replied Delaney.

"Not on your life!  It'll be ours or else we'll play it out and beat

you to death."

He departed in high dudgeon.

"Tell Reddie to swing over a little toward left," was Delaney's order

to Healy.  Fire gleamed in the manager's eye.

Fuller called play then, with Reddy Clammer and Reddie Ray composing

the Star outfield.  And the Grays evidently prepared to do great

execution through the wide lanes thus opened up.  At that stage it

would not have been like matured ball players to try to crop hits down

into the infield.

White sent a long fly back of Clammer.  Reddy had no time to loaf on

this hit.  It was all he could do to reach it and he made a splendid

catch, for which the crowd roundly applauded him.  That applause was

wine to Reddy Clammer.  He began to prance on his toes and sing out to

Scott:  "Make 'em hit to me, old man!  Make 'em hit to me!" Whether

Scott desired that or not was scarcely possible to say; at any rate,

Hanley pounded a hit through the infield.  And Clammer, prancing high

in the air like a check-reined horse, ran to intercept the ball.  He

could have received it in his hands, but that would never have served

Reddy Clammer.  He timed the hit to a nicety, went down with his old

grand-stand play and blocked the ball with his anatomy.  Delaney swore.

And the bleachers, now warm toward the gallant outfielder, lustily

cheered him.  Babcock hit down the right-field foul line, giving

Clammer a long run.  Hanley was scoring and Babcock was sprinting for

third base when Reddy got the ball. He had a fine arm and he made a

hard and accurate throw, catching his man in a close play.

Perhaps even Delaney could not have found any fault with that play.

But the aftermath spoiled the thing.  Clammer now rode the air; he

soared; he was in the clouds; it was his inning and he had utterly

forgotten his team mates, except inasmuch as they were performing mere

little automatic movements to direct the great machinery in his

direction for his sole achievement and glory.

There is fate in baseball as well as in other walks of life.  O'Brien

was a strapping fellow and he lifted another ball into Clammer's wide

territory.  The hit was of the high and far-away variety.  Clammer

started to run with it, not like a grim outfielder, but like one

thinking of himself, his style, his opportunity, his inevitable

success.  Certain it was that in thinking of himself the outfielder

forgot his surroundings.  He ran across the foul line, head up, hair

flying, unheeding the warning cry from Healy.  And, reaching up to make

his crowning circus play, he smashed face forward into the bleachers

fence.  Then, limp as a rag, he dropped.  The audience sent forth a

long groan of sympathy.

"That wasn't one of his stage falls," said Delaney.  "I'll bet he's

dead....  Poor Reddy! And I want him to bust his face!"

Clammer was carried off the field into the dressing room and a

physician was summoned out of the audience.

"Cap., what'd it--do to him?" asked Delaney.

"Aw, spoiled his pretty mug, that's all," replied Healy, scornfully.

"Mebee he'll listen to me now."

Delaney's change was characteristic of the man. "Well, if it didn't

kill him I'm blamed glad he got it....  Cap, we can trim 'em yet.

Reddie Ray'll play the whole outfield.  Give Reddie a chance to run!

Tell the boy to cut loose.  And all of you git in the game.  Win or

lose, I won't forget it.  I've a hunch.  Once in a while I can tell

what's comin' off.  Some queer game this!  And we're goin' to win.

Gilbat lost the game; Clammer throwed it away again, and now Reddie

Ray's due to win it....  I'm all in, but I wouldn't miss the finish

to save my life."

Delaney's deep presaging sense of baseball events was never put to a

greater test.  And the seven Stars, with the score tied, exhibited the

temper and timber of a championship team in the last ditch.  It was so

splendid that almost instantly it caught the antagonistic bleachers.

Wherever the tired Scott found renewed strength and speed was a

mystery.  But he struck out the hard-hitting Providence catcher and

that made the third out.  The Stars could not score in their half of

the inning.  Likewise the seventh inning passed without a run for

either side; only the infield work of the Stars was something superb.

When the eighth inning ended, without a tally for either team, the

excitement grew tense. There was Reddy Ray playing outfield alone, and

the Grays with all their desperate endeavors had not lifted the ball

out of the infield.

But in the ninth, Blake, the first man up, lined low toward right

center.  The hit was safe and looked good for three bases.  No one

looking, however, had calculated on Reddie's Ray's fleetness. He

covered ground and dove for the bounding ball and knocked it down.

Blake did not get beyond first base.  The crowd cheered the play

equally with the prospect of a run.  Dorr bunted and beat the throw.

White hit one of the high fast balls Scott was serving and sent it

close to the left-field foul line.  The running Reddie Ray made on that

play held White at second base.  But two runs had scored with no one

out.

Hanley, the fourth left-handed hitter, came up and Scott pitched to him

as he had to the others--high fast balls over the inside corner of the

plate.  Reddy Ray's position was some fifty yards behind deep short,

and a little toward center field. He stood sideways, facing two-thirds

of that vacant outfield.  In spite of Scott's skill, Hanley swung the

ball far round into right field, but he hit it high, and almost before

he actually hit it the great sprinter was speeding across the green.

The suspense grew almost unbearable as the ball soared in its parabolic

flight and the red-haired runner streaked dark across the green. The

ball seemed never to be coming down.  And when it began to descend and

reached a point perhaps fifty feet above the ground there appeared more

distance between where it would alight and where Reddie was than

anything human could cover.  It dropped and dropped, and then dropped

into Reddie Ray's outstretched hands.  He had made the catch look easy.

But the fact that White scored from second base on the play showed what

the catch really was.

There was no movement or restlessness of the audience such as usually

indicated the beginning of the exodus.  Scott struck Babcock out.  The

game still had fire.  The Grays never let up a moment on their

coaching.  And the hoarse voices of the Stars were grimmer than ever.

Reddie Ray was the only one of the seven who kept silent. And he

crouched like a tiger.

The teams changed sides with the Grays three runs in the lead.

Morrissey, for the Stars, opened with a clean drive to right.  Then

Healy slashed a ground ball to Hanley and nearly knocked him down.

When old Burns, by a hard rap to short, advanced the runners a base and

made a desperate, though unsuccessful, effort to reach first the

Providence crowd awoke to a strange and inspiring appreciation.  They

began that most rare feature in baseball audiences--a strong and

trenchant call for the visiting team to win.

The play had gone fast and furious.  Wehying, sweaty and disheveled,

worked violently.  All the Grays were on uneasy tiptoes.  And the Stars

were seven Indians on the warpath.  Halloran fouled down the

right-field line; then he fouled over the left-field fence.  Wehying

tried to make him too anxious, but it was in vain.  Halloran was

implacable.  With two strikes and three balls he hit straight down to

white, and was out.  The ball had been so sharp that neither runner on

base had a chance to advance.

Two men out, two on base, Stars wanting three runs to tie, Scott, a

weak batter, at the plate! The situation was disheartening.  Yet there

sat Delaney, shot through and through with some vital compelling force.

He saw only victory.  And when the very first ball pitched to Scott hit

him on the leg, giving him his base, Delaney got to his feet, unsteady

and hoarse.

Bases full, Reddie Ray up, three runs to tie!

Delaney looked at Reddie.  And Reddie looked at Delaney.  The manager's

face was pale, intent, with a little smile.  The player had eyes of

fire, a lean, bulging jaw and the hands he reached for his bat clutched

like talons.

"Reddie, I knew it was waitin' for you," said Delaney, his voice

ringing.  "Break up the game!"

After all this was only a baseball game, and perhaps from the fans'

viewpoint a poor game at that.  But the moment when that lithe,

redhaired athlete toed the plate was a beautiful one.  The long crash

from the bleachers, the steady cheer from the grand stand, proved that

it was not so much the game that mattered.

Wehying had shot his bolt; he was tired.  Yet he made ready for a final

effort.  It seemed that passing Reddie Ray on balls would have been a

wise play at that juncture.  But no pitcher, probably, would have done

it with the bases crowded and chances, of course, against the batter.

Clean and swift, Reddie leaped at the first pitched ball.  Ping!  For a

second no one saw the hit.  Then it gleamed, a terrific drive, low

along the ground, like a bounding bullet, straight at Babcock in right

field.  It struck his hands and glanced viciously away to roll toward

the fence.

Thunder broke loose from the stands.  Reddie Ray was turning first

base.  Beyond first base he got into his wonderful stride.  Some

runners run with a consistent speed, the best they can make for a given

distance.  But this trained sprinter gathered speed as he ran.  He was

no short-stepping runner.  His strides were long.  They gave an

impression of strength combined with fleetness. He had the speed of a

race horse, but the trimness, the raciness, the delicate legs were not

characteristic of him.  Like the wind he turned second, so powerful

that his turn was short.  All at once there came a difference in his

running.  It was no longer beautiful.  The grace was gone.  It was now

fierce, violent.  His momentum was running him off his legs.  He

whirled around third base and came hurtling down the homestretch. His

face was convulsed, his eyes were wild.  His arms and legs worked in a

marvelous muscular velocity.  He seemed a demon--a flying streak. He

overtook and ran down the laboring Scott, who had almost reached the

plate.

The park seemed full of shrill, piercing strife. It swelled, reached a

highest pitch, sustained that for a long moment, and then declined.

"My Gawd!" exclaimed Delaney, as he fell back.  "Wasn't that a finish?

Didn't I tell you to watch them redheads!"

THE RUBE

It was the most critical time I had yet experienced in my career as a

baseball manager. And there was more than the usual reason why I must

pull the team out.  A chance for a business deal depended upon the

good-will of the stockholders of the Worcester club.  On the outskirts

of the town was a little cottage that I wanted to buy, and this

depended upon the business deal.  My whole future happiness depended

upon the little girl I hoped to install in that cottage.

Coming to the Worcester Eastern League team, I had found a strong

aggregation and an enthusiastic following.  I really had a team with

pennant possibilities.  Providence was a strong rival, but I beat them

three straight in the opening series, set a fast pace, and likewise set

Worcester baseball mad.  The Eastern League clubs were pretty evenly

matched; still I continued to hold the lead until misfortune overtook

me.

Gregg smashed an umpire and had to be laid off.  Mullaney got spiked

while sliding and was out of the game.  Ashwell sprained his ankle and

Hirsch broke a finger.  Radbourne, my great pitcher, hurt his arm on a

cold day and he could not get up his old speed.  Stringer, who had

batted three hundred and seventy-one and led the league the year

before, struck a bad spell and could not hit a barn door handed up to

him.

Then came the slump.  The team suddenly let down; went to pieces;

played ball that would have disgraced an amateur nine.  It was a trying

time. Here was a great team, strong everywhere.  A little hard luck had

dug up a slump--and now! Day by day the team dropped in the race.  When

we reached the second division the newspapers flayed us.  Worcester

would never stand for a second division team.  Baseball admirers,

reporters, fans--especially the fans--are fickle.  The admirers quit,

the reporters grilled us, and the fans, though they stuck to the games

with that barnacle-like tenacity peculiar to them, made life miserable

for all of us.  I saw the pennant slowly fading, and the successful

season, and the business deal, and the cottage, and Milly----

But when I thought of her I just could not see failure.  Something must

be done, but what?  I was at the end of my wits.  When Jersey City beat

us that Saturday, eleven to two, shoving us down to fifth place with

only a few percentage points above the Fall River team, I grew

desperate, and locking my players in the dressing room I went after

them.  They had lain down on me and needed a jar.  I told them so

straight and flat, and being bitter, I did not pick and choose my words.

"And fellows," I concluded, "you've got to brace.  A little more of

this and we can't pull out. I tell you you're a championship team.  We

had that pennant cinched.  A few cuts and sprains and hard luck--and

you all quit!  You lay down! I've been patient.  I've plugged for you.

Never a man have I fined or thrown down.  But now I'm at the end of my

string.  I'm out to fine you now, and I'll release the first man who

shows the least yellow.  I play no more substitutes. Crippled or not,

you guys have got to get in the game."

I waited to catch my breath and expected some such outburst as managers

usually get from criticized players.  But not a word!  Then I addressed

some of them personally.

"Gregg, your lay-off ends today.  You play Monday.  Mullaney, you've

drawn your salary for two weeks with that spiked foot.  If you can't

run on it--well, all right, but I put it up to your good faith.  I've

played the game and I know it's hard to run on a sore foot.  But you

can do it. Ashwell, your ankle is lame, I know--now, can you run?"

"Sure I can.  I'm not a quitter.  I'm ready to go in," replied Ashwell.

"Raddy, how about you?" I said, turning to my star twirler.

"Connelly, I've seen as fast a team in as bad a rut and yet pull out,"

returned Radbourne. "We're about due for the brace.  When it

comes--look out!  As for me, well, my arm isn't right, but it's acting

these warm days in a way that tells me it will be soon.  It's been

worked too hard. Can't you get another pitcher?  I'm not knocking Herne

or Cairns.  They're good for their turn, but we need a new man to help

out.  And he must be a crackerjack if we're to get back to the lead."

"Where on earth can I find such a pitcher?" I shouted, almost

distracted.

"Well, that's up to you," replied Radbourne.

Up to me it certainly was, and I cudgeled my brains for inspiration.

After I had given up in hopelessness it came in the shape of a notice I

read in one of the papers.  It was a brief mention of an amateur

Worcester ball team being shut out in a game with a Rickettsville nine.

Rickettsville played Sunday ball, which gave me an opportunity to look

them over.

It took some train riding and then a journey by coach to get to

Rickettsville.  I mingled with the crowd of talking rustics.  There was

only one little "bleachers" and this was loaded to the danger point

with the feminine adherents of the teams.  Most of the crowd centered

alongside and back of the catcher's box.  I edged in and got a position

just behind the stone that served as home plate.

Hunting up a player in this way was no new thing to me.  I was too wise

to make myself known before I had sized up the merits of my man.  So,

before the players came upon the field I amused myself watching the

rustic fans and listening to them.  Then a roar announced the

appearance of the Rickettsville team and their opponents, who wore the

name of Spatsburg on their Canton flannel shirts.  The uniforms of

these country amateurs would have put a Philadelphia Mummer's parade to

the blush, at least for bright colors.  But after one amused glance I

got down to the stern business of the day, and that was to discover a

pitcher, and failing that, baseball talent of any kind.

Never shall I forget my first glimpse of the Rickettsville twirler.  He

was far over six feet tall and as lean as a fence rail.  He had a great

shock of light hair, a sunburned, sharp-featured face, wide, sloping

shoulders, and arms enormously long.  He was about as graceful and had

about as much of a baseball walk as a crippled cow.

"He's a rube!" I ejaculated, in disgust and disappointment.

But when I had seen him throw one ball to his catcher I grew as keen as

a fox on a scent.  What speed he had!  I got round closer to him and

watched him with sharp, eager eyes.  He was a giant.  To be sure, he

was lean, rawboned as a horse, but powerful.  What won me at once was

his natural, easy swing.  He got the ball away with scarcely any

effort.  I wondered what he could do when he brought the motion of his

body into play.

"Bub, what might be the pitcher's name?" I asked of a boy.

"Huh, mister, his name might be Dennis, but it ain't.  Huh!" replied

this country youngster. Evidently my question had thrown some

implication upon this particular player.

"I reckon you be a stranger in these parts," said a pleasant old

fellow.  "His name's Hurtle--Whitaker Hurtle.  Whit fer short.  He

hain't lost a gol-darned game this summer.  No sir-ee! Never pitched

any before, nuther."

Hurtle!  What a remarkably fitting name!

Rickettsville chose the field and the game began. Hurtle swung with his

easy motion.  The ball shot across like a white bullet.  It was a

strike, and so was the next, and the one succeeding.  He could not

throw anything but strikes, and it seemed the Spatsburg players could

not make even a foul.

Outside of Hurtle's work the game meant little to me.  And I was so

fascinated by what I saw in him that I could hardly contain myself.

After the first few innings I no longer tried to.  I yelled with the

Rickettsville rooters.  The man was a wonder.  A blind baseball manager

could have seen that.  He had a straight ball, shoulder high, level as

a stretched string, and fast.  He had a jump ball, which he evidently

worked by putting on a little more steam, and it was the speediest

thing I ever saw in the way of a shoot.  He had a wide-sweeping

outcurve, wide as the blade of a mowing scythe.  And he had a drop--an

unhittable drop.  He did not use it often, for it made his catcher dig

too hard into the dirt.  But whenever he did I glowed all over.  Once

or twice he used an underhand motion and sent in a ball that fairly

swooped up.  It could not have been hit with a board.  And best of all,

dearest to the manager's heart, he had control.  Every ball he threw

went over the plate.  He could not miss it.  To him that plate was as

big as a house.

What a find!  Already I had visions of the long-looked-for brace of my

team, and of the pennant, and the little cottage, and the happy light

of a pair of blue eyes.  What he meant to me, that country pitcher

Hurtle!  He shut out the Spatsburg team without a run or a hit or even

a scratch. Then I went after him.  I collared him and his manager, and

there, surrounded by the gaping players, I bought him and signed him

before any of them knew exactly what I was about.  I did not haggle.  I

asked the manager what he wanted and produced the cash; I asked Hurtle

what he wanted, doubled his ridiculously modest demand, paid him in

advance, and got his name to the contract.  Then I breathed a long,

deep breath; the first one for weeks.  Something told me that with

Hurtle's signature in my pocket I had the Eastern League pennant.  Then

I invited all concerned down to the Rickettsville hotel.

We made connections at the railroad junction and reached Worcester at

midnight in time for a good sleep.  I took the silent and backward

pitcher to my hotel.  In the morning we had breakfast together.  I

showed him about Worcester and then carried him off to the ball grounds.

I had ordered morning practice, and as morning practice is not

conducive to the cheerfulness of ball players, I wanted to reach the

dressing room a little late.  When we arrived, all the players had

dressed and were out on the field.  I had some difficulty in fitting

Hurtle with a uniform, and when I did get him dressed he resembled a

two-legged giraffe decked out in white shirt, gray trousers and maroon

stockings.

Spears, my veteran first baseman and captain of the team, was the first

to see us.

"Sufferin' umpires!" yelled Spears.  "Here, you Micks!  Look at this

Con's got with him!"

What a yell burst from that sore and disgruntled bunch of ball tossers!

My players were a grouchy set in practice anyway, and today they were

in their meanest mood.

"Hey, beanpole!"

"Get on to the stilts!"

"Con, where did you find that?"

I cut short their chaffing with a sharp order for batting practice.

"Regular line-up, now no monkey biz," I went on.  "Take two cracks and

a bunt.  Here, Hurtle," I said, drawing him toward the pitcher's box,

"don't pay any attention to their talk.  That's only the fun of ball

players.  Go in now and practice a little.  Lam a few over."

Hurtle's big freckled hands closed nervously over the ball.  I thought

it best not to say more to him, for he had a rather wild look.  I

remembered my own stage fright upon my first appearance in fast

company.  Besides I knew what my amiable players would say to him.  I

had a secret hope and belief that presently they would yell upon the

other side of the fence.

McCall, my speedy little left fielder, led off at bat.  He was full of

ginger, chipper as a squirrel, sarcastic as only a tried ball player

can be.

"Put 'em over, Slats, put 'em over," he called, viciously swinging his

ash.

Hurtle stood stiff and awkward in the box and seemed to be rolling

something in his mouth. Then he moved his arm.  We all saw the ball

dart down straight--that is, all of us except McCall, because if he had

seen it he might have jumped out of the way.  Crack!  The ball hit him

on the shin.

McCall shrieked.  We all groaned.  That crack hurt all of us.  Any

baseball player knows how it hurts to be hit on the shinbone.  McCall

waved his bat madly.

"Rube!  Rube!  Rube!" he yelled.

Then and there Hurtle got the name that was to cling to him all his

baseball days.

McCall went back to the plate, red in the face, mad as a hornet, and he

sidestepped every time Rube pitched a ball.  He never even ticked one

and retired in disgust, limping and swearing. Ashwell was next.  He did

not show much alacrity. On Rube's first pitch down went Ashwell flat in

the dust.  The ball whipped the hair of his head.  Rube was wild and I

began to get worried. Ashwell hit a couple of measly punks, but when he

assayed a bunt the gang yelled derisively at him.

"What's he got?"  The old familiar cry of batters when facing a new

pitcher!

Stringer went up, bold and formidable.  That was what made him the

great hitter he was.  He loved to bat; he would have faced anybody; he

would have faced even a cannon.  New curves were a fascination to him.

And speed for him, in his own words, was "apple pie."  In this

instance, surprise was in store for Stringer.  Rube shot up the

straight one, then the wide curve, then the drop.  Stringer missed them

all, struck out, fell down ignominiously.  It was the first time he had

fanned that season and he looked dazed. We had to haul him away.

I called off the practice, somewhat worried about Rube's showing, and

undecided whether or not to try him in the game that day.  So I went to

Radbourne, who had quietly watched Rube while on the field.  Raddy was

an old pitcher and had seen the rise of a hundred stars.  I told him

about the game at Rickettsville and what I thought of Rube, and frankly

asked his opinion.

"Con, you've made the find of your life," said Raddy, quietly and

deliberately.

This from Radbourne was not only comforting; it was relief, hope,

assurance.  I avoided Spears, for it would hardly be possible for him

to regard the Rube favorably, and I kept under cover until time to show

up at the grounds.

Buffalo was on the ticket for that afternoon, and the Bisons were

leading the race and playing in topnotch form.  I went into the

dressing room while the players were changing suits, because there was

a little unpleasantness that I wanted to spring on them before we got

on the field.

"Boys," I said, curtly, "Hurtle works today. Cut loose, now, and back

him up."

I had to grab a bat and pound on the wall to stop the uproar.

"Did you mutts hear what I said?  Well, it goes. Not a word, now.  I'm

handling this team.  We're in bad, I know, but it's my judgment to

pitch Hurtle, rube or no rube, and it's up to you to back us.  That's

the baseball of it."

Grumbling and muttering, they passed out of the dressing room.  I knew

ball players.  If Hurtle should happen to show good form they would

turn in a flash.  Rube tagged reluctantly in their rear.  He looked

like a man in a trance.  I wanted to speak encouragingly to him, but

Raddy told me to keep quiet.

It was inspiring to see my team practice that afternoon.  There had

come a subtle change.  I foresaw one of those baseball climaxes that

can be felt and seen, but not explained.  Whether it was a hint of the

hoped-for brace, or only another flash of form before the final

let-down, I had no means to tell.  But I was on edge.

Carter, the umpire, called out the batteries, and I sent my team into

the field.  When that long, lanky, awkward rustic started for the

pitcher's box, I thought the bleachers would make him drop in his

tracks.  The fans were sore on any one those days, and a new pitcher

was bound to hear from them.

"Where!  Oh, where!  Oh, where!"

"Connelly's found another dead one!"

"Scarecrow!"

"Look at his pants!"

"Pad his legs!"

Then the inning began, and things happened. Rube had marvelous speed,

but he could not find the plate.  He threw the ball the second he got

it; he hit men, walked men, and fell all over himself trying to field

bunts.  The crowd stormed and railed and hissed.  The Bisons pranced

round the bases and yelled like Indians.  Finally they retired with

eight runs.

Eight runs!  Enough to win two games!  I could not have told how it

happened.  I was sick and all but crushed.  Still I had a blind, dogged

faith in the big rustic.  I believed he had not got started right.  It

was a trying situation.  I called Spears and Raddy to my side and

talked fast.

"It's all off now.  Let the dinged rube take his medicine," growled

Spears.

"Don't take him out," said Raddy.  "He's not shown at all what's in

him.  The blamed hayseed is up in the air.  He's crazy.  He doesn't

know what he's doing.  I tell you, Con, he may be scared to death, but

he's dead in earnest."

Suddenly I recalled the advice of the pleasant old fellow at

Rickettsville.

"Spears, you're the captain," I said, sharply. "Go after the rube.

Wake him up.  Tell him he can't pitch.  Call him 'Pogie!'  That's a

name that stirs him up."

"Well, I'll be dinged!  He looks it," replied Spears.  "Here, Rube, get

off the bench.  Come here."

Rube lurched toward us.  He seemed to be walking in his sleep.  His

breast was laboring and he was dripping with sweat.

"Who ever told you that you could pitch?" asked Spears genially.  He

was master at baseball ridicule.  I had never yet seen the youngster

who could stand his badinage.  He said a few things, then wound up

with:  "Come now, you cross between a hayrack and a wagon tongue, get

sore and do something.  Pitch if you can.  Show us!  Do you hear, you

tow-headed Pogie!"

Rube jumped as if he had been struck.  His face flamed red and his

little eyes turned black.  He shoved his big fist under Capt. Spears'

nose.

"Mister, I'll lick you fer thet--after the game! And I'll show you

dog-goned well how I can pitch."

"Good!" exclaimed Raddy; and I echoed his word.  Then I went to the

bench and turned my attention to the game.  Some one told me that

McCall had made a couple of fouls, and after waiting for two strikes

and three balls had struck out.  Ashwell had beat out a bunt in his old

swift style, and Stringer was walking up to the plate on the moment.

It was interesting, even in a losing game, to see Stringer go to bat.

We all watched him, as we had been watching him for weeks, expecting

him to break his slump with one of the drives that had made him famous.

Stringer stood to the left side of the plate, and I could see the bulge

of his closely locked jaw.  He swung on the first pitched ball.  With

the solid rap we all rose to watch that hit.  The ball lined first,

then soared and did not begin to drop till it was far beyond the

right-field fence.  For an instant we were all still, so were the

bleachers.  Stringer had broken his slump with the longest drive ever

made on the grounds.  The crowd cheered as he trotted around the bases

behind Ashwell.  Two runs.

"Con, how'd you like that drive?" he asked me, with a bright gleam in

his eyes.

"O-h-!--a beaut!" I replied, incoherently.  The players on the bench

were all as glad as I was. Henley flew out to left.  Mullaney smashed a

two-bagger to right.  Then Gregg hit safely, but Mullaney, in trying to

score on the play, was out at the plate.

"Four hits!  I tell you fellows, something's coming off," said Raddy.

"Now, if only Rube----"

What a difference there was in that long rustic! He stalked into the

box, unmindful of the hooting crowd and grimly faced Schultz, the first

batter up for the Bisons.  This time Rube was deliberate. And where he

had not swung before he now got his body and arm into full motion.  The

ball came in like a glint of light.  Schultz looked surprised.  The

umpire called "Strike!"

"Wow!" yelled the Buffalo coacher.  Rube sped up the sidewheeler and

Schultz reached wide to meet it and failed.  The third was the

lightning drop, straight over the plate.  The batter poked weakly at

it.  Then Carl struck out and Manning following, did likewise.  Three

of the best hitters in the Eastern retired on nine strikes!  That was

no fluke.  I knew what it meant, and I sat there hugging myself with

the hum of something joyous in my ears.

Gregg had a glow on his sweaty face.  "Oh, but say, boys, take a tip

from me!  The Rube's a world beater!  Raddy knew it; he sized up that

swing, and now I know it.  Get wise, you its!"

When old Spears pasted a single through shortstop, the Buffalo manager

took Clary out of the box and put in Vane, their best pitcher.  Bogart

advanced the runner to second, but was thrown out on the play.  Then

Rube came up.  He swung a huge bat and loomed over the Bison's twirler.

Rube had the look of a hitter.  He seemed to be holding himself back

from walking right into the ball.  And he hit one high and far away.

The fast Carl could not get under it, though he made a valiant effort.

Spears scored and Rube's long strides carried him to third.  The cold

crowd in the stands came to life; even the sore bleachers opened up.

McCall dumped a slow teaser down the line, a hit that would easily have

scored Rube, but he ran a little way, then stopped, tried to get back,

and was easily touched out.  Ashwell's hard chance gave the Bison's

shortstop an error, and Stringer came up with two men on bases.

Stringer hit a foul over the right-field fence and the crowd howled.

Then he hit a hard long drive straight into the centerfielder's hands.

"Con, I don't know what to think, but ding me if we ain't hittin' the

ball," said Spears.  Then to his players:  "A little more of that and

we're back in our old shape.  All in a minute--at 'em now!  Rube, you

dinged old Pogie, pitch!"

Rube toed the rubber, wrapped his long brown fingers round the ball,

stepped out as he swung and--zing!  That inning he unloosed a few more

kinks in his arm and he tried some new balls upon the Bisons.  But

whatever he used and wherever he put them the result was the same--they

cut the plate and the Bisons were powerless.

That inning marked the change in my team. They had come hack.  The

hoodoo had vanished. The championship Worcester team was itself again.

The Bisons were fighting, too, but Rube had them helpless.  When they

did hit a ball one of my infielders snapped it up.  No chances went to

the outfield.  I sat there listening to my men, and reveled in a moment

that I had long prayed for.

"Now you're pitching some, Rube.  Another strike!  Get him a board!"

called Ashwell.

"Ding 'em, Rube, ding 'em!" came from Capt. Spears.

"Speed?  Oh-no!" yelled Bogart at third base.

"It's all off, Rube!  It's all off--all off!"

So, with the wonderful pitching of an angry rube, the Worcester team

came into its own again.  I sat through it all without another word;

without giving a signal.  In a way I realized the awakening of the

bleachers, and heard the pound of feet and the crash, but it was the

spirit of my team that thrilled me.  Next to that the work of my new

find absorbed me.  I gloated over his easy, deceiving swing.  I rose

out of my seat when he threw that straight fast ball, swift as a

bullet, true as a plumb line.  And when those hard-hitting, sure

bunting Bisons chopped in vain at the wonderful drop, I choked back a

wild yell.  For Rube meant the world to me that day.

In the eighth the score was 8 to 6.  The Bisons had one scratch hit to

their credit, but not a runner had got beyond first base.  Again Rube

held them safely, one man striking out, another fouling out, and the

third going out on a little fly.

Crash!  Crash!  Crash!  Crash!  The bleachers were making up for many

games in which they could not express their riotous feelings.

"It's a cinch we'll win!" yelled a fan with a voice.  Rube was the

first man up in our half of the ninth and his big bat lammed the first

ball safe over second base.  The crowd, hungry for victory, got to

their feet and stayed upon their feet, calling, cheering for runs.  It

was the moment for me to get in the game, and I leaped up, strung like

a wire, and white hot with inspiration. I sent Spears to the coaching

box with orders to make Rube run on the first ball.  I gripped McCall

with hands that made him wince.

Then I dropped back on the bench spent and panting.  It was only a

game, yet it meant so much!  Little McCall was dark as a thunder cloud,

and his fiery eyes snapped.  He was the fastest man in the league, and

could have bunted an arrow from a bow.  The foxy Bison third baseman

edged in.  Mac feinted to bunt toward him then turned his bat inward

and dumped a teasing curving ball down the first base line.  Rube ran

as if in seven-league boots.  Mac's short legs twinkled; he went like

the wind; he leaped into first base with his long slide, and beat the

throw.

The stands and bleachers seemed to be tumbling down.  For a moment the

air was full of deafening sound.  Then came the pause, the dying away

of clatter and roar, the close waiting, suspended quiet.  Spears' clear

voice, as he coached Rube, in its keen note seemed inevitable of

another run.

Ashwell took his stand.  He was another left-hand hitter, and against a

right-hand pitcher, in such circumstances as these, the most dangerous

of men.  Vane knew it.  Ellis, the Bison captain knew it, as showed

plainly in his signal to catch Rube at second.  But Spears' warning

held or frightened Rube on the bag.

Vane wasted a ball, then another.  Ashwell could not be coaxed.

Wearily Vane swung; the shortstop raced out to get in line for a

possible hit through the wide space to his right, and the second

baseman got on his toes as both base runners started.

Crack!  The old story of the hit and run game! Ashwell's hit crossed

sharply where a moment before the shortstop had been standing.  With

gigantic strides Rube rounded the corner and scored.  McCall flitted

through second, and diving into third with a cloud of dust, got the

umpire's decision.  When Stringer hurried up with Mac on third and Ash

on first the whole field seemed racked in a deafening storm.  Again it

subsided quickly.  The hopes of the Worcester fans had been crushed too

often of late for them to be fearless.

But I had no fear.  I only wanted the suspense ended.  I was like a man

clamped in a vise. Stringer stood motionless.  Mac bent low with the

sprinters' stoop; Ash watched the pitcher's arm and slowly edged off

first.  Stringer waited for one strike and two balls, then he hit the

next.  It hugged the first base line, bounced fiercely past the bag and

skipped over the grass to bump hard into the fence.  McCall romped

home, and lame Ashwell beat any run he ever made to the plate. Rolling,

swelling, crashing roar of frenzied feet could not down the high

piercing sustained yell of the fans.  It was great.  Three weeks of

submerged bottled baseball joy exploded in one mad outburst!  The fans,

too, had come into their own again.

We scored no more.  But the Bisons were beaten.  Their spirit was

broken.  This did not make the Rube let up in their last half inning.

Grim and pale he faced them.  At every long step and swing he tossed

his shock of light hair.  At the end he was even stronger than at the

beginning. He still had the glancing, floating airy quality that

baseball players call speed.  And he struck out the last three batters.

In the tumult that burst over my ears I sat staring at the dots on my

score card.  Fourteen strike outs! one scratch hit!  No base on balls

since the first inning!  That told the story which deadened senses

doubted.  There was a roar in my ears.  Some one was pounding me.  As I

struggled to get into the dressing room the crowd mobbed me.  But I did

not hear what they yelled. I had a kind of misty veil before my eyes,

in which I saw that lanky Rube magnified into a glorious figure.  I saw

the pennant waving, and the gleam of a white cottage through the trees,

and a trim figure waiting at the gate.  Then I rolled into the dressing

room.

Somehow it seemed strange to me.  Most of the players were stretched

out in peculiar convulsions. Old Spears sat with drooping head.  Then a

wild flaming-eyed giant swooped upon me.  With a voice of thunder he

announced:

"I'm a-goin' to lick you, too!"

After that we never called him any name except Rube.

THE RUBE'S PENNANT

"Fellows, it's this way.  You've got to win today's game.  It's the

last of the season and means the pennant for Worcester.  One more hard

scrap and we're done!  Of all the up-hill fights any bunch ever made to

land the flag, our has been the best.  You're the best team I ever

managed, the gamest gang of ball players that ever stepped in spikes.

We've played in the hardest kind of luck all season, except that short

trip we called the Rube's Honeymoon.  We got a bad start, and sore arms

and busted fingers, all kinds of injuries, every accident calculated to

hurt a team's chances, came our way.  But in spite of it all we got the

lead and we've held it, and today we're still a few points ahead of

Buffalo."

I paused to catch my breath, and looked round on the grim, tired faces

of my players.  They made a stern group.  The close of the season found

them almost played out.  What a hard chance it was, after their

extraordinary efforts, to bring the issue of the pennant down to this

last game!

"If we lose today, Buffalo, with three games more to play at home, will

pull the bunting," I went on.  "But they're not going to win!  I'm

putting it up to you that way.  I know Spears is all in; Raddy's arm is

gone; Ash is playing on one leg; you're all crippled.  But you've got

one more game in you, I know.  These last few weeks the Rube has been

pitching out of turn and he's about all in, too.  He's kept us in the

lead.  If he wins today it'll be Rube's Pennant.  But that might apply

to all of you.  Now, shall we talk over the play today?  Any tricks to

pull off?  Any inside work?"

"Con, you're pretty much upset an' nervous," replied Spears, soberly.

"It ain't no wonder. This has been one corker of a season.  I want to

suggest that you let me run the team today.  I've talked over the play

with the fellers.  We ain't goin' to lose this game, Con.  Buffalo has

been comin' with a rush lately, an' they're confident. But we've been

holdin' in, restin' up as much as we dared an' still keep our lead.

Mebbee it'll surprise you to know we've bet every dollar we could get

hold of on this game.  Why, Buffalo money is everywhere."

"All right, Spears, I'll turn the team over to you.  We've got the

banner crowd of the year out there right now, a great crowd to play

before. I'm more fussed up over this game than any I remember.  But I

have a sort of blind faith in my team....  I guess that's all I want

to say."

Spears led the silent players out of the dressing room and I followed;

and while they began to toss balls to and fro, to limber up cold, dead

arms, I sat on the bench.

The Bisons were prancing about the diamond, and their swaggering

assurance was not conducive to hope for the Worcesters.  I wondered how

many of that vast, noisy audience, intent on the day's sport, even had

a thought of what pain and toil it meant to my players.  The Buffalo

men were in good shape; they had been lucky; they were at the top of

their stride, and that made all the difference.

At any rate, there were a few faithful little women in the grand

stand--Milly and Nan and Rose Stringer and Kate Bogart--who sat with

compressed lips and hoped and prayed for that game to begin and end.

The gong called off the practice, and Spears, taking the field, yelled

gruff encouragement to his men.  Umpire Carter brushed off the plate

and tossed a white ball to Rube and called:  "Play!" The bleachers set

up an exultant, satisfied shout and sat down to wait.

Schultz toed the plate and watched the Rube pitch a couple.  There

seemed to be no diminution of the great pitcher's speed and both balls

cut the plate.  Schultz clipped the next one down the third-base Line.

Bogart trapped it close to the bag, and got it away underhand, beating

the speedy runner by a nose.  It was a pretty play to start with, and

the spectators were not close-mouthed in appreciation.  The short,

stocky Carl ambled up to bat, and I heard him call the Rube something.

It was not a friendly contest, this deciding game between Buffalo and

Worcester.

"Bing one close to his swelled nut!" growled Spears to the Rube.

Carl chopped a bouncing grounder through short and Ash was after it

like a tiger, but it was a hit.  The Buffalo contingent opened up.

Then Manning faced the Rube, and he, too, vented sarcasm.  It might not

have been heard by the slow, imperturbable pitcher for all the notice

he took. Carl edged off first, slid back twice, got a third start, and

on the Rube's pitch was off for second base with the lead that always

made him dangerous. Manning swung vainly, and Gregg snapped a throw to

Mullaney.  Ball and runner got to the bag apparently simultaneously;

the umpire called Carl out, and the crowd uttered a quick roar of

delight.

The next pitch to Manning was a strike.  Rube was not wasting any

balls, a point I noted with mingled fear and satisfaction.  For he

might have felt that he had no strength to spare that day and so could

not try to work the batters.  Again he swung, and Manning rapped a long

line fly over McCall.  As the little left fielder turned at the sound

of the hit and sprinted out, his lameness was certainly not in

evidence.  He was the swiftest runner in the league and always when he

got going the crowd rose in wild clamor to watch him. Mac took that fly

right off the foul flag in deep left, and the bleachers dinned their

pleasure.

The teams changed positions.  "Fellers," said Spears, savagely, "we may

be a bunged-up lot of stiffs, but, say!  We can hit!  If you love your

old captain--sting the ball!"

Vane, the Bison pitcher, surely had his work cut out for him.  For one

sympathetic moment I saw his part through his eyes.  My Worcester

veterans, long used to being under fire, were relentlessly bent on

taking that game.  It showed in many ways, particularly in their

silence, because they were seldom a silent team.  McCall hesitated a

moment over his bats.  Then, as he picked up the lightest one, I saw

his jaw set, and I knew he intended to bunt.  He was lame, yet he meant

to beat out an infield hit.  He went up scowling.

Vane had an old head, and he had a varied assortment of balls.  For Mac

he used an under hand curve, rising at the plate and curving in to the

left-hander.  Mac stepped back and let it go.

"That's the place, Bo," cried the Buffalo infielders.  "Keep 'em close

on the Crab."  Eager and fierce as McCall was, he let pitch after pitch

go by till he had three balls and two strikes.  Still the heady Vane

sent up another pitch similar to the others.  Mac stepped forward in

the box, dropped his bat on the ball, and leaped down the line toward

first base.  Vane came rushing in for the bunt, got it and threw.  But

as the speeding ball neared the baseman, Mac stretched out into the air

and shot for the bag.  By a fraction of a second he beat the ball.  It

was one of his demon-slides.  He knew that the chances favored his

being crippled; we all knew that some day Mac would slide recklessly

once too often.  But that, too, is all in the game and in the spirit of

a great player.

"We're on," said Spears; "now keep with him."

By that the captain meant that Mac would go down, and Ashwell would hit

with the run.

When Vane pitched, little McCall was flitting toward second.  The Bison

shortstop started for the bag, and Ash hit square through his tracks. A

rolling cheer burst from the bleachers, and swelled till McCall overran

third base and was thrown back by the coacher.  Stringer hurried

forward with his big bat.

"Oh!  My!" yelled a fan, and he voiced my sentiments exactly.  Here we

would score, and be one run closer to that dearly bought pennant.

How well my men worked together!  As the pitcher let the ball go, Ash

was digging for second and Mac was shooting plateward.  They played on

the chance of Stringer's hitting. Stringer swung, the bat cracked, we

heard a thud somewhere, and then Manning, half knocked over, was

fumbling for the ball.  He had knocked down a terrific drive with his

mitt, and he got the ball in time to put Stringer out.  But Mac scored

and Ash drew a throw to third base and beat it.  He had a bad ankle,

but no one noticed it in that daring run.

"Watch me paste one!" said Captain Spears, as he spat several yards.

He batted out a fly so long and high and far that, slow as he was, he

had nearly run to second base when Carl made the catch.  Ash easily

scored on the throw-in.  Then Bogart sent one skipping over second, and

Treadwell, scooping it on the run, completed a play that showed why he

was considered the star of the Bison infield.

"Two runs, fellers!" said Spears.  "That's some!  Push 'em over, Rube."

The second inning somewhat quickened the pace.  Even the Rube worked a

little faster.  Ellis lined to Cairns in right; Treadwell fouled two

balls and had a called strike, and was out; McKnight hit a low fly over

short, then Bud Wiler sent one between Spears and Mullaney.  Spears

went for it while the Rube with giant strides ran to cover first base.

Between them they got Bud, but it was only because he was heavy and

slow on his feet.

In our half of that inning Mullaney, Gregg and Cairns went out in one,

two, three order.

With Pannell up, I saw that the Rube held in on his speed, or else he

was tiring.  Pannell hit the second slow ball for two bases.  Vane

sacrificed, and then the redoubtable Schultz came up. He appeared to be

in no hurry to bat.  Then I saw that the foxy Buffalo players were

working to tire the Rube.  They had the situation figured. But they

were no wiser than old Spears.

"Make 'em hit, Rube.  Push 'em straight over. Never mind the corners.

We don't care for a few runs.  We'll hit this game out."

Shultz flied to Mac, who made a beautiful throw to the plate too late

to catch Pannell.  Carl deliberately bunted to the right of the Rube

and it cost the big pitcher strenuous effort to catch his man.

"We got the Rube waggin'!" yelled a Buffalo player.

Manning tripled down the left foul line--a hit the bleachers called a

screamer.  When Ellis came up, it looked like a tie score, and when the

Rube pitched it was plain that he was tired.  The Bisons yelled their

assurance of this and the audience settled into quiet.  Ellis batted a

scorcher that looked good for a hit.  But the fast Ashwell was moving

with the ball, and he plunged lengthwise to get it square in his glove.

The hit had been so sharp that he had time to get up and make the throw

to beat the runner.  The bleachers thundered at the play.

"You're up, Rube," called Spears.  "Lam one out of the lot!"

The Rube was an uncertain batter.  There was never any telling what he

might do, for he had spells of good and bad hitting.  But when he did

get his bat on the ball it meant a chase for some fielder.  He went up

swinging his huge club, and he hit a fly that would have been an easy

home run for a fast man.  But the best Rube could do was to reach third

base.  This was certainly good enough, as the bleachers loudly

proclaimed, and another tally for us seemed sure.

McCall bunted toward third, another of his teasers.  The Rube would

surely have scored had he started with the ball, but he did not try and

missed a chance.  Wiler, of course, held the ball, and Mac got to first

without special effort.  He went down on the first pitch.  Then Ash

lined to Carl.  The Rube waited till the ball was caught and started

for home.  The crowd screamed, the Rube ran for all he was worth and

Carl's throw to the plate shot in low and true.  Ellis blocked the Rube

and tagged him out.

It looked to the bleachers as if Ellis had been unnecessarily rough,

and they hissed and stormed disapproval.  As for me, I knew the Bisons

were losing no chance to wear out my pitcher.  Stringer fouled out with

Mac on third, and it made him so angry that he threw his bat toward the

bench, making some of the boys skip lively.

The next three innings, as far as scoring was concerned, were all for

Buffalo.  But the Worcester infield played magnificent ball, holding

their opponents to one run each inning.

That made the score 4 to 2 in favor of Buffalo.

In the last half of the sixth, with Ash on first base and two men out,

old Spears hit another of his lofty flies, and this one went over the

fence and tied the score.  How the bleachers roared! It was full two

minutes before they quieted down. To make it all the more exciting,

Bogart hit safely, ran like a deer to third on Mullaney's grounder,

which Wiler knocked down, and scored on a passed ball.  Gregg ended the

inning by striking out.

"Get at the Rube!" boomed Ellis, the Bison captain.  "We'll have him up

in the air soon.  Get in the game now, you stickers!"

Before I knew what had happened, the Bisons had again tied the score.

They were indomitable. They grew stronger all the time.  A stroke of

good luck now would clinch the game for them. The Rube was beginning to

labor in the box; Ashwell was limping; Spears looked as if he would

drop any moment; McCall could scarcely walk. But if the ball came his

way he could still run. Nevertheless, I never saw any finer fielding

than these cripped players executed that inning.

"Ash--Mac--can you hold out?" I asked, when they limped in.  I received

glances of scorn for my question.  Spears, however, was not sanguine.

"I'll stick pretty much if somethin' doesn't happen," he said; "but I'm

all in.  I'll need a runner if I get to first this time."

Spears lumbered down to first base on an infield hit and the heavy

Manning gave him the hip. Old Spears went down, and I for one knew he

was out in more ways than that signified by Carter's sharp:  "Out!"

The old war-horse gathered himself up slowly and painfully, and with

his arms folded and his jaw protruding, he limped toward the umpire.

"Did you call me out?" he asked, in a voice plainly audible to any one

on the field.

"Yes," snapped Carter.

"What for?  I beat the ball, an' Mannin' played dirty with me--gave me

the hip."

"I called you out."

"But I wasn't out!"

"Shut up now!  Get off the diamond!" ordered Carter, peremptorily.

"What?  Me?  Say, I'm captain of this team. Can't I question a

decision?"

"Not mine.  Spears, you're delaying the game."

"I tell you it was a rotten decision," yelled Spears.  The bleachers

agreed with him.

Carter grew red in the face.  He and Spears had before then met in

field squabbles, and he showed it.

"Fifty dollars!"

"More!  You cheap-skate you piker!  More!"

"It's a hundred!"

"Put me out of the game!" roared Spears.

"You bet!  Hurry now--skedaddle!"

"Rob-b-ber!" bawled Spears.

Then he labored slowly toward the bench, all red, and yet with

perspiration, his demeanor one of outraged dignity.  The great crowd,

as one man, stood up and yelled hoarsely at Carter, and hissed and

railed at him.  When Spears got to the bench he sat down beside me as

if in pain, but he was smiling.

"Con, I was all in, an' knowin' I couldn't play any longer, thought I'd

try to scare Carter.  Say, he was white in the face.  If we play into a

close decision now, he'll give it to us."

Bogart and Mullaney batted out in short order, and once more the

aggressive Bisons hurried in for their turn.  Spears sent Cairns to

first base and Jones to right.  The Rube lobbed up his slow ball.  In

that tight pinch he showed his splendid nerve.  Two Buffalo players,

over-anxious, popped up flies.  The Rube kept on pitching the slow

curve until it was hit safely.  Then heaving his shoulders with all his

might he got all the motion possible into his swing and let drive. He

had almost all of his old speed, but it hurt me to see him work with

such desperate effort. He struck Wiler out.

He came stooping into the bench, apparently deaf to the stunning round

of applause.  Every player on the team had a word for the Rube. There

was no quitting in that bunch, and if I ever saw victory on the stern

faces of ball players it was in that moment.

"We haven't opened up yet.  Mebbee this is the innin'.  If it ain't,

the next is," said Spears.

With the weak end of the batting list up, there seemed little hope of

getting a run on Vane that inning.  He had so much confidence that he

put the ball over for Gregg, who hit out of the reach of the infield.

Again Vane sent up his straight ball, no doubt expecting Cairns to hit

into a double play.  But Cairns surprised Vane and everybody else by

poking a safety past first base. The fans began to howl and pound and

whistle.

The Rube strode to bat.  The infield closed in for a bunt, but the Rube

had no orders for that style of play.  Spears had said nothing to him.

Vane lost his nonchalance and settled down.  He cut loose with all his

speed.  Rube stepped out, suddenly whirled, then tried to dodge, but

the ball hit him fair in the back.  Rube sagged in his tracks, then

straightened up, and walked slowly to first base.  Score 5 to 5, bases

full, no outs, McCall at bat.  I sat dumb on the bench, thrilling and

shivering.  McCall!  Ashwell!  Stringer to bat!

"Play it safe!  Hold the bags!" yelled the coacher.

McCall fairly spouted defiance as he faced Vane.

"Pitch!  It's all off!  An' you know it!"

If Vane knew that, he showed no evidence of it.  His face was cold,

unsmiling, rigid.  He had to pitch to McCall, the fastest man in the

league; to Ashwell, the best bunter; to Stringer, the champion batter.

It was a supreme test for a great pitcher.  There was only one kind of

a ball that McCall was not sure to hit, and that was a high curve, in

close.  Vane threw it with all his power. Carter called it a strike.

Again Vane swung and his arm fairly cracked.  Mac fouled the ball.  The

third was wide.  Slowly, with lifting breast, Vane got ready, whirled

savagely and shot up the ball. McCall struck out.

As the Buffalo players crowed and the audience groaned it was worthy of

note that little McCall showed no temper.  Yet he had failed to grasp a

great opportunity.

"Ash, I couldn't see 'em," he said, as he passed to the bench.  "Speed,

whew! look out for it. He's been savin' up.  Hit quick, an' you'll get

him."

Ashwell bent over the plate and glowered at Vane.

"Pitch!  It's all off!  An' you know it!" he hissed, using Mac's words.

Ashwell, too, was left-handed; he, too, was extremely hard to pitch to;

and if he had a weakness that any of us ever discovered, it was a slow

curve and change of pace.  But I doubted if Vane would dare to use slow

balls to Ash at that critical moment.  I had yet to learn something of

Vane. He gave Ash a slow, wide-sweeping sidewheeler, that curved round

over the plate.  Ash always took a strike, so this did not matter.

Then Vane used his deceptive change of pace, sending up a curve that

just missed Ash's bat as he swung.

"Oh!  A-h-h! hit!" wailed the bleachers.

Vane doubled up like a contortionist, and shot up a lightning-swift

drop that fooled Ash completely.  Again the crowd groaned.  Score tied,

bases full, two out, Stringer at bat!

"It's up to you, String," called Ash, stepping aside.

Stringer did not call out to Vane.  That was not his way.  He stood

tense and alert, bat on his shoulder, his powerful form braced, and he

waited.  The outfielders trotted over toward right field, and the

infielders played deep, calling out warnings and encouragement to the

pitcher. Stringer had no weakness, and Vane knew this. Nevertheless he

did not manifest any uneasiness, and pitched the first ball without any

extra motion.  Carter called it a strike.  I saw Stringer sink down

slightly and grow tenser all over.  I believe that moment was longer

for me than for either the pitcher or the batter.  Vane took his time,

watched the base runners, feinted to throw to catch them, and then

delivered the ball toward the plate with the limit of his power.

Stringer hit the ball.  As long as I live, I will see that glancing low

liner.  Shultz, by a wonderful play in deep center, blocked the ball

and thereby saved it from being a home run.  But when Stringer stopped

on second base, all the runners had scored.

A shrill, shrieking, high-pitched yell!  The bleachers threatened to

destroy the stands and also their throats in one long revel of baseball

madness.

Jones, batting in place of Spears, had gone up and fouled out before

the uproar had subsided.

"Fellers, I reckon I feel easier," said the Rube. It was the only time

I had ever heard him speak to the players at such a stage.

"Only six batters, Rube," called out Spears. "Boys, it's a grand game,

an' it's our'n!"

The Rube had enough that inning to dispose of the lower half of the

Buffalo list without any alarming bids for a run.  And in our half,

Bogart and Mullaney hit vicious ground balls that gave Treadwell and

Wiler opportunities for superb plays.  Carl, likewise, made a beautiful

running catch of Gregg's line fly.  The Bisons were still in the game,

still capable of pulling it out at the last moment.

When Shultz stalked up to the plate I shut my eyes a moment, and so

still was it that the field and stands might have been empty.  Yet,

though I tried, I could not keep my eyes closed.  I opened them to

watch the Rube.  I knew Spears felt the same as I, for he was blowing

like a porpoise and muttering to himself:  "Mebee the Rube won't last

an' I've no one to put in!"

The Rube pitched with heavy, violent effort. He had still enough speed

to be dangerous.  But after the manner of ball players Shultz and the

coachers mocked him.

"Take all you can," called Ellis to Shultz.

Every pitch lessened the Rube's strength and these wise opponents knew

it.  Likewise the Rube himself knew, and never had he shown better head

work than in this inning.  If he were to win, he must be quick.  So he

wasted not a ball.  The first pitch and the second, delivered breast

high and fairly over the plate, beautiful balls to hit, Shultz watched

speed by.  He swung hard on the third and the crippled Ashwell dove for

it in a cloud of dust, got a hand in front of it, but uselessly, for

the hit was safe.  The crowd cheered that splendid effort.

Carl marched to bat, and he swung his club over the plate as if he knew

what to expect.  "Come on, Rube!" he shouted.  Wearily, doggedly, the

Rube whirled, and whipped his arm.  The ball had all his old glancing

speed and it was a strike. The Rube was making a tremendous effort.

Again he got his body in convulsive motion--two strikes!  Shultz had

made no move to run, nor had Carl made any move to hit.  These veterans

were waiting.  The Rube had pitched five strikes--could he last?

"Now, Carl!" yelled Ellis, with startling suddenness, as the Rube

pitched again.

Crack!  Carl placed that hit as safely through short as if he had

thrown it.  McCall's little legs twinkled as he dashed over the grass.

He had to head off that hit and he ran like a streak.  Down and forward

he pitched, as if in one of his fierce slides, and he got his body in

front of the ball, blocking it, and then he rolled over and over.  But

he jumped up and lined the ball to Bogart, almost catching Shultz at

third-base.  Then, as Mac tried to walk, his lame leg buckled under

him, and down he went, and out.

"Call time," I called to Carter.  "McCall is done....  Myers, you go

to left an' for Lord's sake play ball!"

Stringer and Bogart hurried to Mac and, lifting him up and supporting

him between them with his arms around their shoulders, they led him off

amid cheers from the stands.  Mac was white with pain.

"Naw, I won't go off the field.  Leave me on the bench," he said.

"Fight 'em now.  It's our game.  Never mind a couple of runs."

The boys ran back to their positions and Carter called play.  Perhaps a

little delay had been helpful to the Rube.  Slowly he stepped into the

box and watched Shultz at third and Carl at second. There was not much

probability of his throwing to catch them off the base, but enough of a

possibility to make them careful, so he held them close.

The Rube pitched a strike to Manning, then another.  That made eight

strikes square over the plate that inning.  What magnificent control!

It was equaled by the implacable patience of those veteran Bisons.

Manning hit the next ball as hard as Carl had hit his.  But Mullaney

plunged down, came up with the ball, feinted to fool Carl, then let

drive to Gregg to catch the fleeting Shultz. The throw went wide, but

Gregg got it, and, leaping lengthwise, tagged Shultz out a yard from

the plate.

One out.  Two runners on bases.  The bleachers rose and split their

throats.  Would the inning never end?

Spears kept telling himself:  "They'll score, but we'll win.  It's our

game!"

I had a sickening fear that the strange confidence that obsessed the

Worcester players had been blind, unreasoning vanity.

"Carl will steal," muttered Spears.  "He can't be stopped."

Spears had called the play.  The Rube tried to hold the little

base-stealer close to second, but, after one attempt, wisely turned to

his hard task of making the Bisons hit and hit quickly.  Ellis let the

ball pass; Gregg made a perfect throw to third; Bogart caught the ball

and moved like a flash, but Carl slid under his hands to the bag.

Manning ran down to second.  The Rube pitched again, and this was his

tenth ball over the plate. Even the Buffalo players evinced eloquent

appreciation of the Rube's defence at this last stand.

Then Ellis sent a clean hit to right, scoring both Carl and Manning.  I

breathed easier, for it seemed with those two runners in, the Rube had

a better chance.  Treadwell also took those two runners in, the Rube

had a way those Bisons waited.  They had their reward, for the Rube's

speed left him.  When he pitched again the ball had control, but no

shoot.  Treadwell hit it with all his strength.  Like a huge cat

Ashwell pounced upon it, ran over second base, forcing Ellis, and his

speedy snap to first almost caught Treadwell.

Score 8 to 7.  Two out.  Runner on first.  One run to tie.

In my hazy, dimmed vision I saw the Rube's pennant waving from the

flag-pole.

"It's our game!" howled Spears in my ear, for the noise from the stands

was deafening. "It's our pennant!"

The formidable batting strength of the Bisons had been met, not without

disaster, but without defeat.  McKnight came up for Buffalo and the

Rube took his weary swing.  The batter made a terrific lunge and hit

the ball with a solid crack It lined for center.

Suddenly electrified into action, I leaped up. That hit!  It froze me

with horror.  It was a home-run.  I saw Stringer fly toward left

center. He ran like something wild.  I saw the heavy Treadwell

lumbering round the bases.  I saw Ashwell run out into center field.

"Ah-h!"  The whole audience relieved its terror in that expulsion of

suspended breath. Stringer had leaped high to knock down the ball,

saving a sure home-run and the game.  He recovered himself, dashed back

for the ball and shot it to Ash.

When Ash turned toward the plate, Treadwell was rounding third base.  A

tie score appeared inevitable.  I saw Ash's arm whip and the ball shoot

forward, leveled, glancing, beautiful in its flight.  The crowd saw it,

and the silence broke to a yell that rose and rose as the ball sped in.

That yell swelled to a splitting shriek, and Treadwell slid in the

dust, and the ball shot into Gregg's hands all at the same instant.

Carter waved both arms upwards.  It was the umpire's action when his

decision went against the base-runner.  The audience rolled up one

great stentorian cry.

"Out!"

I collapsed and sank back upon the bench.  My confused senses received

a dull roar of pounding feet and dinning voices as the herald of

victory. I felt myself thinking how pleased Milly would be. I had a

distinct picture in my mind of a white cottage on a hill, no longer a

dream, but a reality, made possible for me by the Rube's winning of the

pennant.

THE RUBE'S HONEYMOON

"He's got a new manager.  Watch him pitch now!"  That was what Nan

Brown said to me about Rube Hurtle, my great pitcher, and I took it as

her way of announcing her engagement.

My baseball career held some proud moments, but this one, wherein I

realized the success of my matchmaking plans, was certainly the

proudest one.  So, entirely outside of the honest pleasure I got out of

the Rube's happiness, there was reason for me to congratulate myself.

He was a transformed man, so absolutely renewed, so wild with joy, that

on the strength of it, I decided the pennant for Worcester was a

foregone conclusion, and, sure of the money promised me by the

directors, Milly and I began to make plans for the cottage upon the

hill.

The Rube insisted on pitching Monday's game against the Torontos, and

although poor fielding gave them a couple of runs, they never had a

chance.  They could not see the ball.  The Rube wrapped it around their

necks and between their wrists and straight over the plate with such

incredible speed that they might just as well have tried to bat rifle

bullets.

That night I was happy.  Spears, my veteran captain, was one huge

smile; Radbourne quietly assured me that all was over now but the

shouting; all the boys were happy.

And the Rube was the happiest of all.  At the hotel he burst out with

his exceeding good fortune.  He and Nan were to be married upon the

Fourth of July!

After the noisy congratulations were over and the Rube had gone, Spears

looked at me and I looked at him.

"Con," said he soberly, "we just can't let him get married on the

Fourth."

"Why not?  Sure we can.  We'll help him get married.  I tell you it'll

save the pennant for us. Look how he pitched today!  Nan Brown is our

salvation!"

"See here, Con, you've got softenin' of the brain, too.  Where's your

baseball sense?  We've got a pennant to win.  By July Fourth we'll be

close to the lead again, an' there's that three weeks' trip on the

road, the longest an' hardest of the season.  We've just got to break

even on that trip.  You know what that means.  If the Rube marries

Nan--what are we goin' to do?  We can't leave him behind.  If he takes

Nan with us--why it'll be a honeymoon!  An' half the gang is stuck on

Nan Brown!  An' Nan Brown would flirt in her bridal veil! ...  Why

Con, we're up against a worse proposition than ever."

"Good Heavens! Cap.  You're right," I groaned.  "I never thought of

that.  We've got to postpone the wedding....  How on earth can we?

I've heard her tell Milly that.  She'll never consent to it.  Say,

this'll drive me to drink."

"All I got to say is this, Con.  If the Rube takes his wife on that

trip it's goin' to be an all-fired hummer.  Don't you forget that."

"I'm not likely to.  But, Spears, the point is this--will the Rube win

his games?"

"Figurin' from his work today, I'd gamble he'll never lose another

game.  It ain't that.  I'm thinkin' of what the gang will do to him an'

Nan on the cars an' at the hotels.  Oh! Lord, Con, it ain't possible to

stand for that honeymoon trip! Just think!"

"If the worst comes to the worst, Cap, I don't care for anything but

the games.  If we get in the lead and stay there I'll stand for

anything.... Couldn't the gang be coaxed or bought off to let the

Rube and Nan alone?"

"Not on your life!  There ain't enough love or money on earth to stop

them.  It'll be awful. Mind, I'm not responsible.  Don't you go holdin'

me responsible.  In all my years of baseball I never went on a trip

with a bride in the game. That's new on me, an' I never heard of it.

I'd be bad enough if he wasn't a rube an' if she wasn't a crazy

girl-fan an' a flirt to boot, an' with half the boys in love with her,

but as it is----"

Spears gave up and, gravely shaking his head, he left me.  I spent a

little while in sober reflection, and finally came to the conclusion

that, in my desperate ambition to win the pennant, I would have taken

half a dozen rube pitchers and their baseball-made brides on the trip,

if by so doing I could increase the percentage of games won.

Nevertheless, I wanted to postpone the Rube's wedding if it was

possible, and I went out to see Milly and asked her to help us.  But

for once in her life Milly turned traitor.

"Connie, you don't want to postpone it.  Why, how perfectly lovely! ...

Mrs. Stringer will go on that trip and Mrs. Bogart....  Connie,

I'm going too!"

She actually jumped up and down in glee.  That was the woman in her.

It takes a wedding to get a woman.  I remonstrated and pleaded and

commanded, all to no purpose.  Milly intended to go on that trip to see

the games, and the fun, and the honeymoon.

She coaxed so hard that I yielded.  Thereupon she called up Mrs.

Stringer on the telephone, and of course found that young woman just as

eager as she was.  For my part, I threw anxiety and care to the four

winds, and decided to be as happy as any of them.  The pennant was

mine!  Something kept ringing that in my ears.  With the Rube working

his iron arm for the edification of his proud Nancy Brown, there was

extreme likelihood of divers shut-outs and humiliating defeats for some

Eastern League teams.

How well I calculated became a matter of baseball history during that

last week of June.  We won six straight games, three of which fell to

the Rube's credit.  His opponents scored four runs in the three games,

against the nineteen we made. Upon July 1, Radbourne beat Providence

and Cairns won the second game.  We now had a string of eight

victories.  Sunday we rested, and Monday was the Fourth, with morning

and afternoon games with Buffalo.

Upon the morning of the Fourth, I looked for the Rube at the hotel, but

could not find him.  He did not show up at the grounds when the other

boys did, and I began to worry.  It was the Rube's turn to pitch and we

were neck and neck with Buffalo for first place.  If we won both games

we would go ahead of our rivals.  So I was all on edge, and kept going

to the dressing-room to see if the Rube had arrived.  He came, finally,

when all the boys were dressed, and about to go out for practice.  He

had on a new suit, a tailor-made suit at that, and he looked fine.

There was about him a kind of strange radiance.  He stated simply that

he had arrived late because he had just been married.  Before

congratulations were out of our mouths, he turned to me.

"Con, I want to pitch both games today," he said.

"What!  Say, Whit, Buffalo is on the card today and we are only three

points behind them. If we win both we'll be leading the league once

more.  I don't know about pitching you both games."

"I reckon we'll be in the lead tonight then," he replied, "for I'll win

them both."

I was about to reply when Dave, the ground-keeper, called me to the

door, saying there was a man to see me.  I went out, and there stood

Morrisey, manager of the Chicago American League team.  We knew each

other well and exchanged greetings.

"Con, I dropped off to see you about this new pitcher of yours, the one

they call the Rube.  I want to see him work.  I've heard he's pretty

fast.  How about it?"

"Wait--till you see him pitch," I replied.  I could scarcely get that

much out, for Morrisey's presence meant a great deal and I did not want

to betray my elation.

"Any strings on him?" queried the big league manager, sharply.

"Well, Morrisey, not exactly.  I can give you the first call.  You'll

have to bid high, though. Just wait till you see him work."

"I'm glad to hear that.  My scout was over here watching him pitch and

says he's a wonder."

What luck it was that Morrisey should have come upon this day!  I could

hardly contain myself. Almost I began to spend the money I would get

for selling the Rube to the big league manager. We took seats in the

grand stand, as Morrisey did not want to be seen by any players, and I

stayed there with him until the gong sounded. There was a big

attendance.  I looked all over the stand for Nan, but she was lost in

the gay crowd.  But when I went down to the bench I saw her up in my

private box with Milly.  It took no second glance to see that Nan Brown

was a bride and glorying in the fact.

Then, in the absorption of the game, I became oblivious to Milly and

Nan; the noisy crowd; the giant fire-crackers and the smoke; to the

presence of Morrisey; to all except the Rube and my team and their

opponents.  Fortunately for my hopes, the game opened with

characteristic Worcester dash.  Little McCall doubled, Ashwell drew his

base on four wide pitches, and Stringer drove the ball over the

right-field fence--three runs!

Three runs were enough to win that game.  Of all the exhibitions of

pitching with which the Rube had favored us, this one was the finest.

It was perhaps not so much his marvelous speed and unhittable curves

that made the game one memorable in the annals of pitching; it was his

perfect control in the placing of balls, in the cutting of corners; in

his absolute implacable mastery of the situation.  Buffalo was unable

to find him at all.  The game was swift short, decisive, with the score

5 to 0 in our favor.  But the score did not tell all of the Rube's work

that morning.  He shut out Buffalo without a hit, or a scratch, the

first no-hit, no-run game of the year.  He gave no base on balls; not a

Buffalo player got to first base; only one fly went to the outfield.

For once I forgot Milly after a game, and I hurried to find Morrisey,

and carried him off to have dinner with me.

"Your rube is a wonder, and that's a fact," he said to me several

times.  "Where on earth did you get him?  Connelly, he's my meat.  Do

you understand?  Can you let me have him right now?"

"No, Morrisey, I've got the pennant to win first.  Then I'll sell him."

"How much?  Do you hear?  How much?" Morrisey hammered the table with

his fist and his eyes gleamed.

Carried away as I was by his vehemence, I was yet able to calculate

shrewdly, and I decided to name a very high price, from which I could

come down and still make a splendid deal.

"How much?" demanded Morrisey.

"Five thousand dollars," I replied, and gulped when I got the words out.

Morrisey never batted an eye.

"Waiter, quick, pen and ink and paper!"

Presently my hand, none too firm, was signing my name to a contract

whereby I was to sell my pitcher for five thousand dollars at the close

of the current season.  I never saw a man look so pleased as Morrisey

when he folded that contract and put it in his pocket.  He bade me

good-bye and hurried off to catch a train, and he never knew the Rube

had pitched the great game on his wedding day.

That afternoon before a crowd that had to be roped off the diamond, I

put the Rube against the Bisons.  How well he showed the baseball

knowledge he had assimilated!  He changed his style in that second

game.  He used a slow ball and wide curves and took things easy.  He

made Buffalo hit the ball and when runners got on bases once more let

out his speed and held them down.  He relied upon the players behind

him and they were equal to the occasion.

It was a totally different game from that of the morning, and perhaps

one more suited to the pleasure of the audience.  There was plenty of

hard hitting, sharp fielding and good base running, and the game was

close and exciting up to the eighth, when Mullaney's triple gave us two

runs, and a lead that was not headed.  To the deafening roar of the

bleachers the Rube walked off the field, having pitched Worcester into

first place in the pennant race.

That night the boys planned their first job on the Rube.  We had

ordered a special Pullman for travel to Toronto, and when I got to the

depot in the morning, the Pullman was a white fluttering mass of satin

ribbons.  Also, there was a brass band, and thousands of baseball fans,

and barrels of old foot-gear.  The Rube and Nan arrived in a cab and

were immediately mobbed. The crowd roared, the band played, the engine

whistled, the bell clanged; and the air was full of confetti and

slippers, and showers of rice like hail pattered everywhere.  A

somewhat dishevelled bride and groom boarded the Pullman and

breathlessly hid in a state room.  The train started, and the crowd

gave one last rousing cheer.  Old Spears yelled from the back platform:

"Fellers, an' fans, you needn't worry none about leavin' the Rube an'

his bride to the tender mercies of the gang.  A hundred years from now

people will talk about this honeymoon baseball trip.  Wait till we come

back--an' say, jest to put you wise, no matter what else happens, we're

comin' back in first place!"

It was surely a merry party in that Pullman. The bridal couple emerged

from their hiding place and held a sort of reception in which the Rube

appeared shy and frightened, and Nan resembled a joyous, fluttering

bird in gray.  I did not see if she kissed every man on the team, but

she kissed me as if she had been wanting to do it for ages. Milly

kissed the Rube, and so did the other women, to his infinite

embarrassment.  Nan's effect upon that crowd was most singular.  She

was sweetness and caprice and joy personified.

We settled down presently to something approaching order, and I, for

one, with very keen ears and alert eyes, because I did not want to miss

anything.

"I see the lambs a-gambolin'," observed McCall, in a voice louder than

was necessary to convey his meaning to Mullaney, his partner in the

seat.

"Yes, it do seem as if there was joy aboundin' hereabouts," replied Mul

with fervor.

"It's more spring-time than summer," said Ashwell, "an' everything in

nature is runnin' in pairs.  There are the sheep an' the cattle an' the

birds.  I see two kingfishers fishin' over here. An' there's a couple

of honey-bees makin' honey. Oh, honey, an' by George, if there ain't

two butterflies foldin' their wings round each other.  See the

dandelions kissin' in the field!"

Then the staid Captain Spears spoke up with an appearance of sincerity

and a tone that was nothing short of remarkable.

"Reggie, see the sunshine asleep upon yon bank.  Ain't it lovely?  An'

that white cloud sailin' thither amid the blue--how spontaneous! Joy is

a-broad o'er all this boo-tiful land today--Oh, yes!  An' love's wings

hover o 'er the little lambs an' the bullfrogs in the pond an' the

dicky birds in the trees.  What sweetness to lie in the grass, the lap

of bounteous earth, eatin' apples in the Garden of Eden, an' chasin'

away the snakes an' dreamin' of Thee, Sweet-h-e-a-r-t----"

Spears was singing when he got so far and there was no telling what he

might have done if Mullaney, unable to stand the agony, had not jabbed

a pin in him.  But that only made way for the efforts of the other

boys, each of whom tried to outdo the other in poking fun at the Rube

and Nan.  The big pitcher was too gloriously happy to note much of what

went on around him, but when it dawned upon him he grew red and white

by turns.

Nan, however, was more than equal to the occasion.  Presently she

smiled at Spears, such a smile!  The captain looked as if he had just

partaken of an intoxicating wine.  With a heightened color in her

cheeks and a dangerous flash in her roguish eyes, Nan favored McCall

with a look, which was as much as to say that she remembered him with a

dear sadness.  She made eyes at every fellow in the car, and then

bringing back her gaze to the Rube, as if glorying in comparison, she

nestled her curly black head on his shoulder.  He gently tried to move

her; but it was not possible. Nan knew how to meet the ridicule of half

a dozen old lovers.  One by one they buried themselves in newspapers,

and finally McCall, for once utterly beaten, showed a white feather,

and sank back out of sight behind his seat.

The boys did not recover from that shock until late in the afternoon.

As it was a physical impossibility for Nan to rest her head all day

upon her husband's broad shoulder, the boys toward dinner time came out

of their jealous trance.  I heard them plotting something.  When dinner

was called, about half of my party, including the bride and groom, went

at once into the dining-car. Time there flew by swiftly.  And later,

when we were once more in our Pullman, and I had gotten interested in a

game of cards with Milly and Stringer and his wife, the Rube came

marching up to me with a very red face.

"Con, I reckon some of the boys have stolen my--our grips," said he.

"What?" I asked, blankly.

He explained that during his absence in the dining-car someone had

entered his stateroom and stolen his grip and Nan's.  I hastened at

once to aid the Rube in his search.  The boys swore by everything under

and beyond the sun they had not seen the grips; they appeared very much

grieved at the loss and pretended to help in searching the Pullman.  At

last, with the assistance of a porter, we discovered the missing grips

in an upper berth.  The Rube carried them off to his stateroom and we

knew soon from his uncomplimentary remarks that the contents of the

suitcases had been mixed and manhandled.  But he did not hunt for the

jokers.

We arrived at Toronto before daylight next morning, and remained in the

Pullman until seven o'clock.  When we got out, it was discovered that

the Rube and Nan had stolen a march upon us. We traced them to the

hotel, and found them at breakfast.  After breakfast we formed a merry

sight-seeing party and rode all over the city.

That afternoon, when Raddy let Toronto down with three hits and the

boys played a magnificent game behind him, and we won 7 to 2, I knew at

last and for certain that the Worcester team had come into its own

again.  Then next day Cairns won a close, exciting game, and following

that, on the third day, the matchless Rube toyed with the Torontos.

Eleven straight games won!  I was in the clouds, and never had I seen

so beautiful a light as shone in Milly's eyes.

From that day The Honeymoon Trip of the Worcester Baseball Club, as the

newspapers heralded it--was a triumphant march.  We won two out of

three games at Montreal, broke even with the hard-fighting Bisons, took

three straight from Rochester, and won one and tied one out of three

with Hartford.  It would have been wonderful ball playing for a team to

play on home grounds and we were doing the full circuit of the league.

Spears had called the turn when he said the trip would be a hummer.

Nan Hurtle had brought us wonderful luck.

But the tricks they played on Whit and his girl-fan bride!

Ashwell, who was a capital actor, disguised himself as a conductor and

pretended to try to eject Whit and Nan from the train, urging that

love-making was not permitted.  Some of the team hired a clever young

woman to hunt the Rube up at the hotel, and claim old acquaintance with

him.  Poor Whit almost collapsed when the young woman threw her arms

about his neck just as Nan entered the parlor.  Upon the instant Nan

became wild as a little tigress, and it took much explanation and

eloquence to reinstate Whit in her affections.

Another time Spears, the wily old fox, succeeded in detaining Nan on

the way to the station, and the two missed the train.  At first the

Rube laughed with the others, but when Stringer remarked that he had

noticed a growing attachment between Nan and Spears, my great pitcher

experienced the first pangs of the green-eyed monster.  We had to hold

him to keep him from jumping from the train, and it took Milly and Mrs.

Stringer to soothe him.  I had to wire back to Rochester for a special

train for Spears and Nan, and even then we had to play half a game

without the services of our captain.

So far upon our trip I had been fortunate in securing comfortable rooms

and the best of transportation for my party.  At Hartford, however, I

encountered difficulties.  I could not get a special Pullman, and the

sleeper we entered already had a number of occupants.  After the ladies

of my party had been assigned to berths, it was necessary for some of

the boys to sleep double in upper berths.

It was late when we got aboard, the berths were already made up, and

soon we had all retired. In the morning very early I was awakened by a

disturbance.  It sounded like a squeal.  I heard an astonished

exclamation, another squeal, the pattering of little feet, then hoarse

uproar of laughter from the ball players in the upper berths. Following

that came low, excited conversation between the porter and somebody,

then an angry snort from the Rube and the thud of his heavy feet in the

aisle.  What took place after that was guess-work for me.  But I

gathered from the roars and bawls that the Rube was after some of the

boys.  I poked my head between the curtains and saw him digging into

the berths.

"Where's McCall?" he yelled.

Mac was nowhere in that sleeper, judging from the vehement denials.

But the Rube kept on digging and prodding in the upper berths.

"I'm a-goin' to lick you, Mac, so I reckon you'd better show up,"

shouted the Rube.

The big fellow was mad as a hornet.  When he got to me he grasped me

with his great fence-rail splitting hands and I cried out with pain.

"Say!  Whit, let up!  Mac's not here.... What's wrong?"

"I'll show you when I find him."  And the Rube stalked on down the

aisle, a tragically comic figure in his pajamas.  In his search for Mac

he pried into several upper berths that contained occupants who were

not ball players, and these protested in affright.  Then the Rube began

to investigate the lower berths.  A row of heads protruded in a bobbing

line from between the curtains of the upper berths.

"Here, you Indian!  Don't you look in there! That's my wife's berth!"

yelled Stringer.

Bogart, too, evinced great excitement.

"Hurtle, keep out of lower eight or I'll kill you," he shouted.

What the Rube might have done there was no telling, but as he grasped a

curtain, he was interrupted by a shriek from some woman assuredly not

of our party.

"Get out! you horrid wretch!  Help!  Porter! Help!  Conductor!"

Instantly there was a deafening tumult in the car.  When it had

subsided somewhat, and I considered I would be safe, I descended from

my berth and made my way to the dressing room. Sprawled over the

leather seat was the Rube pommelling McCall with hearty good will.  I

would have interfered, had it not been for Mac's demeanor.  He was half

frightened, half angry, and utterly unable to defend himself or even

resist, because he was laughing, too.

"Dog-gone it!  Whit--I didn't--do it!  I swear it was Spears!  Stop

thumpin' me now--or I'll get sore....  You hear me!  It wasn't me, I

tell you.  Cheese it!"

For all his protesting Mac received a good thumping, and I doubted not

in the least that he deserved it.  The wonder of the affair, however,

was the fact that no one appeared to know what had made the Rube so

furious.  The porter would not tell, and Mac was strangely reticent,

though his smile was one to make a fellow exceedingly sure something

out of the ordinary had befallen. It was not until I was having

breakfast in Providence that I learned the true cause of Rube's

conduct, and Milly confided it to me, insisting on strict confidence.

"I promised not to tell," she said.  "Now you promise you'll never

tell."

"Well, Connie," went on Milly, when I had promised, "it was the

funniest thing yet, but it was horrid of McCall.  You see, the Rube had

upper seven and Nan had lower seven.  Early this morning, about

daylight, Nan awoke very thirsty and got up to get a drink.  During her

absence, probably, but any way some time last night, McCall changed the

number on her curtain, and when Nan came back to number seven of course

she almost got in the wrong berth."

"No wonder the Rube punched him!" I declared. "I wish we were safe

home.  Something'll happen yet on this trip."

I was faithful to my promise to Milly, but the secret leaked out

somewhere; perhaps Mac told it, and before the game that day all the

players knew it.  The Rube, having recovered his good humor, minded it

not in the least.  He could not have felt ill-will for any length of

time.  Everything seemed to get back into smooth running order, and the

Honeymoon Trip bade fair to wind up beautifully.

But, somehow or other, and about something unknown to the rest of us,

the Rube and Nan quarreled.  It was their first quarrel.  Milly and I

tried to patch it up but failed.

We lost the first game to Providence and won the second.  The next day,

a Saturday, was the last game of the trip, and it was Rube's turn to

pitch.  Several times during the first two days the Rube and Nan about

half made up their quarrel, only in the end to fall deeper into it.

Then the last straw came in a foolish move on the part of wilful Nan.

She happened to meet Henderson, her former admirer, and in a flash she

took up her flirtation with him where she had left off.

"Don't go to the game with him, Nan," I pleaded.  "It's a silly thing

for you to do.  Of course you don't mean anything, except to torment

Whit.  But cut it out.  The gang will make him miserable and we'll lose

the game.  There's no telling what might happen."

"I'm supremely indifferent to what happens," she replied, with a

rebellious toss of her black head.  "I hope Whit gets beaten."

She went to the game with Henderson and sat in the grand stand, and the

boys spied them out and told the Rube.  He did not believe it at first,

but finally saw them, looked deeply hurt and offended, and then grew

angry.  But the gong, sounding at that moment, drew his attention to

his business of the day, to pitch.

His work that day reminded me of the first game he ever pitched for me,

upon which occasion Captain Spears got the best out of him by making

him angry.  For several innings Providence was helpless before his

delivery.  Then something happened that showed me a crisis was near.  A

wag of a fan yelled from the bleachers.

"Honeymoon Rube!"

This cry was taken up by the delighted fans and it rolled around the

field.  But the Rube pitched on, harder than ever.  Then the knowing

bleacherite who had started the cry changed it somewhat.

"Nanny's Rube!" he yelled.

This, too, went the rounds, and still the Rube, though red in the face,

preserved his temper and his pitching control.  All would have been

well if Bud Wiler, comedian of the Providence team, had not hit upon a

way to rattle Rube.

"Nanny's Goat!" he shouted from the coaching lines.  Every Providence

player took it up.

The Rube was not proof against that.  He yelled so fiercely at them,

and glared so furiously, and towered so formidably, that they ceased

for the moment.  Then he let drive with his fast straight ball and hit

the first Providence batter in the ribs.  His comrades had to help him

to the bench.  The Rube hit the next batter on the leg, and judging

from the crack of the ball, I fancied that player would walk lame for

several days. The Rube tried to hit the next batter and sent him to

first on balls.  Thereafter it became a dodging contest with honors

about equal between pitcher and batters.  The Providence players

stormed and the bleachers roared.  But I would not take the Rube out

and the game went on with the Rube forcing in runs.

With the score a tie, and three men on bases one of the players on the

bench again yelled "Nanny's Goat!"

Straight as a string the Rube shot the ball at this fellow and bounded

after it.  The crowd rose in an uproar.  The base runners began to

score. I left my bench and ran across the space, but not in time to

catch the Rube.  I saw him hit two or three of the Providence men.

Then the policemen got to him, and a real fight brought the big

audience into the stamping melee.  Before the Rube was collared I saw

at least four blue-coats on the grass.

The game broke up, and the crowd spilled itself in streams over the

field.  Excitement ran high.  I tried to force my way into the mass to

get at the Rube and the officers, but this was impossible.  I feared

the Rube would be taken from the officers and treated with violence, so

I waited with the surging crowd, endeavoring to get nearer.  Soon we

were in the street, and it seemed as if all the stands had emptied

their yelling occupants.

A trolley car came along down the street, splitting the mass of people

and driving them back. A dozen policemen summarily bundled the Rube

upon the rear end of the car.  Some of these officers boarded the car,

and some remained in the street to beat off the vengeful fans.

I saw some one thrust forward a frantic young woman.  The officers

stopped her, then suddenly helped her on the car, just as I started.  I

recognized Nan.  She gripped the Rube with both hands and turned a

white, fearful face upon the angry crowd.

The Rube stood in the grasp of his wife and the policemen, and he

looked like a ruffled lion. He shook his big fist and bawled in

far-reaching voice:

"I can lick you all!"

To my infinite relief, the trolley gathered momentum and safely passed

out of danger.  The last thing I made out was Nan pressing close to the

Rube's side.  That moment saw their reconciliation and my joy that it

was the end of the Rube's Honeymoon.

THE RUBE'S WATERLOO

It was about the sixth inning that I suspected the Rube of weakening.

For that matter he had not pitched anything resembling his usual brand

of baseball.  But the Rube had developed into such a wonder in the box

that it took time for his let-down to dawn upon me.  Also it took a tip

from Raddy, who sat with me on the bench.

"Con, the Rube isn't himself today," said Radbourne.  "His mind's not

on the game.  He seems hurried and flustered, too.  If he doesn't

explode presently, I'm a dub at callin' the turn."

Raddy was the best judge of a pitcher's condition, physical or mental,

in the Eastern League. It was a Saturday and we were on the road and

finishing up a series with the Rochesters.  Each team had won and lost

a game, and, as I was climbing close to the leaders in the pennant

race, I wanted the third and deciding game of that Rochester series.

The usual big Saturday crowd was in attendance, noisy, demonstrative

and exacting.

In this sixth inning the first man up for Rochester had flied to

McCall.  Then had come the two plays significant of Rube's weakening.

He had hit one batter and walked another.  This was sufficient,

considering the score was three to one in our favor, to bring the

audience to its feet with a howling, stamping demand for runs.

"Spears is wise all right," said Raddy.

I watched the foxy old captain walk over to the Rube and talk to him

while he rested, a reassuring hand on the pitcher's shoulder.  The

crowd yelled its disapproval and Umpire Bates called out sharply:

"Spears, get back to the bag!"

"Now, Mister Umpire, ain't I hurrin' all I can?" queried Spears as he

leisurely ambled back to first.

The Rube tossed a long, damp welt of hair back from his big brow and

nervously toed the rubber. I noted that he seemed to forget the runners

on bases and delivered the ball without glancing at either bag.  Of

course this resulted in a double steal.  The ball went wild--almost a

wild pitch.

"Steady up, old man," called Gregg between the yells of the bleachers.

He held his mitt square over the plate for the Rube to pitch to.  Again

the long twirler took his swing, and again the ball went wild.  Clancy

had the Rube in the hole now and the situation began to grow serious.

The Rube did not take half his usual deliberation, and of the next two

pitches one of them was a ball and the other a strike by grace of the

umpire's generosity.  Clancy rapped the next one, an absurdly slow

pitch for the Rube to use, and both runners scored to the shrill tune

of the happy bleachers.

I saw Spears shake his head and look toward the bench.  It was plain

what that meant.

"Raddy, I ought to take the Rube out," I said, "but whom can I put in?

You worked yesterday--Cairns' arm is sore.  It's got to be nursed. And

Henderson, that ladies' man I just signed, is not in uniform."

"I'll go in," replied Raddy, instantly.

"Not on your life."  I had as hard a time keeping Radbourne from

overworking as I had in getting enough work out of some other players.

"I guess I'll let the Rube take his medicine.  I hate to lose this

game, but if we have to, we can stand it.  I'm curious, anyway, to see

what's the matter with the Rube.  Maybe he'll settle down presently."

I made no sign that I had noticed Spears' appeal to the bench.  And my

aggressive players, no doubt seeing the situation as I saw it, sang out

their various calls of cheer to the Rube and of defiance to their

antagonists.  Clancy stole off first base so far that the Rube,

catching somebody's warning too late, made a balk and the umpire sent

the runner on to second.  The Rube now plainly showed painful evidences

of being rattled.

He could not locate the plate without slowing up and when he did that a

Rochester player walloped the ball.  Pretty soon he pitched as if he

did not care, and but for the fast fielding of the team behind him the

Rochesters would have scored more than the eight runs it got.  When the

Rube came in to the bench I asked him if he was sick and at first he

said he was and then that he was not.  So I let him pitch the remaining

innings, as the game was lost anyhow, and we walked off the field a

badly beaten team.

That night we had to hurry from the hotel to catch a train for

Worcester and we had dinner in the dining-car.  Several of my players'

wives had come over from Worcester to meet us, and were in the

dining-car when I entered.  I observed a pretty girl sitting at one of

the tables with my new pitcher, Henderson.

"Say, Mac," I said to McCall, who was with me, "is Henderson married?"

"Naw, but he looks like he wanted to be.  He was in the grand stand

today with that girl."

"Who is she?  Oh! a little peach!"

A second glance at Henderson's companion brought this compliment from

me involuntarily.

"Con, you'll get it as bad as the rest of this mushy bunch of ball

players.  We're all stuck on that kid.  But since Henderson came she's

been a frost to all of us.  An' it's put the Rube in the dumps."

"Who's the girl?"

"That's Nan Brown.  She lives in Worcester an' is the craziest girl fan

I ever seen.  Flirt! Well, she's got them all beat.  Somebody

introduced the Rube to her.  He has been mooney ever since."

That was enough to whet my curiosity, and I favored Miss Brown with

more than one glance during dinner.  When we returned to the parlor car

I took advantage of the opportunity and remarked to Henderson that he

might introduce his manager.  He complied, but not with amiable grace.

So I chatted with Nan Brown, and studied her. She was a pretty,

laughing, coquettish little minx and quite baseball mad.  I had met

many girl fans, but none so enthusiastic as Nan.  But she was wholesome

and sincere, and I liked her.

Before turning in I sat down beside the Rube. He was very quiet and his

face did not encourage company.  But that did not stop me.

"Hello, Whit; have a smoke before you go to bed?" I asked cheerfully.

He scarcely heard me and made no move to take the proffered cigar.  All

at once it struck me that the rustic simplicity which had characterized

him had vanished.

"Whit, old fellow, what was wrong today?" I asked, quietly, with my

hand on his arm.

"Mr. Connelly, I want my release, I want to go back to Rickettsville,"

he replied hurriedly.

For the space of a few seconds I did some tall thinking.  The situation

suddenly became grave. I saw the pennant for the Worcesters fading,

dimming.

"You want to go home?" I began slowly. "Why, Whit, I can't keep you.  I

wouldn't try if you didn't want to stay.  But I'll tell you

confidentially, if you leave me at this stage I'm ruined."

"How's that?" he inquired, keenly looking at me.

"Well, I can't win the pennant without you.  If I do win it there's a

big bonus for me.  I can buy the house I want and get married this fall

if I capture the flag.  You've met Milly.  You can imagine what your

pitching means to me this year.  That's all."

He averted his face and looked out of the window. His big jaw quivered.

"If it's that--why, I'll stay, I reckon," he said huskily.

That moment bound Whit Hurtle and Frank Connelly into a far closer

relation than the one between player and manager.  I sat silent for a

while, listening to the drowsy talk of the other players and the rush

and roar of the train as it sped on into the night.

"Thank you, old chap," I replied.  "It wouldn't have been like you to

throw me down at this stage.  Whit, you're in trouble?"

"Yes."

"Can I help you--in any way?"'

"I reckon not."

"Don't be too sure of that.  I'm a pretty wise guy, if I do say it

myself.  I might be able to do as much for you as you're going to do

for me."

The sight of his face convinced me that I had taken a wrong tack.  It

also showed me how deep Whit's trouble really was.  I bade him good

night and went to my berth, where sleep did not soon visit me.  A

saucy, sparkling-eyed woman barred Whit Hurtle's baseball career at its

threshold.

Women are just as fatal to ball players as to men in any other walk of

life.  I had seen a strong athlete grow palsied just at a scornful

slight.  It's a great world, and the women run it.  So I lay awake

racking my brains to outwit a pretty disorganizer; and I plotted for

her sake.  Married, she would be out of mischief.  For Whit's sake, for

Milly's sake, for mine, all of which collectively meant for the sake of

the pennant, this would be the solution of the problem.

I decided to take Milly into my confidence, and finally on the strength

of that I got to sleep.  In the morning I went to my hotel, had

breakfast, attended to my mail, and then boarded a car to go out to

Milly's house.  She was waiting for me on the porch, dressed as I liked

to see her, in blue and white, and she wore violets that matched the

color of her eyes.

"Hello, Connie.  I haven't seen a morning paper, but I know from your

face that you lost the Rochester series," said Milly, with a gay laugh.

"I guess yes.  The Rube blew up, and if we don't play a pretty smooth

game, young lady, he'll never come down."

Then I told her.

"Why, Connie, I knew long ago.  Haven't you seen the change in him

before this?"

"What change?" I asked blankly.

"You are a man.  Well, he was a gawky, slouchy, shy farmer boy when he

came to us.  Of course the city life and popularity began to influence

him.  Then he met Nan.  She made the Rube a worshipper.  I first

noticed a change in his clothes.  He blossomed out in a new suit, white

negligee, neat tie and a stylish straw hat. Then it was evident he was

making heroic struggles to overcome his awkwardness.  It was plain he

was studying and copying the other boys. He's wonderfully improved, but

still shy.  He'll always be shy.  Connie, Whit's a fine fellow, too

good for Nan Brown."

"But, Milly," I interrupted, "the Rube's hard hit.  Why is he too good

for her?"

"Nan is a natural-born flirt," Milly replied. "She can't help it.  I'm

afraid Whit has a slim chance.  Nan may not see deep enough to learn

his fine qualities.  I fancy Nan tired quickly of him, though the one

time I saw them together she appeared to like him very well.  This new

pitcher of yours, Henderson, is a handsome fellow and smooth.  Whit is

losing to him.  Nan likes flash, flattery, excitement."

"McCall told me the Rube had been down in the mouth ever since

Henderson joined the team. Milly, I don't like Henderson a whole lot.

He's not in the Rube's class as a pitcher.  What am I going to do?

Lose the pennant and a big slice of purse money just for a pretty

little flirt?"

"Oh, Connie, it's not so bad as that.  Whit will come around all right."

"He won't unless we can pull some wires.  I've got to help him win Nan

Brown.  What do you think of that for a manager's job?  I guess maybe

winning pennants doesn't call for diplomatic genius and cunning!  But

I'll hand them a few tricks before I lose.  My first move will be to

give Henderson his release."

I left Milly, as always, once more able to make light of

discouragements and difficulties.

Monday I gave Henderson his unconditional release.  He celebrated the

occasion by verifying certain rumors I had heard from other managers.

He got drunk.  But he did not leave town, and I heard that he was

negotiating with Providence for a place on that team.

Radbourne pitched one of his gilt-edged games that afternoon against

Hartford and we won. And Milly sat in the grand stand, having contrived

by cleverness to get a seat next to Nan Brown.  Milly and I were

playing a vastly deeper game than baseball--a game with hearts.  But we

were playing it with honest motive, for the good of all concerned, we

believed, and on the square. I sneaked a look now and then up into the

grand stand.  Milly and Nan appeared to be getting on famously.  It was

certain that Nan was flushed and excited, no doubt consciously proud of

being seen with my affianced.  After the game I chanced to meet them on

their way out.  Milly winked at me, which was her sign that all was

working beautifully.

I hunted up the Rube and bundled him off to the hotel to take dinner

with me.  At first he was glum, but after a while he brightened up

somewhat to my persistent cheer and friendliness. Then we went out on

the hotel balcony to smoke, and there I made my play.

"Whit, I'm pulling a stroke for you.  Now listen and don't be offended.

I know what's put you off your feed, because I was the same way when

Milly had me guessing.  You've lost your head over Nan Brown.  That's

not so terrible, though I daresay you think it's a catastrophe.

Because you've quit.  You've shown a yellow streak. You've lain down.

"My boy, that isn't the way to win a girl. You've got to scrap.  Milly

told me yesterday how she had watched your love affairs with Nan, and

how she thought you had given up just when things might have come your

way.  Nan is a little flirt, but she's all right.  What's more, she was

getting fond of you.  Nan is meanest to the man she likes best.  The

way to handle her, Whit, is to master her.  Play high and mighty.  Get

tragical.  Then grab her up in your arms.  I tell you, Whit, it'll all

come your way if you only keep your nerve.  I'm your friend and so is

Milly. We're going out to her house presently--and Nan will be there."

The Rube drew a long, deep breath and held out his hand.  I sensed

another stage in the evolution of Whit Hurtle.

"I reckon I've taken baseball coachin'," he said presently, "an' I

don't see why I can't take some other kind.  I'm only a rube, an'

things come hard for me, but I'm a-learnin'."

It was about dark when we arrived at the house.

"Hello, Connie.  You're late.  Good evening, Mr. Hurtle.  Come right

in.  You've met Miss Nan Brown?  Oh, of course; how stupid of me!"

It was a trying moment for Milly and me.  A little pallor showed under

the Rube's tan, but he was more composed than I had expected.  Nan got

up from the piano.  She was all in white and deliciously pretty.  She

gave a quick, glad start of surprise.  What a relief that was to my

troubled mind!  Everything had depended upon a real honest liking for

Whit, and she had it.

More than once I had been proud of Milly's cleverness, but this night

as hostess and an accomplice she won my everlasting admiration. She

contrived to give the impression that Whit was a frequent visitor at

her home and very welcome.  She brought out his best points, and in her

skillful hands he lost embarrassment and awkwardness. Before the

evening was over Nan regarded Whit with different eyes, and she never

dreamed that everything had not come about naturally.  Then Milly

somehow got me out on the porch, leaving Nan and Whit together.

"Milly, you're a marvel, the best and sweetest ever," I whispered.

"We're going to win.  It's a cinch."

"Well, Connie, not that--exactly," she whispered back demurely.  "But

it looks hopeful."

I could not help hearing what was said in the parlor.

"Now I can roast you," Nan was saying, archly. She had switched back to

her favorite baseball vernacular.  "You pitched a swell game last

Saturday in Rochester, didn't you?  Not!  You had no steam, no control,

and you couldn't have curved a saucer."

"Nan, what could you expect?" was the cool reply.  "You sat up in the

stand with your handsome friend.  I reckon I couldn't pitch.  I just

gave the game away."

"Whit!--Whit!----"

Then I whispered to Milly that it might be discreet for us to move a

little way from the vicinity.

It was on the second day afterward that I got a chance to talk to Nan.

She reached the grounds early, before Milly arrived, and I found her in

the grand stand.  The Rube was down on the card to pitch and when he

started to warm up Nan said confidently that he would shut out Hartford

that afternoon.

"I'm sorry, Nan, but you're way off.  We'd do well to win at all, let

alone get a shutout."

"You're a fine manager!" she retorted, hotly. "Why won't we win?"

"Well, the Rube's not in good form.  The Rube----"

"Stop calling him that horrid name."

"Whit's not in shape.  He's not right.  He's ill or something is wrong.

I'm worried sick about him."

"Why--Mr. Connelly!" exclaimed Nan.  She turned quickly toward me.

I crowded on full canvas of gloom to my already long face.

"I'm serious, Nan.  The lad's off, somehow. He's in magnificent

physical trim, but he can't keep his mind on the game.  He has lost his

head. I've talked with him, reasoned with him, all to no good.  He only

goes down deeper in the dumps. Something is terribly wrong with him,

and if he doesn't brace, I'll have to release----"

Miss Nan Brown suddenly lost a little of her rich bloom.  "Oh! you

wouldn't--you couldn't release him!"

"I'll have to if he doesn't brace.  It means a lot to me, Nan, for of

course I can't win the pennant this year without Whit being in shape.

But I believe I wouldn't mind the loss of that any more than to see him

fall down.  The boy is a magnificent pitcher.  If he can only be

brought around he'll go to the big league next year and develop into

one of the greatest pitchers the game has ever produced.  But somehow

or other he has lost heart.  He's quit.  And I've done my best for him.

He's beyond me now.  What a shame it is!  For he's the making of such a

splendid man outside of baseball.  Milly thinks the world of him.

Well, well; there are disappointments--we can't help them.  There goes

the gong.  I must leave you.  Nan, I'll bet you a box of candy Whit

loses today.  Is it a go?"

"It is," replied Nan, with fire in her eyes. "You go to Whit Hurtle and

tell him I said if he wins today's game I'll kiss him!"

I nearly broke my neck over benches and bats getting to Whit with that

message.  He gulped once.

Then he tightened his belt and shut out Hartford with two scratch

singles.  It was a great exhibition of pitching.  I had no means to

tell whether or not the Rube got his reward that night, but I was so

happy that I hugged Milly within an inch of her life.

But it turned out that I had been a little premature in my elation.  In

two days the Rube went down into the depths again, this time clear to

China, and Nan was sitting in the grand stand with Henderson.  The Rube

lost his next game, pitching like a schoolboy scared out of his wits.

Henderson followed Nan like a shadow, so that I had no chance to talk

to her.  The Rube lost his next game and then another.  We were pushed

out of second place.

If we kept up that losing streak a little longer, our hopes for the

pennant were gone.  I had begun to despair of the Rube.  For some

occult reason he scarcely spoke to me.  Nan flirted worse than ever.

It seemed to me she flaunted her conquest of Henderson in poor Whit's

face.

The Providence ball team came to town and promptly signed Henderson and

announced him for Saturday's game.  Cairns won the first of the series

and Radbourne lost the second.  It was Rube's turn to pitch the

Saturday game and I resolved to make one more effort to put the

love-sick swain in something like his old fettle.  So I called upon Nan.

She was surprised to see me, but received me graciously.  I fancied her

face was not quite so glowing as usual.  I came bluntly out with my

mission.  She tried to freeze me but I would not freeze.  I was out to

win or lose and not to be lightly laughed aside or coldly denied.  I

played to make her angry, knowing the real truth of her feelings would

show under stress.

For once in my life I became a knocker and said some unpleasant

things--albeit they were true--about Henderson.  She championed

Henderson royally, and when, as a last card, I compared Whit's fine

record with Henderson's, not only as a ball player, but as a man,

particularly in his reverence for women, she flashed at me:

"What do you know about it?  Mr. Henderson asked me to marry him.  Can

a man do more to show his respect?  Your friend never so much as hinted

such honorable intentions.  What's more--he insulted me!"  The blaze in

Nan's black eyes softened with a film of tears.  She looked hurt.  Her

pride had encountered a fall.

"Oh, no, Nan, Whit couldn't insult a lady," I protested.

"Couldn't he?  That's all you know about him. You know I--I promised to

kiss him if he beat Hartford that day.  So when he came I--I did. Then

the big savage began to rave and he grabbed me up in his arms.  He

smothered me; almost crushed the life out of me.  He frightened me

terribly.  When I got away from him--the monster stood there and coolly

said I belonged to him.  I ran out of the room and wouldn't see him any

more.  At first I might have forgiven him if he had apologized--said he

was sorry, but never a word.  Now I never will forgive him."

I had to make a strenuous effort to conceal my agitation.  The Rube had

most carefully taken my fool advice in the matter of wooing a woman.

When I had got a hold upon myself, I turned to Nan white-hot with

eloquence.  Now I was talking not wholly for myself or the pennant, but

for this boy and girl who were at odds in that strangest game of

life--love.

What I said I never knew, but Nan lost her resentment, and then her

scorn and indifference. Slowly she thawed and warmed to my reason,

praise, whatever it was, and when I stopped she was again the radiant

bewildering Nan of old.

"Take another message to Whit for me," she said, audaciously.  "Tell

him I adore ball players, especially pitchers.  Tell him I'm going to

the game today to choose the best one.  If he loses the game----"

She left the sentence unfinished.  In my state of mind I doubted not in

the least that she meant to marry the pitcher who won the game, and so

I told the Rube.  He made one wild upheaval of his arms and shoulders,

like an erupting volcano, which proved to me that he believed it, too.

When I got to the bench that afternoon I was tired.  There was a big

crowd to see the game; the weather was perfect; Milly sat up in the box

and waved her score card at me; Raddy and Spears declared we had the

game; the Rube stalked to and fro like an implacable Indian chief--but

I was not happy in mind.  Calamity breathed in the very air.

The game began.  McCall beat out a bunt; Ashwell sacrificed and

Stringer laced one of his beautiful triples against the fence.  Then he

scored on a high fly.  Two runs!  Worcester trotted out into the field.

The Rube was white with determination; he had the speed of a bullet and

perfect control of his jump ball and drop.  But Providence hit and had

the luck.  Ashwell fumbled, Gregg threw wild.  Providence tied the

score.

The game progressed, growing more and more of a nightmare to me.  It

was not Worcester's day.  The umpire could not see straight; the boys

grumbled and fought among themselves; Spears roasted the umpire and was

sent to the bench; Bogart tripped, hurting his sore ankle, and had to

be taken out.  Henderson's slow, easy ball baffled my players, and when

he used speed they lined it straight at a Providence fielder.

In the sixth, after a desperate rally, we crowded the bases with only

one out.  Then Mullaney's hard rap to left, seemingly good for three

bases, was pulled down by Stone with one hand.  It was a wonderful

catch and he doubled up a runner at second.  Again in the seventh we

had a chance to score, only to fail on another double play, this time

by the infield.

When the Providence players were at bat their luck not only held good

but trebled and quadrupled.  The little Texas-league hits dropped

safely just out of reach of the infielders.  My boys had an off day in

fielding.  What horror that of all days in a season this should be the

one for them to make errors!

But they were game, and the Rube was the gamest of all.  He did not

seem to know what hard luck was, or discouragement, or poor support. He

kept everlastingly hammering the ball at those lucky Providence

hitters.  What speed he had!  The ball streaked in, and somebody would

shut his eyes and make a safety.  But the Rube pitched, on, tireless,

irresistibly, hopeful, not forgetting to call a word of cheer to his

fielders.

It was one of those strange games that could not be bettered by any

labor or daring or skill. I saw it was lost from the second inning, yet

so deeply was I concerned, so tantalizingly did the plays reel

themselves off, that I groveled there on the bench unable to abide by

my baseball sense.

The ninth inning proved beyond a shadow of doubt how baseball fate, in

common with other fates, loved to balance the chances, to lift up one,

then the other, to lend a deceitful hope only to dash it away.

Providence had almost three times enough to win.  The team let up in

that inning or grew over-confident or careless, and before we knew what

had happened some scratch hits, and bases on balls, and errors, gave us

three runs and left two runners on bases.  The disgusted bleachers came

out of their gloom and began to whistle and thump.  The Rube hit

safely, sending another run over the plate.  McCall worked his old

trick, beating out a slow bunt.

Bases full, three runs to tie!  With Ashwell up and one out, the noise

in the bleachers mounted to a high-pitched, shrill, continuous sound.

I got up and yelled with all my might and could not hear my voice.

Ashwell was a dangerous man in a pinch.  The game was not lost yet.  A

hit, anything to get Ash to first--and then Stringer!

Ash laughed at Henderson, taunted him, shook his bat at him and dared

him to put one over. Henderson did not stand under fire.  The ball he

pitched had no steam.  Ash cracked it--square on the line into the

shortstop's hands.  The bleachers ceased yelling.

Then Stringer strode grimly to the plate.  It was a hundred to one, in

that instance, that he would lose the ball.  The bleachers let out one

deafening roar, then hushed.  I would rather have had Stringer at the

bat than any other player in the world, and I thought of the Rube and

Nan and Milly--and hope would not die.

Stringer swung mightily on the first pitch and struck the ball with a

sharp, solid bing!  It shot toward center, low, level, exceedingly

swift, and like a dark streak went straight into the fielder's hands.

A rod to right or left would have made it a home run.  The crowd

strangled a victorious yell.  I came out of my trance, for the game was

over and lost.  It was the Rube's Waterloo.

I hurried him into the dressing room and kept close to him.  He looked

like a man who had lost the one thing worth while in his life.  I

turned a deaf ear to my players, to everybody, and hustled the Rube out

and to the hotel.  I wanted to be near him that night.

To my amaze we met Milly and Nan as we entered the lobby.  Milly wore a

sweet, sympathetic smile.  Nan shone more radiant than ever. I simply

stared.  It was Milly who got us all through the corridor into the

parlor.  I heard Nan talking.

"Whit, you pitched a bad game but--" there was the old teasing, arch,

coquettishness--"but you are the best pitcher!"

"Nan!"

"Yes!"

BREAKING INTO FAST COMPANY

They may say baseball is the same in the minor leagues that it is in

the big leagues, but any old ball player or manager knows better.

Where the difference comes in, however, is in the greater excellence

and unity of the major players, a speed, a daring, a finish that can be

acquired only in competition with one another.

I thought of this when I led my party into Morrisey's private box in

the grand stand of the Chicago American League grounds.  We had come to

see the Rube's break into fast company. My great pitcher, Whittaker

Hurtle, the Rube, as we called him, had won the Eastern League Pennant

for me that season, and Morrisey, the Chicago magnate, had bought him.

Milly, my affianced, was with me, looking as happy as she was pretty,

and she was chaperoned by her mother, Mrs. Nelson.

With me, also, were two veterans of my team, McCall and Spears, who

lived in Chicago, and who would have traveled a few miles to see the

Rube pitch.  And the other member of my party was Mrs. Hurtle, the

Rube's wife, as saucy and as sparkling-eyed as when she had been Nan

Brown.  Today she wore a new tailor-made gown, new bonnet, new

gloves--she said she had decorated herself in a manner befitting the

wife of a major league pitcher.

Morrisey's box was very comfortable, and, as I was pleased to note, so

situated that we had a fine view of the field and stands, and yet were

comparatively secluded.  The bleachers were filling. Some of the

Chicago players were on the field tossing and batting balls; the Rube,

however, had not yet appeared.

A moment later a metallic sound was heard on the stairs leading up into

the box.  I knew it for baseball spiked shoes clanking on the wood.

The Rube, looking enormous in his uniform, stalked into the box,

knocking over two chairs as he entered.  He carried a fielder's glove

in one huge freckled hand, and a big black bat in the other.

Nan, with much dignity and a very manifest pride, introduced him to

Mrs. Nelson.

There was a little chatting, and then, upon the arrival of Manager

Morrisey, we men retired to the back of the box to talk baseball.

Chicago was in fourth place in the league race, and had a fighting

chance to beat Detroit out for the third position.  Philadelphia was

scheduled for that day, and Philadelphia had a great team. It was

leading the race, and almost beyond all question would land the flag.

In truth, only one more victory was needed to clinch the pennant. The

team had three games to play in Chicago and it was to wind up the

season with three in Washington.  Six games to play and only one

imperatively important to win!  But baseball is uncertain, and until

the Philadelphians won that game they would be a band of fiends.

"Well, Whit, this is where you break in," I said.  "Now, tip us

straight.  You've had more than a week's rest.  How's that arm?"

"Grand, Con, grand!" replied the Rube with his frank smile.  "I was a

little anxious till I warmed up.  But say!  I've got more up my sleeve

today than I ever had."

"That'll do for me," said Morrisey, rubbing his hands.  "I'll spring

something on these swelled Quakers today.  Now, Connelly, give Hurtle

one of your old talks--the last one--and then I'll ring the gong."

I added some words of encouragement, not forgetting my old ruse to

incite the Rube by rousing his temper.  And then, as the gong rang and

the Rube was departing, Nan stepped forward for her say.  There was a

little white under the tan on her cheek, and her eyes had a darkling

flash.

"Whit, it's a magnificent sight--that beautiful green field and the

stands.  What a crowd of fans!  Why, I never saw a real baseball crowd

before.  There are twenty thousand here.  And there's a difference in

the feeling.  It's sharper--new to me.  It's big league baseball.  Not

a soul in that crowd ever heard of you, but, I believe, tomorrow the

whole baseball world will have heard of you.  Mr. Morrisey knows.  I

saw it in his face.  Captain Spears knows.  Connie knows.  I know."

Then she lifted her face and, pulling him down within reach, she kissed

him.  Nan took her husband's work in dead earnest; she gloried in it,

and perhaps she had as much to do with making him a great pitcher as

any of us.

The Rube left the box, and I found a seat between Nan and Milly.  The

field was a splendid sight.  Those bleachers made me glow with

managerial satisfaction.  On the field both teams pranced and danced

and bounced around in practice.

In spite of the absolutely last degree of egotism manifested by the

Philadelphia players, I could not but admire such a splendid body of

men.

"So these are the champions of last season and of this season, too,"

commented Milly.  "I don't wonder.  How swiftly and cleanly they play!

They appear not to exert themselves, yet they always get the ball in

perfect time.  It all reminds me of--of the rhythm of music.  And that

champion batter and runner--that Lane in center--isn't he just

beautiful?  He walks and runs like a blue-ribbon winner at the horse

show.  I tell you one thing, Connie, these Quakers are on dress parade."

"Oh, these Quakers hate themselves, I don't think!" retorted Nan.

Being a rabid girl-fan it was, of course, impossible for Nan to speak

baseball convictions or gossip without characteristic baseball slang.

"Stuck on themselves!  I never saw the like in my life.  That fellow

Lane is so swelled that he can't get down off his toes.  But he's a

wonder, I must admit that.  They're a bunch of stars.  Easy, fast,

trained--they're machines, and I'll bet they're Indians to fight.  I

can see it sticking out all over them.  This will certainly be some

game with Whit handing up that jump ball of his to this gang of champs.

But, Connie, I'll go you Whit beats them."

I laughed and refused to gamble.

The gong rang; the crowd seemed to hum and rustle softly to quiet

attention; Umpire McClung called the names of the batteries; then the

familiar "Play!"

There was the usual applause from the grand stand and welcome cheers

from the bleachers. The Rube was the last player to go out. Morrisey

was a manager who always played to the stands, and no doubt he held the

Rube back for effect.  If so, he ought to have been gratified. That

moment reminded me of my own team and audience upon the occasion of the

Rube's debut. It was the same only here it happened in the big league,

before a championship team and twenty thousand fans.

The roar that went up from the bleachers might well have scared an

unseasoned pitcher out of his wits.  And the Quakers lined up before

their bench and gazed at this newcomer who had the nerve to walk out

there to the box.  Cogswell stood on the coaching line, looked at the

Rube and then held up both arms and turned toward the Chicago bench as

if to ask Morrisey:  "Where did you get that?"

Nan, quick as a flash to catch a point, leaned over the box-rail and

looked at the champions with fire in her eye.  "Oh, you just wait!

wait!" she bit out between her teeth.

Certain it was that there was no one who knew the Rube as well as I;

and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the hour before me would

see brightening of a great star pitcher on the big league horizon.  It

was bound to be a full hour for me.  I had much reason to be grateful

to Whit Hurtle.  He had pulled my team out of a rut and won me the

pennant, and the five thousand dollars I got for his release bought the

little cottage on the hill for Milly and me.  Then there was my pride

in having developed him.  And all that I needed to calm me, settle me

down into assurance and keen criticism of the game, was to see the Rube

pitch a few balls with his old incomparable speed and control.

Berne, first batter for the Quakers, walked up to the plate.  He was

another Billy Hamilton, built like a wedge.  I saw him laugh at the

long pitcher.

Whit swayed back, coiled and uncoiled.  Something thin, white,

glancing, shot at Berne.  He ducked, escaping the ball by a smaller

margin than appeared good for his confidence.  He spoke low to the

Rube, and what he said was probably not flavored with the milk of

friendly sweetness.

"Wild!  What'd you look for?" called out Cogswell scornfully.  "He's

from the woods!"

The Rube swung his enormously long arm, took an enormous stride toward

third base, and pitched again.  It was one of his queer deliveries.

The ball cut the plate.

"Ho!  Ho!" yelled the Quakers.

The Rube's next one was his out curve.  It broke toward the corner of

the plate and would have been a strike had not Berne popped it up.

Callopy, the second hitter, faced the Rube, and he, too, after the

manner of ball players, made some remark meant only for the Rube's

ears. Callopy was a famous waiter.  He drove more pitchers mad with his

implacable patience than any hitter in the league.  The first one of

the Rube's he waited on crossed the in-corner; the second crossed the

out-corner and the third was Rube's wide, slow, tantalizing

"stitch-ball," as we call it, for the reason that it came so slow a

batter could count the stitches.  I believe Callopy waited on that

curve, decided to hit it, changed his mind and waited some more, and

finally the ball maddened him and he had to poke at it, the result

being a weak grounder.

Then the graceful, powerful Lane, champion batter, champion base

runner, stepped to the plate.  How a baseball crowd, any crowd,

anywhere, loves the champion batter!  The ovation Lane received made me

wonder, with this impressive reception in a hostile camp, what could be

the manner of it on his home field?  Any boy ball-player from the lots

seeing Lane knock the dirt out of his spikes and step into position

would have known he was a 400 hitter.

I was curious to see what the Rube would pitch Lane.  It must have been

a new and significant moment for Hurtle.  Some pitchers actually wilt

when facing a hitter of Lane's reputation.  But he, on his baseball

side, was peculiarly unemotional. Undoubtedly he could get furious, but

that only increased his effectiveness.  To my amazement the Rube

pitched Lane a little easy ball, not in any sense like his floater or

stitch-ball, but just a little toss that any youngster might have

tossed. Of all possible balls, Lane was not expecting such as that, and

he let it go.  If the nerve of it amazed me, what did it not do to

Lane?  I saw his face go fiery red.  The grand stand murmured; let out

one short yelp of pleasure; the Quaker players chaffed Lane.

The pitch was a strike.  I was gripping my chair now, and for the next

pitch I prophesied the Rube's wonderful jump ball, which he had not yet

used.  He swung long, and at the end of his swing seemed to jerk

tensely.  I scarcely saw the ball. It had marvelous speed.  Lane did

not offer to hit it, and it was a strike.  He looked at the Rube, then

at Cogswell.  That veteran appeared amused. The bleachers, happy and

surprised to be able to yell at Lane, yelled heartily.

Again I took it upon myself to interpret the Rube's pitching mind.  He

had another ball that he had not used, a drop, an unhittable drop.  I

thought he would use that next.  He did, and though Lane reached it

with the bat, the hit was a feeble one.  He had been fooled and the

side was out.

Poole, the best of the Quaker's pitching staff, walked out to the slab.

He was a left-hander, and Chicago, having so many players who batted

left-handed, always found a southpaw a hard nut to crack.  Cogswell,

field manager and captain of the Quakers, kicked up the dust around

first base and yelled to his men:  "Git in the game!"

Staats hit Poole's speed ball into deep short and was out; Mitchell

flew out to Berne; Rand grounded to second.

While the teams again changed sides the fans cheered, and then indulged

in the first stretch of the game.  I calculated that they would be

stretching their necks presently, trying to keep track of the Rube's

work.  Nan leaned on the railing absorbed in her own hope and faith.

Milly chattered about this and that, people in the boxes, and the

chances of the game.

My own interest, while it did not wholly preclude the fortunes of the

Chicago players at the bat, was mostly concerned with the Rube's

fortunes in the field.

In the Rube's half inning he retired Bannister and Blandy on feeble

infield grounders, and worked Cogswell into hitting a wide curve high

in the air.

Poole meant to win for the Quakers if his good arm and cunning did not

fail him, and his pitching was masterly.  McCloskey fanned, Hutchinson

fouled out, Brewster got a short safe fly just out of reach, and

Hoffner hit to second, forcing Brewster.

With Dugan up for the Quakers in the third inning, Cogswell and

Bannister, from the coaching lines, began to talk to the Rube.  My

ears, keen from long practice, caught some of the remarks in spite of

the noisy bleachers.

"Say, busher, you 've lasted longer'n we expected, but you don't know

it!"

"Gol darn you city ball tossers!  Now you jest let me alone!"

"We're comin' through the rye!"

"My top-heavy rustic friend, you'll need an airship presently, when you

go up!"

All the badinage was good-natured, which was sure proof that the

Quakers had not arrived at anything like real appreciation of the Rube.

They were accustomed to observe the trying out of many youngsters, of

whom ninety-nine out of a hundred failed to make good.

Dugan chopped at three strikes and slammed his bat down.  Hucker hit a

slow fly to Hoffer. Three men out on five pitched balls!  Cogswell, old

war horse that he was, stood a full moment and watched the Rube as he

walked in to the bench.  An idea had penetrated Cogswell's brain, and I

would have given something to know what it was.  Cogswell was a great

baseball general, and though he had a preference for matured

ball-players he could, when pressed, see the quality in a youngster.

He picked up his mitt and took his position at first with a gruff word

to his players.

Rand for Chicago opened with a hit, and the bleachers, ready to strike

fire, began to cheer and stamp.  When McCloskey, in an attempt to

sacrifice, beat out his bunt the crowd roared.  Rand, being slow on his

feet, had not attempted to make third on the play.  Hutchinson

sacrificed, neatly advancing the runners.  Then the bleachers played

the long rolling drum of clattering feet with shrill whistling

accompaniment.  Brewster batted a wicked ground ball to Blandy.  He

dove into the dust, came up with the ball, and feinting to throw home

he wheeled and shot the ball to Cogswell, who in turn shot it to the

plate to head Rand.  Runner and ball got there apparently together, but

Umpire McClung's decision went against Rand.  It was fine, fast work,

but how the bleachers stormed at McClung!

"Rob-b-ber!"

Again the head of the Quakers' formidable list was up.  I knew from the

way that Cogswell paced the coaching box that the word had gone out to

look the Rube over seriously.  There were possibilities even in rubes.

Berne carefully stepped into the batter's box, as if he wanted to be

certain to the breadth of a hair how close he was to the plate.  He was

there this time to watch the Rube pitch, to work him out, to see what

was what.  He crouched low, and it would have been extremely hard to

guess what he was up to.  His great play, however, was his ability to

dump the ball and beat out the throw to first.  It developed presently,

that this was now his intention and that the Rube knew it and pitched

him the one ball which is almost impossible to bunt--a high incurve,

over the inside corner. There was no mistaking the Rube's magnificent

control.  True as a plumb line he shot up the ball--once, twice, and

Berne fouled both--two strikes.  Grudgingly he waited on the next, but

it, too, was over the corner, and Berne went out on strikes.  The great

crowd did not, of course, grasp the finesse of the play, but Berne had

struck out--that was enough for them.

Callopy, the famous spiker, who had put many a player out of the game

for weeks at a time, strode into the batter's place, and he, too, was

not at the moment making any funny remarks.  The Rube delivered a ball

that all but hit Callopy fair on the head.  It was the second narrow

escape for him, and the roar he let out showed how he resented being

threatened with a little of his own medicine.  As might have been

expected, and very likely as the Rube intended, Callopy hit the next

ball, a sweeping curve, up over the infield.

I was trying to see all the intricate details of the motive and action

on the field, and it was not easy to watch several players at once.

But while Berne and Callopy were having their troubles with the Rube, I

kept the tail of my eye on Cogswell.  He was prowling up and down the

third-base line.

He was missing no signs, no indications, no probabilities, no

possibilities.  But he was in doubt.  Like a hawk he was watching the

Rube, and, as well, the crafty batters.  The inning might not tell the

truth as to the Rube's luck, though it would test his control.  The

Rube's speed and curves, without any head work, would have made him a

pitcher of no mean ability, but was this remarkable placing of balls

just accident?  That was the question.

When Berne walked to the bench I distinctly heard him say:  "Come out

of it, you dubs.  I say you can't work him or wait him.  He's peggin'

'em out of a gun!"

Several of the Quakers were standing out from the bench, all intent on

the Rube.  He had stirred them up.  First it was humor; then ridicule,

curiosity, suspicion, doubt.  And I knew it would grow to wonder and

certainty, then fierce attack from both tongues and bats, and

lastly--for ball players are generous--unstinted admiration.

Somehow, not only the first climaxes of a game but the decisions, the

convictions, the reputations of pitchers and fielders evolve around the

great hitter.  Plain it was that the vast throng of spectators, eager

to believe in a new find, wild to welcome a new star, yet loath to

trust to their own impulsive judgments, held themselves in check until

once more the great Lane had faced the Rube.

The field grew tolerably quiet just then.  The Rube did not exert

himself.  The critical stage had no concern for him.  He pitched Lane a

high curve, over the plate, but in close, a ball meant to be hit and a

ball hard to hit safely.  Lane knew that as well as any hitter in the

world, so he let two of the curves go by--two strikes.  Again the Rube

relentlessly gave him the same ball; and Lane, hitting viciously,

spitefully, because he did not want to hit that kind of a ball, sent up

a fly that Rand easily captured.

"Oh, I don't know!  Pretty fair, I guess!" yelled a tenor-voiced fan;

and he struck the key-note.  And the bleachers rose to their feet and

gave the Rube the rousing cheer of the brotherhood of fans.

Hoffer walked to first on a base on balls. Sweeney advanced him.  The

Rube sent up a giant fly to Callopy.  Then Staats hit safely, scoring

the first run of the game.  Hoffer crossed the plate amid vociferous

applause.  Mitchell ended the inning with a fly to Blandy.

What a change had come over the spirit of that Quaker aggregation!  It

was something to make a man thrill with admiration and, if he happened

to favor Chicago, to fire all his fighting blood. The players poured

upon the Rube a continuous stream of scathing abuse.  They would have

made a raging devil of a mild-mannered clergyman. Some of them were

skilled in caustic wit, most of them were possessed of forked tongues;

and Cogswell, he of a thousand baseball battles, had a genius for

inflaming anyone he tormented.  This was mostly beyond the ken of the

audience, and behind the back of the umpire, but it was perfectly plain

to me.  The Quakers were trying to rattle the Rube, a trick of the game

as fair for one side as for the other.  I sat there tight in my seat,

grimly glorying in the way the Rube refused to be disturbed.  But the

lion in him was rampant. Fortunately, it was his strange gift to pitch

better the angrier he got; and the more the Quakers flayed him, the

more he let himself out to their crushing humiliation.

The innings swiftly passed to the eighth with Chicago failing to score

again, with Philadelphia failing to score at all.  One scratch hit and

a single, gifts to the weak end of the batting list, were all the lank

pitcher allowed them.  Long since the bleachers had crowned the Rube.

He was theirs and they were his; and their voices had the peculiar

strangled hoarseness due to over-exertion. The grand stand, slower to

understand and approve, arrived later; but it got there about the

seventh, and ladies' gloves and men's hats were sacrificed.

In the eighth the Quakers reluctantly yielded their meed of praise,

showing it by a cessation of their savage wordy attacks on the Rube.

It was a kind of sullen respect, wrung from the bosom of great foes.

Then the ninth inning was at hand.  As the sides changed I remembered

to look at the feminine group in our box.  Milly was in a most

beautiful glow of happiness and excitement.  Nan sat rigid, leaning

over the rail, her face white and drawn, and she kept saying in a low

voice: "Will it never end?  Will it never end?"  Mrs. Nelson stared

wearily.

It was the Quakers' last stand.  They faced it as a team that had won

many a game in the ninth with two men out.  Dugan could do nothing with

the Rube's unhittable drop, for a drop curve was his weakness, and he

struck out.  Hucker hit to Hoffer, who fumbled, making the first error

of the game.  Poole dumped the ball, as evidently the Rube desired, for

he handed up a straight one, but the bunt rolled teasingly and the

Rube, being big and tall, failed to field it in time.

Suddenly the whole field grew quiet.  For the first time Cogswell's

coaching was clearly heard.

"One out!  Take a lead!  Take a lead!  Go through this time.  Go

through!"

Could it be possible, I wondered, that after such a wonderful

exhibition of pitching the Rube would lose out in the ninth?

There were two Quakers on base, one out, and two of the best hitters in

the league on deck, with a chance of Lane getting up.

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" moaned Nan.

I put my hand on hers.  "Don't quit, Nan. You'll never forgive yourself

if you quit.  Take it from me, Whit will pull out of this hole!"

What a hole that was for the Rube on the day of his break into fast

company!  I measured it by his remarkable deliberation.  He took a long

time to get ready to pitch to Berne, and when he let drive it was as if

he had been trifling all before in that game.  I could think of no way

to figure it except that when the ball left him there was scarcely any

appreciable interval of time before it cracked in Sweeney's mitt.  It

was the Rube's drop, which I believed unhittable.  Berne let it go by,

shaking his head as McClung called it a strike.  Another followed,

which Berne chopped at vainly.  Then with the same upheaval of his

giant frame, the same flinging of long arms and lunging forward, the

Rube delivered a third drop. And Berne failed to hit it.

The voiceless bleachers stamped on the benches and the grand stand

likewise thundered.

Callopy showed his craft by stepping back and lining Rube's high pitch

to left.  Hoffer leaped across and plunged down, getting his gloved

hand in front of the ball.  The hit was safe, but Hoffer's valiant

effort saved a tie score.

Lane up!  Three men on bases!  Two out!

Not improbably there were many thousand spectators of that thrilling

moment who pitied the Rube for the fate which placed Lane at the bat

then.  But I was not one of them.  Nevertheless my throat was clogged,

my mouth dry, and my ears full of bells.  I could have done something

terrible to Hurtle for his deliberation, yet I knew he was proving

himself what I had always tried to train him to be.

Then he swung, stepped out, and threw his body with the ball.  This was

his rarely used pitch, his last resort, his fast rise ball that jumped

up a little at the plate.  Lane struck under it.  How significant on

the instant to see old Cogswell's hands go up!  Again the Rube pitched,

and this time Lane watched the ball go by.  Two strikes!

That whole audience leaped to its feet, whispering, yelling, screaming,

roaring, bawling.

The Rube received the ball from Sweeney and quick as lightning he sped

it plateward.  The great Lane struck out!  The game was over--Chicago,

1; Philadelphia, 0.

In that whirling moment when the crowd went mad and Milly was hugging

me, and Nan pounding holes in my hat, I had a queer sort of blankness,

a section of time when my sensations were deadlocked.

"Oh!  Connie, look!" cried Nan.  I saw Lane and Cogswell warmly shaking

hands with the Rube.  Then the hungry clamoring fans tumbled upon the

field and swarmed about the players.

Whereupon Nan kissed me and Milly, and then kissed Mrs. Nelson.  In

that radiant moment Nan was all sweetness.

"It is the Rube's break into fast company," she said.

THE KNOCKER

"Yes, Carroll, I got my notice.  Maybe it's no surprise to you.  And

there's one more thing I want to say.  You're 'it' on this team.

You're the topnotch catcher in the Western League and one of the best

ball players in the game--but you're a knocker!"

Madge Ellston heard young Sheldon speak. She saw the flash in his gray

eyes and the heat of his bronzed face as he looked intently at the big

catcher.

"Fade away, sonny.  Back to the bush-league for yours!" replied

Carroll, derisively.  "You're not fast enough for Kansas City.  You

look pretty good in a uniform and you're swift on your feet, but you

can't hit.  You've got a glass arm and you run bases like an ostrich

trying to side.  That notice was coming to you.  Go learn the game!"

Then a crowd of players trooped noisily out of the hotel lobby and

swept Sheldon and Carroll down the porch steps toward the waiting

omnibus.

Madge's uncle owned the Kansas City club. She had lived most of her

nineteen years in a baseball atmosphere, but accustomed as she was to

baseball talk and the peculiar banterings and bickerings of the

players, there were times when it seemed all Greek.  If a player got

his "notice" it meant he would be released in ten days.  A "knocker"

was a ball player who spoke ill of his fellow players.  This scrap of

conversation, however, had an unusual interest because Carroll had paid

court to her for a year, and Sheldon, coming to the team that spring,

had fallen desperately in love with her.  She liked Sheldon pretty

well, but Carroll fascinated her.  She began to wonder if there were

bad feelings between the rivals--to compare them--to get away from

herself and judge them impersonally.

When Pat Donahue, the veteran manager of the team came out, Madge

greeted him with a smile.  She had always gotten on famously with Pat,

notwithstanding her imperious desire to handle the managerial reins

herself upon occasions. Pat beamed all over his round ruddy face.

"Miss Madge, you weren't to the park yesterday an' we lost without our

pretty mascot.  We shure needed you.  Denver's playin' at a fast clip."

"I'm coming out today," replied Miss Ellston, thoughtfully.  "Pat,

what's a knocker?"

"Now, Miss Madge, are you askin' me that after I've been coachin' you

in baseball for years?" questioned Pat, in distress.

"I know what a knocker is, as everybody else does.  But I want to know

the real meaning, the inside-ball of it, to use your favorite saying."

Studying her grave face with shrewd eyes Donahue slowly lost his smile.

"The inside-ball of it, eh?  Come, let's sit over here a bit--the sun's

shure warm today.... Miss Madge, a knocker is the strangest man

known in the game, the hardest to deal with an' what every baseball

manager hates most."

Donahue told her that he believed the term "knocker" came originally

from baseball; that in general it typified the player who strengthened

his own standing by belittling the ability of his team-mates, and by

enlarging upon his own superior qualities.  But there were many phases

of this peculiar type.  Some players were natural born knockers; others

acquired the name in their later years in the game when younger men

threatened to win their places.  Some of the best players ever produced

by baseball had the habit in its most violent form.  There were players

of ridiculously poor ability who held their jobs on the strength of

this one trait.  It was a mystery how they misled magnates and managers

alike; how for months they held their places, weakening a team, often

keeping a good team down in the race; all from sheer bold suggestion of

their own worth and other players' worthlessness. Strangest of all was

the knockers' power to disorganize; to engender a bad spirit between

management and team and among the players. The team which was without

one of the parasites of the game generally stood well up in the race

for the pennant, though there had been championship teams noted for

great knockers as well as great players.

"It's shure strange, Miss Madge," said Pat in conclusion, shaking his

gray head.  "I've played hundreds of knockers, an' released them, too.

Knockers always get it in the end, but they go on foolin' me and

workin' me just the same as if I was a youngster with my first team.

They're part an' parcel of the game."

"Do you like these men off the field--outside of baseball, I mean?"

"No, I shure don't, an' I never seen one yet that wasn't the same off

the field as he was on."

"Thank you, Pat.  I think I understand now. And--oh, yes, there's

another thing I want to ask you.  What's the matter with Billie

Sheldon? Uncle George said he was falling off in his game. Then I've

read the papers.  Billie started out well in the spring."

"Didn't he?  I was sure thinkin' I had a find in Billie.  Well, he's

lost his nerve.  He's in a bad slump.  It's worried me for days.  I'm

goin' to release Billie.  The team needs a shake-up. That's where

Billie gets the worst of it, for he's really the makin' of a star; but

he's slumped, an' now knockin' has made him let down.  There, Miss

Madge, that's an example of what I've just been tellin' you.  An' you

can see that a manager has his troubles.  These hulkin' athletes are a

lot of spoiled babies an' I often get sick of my job."

That afternoon Miss Ellston was in a brown study all the way out to the

baseball park.  She arrived rather earlier than usual to find the

grand-stand empty.  The Denver team had just come upon the field, and

the Kansas City players were practising batting at the left of the

diamond. Madge walked down the aisle of the grand stand and out along

the reporters' boxes.  She asked one of the youngsters on the field to

tell Mr. Sheldon that she would like to speak with him a moment.

Billie eagerly hurried from the players' bench with a look of surprise

and expectancy on his sun-tanned face.  Madge experienced for the first

time a sudden sense of shyness at his coming.  His lithe form and his

nimble step somehow gave her a pleasure that seemed old yet was new.

When he neared her, and, lifting his cap, spoke her name, the shade of

gloom in his eyes and lines of trouble on his face dispelled her

confusion.

"Billie, Pat tells me he's given you ten days' notice," she said.

"It's true."

"What's wrong with you, Billie?"

"Oh, I've struck a bad streak--can't hit or throw."

"Are you a quitter?"

"No, I'm not," he answered quickly, flushing a dark red.

"You started off this spring with a rush.  You played brilliantly and

for a while led the team in batting.  Uncle George thought so well of

you. Then came this spell of bad form.  But, Billie, it's only a slump;

you can brace."

"I don't know," he replied, despondently. "Awhile back I got my mind

off the game.  Then--people who don't like me have taken advantage of

my slump to----"

"To knock," interrupted Miss Ellston.

"I'm not saying that," he said, looking away from her.

"But I'm saying it.  See here, Billie Sheldon, my uncle owns this team

and Pat Donahue is manager. I think they both like me a little.  Now I

don't want to see you lose your place.  Perhaps----"

"Madge, that's fine of you--but I think--I guess it'd be best for me to

leave Kansas City."

"Why?"

"You know," he said huskily.  "I've lost my head--I'm in love--I can't

think of baseball--I'm crazy about you."

Miss Ellston's sweet face grew rosy, clear to the tips of her ears.

"Billie Sheldon," she replied, spiritedly. "You're talking nonsense.

Even if you were were that way, it'd be no reason to play poor ball.

Don't throw the game, as Pat would say. Make a brace!  Get up on your

toes!  Tear things!  Rip the boards off the fence!  Don't quit!"

She exhausted her vocabulary of baseball language if not her

enthusiasm, and paused in blushing confusion.

"Madge!"

"Will you brace up?"

"Will I--will I!" he exclaimed, breathlessly.

Madge murmured a hurried good-bye and, turning away, went up the

stairs.  Her uncle's private box was upon the top of the grand stand

and she reached it in a somewhat bewildered state of mind.  She had a

confused sense of having appeared to encourage Billie, and did not know

whether she felt happy or guilty.  The flame in his eyes had warmed all

her blood.  Then, as she glanced over the railing to see the powerful

Burns Carroll, there rose in her breast a panic at strange variance

with her other feelings.

Many times had Madge Ellston viewed the field and stands and the

outlying country from this high vantage point; but never with the same

mingling emotions, nor had the sunshine ever been so golden, the woods

and meadows so green, the diamond so smooth and velvety, the whole

scene so gaily bright.

Denver had always been a good drawing card, and having won the first

game of the present series, bade fair to draw a record attendance. The

long lines of bleachers, already packed with the familiar mottled

crowd, sent forth a merry, rattling hum.  Soon a steady stream of

well-dressed men and women poured in the gates and up the grand-stand

stairs.  The soft murmur of many voices in light conversation and

laughter filled the air.  The peanut venders and score-card sellers

kept up their insistent shrill cries.  The baseball park was alive now

and restless; the atmosphere seemed charged with freedom and pleasure.

The players romped like skittish colts, the fans shrieked their

witticisms--all sound and movements suggested play.

Madge Ellston was somehow relieved to see her uncle sitting in one of

the lower boxes.  During this game she wanted to be alone, and she

believed she would be, for the President of the League and directors of

the Kansas City team were with her uncle.  When the bell rang to call

the Denver team in from practice the stands could hold no more, and the

roped-off side lines were filling up with noisy men and boys.  From her

seat Madge could see right down upon the players' bench, and when she

caught both Sheldon and Carroll gazing upward she drew back with

sharply contrasted thrills.

Then the bell rang again, the bleachers rolled out their welcoming

acclaim, and play was called with Kansas City at the bat.

Right off the reel Hunt hit a short fly safely over second.  The ten

thousand spectators burst into a roar.  A good start liberated applause

and marked the feeling for the day.

Madge was surprised and glad to see Billie Sheldon start next for the

plate.  All season, until lately, he had been the second batter.

During his slump he had been relegated to the last place on the batting

list.  Perhaps he had asked Pat to try him once more at the top.  The

bleachers voiced their unstinted appreciation of this return, showing

that Billie still had a strong hold on their hearts.

As for Madge, her breast heaved and she had difficulty in breathing.

This was going to be a hard game for her.  The intensity of her desire

to see Billie brace up to his old form amazed her. And Carroll's rude

words beat thick in her ears. Never before had Billie appeared so

instinct with life, so intent and strung as when he faced Keene, the

Denver pitcher.  That worthy tied himself up in a knot, and then,

unlimbering a long arm, delivered the brand new ball.

Billie seemed to leap forward and throw his bat at it.  There was a

sharp ringing crack--and the ball was like a white string marvelously

stretching out over the players, over the green field beyond, and then,

sailing, soaring, over the right-field fence.  For a moment the stands,

even the bleachers, were stone quiet.  No player had ever hit a ball

over that fence.  It had been deemed impossible, as was attested to by

the many painted "ads" offering prizes for such a feat.  Suddenly the

far end of the bleachers exploded and the swelling roar rolled up to

engulf the grand stand in thunder.  Billie ran round the bases to

applause never before vented on that field.  But he gave no sign that

it affected him; he did not even doff his cap.  White-faced and stern,

he hurried to the bench, where Pat fell all over him and many of the

players grasped his hands.

Up in her box Madge was crushing her score-card and whispering:  "Oh!

Billie, I could hug you for that!"

Two runs on two pitched balls!  That was an opening to stir an exacting

audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm.  The Denver manager

peremptorily called Keene off the diamond and sent in Steele, a

south-paw, who had always bothered Pat's left-handed hitters.  That

move showed his astute judgment, for Steele struck out McReady and

retired Curtis and Mahew on easy chances.

It was Dalgren's turn to pitch and though he had shown promise in

several games he had not yet been tried out on a team of Denver's

strength. The bleachers gave him a good cheering as he walked into the

box, but for all that they whistled their wonder at Pat's assurance in

putting him against the Cowboys in an important game.

The lad was visibly nervous and the hard-hitting and loud-coaching

Denver players went after him as if they meant to drive him out of the

game.  Crane stung one to left center for a base, Moody was out on a

liner to short, almost doubling up Crane; the fleet-footed Bluett

bunted and beat the throw to first; Langly drove to left for what

seemed a three-bagger, but Curtis, after a hard run, caught the ball

almost off the left-field bleachers.  Crane and Bluett advanced a base

on the throw-in.  Then Kane batted up a high foul-fly. Burns Carroll,

the Kansas City catcher, had the reputation of being a fiend for

chasing foul flies, and he dashed at this one with a speed that

threatened a hard fall over the players' bench or a collision with the

fence.  Carroll caught the ball and crashed against the grand stand,

but leaped back with an agility that showed that if there was any harm

done it had not been to him.

Thus the sharp inning ended with a magnificent play.  It electrified

the spectators into a fierce energy of applause.  With one accord, by

baseball instinct, the stands and bleachers and roped-in-sidelines

realized it was to be a game of games and they answered to the stimulus

with a savage enthusiasm that inspired ballplayers to great plays.

In the first half of the second inning, Steele's will to do and his arm

to execute were very like his name.  Kansas City could not score.  In

their half the Denver team made one run by clean hitting.

Then the closely fought advantage see-sawed from one team to the other.

It was not a pitchers' battle, though both men worked to the limit of

skill and endurance.  They were hit hard.  Dazzling plays kept the

score down and the innings short.  Over the fields hung the portent of

something to come, every player, every spectator felt the subtle

baseball chance; each inning seemed to lead closer and more thrillingly

up to the climax.  But at the end of the seventh, with the score tied

six and six, with daring steals, hard hits and splendid plays, enough

to have made memorable several games, it seemed that the great

portentous moment was still in abeyance.

The head of the batting list for Kansas City was up.  Hunt caught the

first pitched ball squarely on the end of his bat.  It was a mighty

drive and as the ball soared and soared over the center-field Hunt

raced down the base line, and the winged-footed Crane sped outward, the

bleachers split their throats.  The hit looked good for a home run, but

Crane leaped up and caught the ball in his gloved hand.  The sudden

silence and then the long groan which racked the bleachers was greater

tribute to Crane's play than any applause.

Billie Sheldon then faced Steele.  The fans roared hoarsely, for Billie

had hit safely three times out of four.  Steele used his curve ball,

but he could not get the batter to go after it.  When he had wasted

three balls, the never-despairing bleachers howled:  "Now, Billie, in

your groove! Sting the next one!"  But Billie waited.  One strike!  Two

strikes!  Steele cut the plate.  That was a test which proved Sheldon's

caliber.

With seven innings of exciting play passed, with both teams on edge,

with the bleachers wild and the grand stands keyed up to the breaking

point, with everything making deliberation almost impossible, Billie

Sheldon had remorselessly waited for three balls and two strikes.

"Now! ...  Now! ...  Now!" shrieked the bleachers.

Steele had not tired nor lost his cunning.  With hands before him he

grimly studied Billie, then whirling hard to get more weight into his

motion, he threw the ball.

Billie swung perfectly and cut a curving liner between the first

baseman and the base.  Like a shot it skipped over the grass out along

the foul-line into right field.  Amid tremendous uproar Billie

stretched the hit into a triple, and when he got up out of the dust

after his slide into third the noise seemed to be the crashing down of

the bleachers.  It died out with the choking gurgling yell of the most

leather-lunged fan.

"O-o-o-o-you-Billie-e!"

McReady marched up and promptly hit a long fly to the redoubtable

Crane.  Billie crouched in a sprinter's position with his eye on the

graceful fielder, waiting confidently for the ball to drop. As if there

had not already been sufficient heart-rending moments, the chance that

governed baseball meted out this play; one of the keenest, most trying

known to the game.  Players waited, spectators waited, and the instant

of that dropping ball was interminably long.  Everybody knew Crane

would catch it; everybody thought of the wonderful throwing arm that

had made him famous.  Was it possible for Billie Sheldon to beat the

throw to the plate?

Crane made the catch and got the ball away at the same instant Sheldon

leaped from the base and dashed for home.  Then all eyes were on the

ball.  It seemed incredible that a ball thrown by human strength could

speed plateward so low, so straight, so swift.  But it lost its force

and slanted down to bound into the catcher's hands just as Billie slid

over the plate.

By the time the bleachers had stopped stamping and bawling, Curtis

ended the inning with a difficult grounder to the infield.

Once more the Kansas City players took the field and Burns Carroll sang

out in his lusty voice: "Keep lively, boys!  Play hard!  Dig 'em up an'

get 'em!"  Indeed the big catcher was the main-stay of the home team.

The bulk of the work fell upon his shoulders.  Dalgren was wild and

kept his catcher continually blocking low pitches and wide curves and

poorly controlled high fast balls. But they were all alike to Carroll.

Despite his weight, he was as nimble on his feet as a goat, and if he

once got his hands on the ball he never missed it.  It was his

encouragement that steadied Dalgren; his judgment of hitters that

carried the young pitcher through dangerous places; his lightning swift

grasp of points that directed the machine-like work of his team.

In this inning Carroll exhibited another of his demon chases after a

foul fly; he threw the base-stealing Crane out at second, and by a

remarkable leap and stop of McReady's throw, he blocked a runner who

would have tied the score.

The Cowboys blanked their opponents in the first half of the ninth, and

trotted in for their turn needing one run to tie, two runs to win.

There had scarcely been a breathing spell for the onlookers in this

rapid-fire game.  Every inning had held them, one moment breathless,

the next wildly clamorous, and another waiting in numb fear.  What did

these last few moments hold in store?  The only answer to that was the

dogged plugging optimism of the Denver players. To listen to them, to

watch them, was to gather the impression that baseball fortune always

favored them in the end.

"Only three more, Dal.  Steady boys, it's our game," rolled out

Carroll's deep bass.  How virile he was!  What a tower of strength to

the weakening pitcher!

But valiantly as Dalgren tried to respond, he failed.  The grind--the

strain had been too severe. When he finally did locate the plate Bluett

hit safely.  Langley bunted along the base line and beat the ball.

A blank, dead quiet settled down over the bleachers and stands.

Something fearful threatened. What might not come to pass, even at the

last moment of this nerve-racking game?  There was a runner on first

and a runner on second. That was bad.  Exceedingly bad was it that

these runners were on base with nobody out.  Worst of all was the fact

that Kane was up.  Kane, the best bunter, the fastest man to first, the

hardest hitter in the league!  That he would fail to advance those two

runners was scarcely worth consideration.  Once advanced, a fly to the

outfield, a scratch, anything almost, would tie the score. So this was

the climax presaged so many times earlier in the game.  Dalgren seemed

to wilt under it.

Kane swung his ash viciously and called on Dalgren to put one over.

Dalgren looked in toward the bench as if he wanted and expected to be

taken out.  But Pat Donahue made no sign. Pat had trained many a

pitcher by forcing him to take his medicine.  Then Carroll, mask under

his arm, rolling his big hand in his mitt, sauntered down to the

pitcher's box.  The sharp order of the umpire in no wise disconcerted

him.  He said something to Dalgren, vehemently nodding his head the

while.  Players and audience alike supposed he was trying to put a

little heart into Dalgren, and liked him the better, notwithstanding

the opposition to the umpire.

Carroll sauntered back to his position.  He adjusted his breast

protector, and put on his mask, deliberately taking his time.  Then he

stepped behind the plate, and after signing for the pitch, he slowly

moved his right hand up to his mask.

Dalgren wound up, took his swing, and let drive. Even as he delivered

the ball Carroll bounded away from his position, flinging off the mask

as he jumped.  For a single fleeting instant, the catcher's position

was vacated.  But that instant was long enough to make the audience

gasp.  Kane bunted beautifully down the third base line, and there

Carroll stood, fifteen feet from the plate, agile as a huge monkey.  He

whipped the ball to Mahew at third.  Mahew wheeled quick as thought and

lined the ball to second.  Sheldon came tearing for the bag, caught the

ball on the run, and with a violent stop and wrench threw it like a

bullet to first base.  Fast as Kane was, the ball beat him ten feet.  A

triple play!

The players of both teams cheered, but the audience, slower to grasp

the complex and intricate points, needed a long moment to realize what

had happened.  They needed another to divine that Carroll had

anticipated Kane's intention to bunt, had left his position as the ball

was pitched, had planned all, risked all, played all on Kane's sure

eye; and so he had retired the side and won the game by creating and

executing the rarest play in baseball.

Then the audience rose in a body to greet the great catcher.  What a

hoarse thundering roar shook the stands and waved in a blast over the

field!  Carroll stood bowing his acknowledgment, and then swaggered a

little with the sun shining on his handsome heated face.  Like a

conqueror conscious of full blown power he stalked away to the

clubhouse.

Madge Ellston came out of her trance and viewed the ragged score-card,

her torn parasol, her battered gloves and flying hair, her generally

disheveled state with a little start of dismay, but when she got into

the thick and press of the moving crowd she found all the women more or

less disheveled.  And they seemed all the prettier and friendlier for

that.  It was a happy crowd and voices were conspicuously hoarse.

When Madge entered the hotel parlor that evening she found her uncle

with guests and among them was Burns Carroll.  The presence of the

handsome giant affected Madge more impellingly than ever before, yet in

some inexplicably different way.  She found herself trembling; she

sensed a crisis in her feelings for this man and it frightened her.

She became conscious suddenly that she had always been afraid of him.

Watching Carroll receive the congratulations of many of those present,

she saw that he dominated them as he had her.  His magnetism was

over-powering; his great stature seemed to fill the room; his easy

careless assurance emanated from superior strength.  When he spoke

lightly of the game, of Crane's marvelous catch, of Dalgren's pitching

and of his own triple play, it seemed these looming features retreated

in perspective--somehow lost their vital significance because he

slighted them.

In the light of Carroll's illuminating talk, in the remembrance of

Sheldon's bitter denunciation, in the knowledge of Pat Donahue's

estimate of a peculiar type of ball-player, Madge Ellston found herself

judging the man--bravely trying to resist his charm, to be fair to him

and to herself.

Carroll soon made his way to her side and greeted her with his old

familiar manner of possession.  However irritating it might be to Madge

when alone, now it held her bound.

Carroll possessed the elemental attributes of a conqueror.  When with

him Madge whimsically feared that he would snatch her up in his arms

and carry her bodily off, as the warriors of old did with the women

they wanted.  But she began to believe that the fascination he

exercised upon her was merely physical.  That gave her pause. Not only

was Burns Carroll on trial, but also a very foolish fluttering little

moth--herself.  It was time enough, however, to be stern with herself

after she had tried him.

"Wasn't that a splendid catch of Crane's today?" she asked.

"A lucky stab!  Crane has a habit of running round like an ostrich and

sticking out a hand to catch a ball.  It's a grand-stand play.  Why, a

good outfielder would have been waiting under that fly."

"Dalgren did fine work in the box, don't you think?"

"Oh, the kid's all right with an old head back of the plate.  He's

wild, though, and will never make good in fast company.  I won his game

today. He wouldn't have lasted an inning without me.  It was dead wrong

for Pat to pitch him. Dalgren simply can't pitch and he hasn't sand

enough to learn."

A hot retort trembled upon Madge Ellston's lips, but she withheld it

and quietly watched Carroll.  How complacent he was, how utterly

self-contained!

"And Billie Sheldon--wasn't it good to see him brace?  What hitting! .

..  That home run!"

"Sheldon flashed up today.  That's the worst of such players.  This

talk of his slump is all rot. When he joined the team he made some

lucky hits and the papers lauded him as a comer, but he soon got down

to his real form.  Why, to break into a game now and then, to shut his

eyes and hit a couple on the nose--that's not baseball. Pat's given him

ten days' notice, and his release will be a good move for the team.

Sheldon's not fast enough for this league."

"I'm sorry.  He seemed so promising," replied Madge.  "I liked

Billy--pretty well."

"Yes, that was evident," said Carroll, firing up.  "I never could

understand what you saw in him.  Why, Sheldon's no good.  He----"

Madge turned a white face that silenced Carroll.  She excused herself

and returned to the parlor, where she had last seen her uncle.  Not

finding him there, she went into the long corridor and met Sheldon,

Dalgren and two more of the players.  Madge congratulated the young

pitcher and the other players on their brilliant work; and they, not to

be outdone, gallantly attributed the day's victory to her presence at

the game.  Then, without knowing in the least how it came about, she

presently found herself alone with Billy, and they were strolling into

the music-room.

"Madge, did I brace up?"

The girl risked one quick look at him.  How boyish he seemed, how

eager!  What an altogether different Billie!  But was the difference

all in him!  Somehow, despite a conscious shyness in the moment she

felt natural and free, without the uncertainty and restraint that had

always troubled her while with him.

"Oh, Billie, that glorious home run!"

"Madge, wasn't that hit a dandy?  How I made it is a mystery, but the

bat felt like a feather.  I thought of you.  Tell me--what did you

think when I hit that ball over the fence?"

"Billie, I'll never, never tell you."

"Yes--please--I want to know.  Didn't you think something--nice of me?"

The pink spots in Madge's cheeks widened to crimson flames.

"Billie, are you still--crazy about me?  Now, don't come so close.

Can't you behave yourself? And don't break my fingers with you terrible

baseball hands....  Well, when you made that hit I just collapsed

and I said----"

"Say it!  Say it!" implored Billie.

She lowered her face and then bravely raised it.

"I said, 'Billie, I could hug you for that!' ... Billie, let me go!

Oh, you mustn't!--please!"

Quite a little while afterward Madge remembered to tell Billie that she

had been seeking her uncle.  They met him and Pat Donahue, coming out

of the parlor.

"Where have you been all evening?" demanded Mr. Ellston.

"Shure it looks as if she's signed a new manager," said Pat, his shrewd

eyes twinkling.

The soft glow in Madge's cheeks deepened into tell-tale scarlet; Billie

resembled a schoolboy stricken in guilt.

"Aha! so that's it?" queried her uncle.

"Ellston," said Pat.  "Billie's home-run drive today recalled his

notice an' if I don't miss guess it won him another game--the best game

in life."

"By George!" exclaimed Mr. Ellston.  "I was afraid it was Carroll!"

He led Madge away and Pat followed with Billie.

"Shure, it was good to see you brace, Billie," said the manager, with a

kindly hand on the young man's arm.  "I'm tickled to death.  That ten

days' notice doesn't go.  See?  I've had to shake up the team but your

job is good.  I released McReady outright an' traded Carroll to Denver

for a catcher and a fielder.  Some of the directors hollered murder,

an' I expect the fans will roar, but I'm running this team, I'll have

harmony among my players.  Carroll is a great catcher, but he's a

knocker."

THE WINNING BALL

One day in July our Rochester club, leader in the Eastern League, had

returned to the hotel after winning a double-header from the Syracuse

club.  For some occult reason there was to be a lay-off next day and

then on the following another double-header.  These double-headers we

hated next to exhibition games.  Still a lay-off for twenty-four hours,

at that stage of the race, was a Godsend, and we received the news with

exclamations of pleasure.

After dinner we were all sitting and smoking comfortably in front of

the hotel when our manager, Merritt, came hurriedly out of the lobby.

It struck me that he appeared a little flustered.

"Say, you fellars," he said brusquely.  "Pack your suits and be ready

for the bus at seven-thirty."

For a moment there was a blank, ominous silence, while we assimilated

the meaning of his terse speech.

"I've got a good thing on for tomorrow," continued the manager.  "Sixty

per cent gate receipts if we win.  That Guelph team is hot stuff,

though."

"Guelph!" exclaimed some of the players suspiciously.  "Where's Guelph?"

"It's in Canada.  We'll take the night express an' get there tomorrow

in time for the game. An' we'll hev to hustle."

Upon Merritt then rained a multiplicity of excuses.  Gillinger was not

well, and ought to have that day's rest.  Snead's eyes would profit by

a lay-off.  Deerfoot Browning was leading the league in base running,

and as his legs were all bruised and scraped by sliding, a manager who

was not an idiot would have a care of such valuable runmakers for his

team.  Lake had "Charley-horse."  Hathaway's arm was sore.  Bane's

stomach threatened gastritis.  Spike Doran's finger needed a chance to

heal.  I was stale, and the other players, three pitchers, swore their

arms should be in the hospital.

"Cut it out!" said Merritt, getting exasperated. "You'd all lay down on

me--now, wouldn't you?  Well, listen to this:  McDougal pitched today;

he doesn't go.  Blake works Friday, he doesn't go.  But the rest of you

puffed-up, high-salaried stiffs pack your grips quick.  See?  It'll

cost any fresh fellar fifty for missin' the train."

So that was how eleven of the Rochester team found themselves moodily

boarding a Pullman en route for Buffalo and Canada.  We went to bed

early and arose late.

Guelph lay somewhere in the interior of Canada, and we did not expect

to get there until 1 o'clock.

As it turned out, the train was late; we had to dress hurriedly in the

smoking room, pack our citizen clothes in our grips and leave the train

to go direct to the ball grounds without time for lunch.

It was a tired, dusty-eyed, peevish crowd of ball players that climbed

into a waiting bus at the little station.

We had never heard of Guelph; we did not care anything about Rube

baseball teams.  Baseball was not play to us; it was the hardest kind

of work, and of all things an exhibition game was an abomination.

The Guelph players, strapping lads, met us with every mark of respect

and courtesy and escorted us to the field with a brass band that was

loud in welcome, if not harmonious in tune.

Some 500 men and boys trotted curiously along with us, for all the

world as if the bus were a circus parade cage filled with striped

tigers. What a rustic, motley crowd massed about in and on that ball

ground.  There must have been 10,000.

The audience was strange to us.  The Indians, half-breeds,

French-Canadians; the huge, hulking, bearded farmers or traders, or

trappers, whatever they were, were new to our baseball experience.

The players themselves, however, earned the largest share of our

attention.  By the time they had practiced a few moments we looked at

Merritt and Merritt looked at us.

These long, powerful, big-handed lads evidently did not know the

difference between lacrosse and baseball; but they were quick as cats

on their feet, and they scooped up the ball in a way wonderful to see.

And throw!--it made a professional's heart swell just to see them line

the ball across the diamond.

"Lord! what whips these lads have!" exclaimed Merritt.  "Hope we're not

up against it. If this team should beat us we wouldn't draw a handful

at Toronto.  We can't afford to be beaten. Jump around and cinch the

game quick.  If we get in a bad place, I'll sneak in the 'rabbit.'"

The "rabbit" was a baseball similar in appearance to the ordinary

league ball; under its horse-hide cover, however, it was remarkably

different.

An ingenious fan, a friend of Merritt, had removed the covers from a

number of league balls and sewed them on rubber balls of his own

making. They could not be distinguished from the regular article, not

even by an experienced professional--until they were hit.  Then!  The

fact that after every bounce one of these rubber balls bounded swifter

and higher had given it the name of the "rabbit."

Many a game had the "rabbit" won for us at critical stages.  Of course

it was against the rules of the league, and of course every player in

the league knew about it; still, when it was judiciously and cleverly

brought into a close game, the "rabbit" would be in play, and very

probably over the fence, before the opposing captain could learn of it,

let alone appeal to the umpire.

"Fellars, look at that guy who's goin' to pitch," suddenly spoke up one

of the team.

Many as were the country players whom we seasoned and traveled

professionals had run across, this twirler outclassed them for

remarkable appearance.  Moreover, what put an entirely different tinge

to our momentary humor was the discovery that he was as wild as a March

hare and could throw a ball so fast that it resembled a pea shot from a

boy's air gun.

Deerfoot led our batting list, and after the first pitched ball, which

he did not see, and the second, which ticked his shirt as it shot past,

he turned to us with an expression that made us groan inwardly.

When Deerfoot looked that way it meant the pitcher was dangerous.

Deerfoot made no effort to swing at the next ball, and was promptly

called out on strikes.

I was second at bat, and went up with some reluctance.  I happened to

be leading the league in both long distance and safe hitting, and I

doted on speed.  But having stopped many mean in-shoots with various

parts of my anatomy, I was rather squeamish about facing backwoods yaps

who had no control.

When I had watched a couple of his pitches, which the umpire called

strikes, I gave him credit for as much speed as Rusie.  These balls

were as straight as a string, singularly without curve, jump, or

variation of any kind.  I lined the next one so hard at the shortstop

that it cracked like a pistol as it struck his hands and whirled him

half off his feet.  Still he hung to the ball and gave opportunity for

the first crash of applause.

"Boys, he's a trifle wild," I said to my team-mates, "but he has the

most beautiful ball to hit you ever saw.  I don't believe he uses a

curve, and when we once time that speed we'll kill it."

Next inning, after old man Hathaway had baffled the Canadians with his

wide, tantalizing curves, my predictions began to be verified.  Snead

rapped one high and far to deep right field.  To our infinite surprise,

however, the right fielder ran with fleetness that made our own

Deerfoot seem slow, and he got under the ball and caught it.

Doran sent a sizzling grasscutter down toward left.  The lanky third

baseman darted over, dived down, and, coming up with the ball,

exhibited the power of a throwing arm that made as all green with envy.

Then, when the catcher chased a foul fly somewhere back in the crowd

and caught it, we began to take notice.

"Lucky stabs!" said Merritt cheerfully.  "They can't keep that up.

We'll drive him to the woods next time."

But they did keep it up; moreover, they became more brilliant as the

game progressed.  What with Hathaway's heady pitching we soon disposed

of them when at the bat; our turns, however, owing to the wonderful

fielding of these backwoodsmen, were also fruitless.

Merritt, with his mind ever on the slice of gate money coming if we

won, began to fidget and fume and find fault.

"You're a swell lot of champions, now, ain't you?" he observed between

innings.

All baseball players like to bat, and nothing pleases them so much as

base hits; on the other hand, nothing is quite so painful as to send

out hard liners only to see them caught.  And it seemed as if every man

on our team connected with that lanky twirler's fast high ball and hit

with the force that made the bat spring only to have one of these rubes

get his big hands upon it.

Considering that we were in no angelic frame of mind before the game

started, and in view of Merritt's persistently increasing ill humor,

this failure of ours to hit a ball safely gradually worked us into a

kind of frenzy.  From indifference we passed to determination, and from

that to sheer passionate purpose.

Luck appeared to be turning in the sixth inning. With one out, Lake hit

a beauty to right.  Doran beat an infield grounder and reached first.

Hathaway struck out.

With Browning up and me next, the situation looked rather precarious

for the Canadians.

"Say, Deerfoot," whispered Merritt, "dump one down the third-base line.

He's playin' deep. It's a pipe.  Then the bases will be full an'

Reddy'll clean up."

In a stage like that Browning was a man absolutely to depend upon.  He

placed a slow bunt in the grass toward third and sprinted for first.

The third baseman fielded the ball, but, being confused, did not know

where to throw it.

"Stick it in your basket," yelled Merritt, in a delight that showed how

hard he was pulling for the gate money, and his beaming smile as he

turned to me was inspiring.  "Now, Reddy, it's up to you!  I'm not

worrying about what's happened so far.  I know, with you at bat in a

pinch, it's all off!"

Merritt's compliment was pleasing, but it did not augment my purpose,

for that already had reached the highest mark.  Love of hitting, if no

other thing, gave me the thrilling fire to arise to the opportunity.

Selecting my light bat, I went up and faced the rustic twirler and

softly said things to him.

He delivered the ball, and I could have yelled aloud, so fast, so

straight, so true it sped toward me.  Then I hit it harder than I had

ever hit a ball in my life.  The bat sprung, as if it were whalebone.

And the ball took a bullet course between center and left.  So

beautiful a hit was it that I watched as I ran.

Out of the tail of my eye I saw the center fielder running.  When I

rounded first base I got a good look at this fielder, and though I had

seen the greatest outfielders the game ever produced, I never saw one

that covered ground so swiftly as he.

On the ball soared, and began to drop; on the fielder sped, and began

to disappear over a little hill back of his position.  Then he reached

up with a long arm and marvelously caught the ball in one hand.  He

went out of sight as I touched second base, and the heterogeneous crowd

knew about a great play to make more noise than a herd of charging

buffalo.

In the next half inning our opponents, by clean drives, scored two runs

and we in our turn again went out ignominiously.  When the first of the

eighth came we were desperate and clamored for the "rabbit."

"I've sneaked it in," said Merritt, with a low voice.  "Got it to the

umpire on the last passed ball.  See, the pitcher's got it now.  Boys,

it's all off but the fireworks!  Now, break loose!"

A peculiarity about the "rabbit" was the fact that though it felt as

light as the regulation league ball it could not be thrown with the

same speed and to curve it was an impossibility.

Bane hit the first delivery from our hoosier stumbling block.  The ball

struck the ground and began to bound toward short.  With every bound it

went swifter, longer and higher, and it bounced clear over the

shortstop's head.  Lake chopped one in front of the plate, and it

rebounded from the ground straight up so high that both runners were

safe before it came down.

Doran hit to the pitcher.  The ball caromed his leg, scooted fiendishly

at the second baseman, and tried to run up all over him like a tame

squirrel.  Bases full!

Hathaway got a safe fly over the infield and two runs tallied.  The

pitcher, in spite of the help of the umpire, could not locate the plate

for Balknap, and gave him a base on balls.  Bases full again!

Deerfoot slammed a hot liner straight at the second baseman, which,

striking squarely in his hands, recoiled as sharply as if it had struck

a wall.  Doran scored, and still the bases were filled.

The laboring pitcher began to get rattled; he could not find his usual

speed; he knew it, but evidently could not account for it.

When I came to bat, indications were not wanting that the Canadian team

would soon be up in the air.  The long pitcher delivered the "rabbit,"

and got it low down by my knees, which was an unfortunate thing for

him.  I swung on that one, and trotted round the bases behind the

runners while the center and left fielders chased the ball.

Gillinger weighed nearly two hundred pounds, and he got all his weight

under the "rabbit."  It went so high that we could scarcely see it.

All the infielders rushed in, and after staggering around, with heads

bent back, one of them, the shortstop, managed to get under it.  The

"rabbit" bounded forty feet out of his hands!

When Snead's grounder nearly tore the third baseman's leg off; when

Bane's hit proved as elusive as a flitting shadow; when Lake's liner

knocked the pitcher flat, and Doran's fly leaped high out of the center

fielder's glove--then those earnest, simple, country ballplayers

realized something was wrong.  But they imagined it was in themselves,

and after a short spell of rattles, they steadied up and tried harder

than ever.  The motions they went through trying to stop that jumping

jackrabbit of a ball were ludicrous in the extreme.

Finally, through a foul, a short fly, and a scratch hit to first, they

retired the side and we went into the field with the score 14 to 2 in

our favor.

But Merritt had not found it possible to get the "rabbit" out of play!

We spent a fatefully anxious few moments squabbling with the umpire and

captain over the "rabbit."  At the idea of letting those herculean

railsplitters have a chance to hit the rubber ball we felt our blood

run cold.

"But this ball has a rip in it," blustered Gillinger.  He lied

atrociously.  A microscope could not have discovered as much as a

scratch in that smooth leather.

"Sure it has," supplemented Merritt, in the suave tones of a stage

villain.  "We're used to playing with good balls."

"Why did you ring this one in on us?" asked the captain.  "We never

threw out this ball.  We want a chance to hit it."

That was just the one thing we did not want them to have.  But fate

played against us.

"Get up on your toes, now an' dust," said Merritt.  "Take your

medicine, you lazy sit-in-front-of-the-hotel stiffs!  Think of pay day!"

Not improbably we all entertained the identical thought that old man

Hathaway was the last pitcher under the sun calculated to be effective

with the "rabbit."  He never relied on speed; in fact, Merritt often

scornfully accused him of being unable to break a pane of glass; he

used principally what we called floaters and a change of pace.  Both

styles were absolutely impractical with the "rabbit."

"It's comin' to us, all right, all right!" yelled Deerfoot to me,

across the intervening grass.  I was of the opinion that it did not

take any genius to make Deerfoot's ominous prophecy.

Old man Hathaway gazed at Merritt on the bench as if he wished the

manager could hear what he was calling him and then at his

fellow-players as if both to warn and beseech them. Then he pitched the

"rabbit."

Crack!

The big lumbering Canadian rapped the ball at Crab Bane.  I did not see

it, because it went so fast, but I gathered from Crab's actions that it

must have been hit in his direction.  At any rate, one of his legs

flopped out sidewise as if it had been suddenly jerked, and he fell in

a heap. The ball, a veritable "rabbit" in its wild jumps, headed on for

Deerfoot, who contrived to stop it with his knees.

The next batter resembled the first one, and the hit likewise, only it

leaped wickedly at Doran and went through his hands as if they had been

paper.  The third man batted up a very high fly to Gillinger.  He

clutched at it with his huge shovel hands, but he could not hold it.

The way he pounced upon the ball, dug it out of the grass, and hurled

it at Hathaway, showed his anger.

Obviously Hathaway had to stop the throw, for he could not get out of

the road, and he spoke to his captain in what I knew were no

complimentary terms.

Thus began retribution.  Those husky lads continued to hammer the

"rabbit" at the infielders and as it bounced harder at every bounce so

they batted harder at every bat.

Another singular feature about the "rabbit" was the seeming

impossibility for professionals to hold it.  Their familiarity with it,

their understanding of its vagaries and inconsistencies, their mortal

dread made fielding it a much more difficult thing than for their

opponents.

By way of variety, the lambasting Canadians commenced to lambast a few

over the hills and far away, which chased Deerfoot and me until our

tongues lolled out.

Every time a run crossed the plate the motley crowd howled, roared,

danced and threw up their hats.  The members of the batting team

pranced up and down the side lines, giving a splendid imitation of

cannibals celebrating the occasion of a feast.

Once Snead stooped down to trap the "rabbit," and it slipped through

his legs, for which his comrades jeered him unmercifully.  Then a

brawny batter sent up a tremendously high fly between short and third.

"You take it!" yelled Gillinger to Bane.

"You take it!" replied the Crab, and actually walked backward.  That

ball went a mile high. The sky was hazy, gray, the most perplexing in

which to judge a fly ball.  An ordinary fly gave trouble enough in the

gauging.

Gillinger wandered around under the ball for what seemed an age.  It

dropped as swiftly as a rocket shoots upward.  Gillinger went forward

in a circle, then sidestepped, and threw up his broad hands.  He

misjudged the ball, and it hit him fairly on the head and bounced

almost to where Doran stood at second.

Our big captain wilted.  Time was called.  But Gillinger, when he came

to, refused to leave the game and went back to third with a lump on his

head as large as a goose egg.

Every one of his teammates was sorry, yet every one howled in glee.  To

be hit on the head was the unpardonable sin for a professional.

Old man Hathaway gradually lost what little speed he had, and with it

his nerve.  Every time he pitched the "rabbit" he dodged.  That was

about the funniest and strangest thing ever seen on a ball field.  Yet

it had an element of tragedy.

Hathaway's expert contortions saved his head and body on divers

occasions, but presently a low bounder glanced off the grass and

manifested an affinity for his leg.

We all knew from the crack and the way the pitcher went down that the

"rabbit" had put him out of the game.  The umpire called time, and

Merritt came running on the diamond.

"Hard luck, old man," said the manager. "That'll make a green and

yellow spot all right. Boys, we're still two runs to the good.  There's

one out, an' we can win yet.  Deerfoot, you're as badly crippled as

Hathaway.  The bench for yours.  Hooker will go to center, an' I'll

pitch."

Merritt's idea did not strike us as a bad one. He could pitch, and he

always kept his arm in prime condition.  We welcomed him into the fray

for two reasons--because he might win the game, and because he might be

overtaken by the baseball Nemesis.

While Merritt was putting on Hathaway's baseball shoes, some of us

endeavored to get the "rabbit" away from the umpire, but he was too

wise.

Merritt received the innocent-looking ball with a look of mingled

disgust and fear, and he summarily ordered us to our positions.

Not far had we gone, however, when we were electrified by the umpire's

sharp words:

"Naw!  Naw, you don't.  I saw you change the ball I gave you fer one in

your pocket!  Naw! You don't come enny of your American dodges on us!

Gimmee thet ball, an' you use the other, or I'll stop the game."

Wherewith the shrewd umpire took the ball from Merritt's hand and

fished the "rabbit" from his pocket.  Our thwarted manager stuttered

his wrath.  "Y-you be-be-wh-whiskered y-yap!  I'll g-g-give----"

What dire threat he had in mind never materialized, for he became

speechless.  He glowered upon the cool little umpire, and then turned

grandly toward the plate.

It may have been imagination, yet I made sure Merritt seemed to shrink

and grow smaller before he pitched a ball.  For one thing the plate was

uphill from the pitcher's box, and then the fellow standing there

loomed up like a hill and swung a bat that would have served as a wagon

tongue. No wonder Merritt evinced nervousness.  Presently he whirled

and delivered the ball.

Bing!

A dark streak and a white puff of dust over second base showed how safe

that hit was.  By dint of manful body work, Hooker contrived to stop

the "rabbit" in mid-center.  Another run scored.  Human nature was

proof against this temptation, and Merritt's players tendered him

manifold congratulations and dissertations.

"Grand, you old skinflint, grand!"

"There was a two-dollar bill stickin' on thet hit.  Why didn't you stop

it?"

"Say, Merritt, what little brains you've got will presently be ridin'

on the 'rabbit.'"

"You will chase up these exhibition games!"

"Take your medicine now.  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!"

After these merciless taunts, and particularly after the next slashing

hit that tied the score, Merritt looked appreciably smaller and humbler.

He threw up another ball, and actually shied as it neared the plate.

The giant who was waiting to slug it evidently thought better of his

eagerness as far as that pitch was concerned, for he let it go by.

Merritt got the next ball higher.  With a mighty swing, the batsman hit

a terrific liner right at the pitcher.

Quick as lightning, Merritt wheeled, and the ball struck him with the

sound of two boards brought heavily together with a smack.

Merritt did not fall; he melted to the ground and writhed while the

runners scored with more tallies than they needed to win.

What did we care!  Justice had been done us, and we were unutterably

happy.  Crabe Bane stood on his head; Gillinger began a war dance; old

man Hathaway hobbled out to the side lines and whooped like an Indian;

Snead rolled over and over in the grass.  All of us broke out into

typical expressions of baseball frenzy, and individual ones

illustrating our particular moods.

Merritt got up and made a dive for the ball. With face positively

flaming he flung it far beyond the merry crowd, over into a swamp.

Then he limped for the bench.  Which throw ended the most memorable

game ever recorded to the credit of the "rabbit."

FALSE COLORS

"Fate has decreed more bad luck for Salisbury in Saturday's game with

Bellville.  It has leaked out that our rivals will come over

strengthened by a 'ringer,' no less than Yale's star pitcher, Wayne.

We saw him shut Princeton out in June, in the last game of the college

year, and we are not optimistic in our predictions as to what Salisbury

can do with him.  This appears a rather unfair procedure for Bellville

to resort to.  Why couldn't they come over with their regular team?

They have won a game, and so have we; both games were close and

brilliant; the deciding game has roused unusual interest.  We are

inclined to resent Bellville's methods as unsportsmanlike. All our

players can do is to go into this game on Saturday and try the harder

to win."

Wayne laid down the Salisbury Gazette, with a little laugh of

amusement, yet feeling a vague, disquieting sense of something akin to

regret.

"Pretty decent of that chap not to roast me," he soliloquized.

Somewhere he had heard that Salisbury maintained an unsalaried team.

It was notorious among college athletes that the Bellville Club paid

for the services of distinguished players.  And this in itself rather

inclined Wayne to sympathize with Salisbury.  He knew something of the

struggles of a strictly amateur club to cope with its semi-professional

rivals.

As he was sitting there, idly tipped back in a comfortable chair,

dreaming over some of the baseball disasters he had survived before his

college career, he saw a young man enter the lobby of the hotel, speak

to the clerk, and then turn and come directly toward the window where

Wayne was sitting.

"Are yon Mr. Wayne, the Yale pitcher?" he asked eagerly.  He was a

fair-haired, clean-cut young fellow, and his voice rang pleasantly.

"Guilty," replied Wayne.

"My name's Huling.  I'm captain of the Salisbury nine.  Just learned

you were in town and are going to pitch against us tomorrow.  Won't you

walk out into the grounds with me now? You might want to warm up a

little."

"Thank you, yes, I will.  Guess I won't need my suit.  I'll just limber

up, and give my arm a good rub."

It struck Wayne before they had walked far that Huling was an amiable

and likable chap.  As the captain of the Salisbury nine, he certainly

had no reason to be agreeable to the Morristown "ringer," even though

Wayne did happen to be a famous Yale pitcher.

The field was an oval, green as an emerald, level as a billiard table

and had no fences or stands to obstruct the open view of the

surrounding wooded country.  On each side of the diamond were rows of

wooden benches, and at one end of the field stood a little clubhouse.

Wayne took off his coat, and tossed a ball for a while to an ambitious

youngster, and then went into the clubhouse, where Huling introduced

him to several of his players.  After a good rubdown, Wayne thanked

Huling for his courtesy, and started out, intending to go back to town.

"Why not stay to see us practice?" asked the captain.  "We're not

afraid you'll size up our weaknesses.  As a matter of fact, we don't

look forward to any hitting stunts tomorrow, eh, Burns?  Burns, here,

is our leading hitter, and he's been unusually noncommittal since he

heard who was going to pitch for Bellville."

"Well, I wouldn't give a whole lot for my prospects of a home run

tomorrow," said Burns, with a laugh.

Wayne went outside, and found a seat in the shade.  A number of urchins

had trooped upon the green field, and carriages and motors were already

in evidence.  By the time the players came out of the dressing room,

ready for practice, there was quite a little crowd in attendance.

Despite Wayne's hesitation, Huling insisted upon introducing him to

friends, and finally hauled him up to a big touring car full of girls.

Wayne, being a Yale pitcher, had seen several thousand pretty girls,

but the group in that automobile fairly dazzled him.  And the last one

to whom Huling presented him--with the words:  "Dorothy, this is Mr.

Wayne, the Yale pitcher, who is to play with Bellville tomorrow; Mr.

Wayne, my sister"--was the girl he had known he would meet some day.

"Climb up, Mr. Wayne.  We can make room," invited Miss Huling.

Wayne thought the awkwardness with which he found a seat beside her was

unbecoming to a Yale senior.  But, considering she was the girl he had

been expecting to discover for years, his clumsiness bespoke the

importance of the event.  The merry laughter of the girls rang in his

ears. Presently, a voice detached itself from the others, and came

floating softly to him.

"Mr. Wayne, so you're going to wrest our laurels from us?" asked Miss

Huling.

"I don't know--I'm not infallible--I've been beaten."

"When?  Not this season?" she inquired quickly, betraying a knowledge

of his record that surprised and pleased him.  "Mr. Wayne, I was at the

Polo Grounds on June fifteenth."

Her white hand lightly touched the Princeton pin at her neck.  Wayne

roused suddenly out of his trance.  The girl was a Princeton girl!  The

gleam of her golden hair, the flash of her blue eyes, became clear in

sight.

"I'm very pleased to hear it," he replied.

"It was a great game, Mr. Wayne, and you may well be proud of your part

in winning it.  I shouldn't be surprised if you treated the Salisbury

team to the same coat of whitewash.  We girls are up in arms.  Our boys

stood a fair chance to win this game, but now there's a doubt.  By the

way, are you acquainted in Bellville?"

"No.  I met Reed, the Bellville captain, in New York this week.  He had

already gotten an extra pitcher--another ringer--for this game, but he

said he preferred me, if it could be arranged."

While conversing, Wayne made note of the fact that the other girls

studiously left him to Miss Huling.  If the avoidance had not been so

marked, he would never have thought of it.

"Mr. Wayne, if your word is not involved--will you change your mind and

pitch tomorrow's game for us instead of Bellville?"

Quite amazed, Wayne turned squarely to look at Miss Huling.  Instead of

disarming his quick suspicion, her cool, sweet voice, and brave, blue

eyes confirmed it.  The charms of the captain's sister were to be used

to win him away from the Bellville nine.  He knew the trick; it had

been played upon him before.

But never had any other such occasion given him a feeling of regret.

This case was different. She was the girl.  And she meant to flirt with

him, to use her eyes for all they were worth to encompass the Waterloo

of the rival team.

No, he had made a mistake, after all--she was not the real girl.

Suddenly conscious of a little shock of pain, he dismissed that dream

girl from his mind, and determined to meet Miss Huling half way in her

game.  He could not flirt as well as he could pitch; still, he was no

novice.

"Well, Miss Huling, my word certainly is not involved.  But as to

pitching for Salisbury--that depends."

"Upon what?"

"Upon what there is in it."

"Mr. Wayne, you mean--money?  Oh, I know. My brother Rex told me how

you college men are paid big sums.  Our association will not give a

dollar, and, besides, my brother knows nothing of this.  But we girls

are heart and soul on winning this game.  We'll----"

"Miss Huling, I didn't mean remuneration in sordid cash," interrupted

Wayne, in a tone that heightened the color in her cheeks.

Wayne eyed her keenly with mingled emotions. Was that rose-leaf flush

in her cheeks natural? Some girls could blush at will.  Were the

wistful eyes, the earnest lips, only shamming?  It cost him some

bitterness to decide that they were. Her beauty fascinated, while it

hardened him. Eternally, the beauty of women meant the undoing of men,

whether they played the simple, inconsequential game of baseball, or

the great, absorbing, mutable game of life.

The shame of the situation for him was increasingly annoying, inasmuch

as this lovely girl should stoop to flirtation with a stranger, and the

same time draw him, allure him, despite the apparent insincerity.

"Miss Huling, I'll pitch your game for two things," he continued.

"Name them."

"Wear Yale blue in place of that orange-and-black Princeton pin."

"I will."  She said it with a shyness, a look in her eyes that made

Wayne wince.  What a perfect little actress!  But there seemed just a

chance that this was not deceit.  For an instant he wavered, held back

by subtle, finer intuition; then he beat down the mounting influence of

truth in those dark-blue eyes, and spoke deliberately:

"The other thing is--if I win the game--a kiss."

Dorothy Huling's face flamed scarlet.  But this did not affect Wayne so

deeply, though it showed him his mistake, as the darkening shadow of

disappointment in her eyes.  If she had been a flirt, she would have

been prepared for rudeness.  He began casting about in his mind for

some apology, some mitigation of his offense; but as he was about to

speak, the sudden fading of her color, leaving her pale, and the look

in her proud, dark eyes disconcerted him out of utterance.

"Certainly, Mr. Wayne.  I agree to your price if you win the game."

But how immeasurable was the distance between the shy consent to wear

Yale blue, and the pale, surprised agreement to his second proposal!

Wayne experienced a strange sensation of personal loss.

While he endeavored to find his tongue, Miss Huling spoke to one of the

boys standing near, and he started off on a run for the field.

Presently Huling and the other players broke for the car, soon

surrounding it in breathless anticipation.

"Wayne, is it straight?  You'll pitch for us tomorrow?" demanded the

captain, with shining eyes.

"Surely I will.  Bellville don't need me. They've got Mackay, of

Georgetown," replied Wayne.

Accustomed as he was to being mobbed by enthusiastic students and

admiring friends, Wayne could not but feel extreme embarrassment at the

reception accorded him now.  He felt that he was sailing under false

colors.  The boys mauled him, the girls fluttered about him with glad

laughter. He had to tear himself away; and when he finally reached his

hotel, he went to his room, with his mind in a tumult.

Wayne cursed himself roundly; then he fell into deep thought.  He began

to hope he could retrieve the blunder.  He would win the game; he would

explain to her the truth; he would ask for an opportunity to prove he

was worthy of her friendship; he would not mention the kiss.  This last

thought called up the soft curve of her red lips and that it was

possible for him to kiss her made the temptation strong.

His sleep that night was not peaceful and dreamless.  He awakened late,

had breakfast sent to his room, and then took a long walk out into the

country.  After lunch he dodged the crowd in the hotel lobby, and

hurried upstairs, where he put on his baseball suit.  The first person

he met upon going down was Reed, the Bellville man.

"What's this I hear, Wayne, about your pitching for Salisbury today?  I

got your telegram."

"Straight goods," replied Wayne.

"But I thought you intended to pitch for us?"

"I didn't promise, did I?"

"No.  Still, it looks fishy to me."

"You've got Mackay, haven't you?"

"Yes.  The truth is, I intended to use you both."

"Well, I'll try to win for Salisbury.  Hope there's no hard feeling."

"Not at all.  Only if I didn't have the Georgetown crack, I'd yell

murder.  As it is, we'll trim Salisbury anyway."

"Maybe," answered Wayne, laughing.  "It's a hot day, and my arm feels

good."

When Wayne reached the ball grounds, he thought he had never seen a

more inspiring sight. The bright green oval was surrounded by a

glittering mass of white and blue and black.  Out along the foul lines

were carriages, motors, and tally-hos, brilliant with waving fans and

flags. Over the field murmured the low hum of many voices.

"Here you are!" cried Huling, making a grab for Wayne.  "Where were you

this morning? We couldn't find you.  Come!  We've got a minute before

the practice whistle blows, and I promised to exhibit you."

He hustled Wayne down the first-base line, past the cheering crowd, out

among the motors, to the same touring car that he remembered.  A bevy

of white-gowned girls rose like a covey of ptarmigans, and whirled

flags of maroon and gray.

Dorothy Huling wore a bow of Yale blue upon her breast, and Wayne saw

it and her face through a blur.

"Hurry, girls; get it over.  We've got to practice," said the captain.

In the merry melee some one tied a knot of ribbon upon Wayne.  Who it

was he did not know; he saw only the averted face of Dorothy Huling.

And as he returned to the field with a dull pang, he determined he

would make her indifference disappear with the gladness of a victory

for her team.

The practice was short, but long enough for Wayne to locate the glaring

weakness of Salisbury at shortstop and third base.  In fact, most of

the players of his team showed rather poor form; they were

overstrained, and plainly lacked experience necessary for steadiness in

an important game.

Burns, the catcher, however, gave Wayne confidence.  He was a short,

sturdy youngster, with all the earmarks of a coming star.  Huling, the

captain, handled himself well at first base.  The Bellville players

were more matured, and some of them were former college cracks.  Wayne

saw that he had his work cut out for him.

The whistle blew.  The Bellville team trotted to their position in the

field; the umpire called play, and tossed a ball to Mackay, the long,

lean Georgetown pitcher.

Wells, the first batter, fouled out; Stamford hit an easy bounce to the

pitcher, and Clews put up a little Texas leaguer--all going out, one,

two, three, on three pitched balls.

The teams changed from bat to field.  Wayne faced the plate amid

vociferous cheering.  He felt that he could beat this team even without

good support.  He was in the finest condition, and his arm had been

resting for ten days.  He knew that if he had control of his high

inshoot, these Bellville players would feel the whiz of some speed

under their chins.

He struck Moore out, retired Reed on a measly fly, and made Clark hit a

weak grounder to second; and he walked in to the bench assured of the

outcome.  On some days he had poor control; on others his drop ball

refused to work properly; but, as luck would have it, he had never had

greater speed or accuracy, or a more bewildering fast curve than on

this day, when he meant to win a game for a girl.

"Boys, I've got everything," he said to his fellow-players, calling

them around him.  "A couple of runs will win for us.  Now, listen, I

know Mackay.  He hasn't any speed, or much of a curve. All he's got is

a teasing slow ball and a foxy head. Don't be too anxious to hit.  Make

him put 'em over."

But the Salisbury players were not proof against the tempting slow

balls that Mackay delivered.  They hit at wide curves far off the plate

and when they did connect with the ball it was only to send an easy

chance to the infielders.

The game seesawed along, inning after inning; it was a pitcher's battle

that looked as if the first run scored would win the game.  Mackay

toyed with the Salisbury boys; it was his pleasure to toss up twisting,

floating balls that could scarcely be hit out of the diamond.  Wayne

had the Bellville players utterly at his mercy; he mixed up his high

jump and fast drop so cleverly, with his sweeping out-curve, that his

opponents were unable to gauge his delivery at all.

In the first of the seventh, Barr for Bellville hit a ball which the

third baseman should have fielded.  But he fumbled.  The second batter

sent a fly to shortstop, who muffed it.  The third hitter reached his

base on another error by an infielder.  Here the bases were crowded,

and the situation had become critical all in a moment. Wayne believed

the infield would go to pieces, and lose the game, then and there, if

another hit went to short or third.

"Steady up, boys," called Wayne, and beckoned for his catcher.

"Burns, it's up to you and me," he said, in a low tone.  "I've got to

fan the rest of these hitters.  You're doing splendidly.  Now, watch

close for my drop.  Be ready to go down on your knees. When I let

myself out, the ball generally hits the ground just back of the plate."

"Speed 'em over!" said Burns, his sweaty face grim and determined.

"I'll get in front of 'em."

The head of the batting list was up for Bellville, and the whole

Bellville contingent on the side lines rose and yelled and cheered.

Moore was a left handed hitter, who choked his bat up short, and poked

at the ball.  He was a good bunter, and swift on his feet.  Wayne had

taken his measure, as he had that of the other players, earlier in the

game; and he knew it was good pitching to keep the ball in close to

Moore's hands, so that if he did hit it, the chances were it would not

go safe.

Summoning all his strength, Wayne took his long swing and shot the ball

over the inside corner with terrific speed.

One strike!

Wayne knew it would not do to waste any balls if he wished to maintain

that speed, so he put the second one in the same place.  Moore struck

too late.

Two strikes!

Then Burns signed for the last drop.  Wayne delivered it with

trepidation, for it was a hard curve to handle.  Moore fell all over

himself trying to hit it.  Little Burns dropped to his knees to block

the vicious curve.  It struck the ground, and, glancing, boomed deep on

the breast protector.

How the Salisbury supporters roared their approval!  One man out--the

bases full--with Reed, the slugging captain, at bat!

If Reed had a weakness, Wayne had not discovered it yet, although Reed

had not hit safely. The captain stood somewhat back from the plate, a

fact that induced Wayne to try him with the speedy outcurve.  Reed

lunged with a powerful swing, pulling away from the plate, and he

missed the curve by a foot.

Wayne did not need to know any more.  Reed had made his reputation

slugging straight balls from heedless pitchers.  He chopped the air

twice more, and flung his bat savagely to the ground.

"Two out--play the hitter!" called Wayne to his team.

Clark, the third man up, was the surest batter on the Bellville team.

He looked dangerous.  He had made the only hit so far to the credit of

his team.  Wayne tried to work him on a high, fast ball close in.

Clark swung freely and cracked a ripping liner to left.  Half the crowd

roared, and then groaned, for the beautiful hit went foul by several

yards.  Wayne wisely decided to risk all on his fast drop.  Clark

missed the first, fouled the second.

Two strikes!

Then he waited.  He cooly let one, two, three of the fast drops go by

without attempting to hit them.  Burns valiantly got his body in front

of them.  These balls were all over the plate, but too low to be called

strikes.  With two strikes, and three balls, and the bases full, Clark

had the advantage.

Tight as the place was, Wayne did not flinch. The game depended

practically upon the next ball delivered.  Wayne craftily and daringly

decided to use another fast drop, for of all his assortment that would

be the one least expected by Clark. But it must be started higher, so

that in case Clark made no effort to swing, it would still be a strike.

Gripping the ball with a clinched hand, Wayne swung sharply, and drove

it home with the limit of his power.  It sped like a bullet, waist

high, and just before reaching the plate darted downward, as if it had

glanced on an invisible barrier.

Clark was fooled completely and struck futilely. But the ball caromed

from the hard ground, hit Burns with a resounding thud, and bounced

away. Clark broke for first, and Moore dashed for home. Like a tiger

the little catcher pounced upon the ball, and, leaping back into line,

blocked the sliding Moore three feet from the plate.

Pandemonium burst loose among the Salisbury adherents.  The men bawled,

the women screamed, the boys shrieked, and all waved their hats and

flags, and jumped up and down, and manifested symptoms of baseball

insanity.

In the first of the eighth inning, Mackay sailed up the balls like

balloons, and disposed of three batters on the same old weak hits to

his clever fielders.  In the last of the eighth, Wayne struck out three

more Bellville players.

"Burns, you're up," said Wayne, who, in his earnestness to win, kept

cheering his comrades. "Do something.  Get your base any way you can.

Get in front of one.  We must score this inning."

Faithful, battered Burns cunningly imposed his hip over the plate and

received another bruise in the interests of his team.  The opposing

players furiously stormed at the umpire for giving him his base, but

Burns' trick went through.  Burnett bunted skilfully, sending Burns to

second.  Cole hit a fly to center.  Then Huling singled between short

and third.

It became necessary for the umpire to delay the game while he put the

madly leaping boys back off the coaching lines.  The shrill, hilarious

cheering gradually died out, and the field settled into a forced quiet.

Wayne hurried up to the plate and took his position.  He had always

been a timely hitter, and he gritted his teeth in his resolve to settle

this game.  Mackay whirled his long arm, wheeled, took his long stride,

and pitched a slow, tantalizing ball that seemed never to get anywhere.

But Wayne waited, timed it perfectly, and met it squarely.

The ball flew safely over short, and but for a fine sprint and stop by

the left fielder, would have resulted in a triple, possibly a home run.

As it was, Burns and Huling scored; and Wayne, by a slide, reached

second base.  When he arose and saw the disorderly riot, and heard the

noise of that well-dressed audience, he had a moment of exultation.

Then Wells flew out to center ending the chances for more runs.

As Wayne received the ball in the pitcher's box, he paused and looked

out across the field toward a white-crowned motor car, and he caught a

gleam of Dorothy Huling's golden hair, and wondered if she were glad.

For nothing short of the miraculous could snatch this game from him

now.  Burns had withstood a severe pounding, but he would last out the

inning, and Wayne did not take into account the rest of the team.  He

opened up with no slackening of his terrific speed, and he struck out

the three remaining batters on eleven pitched balls. Then in the rising

din he ran for Burns and gave him a mighty hug.

"You made the gamest stand of any catcher I ever pitched to," he said

warmly.

Burns looked at his quivering, puffed, and bleeding hands, and smiled

as if to say that this was praise to remember, and reward enough. Then

the crowd swooped down on them, and they were swallowed up in the

clamor and surge of victory.  When Wayne got out of the thick and press

of it, he made a bee line for his hotel, and by running a gauntlet

managed to escape.

Resting, dressing, and dining were matters which he went through

mechanically, with his mind ever on one thing.  Later, he found a dark

corner of the porch and sat there waiting, thinking. There was to be a

dance given in honor of the team that evening at the hotel.  He watched

the boys and girls pass up the steps.  When the music commenced, he

arose and went into the hall. It was bright with white gowns, and gay

with movement.

"There he is.  Grab him, somebody," yelled Huling.

"Do something for me, quick," implored Wayne of the captain, as he saw

the young people wave toward him.

"Salisbury is yours tonight," replied Huling

"Ask your sister to save me one dance."

Then he gave himself up.  He took his meed of praise and flattery, and

he withstood the battery of arch eyes modestly, as became the winner of

many fields.  But even the reception after the Princeton game paled in

comparison with this impromptu dance.

She was here.  Always it seemed, while he listened or talked or danced,

his eyes were drawn to a slender, graceful form, and a fair face

crowned with golden hair.  Then he was making his way to where she

stood near one of the open windows.

He never knew what he said to her, nor what reply she made, but she put

her arm in his, and presently they were gliding over the polished

floor.  To Wayne the dance was a dream.  He led her through the hall

and out upon the balcony, where composure strangely came to him.

"Mr. Wayne, I have to thank you for saving the day for us.  You pitched

magnificently."

"I would have broken my arm to win that game," burst out Wayne.  "Miss

Huling, I made a blunder yesterday.  I thought there was a conspiracy

to persuade me to throw down Bellville. I've known of such things, and

I resented it. You understand what I thought.  I humbly offer my

apologies, and beg that you forget the rude obligation I forced upon

you."

How cold she was!  How unattainable in that moment!  He caught his

breath, and rushed on.

"Your brother and the management of the club have asked me to pitch for

Salisbury the remainder of the season.  I shall be happy to--if----"

"If what?"  She was all alive now, flushing warmly, dark eyes alight,

the girl of his dreams.

"If you will forgive me--if you will let me be your friend--if--Miss

Huling, you will again wear that bit of Yale blue."

"If, Mr. Wayne, you had very sharp eyes you would have noticed that I

still wear it!"

THE MANAGER OF MADDEN'S HILL

Willie Howarth loved baseball.  He loved it all the more because he was

a cripple.  The game was more beautiful and wonderful to him because he

would never be able to play it.  For Willie had been born with one leg

shorter than the other; he could not run and at 11 years of age it was

all he could do to walk with a crutch.

Nevertheless Willie knew more about baseball than any other boy on

Madden's Hill.  An uncle of his had once been a ballplayer and he had

taught Willie the fine points of the game.  And this uncle's ballplayer

friends, who occasionally visited him, had imparted to Willie the

vernacular of the game.  So that Willie's knowledge of players and

play, and particularly of the strange talk, the wild and whirling words

on the lips of the real baseball men, made him the envy of every boy on

Madden's Hill, and a mine of information.  Willie never missed

attending the games played on the lots, and he could tell why they were

won or lost.

Willie suffered considerable pain, mostly at night, and this had given

him a habit of lying awake in the dark hours, grieving over that

crooked leg that forever shut him out of the heritage of youth.  He had

kept his secret well; he was accounted shy because he was quiet and had

never been able to mingle with the boys in their activity. No one

except his mother dreamed of the fire and hunger and pain within his

breast.  His school-mates called him "Daddy."  It was a name given for

his bent shoulders, his labored gait and his thoughtful face, too old

for his years.  And no one, not even his mother, guessed how that name

hurt Willie.

It was a source of growing unhappiness with Willie that the Madden's

Hill boys were always beaten by the other teams of the town.  He really

came to lose his sadness over his own misfortune in pondering on the

wretched play of the Madden's Hill baseball club.  He had all a boy's

pride in the locality where he lived.  And when the Bogg's Farm team

administered a crushing defeat to Madden's Hill, Willie grew desperate.

Monday he met Lane Griffith, the captain of the Madden's Hill nine.

"Hello, Daddy," said Lane.  He was a big, aggressive boy, and in a way

had a fondness for Willie.

"Lane, you got an orful trimmin' up on the Boggs.  What 'd you wanter

let them country jakes beat you for?"

"Aw, Daddy, they was lucky.  Umpire had hay-seed in his eyes!  Robbed

us!  He couldn't see straight.  We'll trim them down here Saturday."

"No, you won't--not without team work.  Lane, you've got to have a

manager."

"Durn it!  Where 're we goin' to get one?" Lane blurted out.

"You can sign me.  I can't play, but I know the game.  Let me coach the

boys."

The idea seemed to strike Capt. Griffith favorably.  He prevailed upon

all the boys living on Madden's Hill to come out for practice after

school.  Then he presented them to the managing coach.  The boys were

inclined to poke fun at Daddy Howarth and ridicule him; but the idea

was a novel one and they were in such a state of subjection from many

beatings that they welcomed any change.  Willie sat on a bench

improvised from a soap box and put them through a drill of batting and

fielding.  The next day in his coaching he included bunting and

sliding.  He played his men in different positions and for three more

days he drove them unmercifully.

When Saturday came, the day for the game with Bogg's Farm, a wild

protest went up from the boys.  Willie experienced his first bitterness

as a manager.  Out of forty aspirants for the Madden's Hill team he

could choose but nine to play the game.  And as a conscientious manager

he could use no favorites.  Willie picked the best players and assigned

them to positions that, in his judgment, were the best suited to them.

Bob Irvine wanted to play first base and he was down for right field.

Sam Wickhart thought he was the fastest fielder, and Willie had him

slated to catch. Tom Lindsay's feelings were hurt because he was not to

play in the infield.  Eddie Curtis suffered a fall in pride when he

discovered he was not down to play second base.  Jake Thomas, Tay-Tay

Mohler and Brick Grace all wanted to pitch.  The manager had chosen

Frank Price for that important position, and Frank's one ambition was

to be a shortstop.

So there was a deadlock.  For a while there seemed no possibility of a

game.  Willie sat on the bench, the center of a crowd of discontented,

quarreling boys.  Some were jealous, some were outraged, some tried to

pacify and persuade the others.  All were noisy.  Lane Griffith stood

by his manager and stoutly declared the players should play the

positions to which they had been assigned or not at all.  And he was

entering into a hot argument with Tom Lindsay when the Bogg's Farm team

arrogantly put in an appearance.

The way that team from the country walked out upon the field made a

great difference.  The spirit of Madden's Hill roused to battle.  The

game began swiftly and went on wildly.  It ended almost before the Hill

boys realized it had commenced. They did not know how they had won but

they gave Daddy Howarth credit for it.  They had a bonfire that night

to celebrate the victory and they talked baseball until their parents

became alarmed and hunted them up.

Madden's Hill practiced all that next week and on Saturday beat the

Seventh Ward team.  In four more weeks they had added half a dozen more

victories to their record.  Their reputation went abroad.  They got

uniforms, and baseball shoes with spikes, and bats and balls and

gloves.  They got a mask, but Sam Wickhart refused to catch with it.

"Sam, one of these days you'll be stoppin' a high inshoot with your

eye," sagely remarked Daddy Howarth.  "An' then where'll I get a

catcher for the Natchez game?"

Natchez was the one name on the lips of every Madden's Hill boy.  For

Natchez had the great team of the town and, roused by the growing

repute of the Hill club, had condescended to arrange a game.  When that

game was scheduled for July Fourth Daddy Howarth set to driving his

men. Early and late he had them out.  This manager, in keeping with all

other famous managers, believed that batting was the thing which won

games.  He developed a hard-hitting team.  He kept everlastingly at

them to hit and run, hit and run.

On the Saturday before the Fourth, Madden's Hill had a game to play

that did not worry Daddy and he left his team in charge of the captain.

"Fellers, I'm goin' down to the Round House to see Natchez play.  I'll

size up their game," said Daddy.

When he returned he was glad to find that his team had won its ninth

straight victory, but he was not communicative in regard to the playing

of the Natchez club.  He appeared more than usually thoughtful.

The Fourth fell on Tuesday.  Daddy had the boys out Monday and he let

them take only a short, sharp practice.  Then he sent them home. In his

own mind, Daddy did not have much hope of beating Natchez.  He had been

greatly impressed by their playing, and one inning toward the close of

the Round House game they had astonished him with the way they suddenly

seemed to break loose and deluge their opponents in a flood of hits and

runs.  He could not understand this streak of theirs--for they did the

same thing every time they played--and he was too good a baseball

student to call it luck.

He had never wanted anything in his life, not even to have two good

legs, as much as he wanted to beat Natchez.  For the Madden's Hill boys

had come to believe him infallible.  He was their idol. They imagined

they had only to hit and run, to fight and never give up, and Daddy

would make them win.  There was not a boy on the team who believed that

Natchez had a chance.  They had grown proud and tenacious of their

dearly won reputation.  First of all, Daddy thought of his team and

their loyalty to him; then he thought of the glory lately come to

Madden's Hill, and lastly of what it meant to him to have risen from a

lonely watcher of the game--a cripple who could not even carry a

bat--to manager of the famous Hill team. It might go hard with the boys

to lose this game, but it would break his heart.

From time out of mind there had always been rivalry between Madden's

Hill and Natchez.  And there is no rivalry so bitter as that between

boys. So Daddy, as he lay awake at night planning the system of play he

wanted to use, left out of all account any possibility of a peaceful

game.  It was comforting to think that if it came to a fight Sam and

Lane could hold their own with Bo Stranathan and Slugger Blandy.

In the managing of his players Daddy observed strict discipline.  It

was no unusual thing for him to fine them.  On practice days and off

the field they implicitly obeyed him.  During actual play, however,

they had evinced a tendency to jump over the traces.  It had been his

order for them not to report at the field Tuesday until 2 o'clock. He

found it extremely difficult to curb his own inclination to start

before the set time.  And only the stern duty of a man to be an example

to his players kept Daddy at home.

He lived near the ball grounds, yet on this day, as he hobbled along on

his crutch, he thought the distance interminably long, and for the

first time in weeks the old sickening resentment at his useless leg

knocked at his heart.  Manfully Daddy refused admittance to that old

gloomy visitor. He found comfort and forgetfulness in the thought that

no strong and swift-legged boy of his acquaintance could do what he

could do.

Upon arriving at the field Daddy was amazed to see such a large crowd.

It appeared that all the boys and girls in the whole town were in

attendance, and, besides, there was a sprinkling of grown-up people

interspersed here and there around the diamond.  Applause greeted

Daddy's appearance and members of his team escorted him to the soap-box

bench.

Daddy cast a sharp eye over the Natchez players practicing on the

field.  Bo Stranathan had out his strongest team.  They were not a

prepossessing nine.  They wore soiled uniforms that did not match in

cut or color.  But they pranced and swaggered and strutted!  They were

boastful and boisterous.  It was a trial for any Madden's Hill boy just

to watch them.

"Wot a swelled bunch!" exclaimed Tom Lindsay.

"Fellers, if Slugger Blandy tries to pull any stunt on me today he'll

get a swelleder nut," growled Lane Griffith.

"T-t-t-t-t-te-te-tell him t-t-t-to keep out of m-m-m-my way an' not

b-b-b-b-bl-block me," stuttered Tay-Tay Mohler.

"We're a-goin' to skin 'em," said Eddie Curtis.

"Cheese it, you kids, till we git in the game," ordered Daddy.  "Now,

Madden's Hill, hang round an' listen.  I had to sign articles with

Natchez--had to let them have their umpire.  So we're up against it.

But we'll hit this pitcher Muckle Harris.  He ain't got any steam.  An'

he ain't got much nerve.  Now every feller who goes up to bat wants to

talk to Muck.  Call him a big swelled stiff.  Tell him he can't break a

pane of glass--tell him he can't put one over the pan--tell him it he

does you'll slam it down in the sand bank.  Bluff the whole team.  Keep

scrappy all the time.  See!  That's my game today.  This Natchez bunch

needs to be gone after.  Holler at the umpire.  Act like you want to

fight."

Then Daddy sent his men out for practice.

"Boss, enny ground rules?" inquired Bo Stranathan.  He was a big,

bushy-haired boy with a grin and protruding teeth.  "How many bases on

wild throws over first base an' hits over the sand bank?"

"All you can get," replied Daddy, with a magnanimous wave of hand.

"Huh!  Lemmee see your ball?"

Daddy produced the ball that he had Lane had made for the game.

"Huh!  Watcher think?  We ain 't goin' to play with no mush ball like

thet," protested Bo.  "We play with a hard ball.  Looka here!  We'll

trow up the ball."

Daddy remembered what he had heard about the singular generosity of the

Natchez team to supply the balls for the games they played.

"We don't hev to pay nothin' fer them balls. A man down at the Round

House makes them for us.  They ain't no balls as good," explained Bo,

with pride.

However, as Bo did not appear eager to pass over the balls for

examination Daddy simply reached out and took them.  They were small,

perfectly round and as hard as bullets.  They had no covers.  The yarn

had been closely and tightly wrapped and then stitched over with fine

bees-waxed thread.  Daddy fancied he detected a difference in the

weight of the ball, but Bo took them back before Daddy could be sure of

that point.

"You don't have to fan about it.  I know a ball when I see one,"

observed Daddy.  "But we're on our own grounds an' we'll use our own

ball. Thanks all the same to you, Stranathan."

"Huh!  All I gotta say is we'll play with my ball er there won't be no

game," said Bo suddenly.

Daddy shrewdly eyed the Natchez captain.  Bo did not look like a fellow

wearing himself thin from generosity.  It struck Daddy that Bo's habit

of supplying the ball for the game might have some relation to the fact

that he always carried along his own umpire.  There was a strange

feature about this umpire business and it was that Bo's man had earned

a reputation for being particularly fair.  No boy ever had any real

reason to object to Umpire Gale's decisions.  When Gale umpired away

from the Natchez grounds his close decisions always favored the other

team, rather than his own.  It all made Daddy keen and thoughtful.

"Stranathan, up here on Madden's Hill we know how to treat visitors.

We'll play with your ball....  Now keep your gang of rooters from

crowdin' on the diamond."

"Boss, it's your grounds.  Fire 'em off if they don't suit you....

Come on, let's git in the game.  Watcher want--field er bat?"

"Field," replied Daddy briefly.

Billy Gale called "Play," and the game began with Slugger Blandy at

bat.  The formidable way in which he swung his club did not appear to

have any effect on Frank Price or the player back of him.  Frank's most

successful pitch was a slow, tantalizing curve, and he used it.  Blandy

lunged at the ball, missed it and grunted.

"Frank, you got his alley," called Lane.

Slugger fouled the next one high in the air back of the plate.  Sam

Wickhart, the stocky bowlegged catcher, was a fiend for running after

foul flies, and now he plunged into the crowd of boys, knocking them

right and left, and he caught the ball.  Whisner came up and hit safely

over Griffith, whereupon the Natchez supporters began to howl.  Kelly

sent a grounder to Grace at short stop.  Daddy's weak player made a

poor throw to first base, so the runner was safe.  Then Bo Stranathan

batted a stinging ball through the infield, scoring Whisner.

"Play the batter!  Play the batter!" sharply called Daddy from the

bench.

Then Frank struck out Molloy and retired Dundon on an easy fly.

"Fellers, git in the game now," ordered Daddy, as his players eagerly

trotted in.  "Say things to that Muckle Harris!  We'll walk through

this game like sand through a sieve."

Bob Irvin ran to the plate waving his bat at Harris.

"Put one over, you freckleface!  I 've been dyin' fer this chanst.

You're on Madden's Hill now."

Muckle evidently was not the kind of pitcher to stand coolly under such

bantering.  Obviously he was not used to it.  His face grew red and his

hair waved up.  Swinging hard, he threw the ball straight at Bob's

head.  Quick as a cat, Bob dropped flat.

"Never touched me!" he chirped, jumping up and pounding the plate with

his bat.  "You couldn't hit a barn door.  Come on.  I'll paste one a

mile!"

Bob did not get an opportunity to hit, for Harris could not locate the

plate and passed him to first on four balls.

"Dump the first one," whispered Daddy in Grace's ear.  Then he gave Bob

a signal to run on the first pitch.

Grace tried to bunt the first ball, but he missed it.  His attempt,

however, was so violent that he fell over in front of the catcher, who

could not recover in time to throw, and Bob got to second base.  At

this juncture, the Madden's Hill band of loyal supporters opened up

with a mingling of shrill yells and whistles and jangling of tin cans

filled with pebbles.  Grace hit the next ball into second base and,

while he was being thrown out, Bob raced to third.  With Sam Wickhart

up it looked good for a score, and the crowd yelled louder.  Sam was

awkward yet efficient, and he batted a long fly to right field.  The

fielder muffed the ball.  Bob scored, Sam reached second base, and the

crowd yelled still louder.  Then Lane struck out and Mohler hit to

shortstop, retiring the side.

Natchez scored a run on a hit, a base on balls, and another error by

Grace.  Every time a ball went toward Grace at short Daddy groaned.  In

their half of the inning Madden's Hill made two runs, increasing the

score 3 to 2.

The Madden's Hill boys began to show the strain of such a close

contest.  If Daddy had voiced aloud his fear it would have been:

"They'll blow up in a minnit!"  Frank Price alone was slow and cool,

and he pitched in masterly style. Natchez could not beat him.  On the

other hand, Madden's Hill hit Muck Harris hard, but superb fielding

kept runners off the bases.  As Daddy's team became more tense and

excited Bo Stranathan's players grew steadier and more arrogantly

confident.  Daddy saw it with distress, and he could not realize just

where Natchez had license for such confidence.  Daddy watched the game

with the eyes of a hawk.

As the Natchez players trooped in for their sixth inning at bat, Daddy

observed a marked change in their demeanor.  Suddenly they seemed to

have been let loose; they were like a band of Indians.  Daddy saw

everything.  He did not miss seeing Umpire Gale take a ball from his

pocket and toss it to Frank, and Daddy wondered if that was the ball

which had been in the play.  Straightway, however, he forgot that in

the interest of the game.

Bo Stranathan bawled:  "Wull, Injuns, hyar's were we do 'em.  We've

jest ben loafin' along.  Git ready to tear the air, you rooters!"

Kelly hit a wonderfully swift ball through the infield.  Bo batted out

a single.  Malloy got up in the way of one of Frank's pitches, and was

passed to first base.  Then, as the Natchez crowd opened up in shrill

clamor, the impending disaster fell.  Dundon hit a bounder down into

the infield. The ball appeared to be endowed with life.  It bounded

low, then high and, cracking into Grace's hands, bounced out and rolled

away.  The runners raced around the bases.

Pickens sent up a tremendous fly, the highest ever batted on Madden's

Hill.  It went over Tom Lindsay in center field, and Tom ran and ran.

The ball went so far up that Tom had time to cover the ground, but he

could not judge it.  He ran round in a little circle, with hands up in

bewilderment.  And when the ball dropped it hit him on the head and

bounded away.

"Run, you Injun, run!" bawled Bo.  "What'd I tell you?  We ain't got

'em goin', oh, no!  Hittin' 'em on the head!"

Bill dropped a slow, teasing ball down the third-base line.  Jake

Thomas ran desperately for it, and the ball appeared to strike his

hands and run up his arms and caress his nose and wrap itself round his

neck and then roll gently away.  All the while, the Natchez runners

tore wildly about the bases and the Natchez supporters screamed and

whistled.  Muck Harris could not bat, yet he hit the first ball and it

shot like a bullet over the infield.  Then Slugger Blandy came to the

plate.

The ball he sent out knocked Grace's leg from under him as if it were a

ten-pin.  Whisner popped a fly over Tay Tay Mohler's head.  Now Tay Tay

was fat and slow, but he was a sure catch.  He got under the ball.  It

struck his hands and jumped back twenty feet up into the air.  It was a

strangely live ball.  Kelly again hit to shortstop, and the ball

appeared to start slow, to gather speed with every bound and at last to

dart low and shoot between Grace's legs.

"Haw!  Haw!" roared Bo.  "They've got a hole at short.  Hit fer the

hole, fellers.  Watch me!  Jest watch me!"

And he swung hard on the first pitch.  The ball glanced like a streak

straight at Grace, took a vicious jump, and seemed to flirt with the

infielder's hands, only to evade them.

Malloy fouled a pitch and the ball hit Sam Wickhart square over the

eye.  Sam's eye popped out and assumed the proportions and color of a

huge plum.

"Hey!" yelled Blandy, the rival catcher.  "Air you ketchin' with yer

mug?"

Sam would not delay the game nor would he don the mask.

Daddy sat hunched on his soap-box, and, as in a hateful dream, he saw

his famous team go to pieces.  He put his hands over his ears to shut

out some of the uproar.  And he watched that little yarn ball fly and

shoot and bound and roll to crush his fondest hopes.  Not one of his

players appeared able to hold it.  And Grace had holes in his hands and

legs and body.  The ball went right through him.  He might as well have

been so much water.  Instead of being a shortstop he was simply a hole.

After every hit Daddy saw that ball more and more as something alive.

It sported with his infielders.  It bounded like a huge jack-rabbit,

and went swifter and higher at every bound.  It was here, there,

everywhere.

And it became an infernal ball.  It became endowed with a fiendish

propensity to run up a player's leg and all about him, as if trying to

hide in his pocket.  Grace's efforts to find it were heartbreaking to

watch.  Every time it bounded out to center field, which was of

frequent occurrence, Tom would fall on it and hug it as if he were

trying to capture a fleeing squirrel.  Tay Tay Mohler could stop the

ball, but that was no great credit to him, for his hands took no part

in the achievement.  Tay Tay was fat and the ball seemed to like him.

It boomed into his stomach and banged against his stout legs.  When Tay

saw it coming he dropped on his knees and valorously sacrificed his

anatomy to the cause of the game.

Daddy tried not to notice the scoring of runs by his opponents.  But he

had to see them and he had to count.  Ten runs were as ten blows!

After that each run scored was like a stab in his heart. The play went

on, a terrible fusilade of wicked ground balls that baffled any attempt

to field them. Then, with nineteen runs scored, Natchez appeared to

tire.  Sam caught a foul fly, and Tay Tay, by obtruding his wide person

to the path of infield hits, managed to stop them, and throw out the

runners.

Score--Natchez, 21; Madden Hill, 3.

Daddy's boys slouched and limped wearily in.

"Wot kind of a ball's that?" panted Tom, as he showed his head with a

bruise as large as a goose-egg.

"T-t-t-t-ta-ta-tay-tay-tay-tay----" began Mohler, in great excitement,

but as he could not finish what he wanted to say no one caught his

meaning.

Daddy's watchful eye had never left that wonderful, infernal little

yarn ball.  Daddy was crushed under defeat, but his baseball brains

still continued to work.  He saw Umpire Gale leisurely step into the

pitcher's box, and leisurely pick up the ball and start to make a

motion to put it in his pocket.

Suddenly fire flashed all over Daddy.

"Hyar!  Don't hide that ball!" he yelled, in his piercing tenor.

He jumped up quickly, forgetting his crutch, and fell headlong.  Lane

and Sam got him upright and handed the crutch to him.  Daddy began to

hobble out to the pitcher's box.

"Don't you hide that ball.  See!  I've got my eye on this game.  That

ball was in play, an' you can't use the other."

Umpire Gale looked sheepish, and his eyes did not meet Daddy's.  Then

Bo came trotting up.

"What's wrong, boss?" he asked.

"Aw, nuthin'.  You're tryin' to switch balls on me.  That's all.  You

can't pull off any stunts on Madden's Hill."

"Why, boss, thet ball's all right.  What you hollerin' about?"

"Sure that ball's all right," replied Daddy. "It's a fine ball.  An' we

want a chanst to hit it! See?"

Bo flared up and tried to bluster, but Daddy cut him short.

"Give us our innin'--let us git a whack at that ball, or I'll run you

off Madden's Hill."

Bo suddenly looked a little pale and sick.

"Course youse can git a whack at it," he said, in a weak attempt to be

natural and dignified.

Daddy tossed the ball to Harris, and as he hobbled off the field he

heard Bo calling out low and cautiously to his players.  Then Daddy was

certain he had discovered a trick.  He called his players around him.

"This game ain't over yet.  It ain't any more'n begun.  I'll tell you

what.  Last innin' Bo's umpire switched balls on us.  That ball was

lively. An' they tried to switch back on me.  But nix! We're goin' to

git a chanst to hit that lively ball, An' they're goin' to git a dose

of their own medicine.  Now, you dead ones--come back to life! Show me

some hittin' an' runnin'."

"Daddy, you mean they run in a trick on us?" demanded Lane, with

flashing eyes.

"Funny about Natchez's strong finishes!" replied Daddy, coolly, as he

eyed his angry players.

They let out a roar, and then ran for the bats.

The crowd, quick to sense what was in the air, thronged to the diamond

and manifested alarming signs of outbreak.

Sam Wickhart leaped to the plate and brandished his club.

"Sam, let him pitch a couple," called Daddy from the bench.  "Mebbe

we'll git wise then."

Harris had pitched only twice when the fact became plain that he could

not throw this ball with the same speed as the other.  The ball was

heavier; besides Harris was also growing tired. The next pitch Sam hit

far out over the center fielder's head for a home run.  It was a longer

hit than any Madden's Hill boy had ever made. The crowd shrieked its

delight.  Sam crossed the plate and then fell on the bench beside Daddy.

"Say! that ball nearly knocked the bat out of my hands," panted Sam.

"It made the bat spring!"

"Fellers, don't wait," ordered Daddy.  "Don't give the umpire a chanst

to roast us now.  Slam the first ball!"

The aggressive captain lined the ball at Bo Stranathan.  The Natchez

shortstop had a fine opportunity to make the catch, but he made an

inglorious muff.  Tay Tay hurried to bat.  Umpire Gale called the first

pitch a strike.  Tay slammed down his club.  "T-t-t-t-to-to-twasn't

over," he cried.  "T-t-t-tay----"

"Shut up," yelled Daddy.  "We want to git this game over today."

Tay Tay was fat and he was also strong, so that when beef and muscle

both went hard against the ball it traveled.  It looked as if it were

going a mile straight up.  All the infielders ran to get under it.

They got into a tangle, into which the ball descended.  No one caught

it, and thereupon the Natchez players began to rail at one another. Bo

stormed at them, and they talked back to him. Then when Tom Lindsay hit

a little slow grounder into the infield it seemed that a just

retribution had overtaken the great Natchez team.

Ordinarily this grounder of Tom's would have been easy for a novice to

field.  But this peculiar grounder, after it has hit the ground once,

seemed to wake up and feel lively.  It lost its leisurely action and

began to have celerity.  When it reached Dundon it had the strange,

jerky speed so characteristic of the grounders that had confused the

Madden's Hill team.  Dundon got his hands on the ball and it would not

stay in them.  When finally he trapped it Tom had crossed first base

and another runner had scored.  Eddie Curtis cracked another at Bo.

The Natchez captain dove for it, made a good stop, bounced after the

rolling ball, and then threw to Kelly at first.  The ball knocked

Kelly's hands apart as if they had been paper.  Jake Thomas batted left

handed and he swung hard on a slow pitch and sent the ball far into

right field.  Runners scored.  Jake's hit was a three-bagger.  Then

Frank Price hit up an infield fly.  Bo yelled for Dundon to take it and

Dundon yelled for Harris.  They were all afraid to try for it.  It

dropped safely while Jake ran home.

With the heavy batters up the excitement increased.  A continuous

scream and incessant rattle of tin cans made it impossible to hear what

the umpire called out.  But that was not important, for he seldom had a

chance to call either ball or strike.  Harris had lost his speed and

nearly every ball he pitched was hit by the Madden's Hill boys.  Irvine

cracked one down between short and third.  Bo and Pickens ran for it

and collided while the ball jauntily skipped out to left field and,

deftly evading Bell, went on and on.  Bob reached third.  Grace hit

another at Dundon, who appeared actually to stop it four times before

he could pick it up, and then he was too late.  The doughty bow-legged

Sam, with his huge black eye, hung over the plate and howled at Muckle.

In the din no one heard what he said, but evidently Muck divined it.

For he roused to the spirit of a pitcher who would die of shame if he

could not fool a one-eyed batter.  But Sam swooped down and upon the

first ball and drove it back toward the pitcher.  Muck could not get

out of the way and the ball made his leg buckle under him.  Then that

hit glanced off to begin a marvelous exhibition of high and erratic

bounding about the infield.

Daddy hunched over his soap-box bench and hugged himself.  He was

farsighted and he saw victory.  Again he watched the queer antics of

that little yarn ball, but now with different feelings. Every hit

seemed to lift him to the skies.  He kept silent, though every time the

ball fooled a Natchez player Daddy wanted to yell.  And when it started

for Bo and, as if in revenge, bounded wickeder at every bounce to skip

off the grass and make Bo look ridiculous, then Daddy experienced the

happiest moments of his baseball career.  Every time a tally crossed

the plate he would chalk it down on his soap box.

But when Madden's Hill scored the nineteenth run without a player being

put out, then Daddy lost count.  He gave himself up to revel.  He sat

motionless and silent; nevertheless his whole internal being was in the

state of wild tumult.  It was as if he was being rewarded in joy for

all the misery he had suffered because he was a cripple. He could never

play baseball, but he had baseball brains.  He had been too wise for

the tricky Stranathan.  He was the coach and manager and general of the

great Madden's Hill nine. If ever he had to lie awake at night again he

would not mourn over his lameness; he would have something to think

about.  To him would be given the glory of beating the invincible

Natchez team.  So Daddy felt the last bitterness leave him.  And he

watched that strange little yarn ball, with its wonderful skips and

darts and curves.  The longer the game progressed and the wearier

Harris grew, the harder the Madden's Hill boys batted the ball and the

crazier it bounced at Bo and his sick players.  Finally, Tay Tay Mohler

hit a teasing grounder down to Bo.

Then it was as if the ball, realizing a climax, made ready for a final

spurt.  When Bo reached for the ball it was somewhere else.  Dundon

could not locate it.  And Kelly, rushing down to the chase, fell all

over himself and his teammates trying to grasp the illusive ball, and

all the time Tay Tay was running.  He never stopped.  But as he was

heavy and fat he did not make fast time on the bases.  Frantically the

outfielders ran in to head off the bouncing ball, and when they had

succeeded Tay Tay had performed the remarkable feat of making a home

run on a ball batted into the infield.

That broke Natchez's spirit.  They quit.  They hurried for their bats.

Only Bo remained behind a moment to try to get his yarn ball.  But Sam

had pounced upon it and given it safely to Daddy. Bo made one sullen

demand for it.

"Funny about them fast finishes of yours!" said Daddy scornfully.

"Say! the ball's our'n.  The winnin' team gits the ball.  Go home an'

look up the rules of the game!"

Bo slouched off the field to a shrill hooting and tin canning.

"Fellers, what was the score?" asked Daddy.

Nobody knew the exact number of runs made by Madden's Hill.

"Gimme a knife, somebody," said the manager.

When it had been produced Daddy laid down the yarn ball and cut into

it.  The blade entered readily for a inch and then stopped.  Daddy cut

all around the ball, and removed the cover of tightly wrapped yarn.

Inside was a solid ball of India rubber.

"Say! it ain't so funny now--how that ball bounced," remarked Daddy.

"Wot you think of that!" exclaimed Tom, feeling the lump on his head.

"T-t-t-t-t-t-t-ta-tr----" began Tay Tay Mohler.

"Say it!  Say it!" interrupted Daddy.

"Ta-ta-ta-tr-trimmed them wa-wa-wa-wa-with their own

b-b-b-b-b-ba-ba-ball," finished Tay.

OLD WELL-WELL

He bought a ticket at the 25-cent window, and edging his huge bulk

through the turnstile, laboriously followed the noisy crowd toward the

bleachers. I could not have been mistaken.  He was Old Well-Well,

famous from Boston to Baltimore as the greatest baseball fan in the

East.  His singular yell had pealed into the ears of five hundred

thousand worshippers of the national game and would never be forgotten.

At sight of him I recalled a friend's baseball talk.  "You remember Old

Well-Well?  He's all in--dying, poor old fellow!  It seems young Burt,

whom the Phillies are trying out this spring, is Old Well-Well's nephew

and protege.  Used to play on the Murray Hill team; a speedy youngster.

When the Philadelphia team was here last, Manager Crestline announced

his intention to play Burt in center field.  Old Well-Well was too ill

to see the lad get his tryout.  He was heart-broken and said:  'If I

could only see one more game!'"

The recollection of this random baseball gossip and the fact that

Philadelphia was scheduled to play New York that very day, gave me a

sudden desire to see the game with Old Well-Well.  I did not know him,

but where on earth were introductions as superfluous as on the

bleachers?  It was a very easy matter to catch up with him.  He walked

slowly, leaning hard on a cane and his wide shoulders sagged as he

puffed along.  I was about to make some pleasant remark concerning the

prospects of a fine game, when the sight of his face shocked me and I

drew back.  If ever I had seen shadow of pain and shade of death they

hovered darkly around Old Well-Well.

No one accompanied him; no one seemed to recognize him.  The majority

of that merry crowd of boys and men would have jumped up wild with

pleasure to hear his well-remembered yell.  Not much longer than a year

before, I had seen ten thousand fans rise as one man and roar a

greeting to him that shook the stands.  So I was confronted by a

situation strikingly calculated to rouse my curiosity and sympathy.

He found an end seat on a row at about the middle of the right-field

bleachers and I chose one across the aisle and somewhat behind him. No

players were yet in sight.  The stands were filling up and streams of

men were filing into the aisles of the bleachers and piling over the

benches. Old Well-Well settled himself comfortably in his seat and

gazed about him with animation.  There had come a change to his massive

features.  The hard lines had softened; the patches of gray were no

longer visible; his cheeks were ruddy; something akin to a smile shone

on his face as he looked around, missing no detail of the familiar

scene.

During the practice of the home team Old Well-Well sat still with his

big hands on his knees; but when the gong rang for the Phillies, he

grew restless, squirming in his seat and half rose several times.  I

divined the importuning of his old habit to greet his team with the

yell that had made him famous.  I expected him to get up; I waited for

it.  Gradually, however, he became quiet as a man governed by severe

self-restraint and directed his attention to the Philadelphia center

fielder.

At a glance I saw that the player was new to me and answered the

newspaper description of young Burt.  What a lively looking athlete!

He was tall, lithe, yet sturdy.  He did not need to chase more than two

fly balls to win me.  His graceful, fast style reminded me of the great

Curt Welch.  Old Well-Well's face wore a rapt expression.  I discovered

myself hoping Burt would make good; wishing he would rip the boards off

the fence; praying he would break up the game.

It was Saturday, and by the time the gong sounded for the game to begin

the grand stand and bleachers were packed.  The scene was glittering,

colorful, a delight to the eye.  Around the circle of bright faces

rippled a low, merry murmur.  The umpire, grotesquely padded in front

by his chest protector, announced the batteries, dusted the plate, and

throwing out a white ball, sang the open sesame of the game:  "Play!"

Then Old Well-Well arose as if pushed from his seat by some strong

propelling force.  It had been his wont always when play was ordered or

in a moment of silent suspense, or a lull in the applause, or a

dramatic pause when hearts heat high and lips were mute, to bawl out

over the listening, waiting multitude his terrific blast:

"Well-Well-Well!"

Twice he opened his mouth, gurgled and choked, and then resumed his

seat with a very red, agitated face; something had deterred him from

his purpose, or he had been physically incapable of yelling.

The game opened with White's sharp bounder to the infield.  Wesley had

three strikes called on him, and Kelly fouled out to third base.  The

Phillies did no better, being retired in one, two, three order.  The

second inning was short and no tallies were chalked up.  Brain hit

safely in the third and went to second on a sacrifice.  The bleachers

began to stamp and cheer.  He reached third on an infield hit that the

Philadelphia short-stop knocked down but could not cover in time to

catch either runner.  The cheer in the grand stand was drowned by the

roar in the bleachers. Brain scored on a fly-ball to left.  A double

along the right foul line brought the second runner home.  Following

that the next batter went out on strikes.

In the Philadelphia half of the inning young Burt was the first man up.

He stood left-handed at the plate and looked formidable.  Duveen, the

wary old pitcher for New York, to whom this new player was an unknown

quantity, eyed his easy position as if reckoning on a possible

weakness. Then he took his swing and threw the ball.  Burt never moved

a muscle and the umpire called strike. The next was a ball, the next a

strike; still Burt had not moved.

"Somebody wake him up!" yelled a wag in the bleachers.  "He's from

Slumbertown, all right, all right!" shouted another.

Duveen sent up another ball, high and swift. Burt hit straight over the

first baseman, a line drive that struck the front of the right-field

bleachers.

"Peacherino!" howled a fan.

Here the promise of Burt's speed was fulfilled. Run!  He was fleet as a

deer.  He cut through first like the wind, settled to a driving strides

rounded second, and by a good, long slide beat the throw in to third.

The crowd, who went to games to see long hits and daring runs, gave him

a generous hand-clapping.

Old Well-Well appeared on the verge of apoplexy. His ruddy face turned

purple, then black; he rose in his seat; he gave vent to smothered

gasps; then he straightened up and clutched his hands into his knees.

Burt scored his run on a hit to deep short, an infielder's choice, with

the chances against retiring a runner at the plate.  Philadelphia could

not tally again that inning.  New York blanked in the first of the

next.  For their opponents, an error, a close decision at second

favoring the runner, and a single to right tied the score.  Bell of New

York got a clean hit in the opening of the fifth. With no one out and

chances for a run, the impatient fans let loose.  Four subway trains in

collision would not have equalled the yell and stamp in the bleachers.

Maloney was next to bat and he essayed a bunt.  This the fans derided

with hoots and hisses.  No team work, no inside ball for them.

"Hit it out!" yelled a hundred in unison.

"Home run!" screamed a worshipper of long hits.

As if actuated by the sentiments of his admirers Maloney lined the ball

over short.  It looked good for a double; it certainly would advance

Bell to third; maybe home.  But no one calculated on Burt.  His

fleetness enabled him to head the bounding ball.  He picked it up

cleanly, and checking his headlong run, threw toward third base. Bell

was half way there.  The ball shot straight and low with terrific force

and beat the runner to the bag.

"What a great arm!" I exclaimed, deep in my throat.  "It's the lad's

day!  He can't be stopped."

The keen newsboy sitting below us broke the amazed silence in the

bleachers.

"Wot d'ye tink o' that?"

Old Well-Well writhed in his seat.  To him if was a one-man game, as it

had come to be for me. I thrilled with him; I gloried in the making

good of his protege; it got to be an effort on my part to look at the

old man, so keenly did his emotion communicate itself to me.

The game went on, a close, exciting, brilliantly fought battle.  Both

pitchers were at their best. The batters batted out long flies, low

liners, and sharp grounders; the fielders fielded these difficult

chances without misplay.  Opportunities came for runs, but no runs were

scored for several innings.  Hopes were raised to the highest pitch

only to be dashed astonishingly away.  The crowd in the grand stand

swayed to every pitched ball; the bleachers tossed like surf in a storm.

To start the eighth, Stranathan of New York tripled along the left foul

line.  Thunder burst from the fans and rolled swellingly around the

field.  Before the hoarse yelling, the shrill hooting, the hollow

stamping had ceased Stranathan made home on an infield hit.  Then

bedlam broke loose.  It calmed down quickly, for the fans sensed

trouble between Binghamton, who had been thrown out in the play, and

the umpire who was waving him back to the bench.

"You dizzy-eyed old woman, you can't see straight!" called Binghamton.

The umpire's reply was lost, but it was evident that the offending

player had been ordered out of the grounds.

Binghamton swaggered along the bleachers while the umpire slowly

returned to his post.  The fans took exception to the player's

objection and were not slow in expressing it.  Various witty enconiums,

not to be misunderstood, attested to the bleachers' love of fair play

and their disgust at a player's getting himself put out of the game at

a critical stage.

The game proceeded.  A second batter had been thrown out.  Then two

hits in succession looked good for another run.  White, the next

batter, sent a single over second base.  Burt scooped the ball on the

first bounce and let drive for the plate. It was another extraordinary

throw.  Whether ball or runner reached home base first was most

difficult to decide.  The umpire made his sweeping wave of hand and the

breathless crowd caught his decision.

"Out!"

In action and sound the circle of bleachers resembled a long curved

beach with a mounting breaker thundering turbulently high.

"Rob--b--ber--r!" bawled the outraged fans, betraying their marvelous

inconsistency.

Old Well-Well breathed hard.  Again the wrestling of his body signified

an inward strife.  I began to feel sure that the man was in a mingled

torment of joy and pain, that he fought the maddening desire to yell

because he knew he had not the strength to stand it.  Surely, in all

the years of his long following of baseball he had never had the

incentive to express himself in his peculiar way that rioted him now.

Surely, before the game ended he would split the winds with his

wonderful yell.

Duveen's only base on balls, with the help of a bunt, a steal, and a

scratch hit, resulted in a run for Philadelphia, again tying the score.

How the fans raged at Fuller for failing to field the lucky scratch.

"We had the game on ice!" one cried.

"Get him a basket!"

New York men got on bases in the ninth and made strenuous efforts to

cross the plate, but it was not to be.  Philadelphia opened up with two

scorching hits and then a double steal.  Burt came up with runners on

second and third.  Half the crowd cheered in fair appreciation of the

way fate was starring the ambitious young outfielder; the other half,

dyed-in-the-wool home-team fans, bent forward in a waiting silent gloom

of fear.  Burt knocked the dirt out of his spikes and faced Duveen.

The second ball pitched he met fairly and it rang like a bell.

No one in the stands saw where it went.  But they heard the crack, saw

the New York shortstop stagger and then pounce forward to pick up the

ball and speed it toward the plate.  The catcher was quick to tag the

incoming runner, and then snap the ball to first base, completing a

double play.

When the crowd fully grasped this, which was after an instant of

bewilderment, a hoarse crashing roar rolled out across the field to

bellow back in loud echo from Coogan's Bluff.  The grand stand

resembled a colored corn field waving in a violent wind; the bleachers

lost all semblance of anything.  Frenzied, flinging action--wild

chaos--shrieking cries--manifested sheer insanity of joy.

When the noise subsided, one fan, evidently a little longer-winded than

his comrades, cried out hysterically:

"O-h!  I don't care what becomes of me--now-w!"

Score tied, three to three, game must go ten innings--that was the

shibboleth; that was the overmastering truth.  The game did go ten

innings--eleven--twelve, every one marked by masterly pitching, full of

magnificent catches, stops and throws, replete with reckless

base-running and slides like flashes in the dust.  But they were

unproductive of runs.  Three to three!  Thirteen innings!

"Unlucky thirteenth," wailed a superstitious fan.

I had got down to plugging, and for the first time, not for my home

team.  I wanted Philadelphia to win, because Burt was on the team.

With Old Well-Well sitting there so rigid in his seat, so obsessed by

the playing of the lad, I turned traitor to New York.

White cut a high twisting bounder inside the third base, and before the

ball could be returned he stood safely on second.  The fans howled with

what husky voice they had left.  The second hitter batted a

tremendously high fly toward center field. Burt wheeled with the crack

of the ball and raced for the ropes.  Onward the ball soared like a

sailing swallow; the fleet fielder ran with his back to the stands.

What an age that ball stayed in the air!  Then it lost its speed,

gracefully curved and began to fall.  Burt lunged forward and upwards;

the ball lit in his hands and stuck there as he plunged over the ropes

into the crowd.  White had leisurely trotted half way to third; he saw

the catch, ran back to touch second and then easily made third on the

throw-in.  The applause that greeted Burt proved the splendid spirit of

the game.  Bell placed a safe little hit over short, scoring White.

Heaving, bobbing bleachers--wild, broken, roar on roar!

Score four to three--only one half inning left for Philadelphia to

play--how the fans rooted for another run!  A swift double-play,

however, ended the inning.

Philadelphia's first hitter had three strikes called on him.

"Asleep at the switch!" yelled a delighted fan.

The next batter went out on a weak pop-up fly to second.

"Nothin' to it!"

"Oh, I hate to take this money!"

"All-l o-over!"

Two men at least of all that vast assemblage had not given up victory

for Philadelphia.  I had not dared to look at Old Well-Well for a long,

while.  I dreaded the nest portentious moment. I felt deep within me

something like clairvoyant force, an intangible belief fostered by hope.

Magoon, the slugger of the Phillies, slugged one against the left field

bleachers, but, being heavy and slow, he could not get beyond second

base.  Cless swung with all his might at the first pitched ball, and

instead of hitting it a mile as he had tried, he scratched a mean,

slow, teasing grounder down the third base line.  It was as safe as if

it had been shot out of a cannon.  Magoon went to third.

The crowd suddenly awoke to ominous possibilities; sharp commands came

from the players' bench.  The Philadelphia team were bowling and

hopping on the side lines, and had to be put down by the umpire.

An inbreathing silence fell upon stands and field, quiet, like a lull

before a storm.

When I saw young Burt start for the plate and realized it was his turn

at bat, I jumped as if I had been shot.  Putting my hand on Old

Well-Well's shoulder I whispered:  "Burt's at bat: He'll break up this

game!  I know he's going to lose one!"

The old fellow did not feel my touch; he did not hear my voice; he was

gazing toward the field with an expression on his face to which no

human speech could render justice.  He knew what was coming.  It could

not be denied him in that moment.

How confidently young Burt stood up to the plate!  None except a

natural hitter could have had his position.  He might have been Wagner

for all he showed of the tight suspense of that crisis.  Yet there was

a tense alert poise to his head and shoulders which proved he was alive

to his opportunity.

Duveen plainly showed he was tired.  Twice he shook his head to his

catcher, as if he did not want to pitch a certain kind of ball.  He had

to use extra motion to get his old speed, and he delivered a high

straight ball that Burt fouled over the grand stand.  The second ball

met a similar fate.  All the time the crowd maintained that strange

waiting silence.  The umpire threw out a glistening white ball, which

Duveen rubbed in the dust and spat upon.  Then he wound himself up into

a knot, slowly unwound, and swinging with effort, threw for the plate.

Burt's lithe shoulders swung powerfully.  The meeting of ball and bat

fairly cracked.  The low driving hit lined over second a rising

glittering streak, and went far beyond the center fielder.

Bleachers and stands uttered one short cry, almost a groan, and then

stared at the speeding runners.  For an instant, approaching doom could

not have been more dreaded.  Magoon scored. Cless was rounding second

when the ball lit.  If Burt was running swiftly when he turned first he

had only got started, for then his long sprinter's stride lengthened

and quickened.  At second he was flying; beyond second he seemed to

merge into a gray flitting shadow.

I gripped my seat strangling the uproar within me.  Where was the

applause?  The fans were silent, choked as I was, but from a different

cause. Cless crossed the plate with the score that defeated New York;

still the tension never laxed until Burt beat the ball home in as

beautiful a run as ever thrilled an audience.

In the bleak dead pause of amazed disappointment Old Well-Well lifted

his hulking figure and loomed, towered over the bleachers.  His wide

shoulders spread, his broad chest expanded, his breath whistled as he

drew it in.  One fleeting instant his transfigured face shone with a

glorious light.  Then, as he threw back his head and opened his lips,

his face turned purple, the muscles of his cheeks and jaw rippled and

strung, the veins on his forehead swelled into bulging ridges.  Even

the back of his neck grew red.

"Well!--Well!--Well!!!"

Ear-splitting stentorian blast!  For a moment I was deafened.  But I

heard the echo ringing from the cliff, a pealing clarion call,

beautiful and wonderful, winding away in hollow reverberation, then

breaking out anew from building to building in clear concatenation.

A sea of faces whirled in the direction of that long unheard yell.

Burt had stopped statue-like as if stricken in his tracks; then he came

running, darting among the spectators who had leaped the fence.

Old Well-Well stood a moment with slow glance lingering on the tumult

of emptying bleachers, on the moving mingling colors in the grand

stand, across the green field to the gray-clad players. He staggered

forward and fell.

Before I could move, a noisy crowd swarmed about him, some solicitous,

many facetious. Young Burt leaped the fence and forced his way into the

circle.  Then they were carrying the old man down to the field and

toward the clubhouse. I waited until the bleachers and field were

empty.  When I finally went out there was a crowd at the gate

surrounding an ambulance.  I caught a glimpse of Old Well-Well.  He lay

white and still, but his eyes were open, smiling intently. Young Burt

hung over him with a pale and agitated face.  Then a bell clanged and

the ambulance clattered away.

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Baseball Stories, by Zane Grey

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Table of Contents

THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES

THE REDHEADED OUTFIELD

THE RUBE

THE RUBE'S PENNANT

THE RUBE'S HONEYMOON

THE RUBE'S WATERLOO

BREAKING INTO FAST COMPANY

THE KNOCKER

THE WINNING BALL

FALSE COLORS

THE MANAGER OF MADDEN'S HILL

OLD WELL-WELL