CHAPTER VI THE THIRD STRING

When the school gathered again after the holidays, Poole called his candidates for baseball together, and after a vehement harangue in which he sought to impress upon each man the importance of doing his utmost to develop a good nine, whether by making it himself or by spurring on some better man to outdo him, arranged the periods and combinations for winter practice. As the general routine, or as much of it as concerns the fielding and batting, has been described in a former book, the subject must be dismissed here with this passing mention. In the work of the batteries we are more directly interested.

Carle and Borland were put at the head of the battery combinations, apparently with as little hesitancy as if they had been veterans carried over from a triumphant season. The first choice[Pg 56] of hours was theirs, their opinions were listened to with respect; their position as fixtures seemed almost as well recognized as that of Poole himself. In spite of all self-preparation, Rob was almost startled to find what a gap existed between himself and his old battery mate; and as he remembered how often in past games when bases were full and things were going wrong with the pitching, he had guided the bewildered Carle out of his difficulties, he could not help a feeling of pique, nor avoid wondering whether Borland would succeed as well. After Carle, O'Connell, one of the class pitchers of the year before, held the next position of favor, and Poole quietly put down the combination, Owen and O'Connell, for cage hours together. There were also Patterson, a new man about whom nothing was known, and Peters, right fielder on the nine the year before, who was learning to pitch. For these, also, practice catchers were arranged.

From the outset, Owen found his practice with O'Connell unpleasant. It could not have been from any prejudice against the pitcher, for Rob, who was eager for any opportunity[Pg 57] which seemed to offer him a "show," was at first greatly pleased at the prospect of being mated with the man who, before the advent of Carle, had been regarded as the most promising of the school pitchers. Whatever secret hopes he may have cherished of building up a rival battery were in a fortnight wholly dispelled. O'Connell couldn't pitch, and wouldn't learn. He couldn't pitch because his whole idea seemed to be to throw a ball with as big a curve as possible, without much care as to where it was going, or how near the plate it was destined to come; the only ball which he could surely put over was a straight waist ball which any child could hit. He wouldn't learn, because he thought it a pitcher's business to pitch, and a catcher's not to give instruction but to catch. To Rob's suggestions that any kind of a waist-high ball was dangerous, that the best pitcher he ever saw did not cover a width of more than three feet in a whole game, keeping the ball constantly at the plate—O'Connell paid not the slightest attention. He was quite unwilling to suppose that a man who had enjoyed the privilege of Seaton[Pg 58] coaching for a year could learn anything from a country boy from western Pennsylvania. The result was that Rob soon ceased to try to help the pitcher, and contented himself with taking the balls within reach in silence and letting the rest strike the net. The loungers about the cage could not have been impressed with the skill of the catching.

One day toward the end of the discouraging fortnight, when Rob was feeling particularly blue over the situation and wondering whether it would not be better after all to let the catching go altogether and take his chances on his hitting for a fielding position, he fell in with Patterson on the way down street, and asked him casually how he was getting on with pitching.

"Not very well," answered Patterson, ruefully. "I can't seem to learn anything."

"Who catches you?" asked Rob.

"Foxcroft," replied Patterson, gloomily. "He's a good backstop, I suppose, but he never tells me anything, and you can't learn by yourself. Poole ought to fix it so that we can get some instruction, I think."

[Pg 59]

Rob did not answer. He was marvelling at the contrariness of circumstances. Here was O'Connell who might have instruction but wouldn't take it, and Patterson who wanted it but couldn't get it!

"A man who ought to know told me once that I had the makings of a pitcher in me,—the arm swing, snappy wrist, and all that, you know,—but I've had mighty little chance for coaching and no such experience as these fellows here get, so I don't know whether he was fooling me or not. I don't seem to be getting ahead at all now."

"Oh, you mustn't be discouraged," said Rob, unfairly assuming in his own discouragement the right to blame the other's faint-heartedness. "It takes time to learn to pitch."

"It takes something more than time," Patterson declared with emphasis. "A year of the kind of thing I'm getting won't be much better than a month. You don't have to eat a bushel of apples to find out whether they're rotten or not. One is enough."

Rob hesitated. An idea had suddenly occurred[Pg 60] to him, an idea that might be good. Why shouldn't he catch Patterson, and let O'Connell take Foxcroft? He knew nothing of Patterson, it was true, but he did know about O'Connell, and under the circumstances the unknown seemed attractive.

"How would you like to take me for a change, and let O'Connell have Foxcroft?"

Patterson's face spoke instantly a joyful acceptance of the proposal. His words, which came later, evidently represented second thoughts.

"Wouldn't I! But O'Connell would kick, though. He isn't going to swap you for Foxcroft."

"I don't believe he'd mind," returned Owen, with a smile of amusement tinged with sadness. "He can't learn anything from me, so Foxcroft would do just as well. I'd like to catch some one I could work with, and feel an interest in and try to push along. A net would be about as good for O'Connell as I am; all the advantage I have over the net is that I throw the balls back."

"Let's change, then," said Patterson, eagerly.[Pg 61] "If O'Connell doesn't want your help, I do. You'll find me ready to learn all right. You see Poole,—no, I'll see him and tell him we'd like to bunk in together. I don't believe it'll make any difference to him."

Poole was seen, and gave his consent without suggesting any obstacle except a possible difficulty in arranging new hours. O'Connell growled a little, not at losing Owen, whom he considered too officious, but at the notion that he should be given a third-string catcher instead of a second. But the change was made, and the new pair settled quietly down into obscurity, an obscurity which was the deeper in contrast with the glare of publicity in which the first battery displayed itself.

Carle and Borland were the unquestioned athletic heroes of that winter term. Borland showed himself an excellent backstop. His manner was that of one whom no ball thrown by human arm could disconcert. He could take in-curves with his mitt unsupported, tip them jauntily into his right hand, and toss them back with the best air of a professional in a great[Pg 62] city team showing his tricks to a big audience before a game. The lads who in a perennial group peered admiring through the netting would nudge each other and exclaim and wonder; the knowing ones would talk with wise patronage; the ignorant ask foolish questions in awe-struck tones. Then the company would exchange places with a similar squad at the pitcher's end, and, big-eyed with amazement, watch the unintelligible signals, and try to detect the jump or the break, the out or the in, the lift or the drop, which the conductor of the party assured them was to be seen. Those were great days for battery one at Seaton school. No disillusionizing games to shatter the sweet ideal with brutal facts, no heartbreaking succession of base hits, no feverish gift of bases on balls, no missed pop fouls, no overthrown bases, but just fancy pitching, with opportunity for flourishes unlimited, and spectators unanimous in admiration. Poole himself, with all his steady-mindedness and fear of fostering vain hopes, yielded to the general exultation and looked forward with full complacency to the contest of batteries in the spring.

[Pg 63]

Meantime the humble third string was pursuing its unnoticed way. To his surprise, Owen found Patterson possessed of a very good mastery of one or two curves, and pitching with apparent ease and considerable speed. He was very eager to learn, and so modest as to be entirely distrustful of himself. This fault of timidity Rob sought to overcome by encouragement and by plain lessons from the successes of pitchers whom he had known. When once Patterson understood that by good pitching was meant, not "doing things" with a ball, but merely success in fooling batsmen; and that to accomplish this object, control and speed and cleverness in alternating balls, rather than ability to juggle curves, were of prime importance, the pupil took courage and began to learn.

It was now that Rob regretted that he had not paid more attention to McLennan's words of counsel to Carle when the latter had had his lessons. Much that the professional had said he recalled under the stimulus of the need. Some things about which he felt uncertain he found out from Carle, who, as a rule, however, remem[Pg 64]bered less of the technical teaching than Owen. But in the main it was the fundamental principles which Patterson needed, and as to these his catcher was well informed. They were left much to themselves. The general public had no interest in the third battery. Poole occasionally looked in on them for a few minutes, but on these occasions Rob, with a perversity perhaps excusable, deliberately kept his charge from showing his best work. With O'Connell and Carle, and others who might be expected to look with critical eyes, he followed the same course, as if he courted obscurity. The result was that the two worked on alone during the long winter practice unmolested by critics, and free from distracting suggestions of would-be helpers.

With Patterson, Rob soon felt himself on terms of hearty intimacy, though at times their relation suggested that of patron and client. So frankly modest was the pitcher, so naturally distrustful of himself and ready to follow another's lead, that outside the cage he fell naturally into the position of follower. He studied with Owen, skated with him, loafed in his room, sided with[Pg 65] him in the discussions, profitable and unprofitable, to which boys' conversation usually runs, and confided to him the facts as to his home life which one usually reserves for his most intimate companion. Yet with all his friendliness and willingness to follow the steps of another better fitted to lead, Patterson was by no means weak. There was a substantial basis of character and principle underlying his naturally trustful disposition. He followed only a presumably wiser guide; he yielded only up to a certain point and in certain directions. While possessing the unusual faculty of recognizing his faults before his virtues, when once assured of his power he would push on undaunted by obstacles. It was this peculiar combination of traits that so endeared him as a friend and rendered him so apt as a pupil. Most young athletes need the experience of the contest to dissipate their conceit, and open the way for development. With Patterson experience was necessary before a reasonable self-confidence was possible.