CHAPTER XXII A FAIR CHANCE

Patterson's resolution to pitch no more except to Owen was speedily known in school and variously judged. Poole himself said little about it, thinking that the pitcher's rebellious attitude was caused by a temporary fit of discouragement which would soon pass away. Others were less charitable, particularly Borland's friends, who declared that Patterson was trying to shift upon Borland's shoulders the responsibility for his own poor work. Rob, likewise disapproving, upbraided him most frankly for disloyalty and insubordination; it was rank treason to refuse to do what one could for the cause just because the authorities did not select the team to suit him. Wasn't Rob himself playing in an entirely strange position because they wanted him there?

But Pat remained politely obdurate. "I suppose I'm all wrong," he concluded stubbornly[Pg 238] after Rob had instructed him in his duty with great emphasis and detail; "but if I am, it can't be helped, for I'm going to do what I said I would and nothing else. Either you catch me or I don't pitch. I don't see what treason there is in that. You know you're a better catcher than Borland, now, don't you?"

"No, I don't," retorted Owen, hotly. "If I were, they'd take me without your forcing them into it. You're just making a fool of me."

At this Patterson merely smiled and said nothing, and acted as if the judges had given a unanimous verdict in his favor. What can you do with a fellow who listens and grins like an idiot and won't argue, and yet refuses to be convinced? Rob gave him up.

But neither Poole nor Lyford could forget that first game in which the second team had so easily and so completely trounced the first. Explain it as they might,—as a freak of chance, as due to lucky hitting by two or three of the second, to temporary blindness of the batting eye on the part of the first, to O'Connell's wildness,—the fact still remained that Patterson had[Pg 239] pitched an excellent game and might do so again. Lyford therefore was inclined to yield a point; let Patterson practise with Owen, if he cherished the fancy that Owen was necessary to him. After a time they would try the pair in a game, and then, when it was shown that Owen did no better for him than Borland had done, he would drop the notion that he must depend on his catchers, and learn to depend on himself. So Owen continued to catch Patterson in practice, while Borland caught O'Connell and threw to bases; and after his catching practice Rob would go out and try his new position at right field.

The Dartmouth nine stopped at Seaton on its way to Boston and gave the schoolboys a game. It was early in the season for both teams, and neither was satisfied with the score. O'Connell was not hit hard by the collegians, but he gave several bases on balls; and when a Dartmouth runner got to first he had little difficulty in reaching second and third. The college players seemed to hit at necessary times, and when the base-runner tried to steal a base, either Borland received the ball in bad position to throw, or the[Pg 240] throw went high and wide; the runner was usually safe. The Seatonians, on the other hand, though they made nearly as many hits, were far behind in runs. Rob played at right field and accepted one easy chance; he also satisfied the authorities by making two hits. They were not so well satisfied with the six at the foot of the Seaton error column, and Lyford, at least, was not blind to the mistakes in judgment shown by the battery. But the school, which expected defeat from the college team, criticised leniently. They felt somewhat different two mornings later, when the papers reported the Dartmouth-Hillbury game, which the Hillburyites all but won.

Another week of training passed. Rob occasionally relieved Borland in throwing to bases now, and a new party had arisen on the bleachers, a party which asked persistently, "Why doesn't Owen catch?" The party was small, but its strength was considerably augmented by the cautious support of the four or five players of the infield whose duty it was to receive the catcher's throws. When Borland threw to second, he stepped back with one foot, at the same[Pg 241] time pulling back his arm, and with a violent swing of arm and body drove the ball down, as if it were thrown by a catapult. If it struck fair it struck hard, and fortunate was the baseman if he was braced to receive it. Rob's throw was different. He stepped forward instead of back, and his throw was with the arm alone, a quick, hard snap which ended with the wrist forward. The ball thus got an upward twist which lifted it just enough to counteract the force of gravity and to keep it parallel with the ground. A throw like this carries well and lands in the hands like a feather.

Hayes the shortstop and McPherson, who played at second, discovered immediately this difference between the balls thrown by the two catchers. After experience with Owen's easily taken snaps it was hard to go back to Borland's cannon balls.

"They are twice as easy to handle as Borland's," said Hayes, as he walked down with McPherson after the practice; "and you don't lose your balance trying to hold 'em, either."

"And as far as I can see they travel just as[Pg 242] fast," replied the second baseman, "or else he gets them off a lot quicker."

Lyford and Poole also noticed Owen's throwing and recognized his skill.

"He may beat Borland out after all," said the coach.

"There's a good deal more to catching than throwing to bases," Poole returned thoughtfully. "Borland has a lot of good points. He's a good backstop, is sure on fouls, and doesn't rattle; and he's used to our game. He was good last year and ought to be better this. I won't throw him over until I find some one surely better."

"I shouldn't, either," said the coach; "though, to tell the truth, I never thought him remarkable in inside work.[1] With green pitchers this year, a good deal will depend on what the catcher gets out of them."

[1] The term applied to the catcher's strategy in directing the pitching.

The truth of this last remark was so obvious that no reply could be made to it except to assent, or perhaps to add as a corollary that, other things being equal, the best catcher was the one who[Pg 243] could get the most out of the pitcher. Poole was an excellent ball player and a just captain. To put an inferior man on the nine because he was a friend or a fraternity mate would have been impossible for him. But Poole had a way of planning things in advance, and then trying hard to make his plans succeed. In this he was almost obstinate. Carle and Borland as the school battery had been an important part of his plan. When this scheme miscarried, he had fixed on O'Connell and Borland, or Patterson and Borland—always Borland. Owen, he had decided, should go to right field to make a part of the heavy-hitting outfield which he had dreamed of producing. The suggestion that Borland's strategy was faulty did not please him, because it interfered with his plans. At the same time, if there was some one better he wanted to know it.

"Well, let us try the other battery," said the coach, at last. And the captain agreed.

The opportunity came soon. After the Dartmouth game O'Connell complained of a lame arm and asked for a rest. Borland was laid off[Pg 244] with him. Patterson and Owen were slated for the next game.

The Fryeburg school was on the schedule for Saturday, and Poole was eager to win the game. The year before the manager had induced this team to come to Seaton to substitute for a nine which had been obliged to cancel its game. In the spirit of superiority which the boys of Seaton and Hillbury often assume toward the athletic teams of other schools, the Seaton manager had seen fit to urge upon the Fryeburg captain that he bring up his best team and give the Academy nine a good game. The Fryeburger had responded by bringing up so excellent a team, and giving the Seatonians so stiff a game, that the latter were supremely thankful for the base on balls, the three-base hit, and the muffed fly which yielded them their two runs to match against the seven which the visitors achieved. Seaton doesn't easily forget that kind of a surprise. Next to the great Hillbury contest, the climax of the athletic year, there was no game in the schedule which captain and school desired so ardently to win. This year these fellows must be soundly thrashed!

[Pg 245]

To his men Poole appeared most confident as he ordered them to their places for the opening of the game. He tried to persuade himself that he really felt all the hopefulness he showed, but it was harder to deceive himself than to encourage other people. If there was another whose manner and words helped to stay the captain's courage, it was the new catcher. Owen had long ago learned that as the catcher's every movement is watched by the eight men before him in the field, so his whole bearing and his work are both in a marked degree either encouraging or discouraging to the rest of the nine. He must never show faint-heartedness or uncertainty. He must do hard things as if they were easy, must keep the whole play always before his eyes, direct the pitcher, watch the base-runner, throw instantly when necessary, take hard knocks with indifference, sprint for sudden fouls,—this and more is involved in the work of his position; but above all and everywhere he must have courage and inspire it.

Rob could do this because he had done it many times before, and because he trusted his[Pg 246] infield. He had arranged with Ames at first for the throwing signal, with Hayes, the shortstop, and McPherson, second, as to covering second base; they were trusty men. Patterson was in good condition, asking nothing better than to follow the catcher's directions. Poole had given him from his last year's note-book certain facts about the Fryeburg hitters. It was just such an opportunity as this that Rob had longed for. Why shouldn't he feel confidence?

The three Fryeburg batters were soon disposed of, one striking out, one putting up a pop foul, which Durand found easy to handle, and the third catching a wide out on the end of his bat and rolling a grounder to Ames. When Seaton came to the bat, McPherson, perceiving that Simms, the Fryeburg pitcher, was nervous, waited patiently and went to first on balls; and Poole, a little later, put a clean hit over the shortstop's head. With two men on bases things seemed promising, but Sudbury struck out, Durand forced McPherson by a hit to third base, and Owen, to his great disappointment, sent a long fly into the centre fielder's hands.

[Pg 247]

In the second inning nothing was accomplished by either side. In the third a Fryeburger got first, only to be caught napping there on the first pitch by a sharp throw from the catcher, which called out from the well-filled benches the clear staccato "individual" cheer, "Owen, rah! Owen, rah! rah, rah, rah, Owen!" Rob might have appreciated the compliment if he had not been so intent on his work. A ball close in by a timid batsman drove him away from the plate; the next starting in apparently the same course, curved over; the third was the swift jump which Patterson threw as naturally as a left-hander throws an inshoot; the fourth, a teasing slow ball which made the third strike. Then with an easy fly to Rorbach, who was taking Owen's place in right field, the side was out.

McPherson came to the bat again and sent a liner over second base. Poole, who was an experienced bunter, tapped a weak bounder along the line to third, and, being a left-hander and quick, beat the ball to first. Sudbury struck out again. Durand drove a ball toward the second baseman which that fielder found too[Pg 248] hot to manage, and the bases were full. Owen waited patiently until three balls were called, and then cracked another out into the field between right and centre, and two men came home. Ames hit a long fly to centre field, on which Durand scored. Then Hayes and Patterson went meekly out.

In the first half of the fourth Fryeburg got a run on a hit and errors by Durand and Patterson. From then until the eighth no more runs were made. Fryeburg reached first base thrice and second but once, and Seaton fared little better. After Larkin, the Fryeburg shortstop, essaying to steal second, ran into the ball in McPherson's hands a good three yards from the base, the Fryeburg base-runner clung to first if once he reached there, and waited for some one else to help him along. Patterson was following his catcher's signals like clockwork. Pitchers have days when the ball works with them, and this was Patterson's day. His jump balls really jumped; his inside ones cut the corners of the plate; into the straight, swift balls he put a powerful body swing. The fellows on the benches,[Pg 249] the anxious captain, the critical coach, all felt the spirit that prevailed, perceived that the men were playing a game worth while, and were elated.

Then in the eighth came the events that caused the sympathetic spectators first to grieve, then to revile their foolish optimism, and finally in one big howl, that carried fully half a mile, to pour forth their new emotions. It happened in this wise.

Lufkin, the first Fryeburg batsman, hit a long fly to Sudbury, who dropped it, thus presenting the runner with a two-base hit. Morris, who followed him, hit the ball in a low arch over third baseman's head, and reached first. The next Fryeburger hit to Hayes, who, in overhaste, threw home, while Lufkin stayed at third. No one out and the bases full! Poole stamped his spikes into the ground, rubbed his bare hand nervously into his glove, and asked himself with sinking heart whether Patterson wasn't going up in the air.

"One ball!" cried the umpire on the next pitch. Owen walked toward the pitcher's box[Pg 250] and said a few words to Patterson as he tossed him the ball at short range. Patterson nodded and went back. Owen stooped on the plate and tied his shoe, readjusted his glove, and took his position once more. The batsman struck, lifting the ball in a low pop foul hardly a dozen feet above the catcher's head.

"Over your head!" shouted Patterson.

In an instant Rob had turned, flipped the mask from his head, looked up and caught sight of the ball. It was already falling, two yards ahead of him! He leaped, as a football player makes a flying tackle, and clutched the falling object hardly a foot from the ground.

One out! but the three bases were still full. Patterson had calmed down. Ross, the Fryeburg catcher, usually struck over the ball; Patterson sent him a low one. The bat clipped the top of the ball and drove it into Patterson's hands.

"Here!" cried Rob, standing on the plate. Patterson threw, Rob received the ball, turned and cut it to Ames at first, where it beat the runner by ten feet. Not till they saw Rob toss aside his mitt and Ames and Patterson start[Pg 251] in, did the crowd realize that Lufkin had been forced at the plate and Ross thrown out at first. After that the game was no longer in danger—nor the battery's reputation. In the ninth the Seatonians made a rally and batted in four runs. So that the final score of seven to one represented a very fair vengeance for the defeat of the preceding year.

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He leaped and clutched the ball hardly a foot from the ground.—Page 250.