CHAPTER XIX
JOE IS WATCHED
There was an uproar in an instant.
Players started for Sam and the unoffending lad whom he had struck.
There were savage yells, calling for vengeance.
Even Sam's mates, used as they were to his fits of temper, were not prepared for this.
The Whizzer players were wild to get at him, but, instinctively Darrell, Joe, Rankin, and
some of the others of the Silver Stars formed a protecting cordon about their pitcher.
"Are you crazy, Sam?
What in the world did you do that for?"
demanded the manager.
"He made a rank decision, an unfair one!" cried Sam, "and when I called him down he
was going to hit me.
I got in ahead of him—that's all."
"That's not so!" cried the Whizzer captain.
"I saw it all."
"That's right!" chimed in some of his mates.
"Farson never raised his hand to him!" declared[152] another lad, who had been standing
near the umpire.
"You're a big coward to hit a chap smaller than you are!" he called tauntingly to Sam.
"Well, I'm not afraid to hit you!" cried the pitcher, who seemed to have lost control
of himself.
"And if you want anything you know how to get it."
"Yes, and I'm willing to take it right now," yelled the other, stepping up to Sam.
There might have been another fight then and there, for both lads were unreasonable with
anger, but Darrell quickly stepped in between them.
"Look here!" burst out the Stars' manager, in what he tried to make a good-natured and
reasoning voice, "this has got to stop.
We didn't come here to fight, we came to play baseball and you trimmed us properly."
"Then why don't you fellows take your medicine?"
demanded the home captain.
"What right has he got to tackle our umpire?"
"No right at all," admitted Darrell.
"Sam was in the wrong and he'll apologize.
He probably thought the man was out."
"And he was out!"
exploded the unreasonable pitcher.
"I'll not apologize, either."
"Wipe up the field with 'em!" came in murmurs[153] from the home players.
Several of the lads had grasped their bats.
It was a critical moment and Darrell felt it.
He pulled Sam to one side and whispered rapidly and tensely in his ear:
"Sam, you've got to apologize, and you've got to admit that the runner was safe.
There's no other way out of it."
"Suppose I won't?"
There was defiance in Sam's air.
Darrell took a quick decision.
"Then I'll put you out of the team!" was his instant rejoinder, and it came so
promptly that Sam winced.
Now it is one thing to resign, but quite another to be read out of an organization, whether
it be a baseball team or a political society.
Sam realized this.
He might have, in his anger, refused to belong to the Silver Stars and, later on he could
boast of having gotten out of his own accord.
But to be "fired" carried no glory with it, and Sam was ever on the lookout for glory.
"Do you mean that?" he asked of Darrell.
"Won't you fellows stick up for me?"
He looked a vain appeal to his mates.
"I mean every word of it," replied the manager firmly.
"We fellows would stick up for you[154] if you were in the right, but you're dead
wrong this time.
It's apologize or get out of the team!"
Once more Sam paused.
He could hear the angry murmurs of the home players as they watched him, waiting for his
decision.
Even some of his own mates were regarding him with unfriendly eyes.
He must make a virtue of necessity.
"All right—I—I apologize," said Sam in a low voice.
"The runner was safe I guess."
"You'd better be sure about it," said the captain of the Whizzers, in a peculiar
tone as he looked at Sam.
"Oh, I'm sure all right."
"And you're sorry you hit our umpire?"
persisted the captain, for Sam's apology had not been very satisfactory.
"Yes.
You needn't rub it in," growled the pitcher.
"Then why don't you shake hands with him, and tell him so like a man?" went on the
home captain.
"I won't shake hands with him!"
exclaimed the small umpire.
"I don't shake hands with cowards!"
There was another murmur, and the trouble that had been so nearly adjusted threatened
to[155] break out again.
But Darrell was wise in his day.
"That's all right!" he called, more cheerily than he felt.
"You fellows beat us fairly and on the level.
We haven't a kick coming, but we may treat you to a dose of the same medicine when we
have a return game; eh, old man?" and he made his way to the opposing captain and the
manager and cordially shook hands with them.
There was a half cheer from the Whizzers.
They liked a good loser.
"Yes, maybe you can turn the tables on us," admitted the other manager, "but I hope
when we do come to Riverside you'll have a different pitcher," and he glanced significantly
at Sam.
"No telling," replied Darrell with a laugh.
"Come on, fellows.
We'll give three cheers for the team that beat us and then we'll beat it for home."
It was rather a silent crowd of the Silver Stars that rode in the special trolley.
Following them was another car containing some of the "rooters."
They made up in liveliness what the team members lacked in spirits, for there were a number
of girls with the lads, Joe's sister and Tom's being among them, and they started
some school songs.
[156]
And the gloom that seemed to hang over the Stars was not altogether because of their
defeat.
It was the remembrance of Sam's unsportsmanlike act, and it rankled deep.
On his part it is doubtful if Sam felt any remorse.
He was a hot-tempered lad, used to having his own way, and probably he thought he had
done just right in chastising the umpire for what he regarded as a rank decision.
Darrell, Rankin and some of the others tried to be jolly and start a line of talk that
would make the lads forget the unpleasant incident, but it is doubtful if they succeeded
to any great extent.
The manager was seriously considering the future of the team.
Was it wise to go on with such a pitcher as Sam who, though talented, could not be relied
upon and who was likely to make "breaks" at unexpected times?
"Yet what can we do?" asked Darrell of the captain.
"Is there another man we could put in or get from some other team?"
"I don't believe any other team would part with a good pitcher at this time of the
season," replied Rankin.
"Surely not if he was a real good one, and we want one that is good.
As for using some of the other fellows in Sam's place,[157] I don't know of any
one that's anywhere near as good as he is."
"How about Percy Parnell?
He's pitched some, hasn't he?"
"Yes, but you know what happened.
He was knocked out of the box and we were whitewashed that game."
"Say!" exclaimed Darrell.
"I just happened to think of it.
That new fellow—Joe Matson.
He told me he used to pitch in his home town—Bentville I think it was.
I wonder if he'd be any good?"
"Hard telling," replied the captain, somewhat indifferently.
"We ought to do something, anyhow."
"I tell you what I'm going to do," went on Darrell.
"I'm going to write to some one in Bentville.
I think I know an old baseball friend there, and I'll ask him what Matson's record
was.
If he made good at all we might give him a tryout."
"And have Sam get on his ear?"
"I don't care whether he does or not.
Things can't be much worse; can they?"
"No, I guess not.
Go ahead.
I'm with you in anything you do.
Three straight wallops in three weeks have taken the heart out of me."
[158]
"Same here.
Well, we'll see what we can do."
Joe reached home that night rather tired and discouraged.
He felt the defeat of his team keenly, and the more so as the nine he had played with
in Bentville had had a much better record than that of the Silver Stars—at least so
far, though the Silver Stars were an older and stronger team.
"I wonder if I'm the hoodoo?"
mused Joe.
"They lost the first game I saw them play, and the next one I played in they lost, and
here's this one.
I hope I'm not a jinx."
Then he reviewed his own playing in the two games where he had had a chance to show what
he could do, and he had no fault to find with his efforts.
True, he had made errors; but who had not?
"I'm going to keep on practicing," mused Joe.
"If I can work up in speed and accuracy, and keep what curving power I have already,
I may get a chance to pitch.
Things are coming to a head with Sam, and, though I don't wish him any bad luck, if
he does get out I hope I get a chance to go in."
Following this plan, Joe went off by himself one afternoon several days later to practice
throwing in the empty lot.
He used a basket to hold the[159] balls he pitched and he was glad to find that he had
not gone back any from the time when he and Tom, with the other lads, had had their contest.
"If I can only keep this up," mused the lad, "I'll get there some day.
Jove!
If ever I should become one of the big league players!
Think of taking part in the World's series!
Cracky!
I'd rather be in the box, facing the champions, than to be almost anything else I can think
of.
Forty thousand people watching you as you wind up and send in a swift one like this!"
And with that Joe let fly a ball with all his speed toward the basket.
He was not so much intent on accuracy then as he was in letting off some surplus "steam,"
and he was not a little surprised when the ball not only went into the basket but through
it, ripping out the bottom.
"Wow!" exclaimed Joe.
"I'm throwing faster than I thought I was.
That basket is on the fritz.
But if I'd been sending a ball over the plate it would have had some speed back of
it, and it would have gone to the right spot."
As Joe went to pick up the ball and examine the broken basket more closely a figure peered
out from a little clump of trees on the edge of the field where the lad was practicing.
The figure[160] watched the would-be pitcher closely and then murmured:
"He certainly has speed all right.
I'd like to be back of the plate and watch him throw them in.
I wonder if he has anything in him after all?
It's worth taking a chance on.
I'll wait a bit longer."
The figure dodged behind the trees again as Joe once more took his position.
He had stuffed some grass in the hole in the peach basket he was using, and again he threw
in it.
He was just as accurate as before, and, now and then, when he cut loose, he sent the ball
with unerring aim and with great force into the receptacle, several times knocking it
down off the stake on which it was fastened.
"I don't know as there's much use in writing to Bentville to find out about him,"
mused the figure hidden by the trees.
"If he's got that speed, and continues to show the control he has to-day, even without
any curves he'd be a help to us.
I'm going to speak to Rankin about it," and with that the figure turned away.
Had Joe looked he would have seen Darrell Blackney, manager of the Silver Stars, who
had been playing the innocent spy on him.
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