GAINING GROUND
“What the deuce did you go and tell him for?” Jack Stillman demanded
pettishly.
“Because I had to,” retorted Lefty, with some asperity. He was tired of
the whole subject, and desired to forget it. “Don’t be a fool, Jack.
There wasn’t anything else to do.”
The reporter shrugged his shoulders. There was a note of finality in
his friend’s voice which he knew better than to disregard.
“Well, all I can say is I’m thankful my conscience isn’t so blamed
sensitive,” he sighed. “He’ll be so swelled up there won’t be any
enduring him. Heaven knows he’ll be chesty enough, as it is, when he
sees the papers.”
“What do you mean, Jack?” Lefty asked curiously.
The reporter scowled. “Same old dope about ‘Marvelous Cub Twirler
Discovered by Astute Manager,’” he explained sardonically. Stillman had
a trick of talking in capitals which made one fairly see the glaring
headlines. “It’s the same every spring, only this year there are a lot
more kids around than usual who can handle a murder case or robbery a
heap better than they can a Big League training season.”
Lefty grinned. “Oh, you mean they’re giving him a puff on account of
yesterday?”
“A puff isn’t quite the word. I wish you could have seen some of the
rot Temple, of the _Blade_, doped out. He wanted my opinion on it;
said he was a bit new to this, you know. I smoothed down the story a
little, but I’m dead sure a lot more will rant as bad, or worse. Most
of ’em seem to think because the regulars had a landslide it was due
to Elgin’s pitching. They don’t figure out that Redmond’s bum work had
anything to do with it.”
“What’s the odds?” Lefty laughed. “You did the same thing last year,
didn’t you?”
“Not quite. I knew something about baseball to start with, and Johnny
Hargreaves tipped me off to a whole lot more.”
“Still, Elgin really did do pretty well,” Locke remarked slowly.
“Anybody must concede that much.”
“No better than he has half a dozen times before,” the reporter
retorted. “That’s all I said in my story, but when I found the way the
rest were piling it on, I had to stick in another paragraph. Otherwise
I’d be getting a wire from the chief to wake up and take notice.”
“After all, I don’t believe it amounts to a terrible lot,” Lefty said
carelessly. “You can’t fool Brennan, and his opinion is really the only
one that counts.”
Nevertheless, as he joined the squad a little later for the morning jog
out to the grounds, Lefty could not help feeling a twinge of regretful
envy. If he had only been allowed to go on the slab for the cubs the
day before, he had a notion that Elgin’s performance would not have
seemed quite so brilliant. Those laudatory newspaper notices might have
had someone else as the object of their praise, and, though he knew how
little such plaudits really counted, Lefty was a very human sort of
fellow, after all.
According to his promise, Al Ogan put the southpaw in the box that
afternoon, and Locke pitched for six innings to such purpose that the
game resulted in a tie in spite of the fact that the regulars were in
as good a form as ever, and seemed to work a little harder than usual.
From that time on, Locke’s companions began to thaw. Once they realized
that Lefty’s first disastrous exhibition had not been a sample of his
usual form, they endeavored to make up for past unpleasantness.
Perhaps their new friendliness was hastened by the newspaper prominence
of Bert Elgin. Few men can view unmoved the sudden elevation to fame
of a comrade, especially when they feel that this elevation has not
been especially merited. Newspapers began to drift in from all the big
cities, in which Elgin was heralded as “Brennan’s New Find,” “A Second
Matty,” “By Far the Most Promising Recruit of the Season,” and so on.
Then followed pictures of the new pitcher in every variety of pose; his
style was dissected and analyzed; his progress was noted; for, having
launched this boom, the reporters felt under the necessity of pushing
it along.
All of these things were not calculated to soothe the spirits of the
other cubs, whose existence was noted by scant sentences scattered
thinly throughout the sporting columns. They looked askance on Elgin,
and the latter, not bearing up well under prosperity, gave them plenty
to criticize. He developed an irritatingly jaunty air, which was
flaunted at all times. He grew very familiar with most of the newspaper
men, and when on the slab gave decided evidence of mannerisms, which
tried the patience and aroused the ire of his fellow players.
Unfortunately for them, his ability to pitch increased rather than
lessened, so that their sarcastic utterances rather lost point. A man
can make all sorts of a fool of himself off the slab, he may even go
through ridiculous posings and posturings while winding up, but when
his work is as uniformly good as Bert Elgin’s was, criticism is usually
superfluous.
The days passed swiftly, with the most of the squad showing an increase
in efficiency. They were hitting better, running faster, and throwing
more accurately. The regulars were rapidly perfecting their teamwork,
and the cubs beginning to learn the importance of something more than
the rudiments of “inside” baseball. Some of them took to it like ducks
to water, and absorbed intricate secret signals and caught on to the
theory of certain movements as if they had been brought up on nothing
else from their cradles. These were the men who would push forward to
the front ranks. The slower-brained recruits were doomed.
Lefty Locke enjoyed that week more than any similar space of time
he could remember. Baseball as a science had always interested him
tremendously. He had spent a great deal of time studying out different
plays and the reasons for them, but up to now these mental exercises
had been generally limited to the more obvious sort, though he did not
realize that at the time.
He knew it, however, the moment the Hornets began to pick up and show
what they could do when they were in trim; and, though the discovery
was something of a blow to his self-esteem, it only goaded him to
constant effort and increased mental agility to keep up the pace.
Therefore his work steadily improved. While, perhaps, not so spectacular
and dashing as Bert Elgin’s, it showed evidence of thought and clear
judgment; and very soon it became apparent that he was crowding his
rival close, if not actually surpassing him in general ability and
resourcefulness.
The one drawback to an otherwise pleasant period was Janet Harting’s
behavior. She and Lefty had come perilously close to their first
quarrel, and all because of his absolute refusal, not alone to make
up his differences with Bert Elgin, but to tell her of what those
differences consisted.
After her first coolness she had been very nice about it, but somehow
Lefty had a feeling that she was not quite the same. She was pleasant
and cordial, and went twice to the baseball park to see him pitch
before she and her father left Ashland for the mineral springs at
Billings. In spite of all that, however, Lefty sensed the faint rift in
their friendship, and it troubled him.
Instinctively he laid it to Elgin, whom he knew visited Miss Harting
almost as frequently as he did, and he despised the man more than ever
for it. It was one of those cases, however, in which a person can
do nothing. Locke simply had to sit still and let events take their
course. He worried and fussed a bit at first, but presently his whole
mind became so engrossed in the struggle to make good and win out that
he ceased to be actively troubled over something which he could not
remedy.
After all, if he could only manage to outpitch Elgin on the diamond and
prove himself the better player, there was more than a chance of his
showing, at the same time, the girl he cared for that he was the better
man.