OUTDOORS AT LAST
The boys came rushing back for the final lap of the school year.
Already on the train most of them had heard the startling news: "Carle
isn't going to pitch! Carle has left school!" These brief statements of
undeniable truth were not all they heard; there were additions through
wild rumors and bold surmises transformed to positive facts in the
repeating: Carle left because he wasn't allowed to play ball; Carle
was proved a professional and had to go; Carle was fired because he
left town without permission, because he cut chapel too often, because
he didn't do any work, because he had a row with a teacher, because
he was a scholarship man and smoked, because he had been drinking,
because he played poker. For two whole days Owen was kept busy denying
these rumors. Then the tongues gradually ceased to wag; and Carle faded
ingloriously away into the limbo of the suddenly departed, whose names
when mentioned in the _Seatonian_ always bear the significant "ex"
before the numeral of the class which once claimed them.
With the returning boys, to Poole's great relief, came the baseball
coach, Mr. Lyford. The ground on the upper campus was already hard
enough for practice; the regular diamond was drying. Cutting though the
winds and raw and chill the atmosphere, Rob yet found it an immense
relief to escape from the confining walls of the little cage into the
open, where there was room to throw, and honest, abundant daylight.
He had never taken kindly to the practice in the cage. When he tried
to bat there, he had always been awkwardly conscious of those close
lines of netted wall pressing upon him, of the low ceiling, of the
treacherous shadows, of the impossibility of driving the ball anywhere,
of the whole sham of the situation compared with the open field, where
the sunlight pours down through fifty miles of atmosphere, and the wide
horizon challenges the batsman to his hardest drive. Perhaps this
feeling was responsible for his lack of success as a cage batsman;
perhaps he hated the cage because he couldn't hit there. At any
rate, the facts were connected, and he welcomed his release with the
heartiness of the landlubber when, after his first voyage, he exchanges
the narrow, malodorous, unsteady forecastle for solid, familiar earth.
Not so poor Patterson. He felt as a timid pupil would if snatched
suddenly from a gentle tutor's care and thrust into a lively school,
where independence must be fought for and honors won unaided. His
courage failed him; he dreaded to go forth into public view and face
the test, with eager batters trying for real base hits, and every error
of judgment or delivery counting in the score. The cage was familiar
ground to Patterson. Here he had acquired whatever skill he possessed.
With Owen behind the plate to explain just what to throw and how to
throw it, with no one else at hand to molest or make afraid, he could
handle the ball as well as another. His wrist had the master snap that
yields sharp curves; his shoulder the sweeping swing that makes speed.
But outside--alas! outside was a strange land in which he feared to
trust himself.
"Foolishness!" laughed Owen, when Patterson frankly confided to
him these misgivings. "You'll do better outside. There's all the
inspiration of the game to spur you on, and the fun of working your
man,--putting your wits against his, you know, and making him do things
he doesn't want to do."
"But I don't feel as if I had any wits," said Patterson, "or shouldn't
have any if I got into a close, hard game."
Owen stopped short in his walk and fixed his eyes disapprovingly on his
companion's face. "Look here, Pat," he said sternly, "you've got to cut
that kind of talk and that kind of thinking too. We're going out to
play ball, not to help fight a battle or swim for our lives or anything
like that, but just play ball. There's absolutely nothing to worry
about; we aren't the captain or the coach. We'll do as well as we can,
and if our best is good enough, we'll make the nine. If we don't make
it, it'll be because there are others better, and we shan't have any
responsibility. So there's nothing to worry about in either case. But
if you're all the time scared that you'll do something wrong, you'll
never do anything right. That's as sure as the multiplication table."
Patterson did not answer.
"Isn't that good sense?" demanded Owen.
Patterson drew a long breath. "It's good sense all right, but I don't
know whether I can do it."
Owen snorted. "You can if you've a mind to. Just settle it that you'll
do your best and be satisfied with whatever turns up. Why can't you let
Poole and Lyford do the worrying?"
"I suppose I can," said Patterson, humbly.
"I should hope you could! I tell you, man, you've got the goods! You
have speed and good control and all the curves you need. If you give
yourself half a chance they'll recognize it. If they don't, what do you
care? There are other teams in the country, and this isn't the only
year you're going to play. Just stop thinking, and play your game, and
be satisfied if you make the second!"
"That's all I expect to do," answered Patterson, nettled. He felt for
the moment angry with himself and vexed with Owen, but the talk did him
good. He faced the first practice with an outward show of composure
that did very good duty for confidence.
The coach made no significant comment on the batteries. He had kept
in touch with the work of the winter through Poole's letters, and
doubtless shared the captain's view that with Carle eliminated from
the list, O'Connell must be the chief reliance of the season. At all
events, on the first rally of forces in the open, he spent most of his
time on Borland and his mate. O'Connell did better than usual, having
got at least this measure of good from Borland's browbeating, that he
was more cautious in his delivery, and made better aim for the plate.
Owen exerted himself on the occasion to put his pitcher through his
paces, and give the coach some inkling of what he fondly believed to be
Patterson's great promise. But unfortunately, either from the novelty
of the new conditions or from nervousness, the pitcher was slow in
steadying down; and by the time he was delivering the balls as the
catcher expected, Poole called Owen away to join the outfielders,
who were catching flies, and put Foxcroft in his place. And Foxcroft
blighted the pitcher's inspiration as a hoar-frost blights a hothouse
plant.
"How did it go?" asked Owen, coming in some time later for a brief
batting practice before the net.
Patterson gave a doleful shake of the head. "To pieces," he answered
laconically. "I never could pitch to that fellow!"
"What did Lyford say?"
"Nothing. He didn't need to say anything."
"Owen!" called Poole, and Rob, picking up his bat, took the place
before the net which Peacock had just vacated. He felt disappointed
and irritated; disappointed because, having made Patterson's cause his
own, he was himself hurt by the failure; irritated because he was sure
that if Poole had only left him alone another ten minutes he could
have pulled his friend safely through. He stood at the plate with
his jaw set, and his eyes shining bright, ready to hit and hit hard.
O'Connell was pitching for the batsmen, and O'Connell asked nothing
better than the privilege of striking out this arrogant freshie, who
had presumed to offer instruction to him in the cage, and had dropped
him so contemptuously for not receiving it. So he tried a deceiver in
the shape of a hot outcurve--O'Connell's strongest card--which starts
wide and swings over the plate. Owen felt savage, but not savage enough
to lose his wits. He had learned long since from McLennan that the
great batsmen study the pitcher's motive and try to guess in advance
the ball that he will pitch. Knowing O'Connell's strong and weak
points, he had no difficulty in recognizing the ball that came spinning
threateningly toward him. So he waited unmoved, and swung at it as it
broke over the plate as if the ball itself were the animate cause of
his disappointment.
Bat and ball met squarely with a crash; the ball sped away, not in a
high parabola that gives the lazy outfielder an easy put out, nor in
the regular sharp bounds which a clever baseman may handle, but well
above the reach of any infielder, and striking the ground too soon and
with too hot a pace to be held by the outfield. A hard hit like this,
if it passes between the outfielders on a deep, smooth field, rolls
forever.
"A bully hit!" exclaimed Durand, as Owen, his frown transformed into a
smirk of satisfaction, took his place with the rest. "That's good for
three bases sure."
"I don't know about that," Owen replied modestly, mentally resolving,
however, that if he ever made such a hit in a real game he wouldn't
stop to look round till he had passed third.
"Too hard," was the comment of the coach to Poole, "but good form."
"I'm hoping to get a good hitting outfielder out of him," replied
Poole. "Carle told me Owen's batting average was always high. I suppose
Borland will do all our catching."
Patterson came up for his trial. O'Connell, angry with himself for
having let Owen get a long drive out of him, set himself to fool the
pitcher at least.
"Don't try for big hits!" warned the coach. "Just watch the ball and
make sure you hit it. Wait for the good ones!"
And Patterson watched the ball and waited, letting the good ones go by
and striking at the poor ones. He finally succeeded in poking a feeble
bounder over to the pitcher's position, and thus obtained the privilege
of retiring. Altogether Patterson's first day out gave little promise
that his ambitions would ever be realized.