GINGER SIGNS UP AGAIN
Ginger returned the discarded bat to the orderly array near the bench,
sank to one knee beside it and watched anxiously. It was evident that
Cross meant to send that game to extra innings. He was slow and canny,
studying the batsman, gripping the ball with more than usual nicety.
Ginger observed Joe Kenton and frowned slightly. It was plain to him
that Joe had been instructed to bunt, and Ginger didn’t approve of
the bunting game. Of course an occasional bunt was all right, if the
other fellow wasn’t looking for it, or you wanted to pull a player out
of position, but Ginger believed in forcing the issue, in going after
the ball hard. “They’ll look for a bunt and he won’t have a Chinaman’s
chance,” Ginger reflected. “That third baseman’s playing in for him
right now. Gee, I wish he wouldn’t!” “He” in Ginger’s thoughts was Joe,
and not the third baseman. The boy turned and shot an almost imploring
glance at Gus Cousins, but the coach’s gaze was on the game. Then came
the tragedy, and quite as Ginger had pictured it. Joe loosened his bat
and thrust it in the path of the first delivery. The ball trickled
slowly toward third. It was a nice bunt and, unexpected, might have won
him first base. But the player on third came in at top speed, scooped
up the rolling ball and, in the same motion, sped it to first. Joe was
beaten by six feet!
One down! But Ginger maintained his cheerfulness as he took the bat
from the disgusted Joe.
“Hard luck! Robbery, I call it!” Mac Torrey faced the pitcher now. Mac
was no bunter, even had Gus elected to cling to the bunting game, and
Ginger looked for something to happen. And as he looked his mind was
busy with the future. Babe, untroubled, lolled on the bench, one big
arm over Dave’s shoulders. Ginger frowned a trifle as he returned his
gaze to the drama before him. If Mac got his base and Bud went out and
it was up to Babe――Ginger sighed and shook his head.
One ball, and then a strike at which Mac did not offer. A second ball.
Cross was working deftly and easily, very much master of the situation
as it seemed. A fourth delivery sped to the plate, a lazy ball that
looked good until it began to curve outward and down. Mac swung hard
and missed by inches. Ginger gave a little groan and his gaze shot
sideways to where Babe’s black-handled bat lay close to his hand. Then
he got to his feet, unnoted by any one, probably, on field or seats,
and wandered along the edge of the stand toward the nearly empty press
box. Short of it, he stopped and leaned with one elbow on the edge and
watched the plate while Cross’s fifth delivery was met by Mac and sent
arching over the first base pavilion. Then, quite as unobtrusively as
he had left his place, Ginger loitered back to the end of the bench and
again subsided to a knee. And just then Mac swung innocuously and the
umpire waved him away and there were two down!
“You’re next, Babe!” called the manager as Bud Thomas went to the
plate. Ginger’s heart stood still for an instant and then raced very
hard. He was pawing over the bats as Babe arose.
“Give us the old bridge timber, son,” said Babe cheerfully, “and rub
the lucky dime!”
Ginger raised a pale countenance on which the freckles stood out with
strange prominence. “It――it ain’t here, Babe,” he answered, his voice a
little husky in spite of his effort to make it sound natural.
“Where is it, then?” demanded Babe, his gaze searching the ground.
“What have you done with it, son?” He looked to see if by some strange
chance Bud had chosen it, but Bud hadn’t. Ginger was searching behind
the long bench, and under it, and around the water bucket. Others
joined the search. Captain Hal bent a curious look on Ginger, which
Ginger met and quickly avoided. It was Manager Naylor who suggested a
solution.
“Maybe it got mixed up with their bats,” said Bert, nodding across the
diamond toward the enemy headquarters. “Run over and see, Ginger.”
And Ginger very gladly went. But it wasn’t there, and he returned
breathlessly to Babe and told him so. And just at that moment Bud
leaned against one of Cross’s curves and the ball made a gray streak
across the infield between second and third bases. Shortstop made a
dive at it and knocked it down, but it was third baseman who pegged it
to first a long instant after Bud had shot across the sack. Holman’s
took heart and cheered and shouted, and joy reigned in all patriotic
breasts save that of Babe Linder. Babe was in despair. From the umpire
at the plate came the sharp admonishment “Come on! Batter up!” Babe
gave a last yearning look at the array of bats spread before him and
dazedly accepted the one that Ginger held forth.
“Babe,” said Ginger earnestly, “don’t swing too hard, will you? This
bat’s got a lot of pep to it. Just meet ’em sharp like, Babe. Do you
get me? You ain’t going to miss that other bat, honest! You――”
Babe looking down read something in Ginger’s face that made him stop
on his way to the plate. “Oh,” he said softly, “so that’s it!” He was
smiling, but it was a grim, tight sort of smile and Ginger’s heart
sank. “This is your doings, eh? All right, Ginger, but when this
game’s done I’m going to find you, and I’m going to――”
“Say!” interrupted the umpire wrathfully, “I’ll give you just ten
seconds to get in the box! What do you think this is, a cricket game?”
Babe went on, parting from Ginger with one last long, meaningful
look, and took his place beside the rubber. He was exceedingly angry
as he set his feet well apart and squared himself to the plate. The
ridiculous thing in his hands had no weight, no substance, as he
swung it back and waited. He felt helpless, as helpless as Hercules
himself might have felt if some one had stolen his good old club and
substituted a willow wand!
“Lose your bat?” inquired the Munson catcher affably as he straightened
up after giving his signal.
“Yes,” growled Babe morosely. “Some murdering thief――”
But there wasn’t time for more, because a grayish-white object came
speeding toward him. Babe kept his eyes on it until it became a blur to
his vision, but made no offer at it. It was much too low; way under his
knees, and――
“_Stuh-rike!_” intoned the umpire. Babe turned upon him indignantly.
“_What?_” he demanded, outraged.
There was no reply beyond a baleful glance from the cold gray eyes of
the official. Babe grunted, waved that useless weapon twice across the
plate and grimly set himself again. From the bench came encouraging
advice. “Make him pitch to you, Babe!” “It only takes one, old son!”
“Let’s have it, Babe! You’re better than he is!” A palpable ball went
past, but Babe breathed easier when the umpire called it by its right
name. Cross pegged twice to first, where Bud was taking long chances
on the path to second, got no results and again gave his attention to
Babe. Then the signal came and Babe’s big fingers clutched more tightly
about the inadequate handle of the toy weapon. The ball sped toward
him and Bud started, hot foot, for second. Babe swung, putting all
his force of weight and muscle into action. The infield was shouting
loudly as Babe’s bat, meeting no opposition, swung right on around,
taking Babe with it. Then the Munson catcher stepped forward and threw,
straight and true but high, to shortstop. Ball and Bud reached the bag
at the same instant, but Bud was saved by the fraction of time required
by the shortstop to bring the ball from above his head to the level of
his shoe tops. Holman’s cheered, Bud arose carefully and patted a cloud
of dust from his togs and Cross viewed the runner venomously ere he
stepped back into the box.
Two strikes and one ball, reflected Babe. He had forgotten to allow
for the difference in the weight of his bat that time and had swung
too soon. It had been a good ball, if a trifle lower than Babe liked
them, and he would have got it if he hadn’t been too quick. But what
could you do with a matchstick, anyway? What was it Ginger had said?
“That bat’s got a lot of pep to it. Just meet ’em sharp like.” Drat
the red-headed little rascal! Maybe his advice was good, though. Babe
guessed it was. Maybe, next time, if he held back a little――
The next time came. Cross had balls to spare, but something whispered
to Babe that the long-legged pitcher was eager to end the innings,
that he meant to close the incident with his next delivery. Babe
had forgotten his anger now. He was the old calm, cool-headed Babe.
Something of his accustomed confidence returned as he narrowed his eyes
slightly and poised that inadequate bat. Cross stepped forward, his
hand shot toward the plate, the ball sped from it, grew bigger, hung
for a brief moment in air as though motionless and then was at the
plate.
“Just meet it sharp!” said Babe to himself. Then his bat swept around
in what for Babe was scarcely more than a half-swing, there was a sharp
_crack_, and ball and batsman were off at the same instant. And so was
Bud, his legs twinkling as he sped for third. The ball streaked, low
and at lightning speed, straight across the base line midway between
first and second. After its passage first baseman and second baseman
picked themselves up from the turf and raced to their bags. In right
field a frantic player cupped his hands before the rolling ball,
straightened and threw desperately to the plate. But Bud’s spikes
spurned the rubber just as the ball began its long bound, and before
the sphere had settled into the catcher’s mitten Holman’s shouts
proclaimed victory and Bud, breathless but happy, was fighting his way
to the bench through a mob of frantic friends.
Half an hour later, seated beside Babe on the dusty red velvet of a
day-coach, Ginger was making confession. “It was an awful nervy thing
to do, Babe, but, gee, I just had to! Honest, I did, Babe! Look at the
fix we was in. We only needed the one run to cop the game, didn’t we?
And you ain’t never come through in the pinches with that bat, Babe,
have you? Didn’t you say yourself that you ain’t never made a hit off
that Cross guy? Sure, you did! I just knew you’d go in there and try to
slug out a homer, if you had that big club, Babe, and we didn’t need no
homer to win, see? All we needed was just a nice little hit, Babe, like
a fellow would make if he just took a short swing and hit the old apple
clean. So I says ‘If he don’t have the old bridge timber he’ll have
to use one of the other bats, and maybe thataway he’ll come through.’
And so when you wasn’t lookin’ I hid the old blackjack in the stand.
Believe me, I was scared! And if――”
“Believe me,” interrupted Babe very, very fiercely, “you had a right to
be scared, for I certainly intended to crown you for fair, son!”
Ginger grinned and edged a wee bit closer to the big chap. “Aw, gee,”
he said, “I wasn’t caring about no lickin’, Babe. What I was scared of
was maybe you wouldn’t make no hit, after all! But you did, didn’t you,
Babe?”
“Sure did,” agreed Babe cheerfully.
“An’――” Ginger’s tone became insinuating――“an’, say, Babe, them light
bats ain’t so worse, are they?”
Babe turned a stern countenance on the criminal. “Lay off that, son,
lay off,” he replied. “That bat did the trick for me that time, all
right. But, as you said to me not so long ago, Ginger, that don’t prove
nothing, nothing at all!”
But Ginger, catching the twinkle in Babe’s eyes, thought differently.
The team’s banquet was held at Mander’s Chesapeake Oyster House, in
the upstairs room where the ceiling was so low that Babe threatened
to bring down the plaster whenever he stood up. All the players
were there, and the Coach and the Manager and the Assistant Manager
and――Ginger! Ginger was there, of course, in his official position of
Mascot, and just at first he was far too embarrassed to take joy from
the occasion. But he pulled himself together, in a way of speaking,
along about the second course and, perhaps just to prove that he was
quite accustomed to banquets――which of course he wasn’t――he finished
strong, eating his own three-colored ice cream and Babe’s and Ted
Purves’.
Naturally, Ginger had no vote in the election which followed, though it
is likely enough that he, too, would have cast his vote for Joe Kenton.
Joe, however, didn’t need any more votes than he got on the first and
only ballot taken, for his election was unanimous. Hal, privileged as
retiring captain to nominate a successor, said so many splendid things
about his chum that Joe got very red in the face and looked extremely
unhappy until the last cheer for the new leader had died away. Later
they sang some songs and felt a trifle sentimental, especially fellows
who, like Babe and Hal, wouldn’t be there next year, and at last the
banquet came to an end. Many of the fellows seized on suitcases and
hurried off for the late train. Others, Joe and Hal and Babe amongst
them, went slowly back to school through the warm June night. Ginger,
loath to see the last of his friend and hero, tagged along at Babe’s
side, and when Routledge was reached allowed himself to be persuaded to
ascend to Number 14.
Up there, with the windows open and coats off, they sat and talked
long. No one, it seemed, was sleepy even when eleven o’clock struck.
But Ginger pulled himself from Babe’s side and said he guessed he’d
have to be getting along or the old man would whale the hide off him!
They shook hands very gravely with him and Joe said: “Well, see you
next year, Ginger.”
Then, to the others’ surprise, Ginger shook his head. “I don’t guess
you will,” he said gruffly.
“What!” exclaimed Babe. “Going to desert us?”
“Aw, you won’t be here,” answered Ginger, his gaze on the floor.
“Why, no, old man, I won’t, but Joe will, and a lot of the others.
Great Scott, kid, you can’t desert the old team like that!”
“Of course you can’t,” said Joe. “Besides, Ginger, it’s pretty likely
that Babe’ll be back here now and then, and if you want to see him
you’d better hang about the old field. And, gee, Ginger, I was counting
on your help! It isn’t going to be any easy job next year, with so many
of the old players gone, and――well, I’m going to need you, Ginger.”
Ginger hesitated, looked at Joe, darted a glance at Babe and at last
spoke.
“Aw, all right,” he said. “I’ll see the old team through another
season.”