A JUMP IN BASEBALL AND THE RESULT.
The fact that the Freshman diamond lies very close to the running
track, and more particularly that the right field foul-line impinges
on the back stretch of the track, by a peculiar circumstance had a
very important influence on the college life of Frank Armstrong. And
so do great things turn on small incidents.
On a particular day in May, Freshman baseball practice was in full
swing. Frank was still an humble outfielder with little hope of a
promotion to the pitcher's box, for three men of more experience were
ahead of him. Thomas, however, attracted by the bearing of Frank,
had held him on the squad in spite of the fact that he was not an
exceptional fielder. He was attentive to instructions and because of
his willingness and earnestness to do whatever was told him to do,
held his place as a substitute right fielder.
"In these days," the coach told him, "no pitcher can get along
without a good assortment of curves. Your straight ball is fine, but
they get to it. You can curve the ball but you can't get it over the
plate when you do curve it."
"That's my trouble, but I'll learn if you'll show me," said Frank,
"that is, I'll do my best to learn."
But Thomas was not a pitcher and therefore could not show him just
how to get that puzzling break to the ball which assured a pitcher
of success with even a moderately good control. So Frank languished
in the outfield much to the disgust of Turner and the Codfish who
thought he was being done an injustice.
A practice game was in progress between the First and Second nines,
and the First nine was at bat. Frank was playing right field. Down
along the first base line came a sizzling grounder just inside the
base. An undercut to the ball caused it, when it struck the turf, to
pull off into foul ground. At once the man on second shot for home.
Frank started at the crack of the bat, while the batter set sail for
first base with the evident intention of making second at least on
the hit which seemed good for two easy bases.
Frank, who was playing closer in than he should have been, went for
the grounder with all his speed, but seeing no hope of intercepting
it by ordinary means, leaped in the air to a point in the line of the
rolling ball. His feet, as they struck the ground, formed a barrier
which the ball struck and jumped into the air in easy reach of his
hand. He recovered his balance, seized the ball and drove it like
lightning to the plate, catching the runner. The catcher snapped the
ball to second, completing the double.
It was a pretty play and brought forth hand-clapping from the two
score of bystanders who were watching the game.
Now it chanced that the trainer of the track team, Johnny Black by
name, was looking over his runners as they loped around the back
stretch of the track. His eye for the moment was off his half-milers,
and was attracted by Armstrong's leap for the rolling ball. He
crossed the track to the Freshman outfield, searching for the mark
of Frank's cleats when he left the ground. Having found the starting
point, he searched carefully till he found the marks of his landing,
which happened to be on a bit of ground bare of turf where the cleat
marks showed plainly. A ball whizzed past his ear, but he paid no
attention, and even the shout of the Freshman coach that he was in
the field of play apparently had no effect upon him. He measured
the distance of Armstrong's jump with his eye, then stepped it
deliberately.
"Hey, right-fielder," demanded Johnny, as Frank, the batting side
having now been retired, trotted toward the plate, "what's your name?"
"Armstrong," shouted that individual over his shoulder.
"Come here, Armstrong," said the trainer in peremptory tones.
Frank halted and went back to him.
"You look to me like a jumper. What are you doing over here when you
can jump 18 feet with baseball clothes on?" he demanded.
"Trying to play ball the best I know how."
"Any chance to make it?" said the trainer as he walked along toward
the plate while the First team went to their places in the field.
"Not very good looking now," returned Frank. "I'm sort of a
seventeenth sub-pitcher and outfielder."
"So! I want you over at the track for a day or two. You ought to jump
a mile. Say, Thomas," this to the coach, "let me have Armstrong for
a day or two. I'm in an awful hole for jumpers and he ought to make
one or I miss my guess. If he doesn't turn out right, you can have
him back again. If he does, you'll never get him!"
"That's right, come and take my men away from me," grumbled Thomas.
"But I can spare him just now as he is a pitcher and I've got three
pretty good ones. Send him back here if he doesn't make good."
"All the work I'll ask him to do in training for the jump, if he has
the goods, won't prevent him from working with you if he wants to,
but I want him first."
"All right," said Thomas. "Armstrong, report to Black to-morrow
afternoon, and when you have shown him how far you can't jump, come
back here for what practice you can get."
"All right, sir," returned Frank.
"Two o'clock to-morrow at the track house. Bring a track suit with
you and jumping shoes if you have them."
"All right, I'll be there," said Frank but he did not relish
the change. His heart was set on baseball, and it was a great
disappointment to him to be pulled into the track work. But his motto
was to do the best that was in him without question, which is the
starting point for success in most things.
The coming of the Freshman jumper did not create much interest on the
track squad. His jumping did not please the trainer.
"Your form is bad," Black told him. "In jumping, form is everything.
You may get to twenty-one or twenty-two feet the way you are going,
but that will be the end of it. You must get higher in the air at the
take-off."
Frank worked hard to master the new style. In school he had jumped
naturally and without much coaching, but felt himself that he was not
getting his greatest distance. He redoubled his efforts but could not
lengthen out beyond nineteen feet or a little better. Then he began
to fall below that even.
"You're jumping like an old brindle cow," said Black one day. "Are
your legs sore?"
"My shins feel as if they would crack every time I land in the pit,"
said Frank, feeling the offending legs gingerly.
"Why in thunder didn't you tell me that before? You can't work at the
broad jump the same as you do at football or baseball. Lay off for a
day or two and keep off your feet."
The rest did Frank a world of good for when he returned to the
jumping pit he cleared over twenty feet in his first trial, much to
the trainer's delight. Thereafter he was watched with the closest
attention by Black. In the spring games which came the last week in
April he won third place in the handicap broad jump; and after a hard
fight succeeded in beating out Warrington, the Freshman jumper who
had done the best work up to that time.
Two weeks later at the Princeton Freshman meet Frank won second place
with a jump of 21 feet 5 inches, and first place in the Harvard
Freshman games a week later, bettering his mark by three inches.
Armstrong was ineligible, of course, for the 'Varsity meets with
Princeton and Harvard, but kept at work perfecting his form and
watching closely the work of Hotchkiss, the Junior, who was a
consistent performer around 22 feet 6 inches, and who occasionally
approached 23 feet. But as Frank daily increased his marks, the
interest of Hotchkiss waned.
The Intercollegiates came and went, and Hotchkiss maintained his
position as Intercollegiate champion by winning the broad jump for
Yale at 22 feet 10 inches. But Armstrong never ceased his efforts.
A trip to Cambridge for the finals in the Intercollegiates showed
him the styles used by the greatest collegiate jumpers, and after
returning to New Haven he put his observations to such good effect
that he cleared 22 feet 4 inches.
"What's the use of keeping up that old grind at the track," said the
Codfish one night. "Why don't you go over to the Freshman baseball
squad? You may get a chance there yet."
"I'm after something," returned Frank, "and it's coming so fast that
I don't want to let go."
"And that something?"
"Don't laugh, it's Hotchkiss. He's been so blamed cocky that I'd give
my shoes to lick his mark in the Intercollegiates just for personal
satisfaction. I'm too late to do anything with the baseball squad now
anyway."
"Noble ambition," said the Codfish, "but what's the use? There's
nothing more for the track men this spring."
"Just the same I'm going to keep at it."
"Go ahead then, jump your legs off, while Turner and I win the glory."
Turner had by steady improvement worked himself into the position of
first catcher on the Freshman team. The Codfish, leaving temporarily
his ambition to break into the exclusive ranks of the Mandolin Club,
had won the position of official scorer of the Freshman, a place
which he filled with great credit.
"Another sit-down job," said Turner laughing. "Trust the Codfish to
get something easy."
"Why not? I don't love violent exercise. If I hanker for the cool
shade of the scorer's bench and can record the glorious deeds of our
young catcher and ease up on him when he makes flub-dubs, who is to
say me nay? But I'm a believer in hard work, just the same----"
"For the other fellow," broke in Frank.
"Sure, that's what gives Yale her prestige, doesn't it? If it becomes
necessary for me to don the baseball suit to uphold the athletics of
Yale, then I'll do it. Till then, with all you good workers around, I
don't see any reason why I shouldn't take the shade."
"Noble youth," said Frank. "We'll keep on in the sun and let you
take the shade," and nothing either the Codfish or Turner could say
changed Frank's determination to keep everlastingly at his jumping
practice, uninteresting though it appeared to his roommates.
"Now I know why you stuck to the jumping," said the Codfish one
morning as he scanned the first page of the _News_.
"Elucidate," said Frank.
"Here it is right in our lively little daily. Oxford and
Cambridge-Yale-Harvard meet arranged. Teams about evenly matched.
Sail for England July 2nd, and a whole string of likely candidates in
which I see your name."
"O, but I'm a Freshman, and a Freshman can't compete in 'Varsity
matches," said Frank, but his heart gave a bound just the same.
"You won't be a Freshman after June 17th, you bonehead," returned the
Codfish joyfully, "provided you don't flunk your examinations. You'll
be a jolly Sophomore with all the blackness of Freshman year behind
you."
"But there's Hotchkiss. He's better than I am, and a Junior."
"He'll be a Senior, don't you savez, but that will make mighty little
difference if you can outjump him. They will take only the best, or
I'm a galoot."
"You generally are, Codfish, but I'll work my head off to make that
team."
"You've nearly worked it off already, and you've got to make that
team. Pictures in the papers, details of your early life, moving
stories about your many virtues, weeping relatives at the dock as the
ship sails out of the bay and all that sort of thing. I can see it
all now."
Frank laughed at his enthusiastic friend. But his pulse quickened
at the thought of the possibility of making the team which should
represent America in this international contest. Turner, too, was
wild with delight at the turn affairs had taken. "Now I wish I had
been a jumper. We'll read the cable dispatches every day. You're
bound to make it."
"Don't count your chickens," said Frank, "till they are safely
hatched. You forget that Hotchkiss is doing nearly 23 feet."
Two days later a call in the _News_ brought all the first string
track men together in the trophy room of the Gymnasium, and Frank
Armstrong was among them. Captain Harrington read the challenge from
the English Universities, and told them what was expected of them.
"This is going to be a free field, and everyone will have his
chance. The team will be the best that Harvard and Yale can get
together. Practice will be held at the Field every day as usual, and
the trials will be at Cambridge a week before we sail. Only first
place counts in this meet with the Englishmen so it will not be
necessary to take any but the best men in each event. I want you to
give the best in you. We must give a good account of ourselves here
at Yale."
The captain got a rousing cheer at the end of his speech which
was a long one for him, and the athletes clattered down the wide,
marble steps in excited discussion of the coming event and Yale's
possibilities.
"Armstrong," said the trainer next day at the field, "you have a
chance to make this team. I want you to go to it as hard as you know
how."
"I've been doing that for the last month."
"Well, you've improved a lot in that time. You've got to beat
Hotchkiss to win out. It's up to you."
During the remainder of the college year Frank put every spare minute
in the preparation for the final test for the team. Even in the
trying time of examinations he managed to squeeze out half hours at
the Field, and when it was not possible to get out there, he studied
the theory of broad-jumping, searched the library for information on
the subject and found little enough. At Commencement a famous jumper
of former years took him in hand and gave him some advice which
helped him greatly. Steadily, if slowly, he continued to improve his
marks, until one hot morning he raced down the runway and cleared 22
feet 10 inches, much to the discomfort of Hotchkiss who, in spite of
his experience, did not relish the fact that the Freshman was drawing
nearer and nearer to equality with him.
"Twenty-two feet ten inches," announced Black. "Hotchkiss, you've got
to look out for your laurels. This Freshman will beat you out if you
don't improve your jump."
Hotchkiss scowled and tried harder than ever, but he seemed to have
reached his limit, and was unable to surpass his distance in the
Intercollegiates.
That night Frank wrote to his mother: "Mother, I have a chance, only
a chance, mind you, to make the team that is going to England to
represent Yale and Harvard. If I win a place are you and dad willing
to let me go?"
And the answer came back on the next mail: "Yes."
"That settles it," cried Frank, flourishing the letter above his head
as he capered about the room. "I'll win out or die trying."
The Codfish spoke up: "Perhaps you don't know that I'm going too."
"For what?" inquired Frank.
"To see that you keep in strict training and out of mischief."
"You actually mean you would go across if I should make the team?"
"Bettcher life," came the quick answer. "I've got to do something
this summer, and I can't imagine anything better than to see the
Johnny Bulls properly tanned."
"Jimmy, how about you?" inquired Frank.
"I'm not a bloated bondholder like the Codfish. It's work for mine
this summer. But I'll read all the cablegrams and pray for you!"