WHAT HEAD WORK DID
When Alf had finished the Head Coach nodded.
“I was wondering,” he said, dryly, “how long it would take you
fellows to find that out. I might have told you about it after the
first inning, but I thought I’d just wait and see how much baseball
sense you all had. So far, Loring, you appear to be the only one with
enough gumption to study the situation.” Durfee blinked and colored.
Payson turned to him quizzically. “Durfee, couldn’t you have made that
discovery just as well as Loring? Seems to me it would have come better
from you, as captain. But the trouble was that you lost your temper
just as soon as you found you couldn’t hit Holmes, and instead of
looking around to see where the trouble lay you just went up there and
hit out blindly at anything he offered you. Isn’t that about the way of
it?”
“I guess so,” acknowledged the captain, looking not a little chagrined.
At that instant Dan connected with the ball and sent a long fly out
to center fielder, and the discussion ceased until the ball had been
caught and Dan walked dejectedly back to the bench.
“Wheelock at bat!” called the scorer.
“That’s a whole lot better, Vinton,” said Payson, as Dan joined the
group at the end of the bench. “How did you do it?”
“Durfee said I’d been swinging too soon,” answered Dan, “so I waited.
If I’d pushed that a little harder he wouldn’t have got it,” he added,
regretfully.
“Well, don’t let him fool you on those drops,” said Payson. “See what
you can do next time. When an average good batter,” continued Payson,
including Durfee and Alf with a glance, “finds that he can’t hit a
pitcher, the thing for him to do is to keep his eyes open and study the
fellow’s delivery. There’s some perfectly simple reason why he isn’t
finding the ball, and it’s just a case of using his head and finding
out what the reason is. That’s what Loring did. I’ve seen a good many
chaps pitch ball, and it didn’t take me long to see that Holmes there
was pitching a ball that started out fast and then slowed up in front
of the plate. And it didn’t take long to see that that was about all he
did have. If you don’t let him fool you on speed you won’t have much
trouble hitting him.”
Wheelock fouled out to third baseman and Smith took his place, Durfee
giving him whispered advice as he chose his bat.
“But there’s another thing,” continued Payson, when Durfee had
returned, “that no one has discovered yet; something that has a whole
lot to do with Holmes’s effectiveness.”
“What’s that, sir?” asked Durfee. Payson shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s for you――or some one else――to find out, Durfee. Use your eyes.
The game may depend on your finding it out. I sha’n’t tell you. A coach
has no business to run the game; that’s the captain’s work.”
Durfee turned frowningly to observe the Porter pitcher. He had sent in
two balls, and now was winding himself up for his third delivery. When
it reached the plate it was dropping fast, and Smith struck several
inches over it. The Porter sympathizers howled gleefully.
“He isn’t doing what he was told to,” said Payson.
“Slow down, Smith,” called Durfee. “Wait for them, old man. Pick out a
nice one and paste it hard.”
But Smith wasn’t an apt pupil, and a moment or two later Holmes had
another strike-out to his credit.
“That’s three,” called Durfee. “Out on the run, fellows!”
The score remained at two to nothing until the beginning of the eighth
inning. Then Porter put a man on first, got him to second by a neat
sacrifice, and presently, with two out, brought him home on a long fly
to right field. With three runs against them, the Yardley players went
to bat in the last of that inning determined to at least even things
up. Loring’s discovery had gradually accomplished an improvement in
Yardley’s hitting, and there were now several base-hits credited to her
on the score-book. Unfortunately, however, none of the hits had yielded
a tally.
Reid went to bat first. The pitcher, like many other pitchers, was not
a good man with the stick, and the best he could do on this occasion
was to lay down a little bunt in front of the plate that was fielded to
first almost before Reid had started to run. The next batter was Black,
who was substituting Carey at first. Black was a better hitter than he
was a fielder, and had already twice managed to reach the first corner.
Durfee went down back of the base to coach. Squatting there, with a
grass-blade between his teeth, he recalled Payson’s puzzling remark;
and for the twentieth time he watched Holmes in the hope of discovering
the coach’s meaning. Holmes fixed the ball in his lean hand, got the
signal from his catcher, threw his long arms above his head, twisted
one foot around the other leg, turned half around, paused for an
instant, and then quickly unwound himself and stepped forward with a
long stride, launching the ball away breast-high toward the plate.
Durfee leaped to his feet, his eyes flashing. “Mr. Umpire!” he shouted.
“Watch that pitcher! He’s stepping out the box!”
The Porter captain came hurrying in from third, denying, expostulating.
Holmes smiled scornfully. The umpire sauntered down from the plate.
“Play ball!” he commanded.
“Watch his foot, please,” begged Durfee. “He goes away over the line
every time, sir! You can see where he steps.”
Holmes proceeded to show just where he stepped, carefully placing his
toe well back of the boundary of the pitcher’s box.
“Then what’s that hole here?” demanded Durfee. “That’s where you’ve
been stepping; any one can see that!”
The umpire looked rather more impressed now.
“All right,” he said. “Go ahead with the game.”
Holmes slanged Durfee while that youth returned to his place behind
first base, and the others went back to their positions. Holmes was
careful to keep inside the box on the next delivery, and as a result
his second attempt was adjudged a ball. A third ball followed that and
Yardley howled with delight. Holmes frowned; and when he sent the next
delivery in quite forgot about his foot. The ball was a beautiful one,
but Black let it go by and started to walk to first.
“Take your base,” said the umpire. Porter sent up a shout of angry
denunciation, and Holmes hurried toward the plate.
“What kind of a deal is that?” he demanded. “That was a strike, and a
peach, too! What are you giving us?”
“You stepped out of your box,” replied the umpire, coldly. “You want to
watch out for that. Batter up!”
“That’s a raw deal!” cried the Porter captain, running up. “He didn’t
step out! I was watching him! Why don’t you give them the game and be
done with it?”
“I saw it,” said the umpire. “I don’t want your judgment. Play ball.”
When things had calmed down, Black was sitting cozily on first base,
and Durfee was at the plate, Hammel having taken his place in the
coacher’s box. Holmes was angry; and from sheer bravado set to work
digging new holes for his feet as near the back of the box as he could.
Durfee found the first ball that came and sent it skipping away between
third and shortstop. Black took second and Durfee was safe on first.
Condit let Holmes pitch two miserable balls, and then found one to his
liking and sent a Texas Leaguer back of first baseman that scored Black
and put Durfee on third. Yardley cheers rang out loudly.
Not to be outdone, Alf chose a ball that seemed to please him and
slammed it down toward third so hard that the Porter captain couldn’t
handle it in time to get it across to first, and so made an absurd
effort to catch Condit at second. Second baseman was not looking for
the throw, and the ball went by him. Durfee went home, Condit took
third, and Alf made second by the fraction of an inch.
After that it was a slaughter. Wheelock cleaned the bases with a long
drive over left fielder’s head, and when the inning finally came to an
end, Yardley had scored eight runs! And, to use Alf’s language, the
game had been put on ice. All that was necessary now was to hold Porter
in her half of the ninth and that proved an easy task, for the visitors
were angry, discouraged, and much disappointed. Eight to three was the
final score, and Mr. Holmes left the field sadly disgruntled and with
his fame much tattered.
“Well,” said Payson on the way to the gymnasium, “you finally
discovered him, eh, Durfee?”
“Yes, sir, finally,” answered the Yardley captain somewhat sheepishly.
“Yes, he had been stealing six or eight inches on you every delivery,”
said Payson. “I might have told you, but I wanted you to learn to keep
your eyes open and find such things out for yourself. It nearly cost
us the game, I guess, but the lesson would have been worth even that.
Baseball, Durfee, isn’t all physical skill. It’s like almost everything
else; there’s a chance to use your head in it!”