MORE ABOUT "THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD"
One by one, the boys filed in through the Silvey gateway, to squat
outside the club-house entrance until their roster was complete. Bill
glanced nervously at Sid and cleared his throat.
"It's baseball time," he began abruptly. "And we've got to elect our
captain and manager. Any--" he paused and looked at John.
"Nom'nations?" said the latter promptly.
There was an awkward silence. Sid tightened his grasp on a handful of
the fresh, green turf. John looked meaningly at Red Brown, who spoke up
as he had been instructed.
"I nom'nate John Fletcher. He was captain last year 'n he ought to be
this."
"Any one else?" asked Silvey.
"I want to be captain," said Sid, curtly.
"Can't nom'nate yourself," ruled the president. "Somebody's got to do it
for you."
"Somebody's got to second it, too," supplemented John.
Sid gazed helplessly about. Truly this newly made maze of parliamentary
law was bewildering. "Nobody's seconded John's," he said at last.
"Second John's nom'nation," said Skinny Mosher promptly.
"All those in favor of John as captain--"
Sid sprang to his feet. "Wait a minute," he snapped. "You fellows think
you're smart, but let me tell you something. I said I was going to be
captain, and I am."
"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause
you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you
did."
"Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose
league ball did the team use last year?"
"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly.
"And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts
were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go
ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't
run the team, the team can't use my things!"
There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill,
had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly
at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably.
"And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the shin
with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make."
"Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant
ultimatum. "Which do you want?"
He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not
without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being
blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized
balls, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation.
John sighed wearily.
"Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally.
A reluctantly assenting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the
subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head
emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought.
"The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix
the lot up."
"But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing
the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could
say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the
neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room
for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce.
Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the
team's, and his, prestige.
"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front
might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is
like."
"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a
moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad
fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They
scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there
by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy
field.
The broken glass and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept
further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards
from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the
cucumber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the
sparse, fresh grass blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the
dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of
baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers"
purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they
turned to their captain for advice.
"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at
him in futile anger.
"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.
Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain,
but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."
"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of
you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come
on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."
John dropped his rake over the fence on his return, and glanced at his
watch as a precaution. It was nearly five! Blame the paper business
anyway! Never did he start some important project but what time flew so
swiftly that he had to leave just when things were getting interesting.
He called an explanatory "paper time!" to his team mates, turned his
implement over to Red, and left for the little delicatessen store.
All the next Monday afternoon the boys labored while their captain stood
around with his hands in his pockets and watched condescendingly. John
picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the
lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass,
rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been
carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he
beamed his approval.
"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.
"Yes, and Sid'll say he did it," his chum commented bitterly.
"What do we care? We'll put the home plate here," he indicated a spot
some fifty feet north of the dairy buildings. "Then the sun won't get in
our eyes. I'll borrow dad's big tapeline to measure off the other bases,
and the grand stand can go here. It'll be big enough to hold 'most fifty
people!"
Silvey listened in amazement. He could run a football team as
quarter-back to perfection, or break through the opposing line time and
again, as he had done last autumn, but this fertile foresight was
something beyond his comprehension.
"You talk as if you see it," he said finally.
"Why, I do." John dismissed the matter as worthy of no further comment.
"But before we do any of these things, we've got to cut the grass and
see where the bumps in the ground are."
For two afternoons the whirr of lawnmowers was heard over the "Tigers'
Home Grounds." When the many hollows and hummocks in the uneven turf
came to light, the youthful construction boss ordered that shovels be
brought, and another day passed in transporting dirt and leveling the
obstructions off. Pail after pail of water was carried from the dairy
buildings to wet down and harden the new, loose earth, and it was
Saturday morning before the distances between the various bases and the
pitcher's box could be measured off.
"We'll start filling in the paths with cinders now," said John, as
Silvey drove a peg into the ground to mark the location of the home
plate.
"Won't they hurt when you slide on them?" drawled Perry Alford.
"But there's nothing else to use, is there?"
"They're starting a flat building next old lady Meeker's on Southern
Avenue," the boy suggested. "Why not get sand from there?"
John shot him a glance of approval and called to the team members.
"Everybody get a pail and meet at Silvey's," he concluded, as they
started for the railroad tracks.
"I'll sit here and watch the tools," said Sid, brazenly.
"Aren't you going to work at all?" broke out Silvey impatiently.
"Don't have to," was the unperturbed reply. "I'm the captain."
They left their nominal leader to do as he desired and scattered to
commandeer the various family buckets and fiber pails. Skinny, who lived
farthest from the Silvey's, came up at last with his utensil, and they
set off, single file, past Neighborhood Hall and the corner grocery
stores, and around to quiet, sedate Southern Avenue, beating a crude
marching rhythm on the tins as they went. At the sight of the ten-foot
sandhill which the excavations for the apartments had formed, John broke
into a run.
"Beat you there!" he shouted.
Away they went after him, pell-mell, and dashed up the yielding sides to
bury their pails deep in the golden particles. Silvey braced himself,
tugged his load free, and staggered along the walk for perhaps thirty
feet. John caught up with him and also halted for a rest.
At last they started again, but it was no light-hearted, carefree,
return trip for the "Tigers." The sand-filled buckets weighed too much
to be used as drums, and they retraced their steps slowly, dropping them
every few minutes to ease their aching wrists. In front of Neighborhood
Hall, Skinny found a blister on one of his hands.
"Think we'll ever get back?" he asked, despairingly.
"It isn't so far now," John encouraged him. "We've only got to go
another block before we turn. Then it's a half-block down to the hole in
the fence. Come on. I'll stump you to carry yours as far as the railroad
tracks."
Thus by making it a matter of athletic prowess the boys carried their
loads to the destination. But the little heaps on the dusty earth looked
pitifully insignificant. Skinny borrowed a pin and lanced the white
protuberance at the base of his second finger.
"Jiminy," he mourned, as he squeezed the water out. "It's going to be an
awful lot of work, fellows."
They raked the sand level along the path from the plate to first base.
Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could they seem to reach even
a quarter of the distance, and protruding grass blades showed that the
covering was far too scanty.
"Where's your wagon, John?" asked Red Brown suddenly.
"Busted," said John, reproachfully. "Have you forgotten?"
During the summer preceding, a fever of wagon building had seized the
boys. Every spare wheel and tricycle frame in the block had been
requisitioned for the construction of a half-dozen little vehicles which
suddenly appeared to scud down the sidewalks and over the smooth macadam
street. There had been discussions and disputes as to speed, and John's
wagon, a long, well-oiled affair with a coat of red, discarded house
paint on its framework, had come to grief in a collision with Brown's,
one sunny afternoon. Even Silvey, the optimist, who had furnished the
motive power, had looked at the wreckage in well-founded despair.
"Where's yours?" Red turned abruptly to the Harrison boys.
"In the basement."
Skinny Mosher's, too, was still in existence. All the rest of the
morning and afternoon, the two wagons ran merrily toward the Southern
Avenue sand hill, or creaked slowly and laboriously back to the "Tigers'
Home Grounds," with such good effect that but a scant ten feet of path
remained to be filled in when John's paper route called him.
Silvey and he sauntered over that evening after supper to make the final
inspection of the work.
"Just like the park diamonds, isn't it?" he asked, as Silvey stretched a
pair of weary arms.
"And Sid said he was glad he thought of it. And we worked like
everything while he stood around!"
John scarcely heard him as he stood, eyes a-dream, looking over the
even, carefully raked turf. "The grand stand comes next, Bill. Do you
think we ought to tear down the shack for lumber?"
Bill demurred. That shaky building occupied too great a place of
importance in the boys' lives to justify such a sacrifice. Surely there
were enough new buildings being erected in the neighborhood without
that.
Sid made an announcement on the following Monday which made the
postponement of that last bit of construction work imperative.
"Saw the captain of the 'Jeffersons,'" he beamed as the little group
gathered about him on the baseball diamond. "We're going to play 'em
this Saturday."
"What?" John exploded. Sid nodded his head.
"They've got the best team around," Silvey broke out. "And they've been
practicing in the park ever since the snow melted. How can we lick 'em
now?"
Sid shrugged his shoulders aggravatingly.
"Haven't you any brains at all?" John stormed.
"I'm captain," Sid snapped back at the insurgents. "I'm running this
team. If you don't like it, you can quit!"
The voice of Skinny Mosher, the peacemaker, broke in: "Aw, kids, never
mind. 'Tain't so bad as it looks. Let's start practicing now, and maybe
we can beat 'em anyway."
It was excellent advice, and the boys scampered over the tracks for
home, to return singly and in pairs with their baseball paraphernalia.
John took up his old position at first, and Silvey donned his catcher's
mitt to receive and return imaginary balls thrown by the other players.
Red Brown and Perry Alford stationed themselves at second and shortstop
respectively, while the Harrison boys stood around and waited until duty
should call them to the outfield.
"Where's Skinny and Sid?" asked John as he glanced around.
"There's Mosher, now," exclaimed Silvey, as a tall and diminutive figure
made their way down the railroad embankment. "Kid brother with him as
usual."
"Had to bring him," the unfortunate elder boy exclaimed when he reached
the diamond. "Ma wouldn't let me come unless I did."
They accepted the affliction resignedly. "He can watch," said Silvey.
"Come on, John. Toss up your little ball while we're waiting."
Accordingly, the first baseman brought out a lopsided ten-cent ball and
threw it toward third. Skinny Mosher dropped the sphere as if it were a
hot coal.
"Go easy," he cautioned. "Sid hasn't brought my glove yet."
The elder Harrison boy who aspired to fill Joe Menard's place, ran over
to the pitcher's box, and the tossing was resumed. From third to first,
second to pitcher, and then to Silvey, and back again. Muscles became
limbered and arms more certain of their mark. Skinny misgauged a swift
throw from John and caught the ball on the tip of his fingers.
"Jiminy!" he yelled. "What you think you're doing?"
"Butter fingers, butter fingers!" came the taunting reply.
"Don't care. I'm going to wait for my glove. Here's Sid now."
The team turned as one man and stared in astonishment. Their captain had
delayed his return to don his new baseball suit, and from the spikes on
his shoes to the visor of his red-trimmed cap, he was a perfect
miniature of a professional player. Even John was unable to restrain an
envious stare at the natty flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and the
maroon and white stockings.
"Cost eight dollars, it did," Sid announced, as he acknowledged the
unconscious homage with a satisfied smile. "Dad gave it to me 'cause I
was captain. Here's the gloves and the ball and the bat. Let's start
practice."
They ran back to their positions. Sid, bat in hand, stood by the plate,
tossed the league ball high in the air, and knocked the sphere easily
toward third base. Skinny, with the confidence engendered by a
well-padded hand, scooped the ball with surprising accuracy and returned
it. Again Sid repeated the process.
Red pranced impatiently up and down on the sand path. "Give me one this
time," he begged. "Don't send 'em all to Skinny."
The captain of the "Tigers" nodded and hit the descending ball with all
his force a little too far for Red to reach. A quick glance showed the
impending catastrophe.
"Hey, kid, get out of the way," he yelled. The warning came too late.
The ball skimmed over the grass, struck a hummock which had been
overlooked by the builders of the diamond, and ricochetted upward into
the hapless Mosher youngster's stomach.
Yells filled the air. Skinny, unwilling slave, stooped over his
prostrate brother. "Hurt much?" he queried anxiously. John glanced at
his watch in boredom, for such occurrences had lost their novelty long
months ago.
"Paper time," he called, as he made for the tracks. A last glance back
before the dairy buildings cut off the view, showed the wailing infant
trudging sturdily toward the walk. Every line of his figure indicated
maddened determination to tell his mother on the whole team.
Tuesday and Wednesday sped past. It became more and more apparent that a
substitute for Joe Menard must be found if the "Tigers" were to have
even a fighting chance of holding their own with the ancient enemy. Time
and again Haldane Harrison took his place to whip a few slightly curving
balls down to the critical Silvey, only to realize that his knowledge of
the art was sadly deficient. They all had a try at it, eventually, while
Sid stood by with a sarcastic grin on his face and watched their futile
efforts.
The next noon, John walked home with Louise, a custom sadly broken since
the baseball season had begun, and passed a stockily built lad who was
bouncing a baseball against the side of a house but a few doors from the
Martin's apartment. On the way back, he stopped to watch. The newcomer
returned his stare with equal interest.
"'Lo," said John, as he walked nearer.
"'Lo," said the boy with an ingratiating smile.
"My name's John Fletcher."
"Mine's Francis Yager," spoken with equal curtness.
"Live here?" asked the first baseman of the "Tigers." The boy admitted
that such was the case. "There's my house," explained John, pointing
with an inkstained finger.
There was an awkward silence. Francis bounced his ball against the side
of the house a few times.
"Ever play baseball?" asked John, as the boy made a difficult catch of
an erratic return from a drain pipe. The newcomer turned, his face
lighted with interest.
"Just bet you!" he beamed. "Back home we had a team and I played--"
"Pitcher?" asked John, breathlessly. The new boy nodded. Truly the fates
were proving kind to the "Tigers" that day.
"What can you throw?"
"An 'in,' and an 'out,' and a 'slow ball.'" The expert paused in the
summary of his attainments. "Last year, I was just getting so's I could
pitch a drop. But it didn't work very well."
Dinner, maternal lectures, all were forgotten as John poured out the
tale of the "Tigers'" woes to his new friend. Arm in arm, they made
their way up to Silvey's house. That catcher tried out the new recruit,
while John watched eagerly, and pronounced him all and more than he had
claimed for himself.
"We'll fix the 'Jeffersons' now," John shouted confidently. "You can
hold 'em, Francis, old boy."
He marched the new member over the tracks to the ball grounds, that
afternoon, and introduced him to the delighted team. Sid heard Silvey's
tale of the pitcher's prowess with ill-disguised resentment.
"He can play in the outfield," he said shortly. "I'm going to do it
myself."
"You!" shrieked John.
"Yes, me!"
"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. Pitch! Only
reason we let you play at all last year was because--" He checked
himself suddenly. Sid only smiled.
"I'm captain," he replied, as John finished. "I'm running this team. I'm
going to pitch, and if you don't like it, you can quit." He walked over
to the position, leaving a dazed and resentful first baseman behind him.
That evening, John returned from the paper route to eat supper
listlessly and skip up to Silvey's as soon as he had finished. The team,
his team which he had built up with such care last year, was going to
the dogs, and he craved sympathy from Bill about it.
"He's crazy," his chum sighed when John's outburst had slackened. "You
should a' seen him when you'd gone for the papers, today. First he threw
over my head, and then to one side, 'most out of my reach. He hit the
ground twice before he could throw a fast one over the plate, and
Francis laughed at him. 'Well,' says Sid, 'I guess I can learn before
Saturday. I've got a book at home that tells all about it.'"
"Maybe--" said John, thoughtfully.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe the 'Jeffersons' 'll make so many runs in the first inning that
he'll have to quit. Then Francis can play, and perhaps we can catch up
with them."
"But he won't let Francis learn my signals," Silvey complained. "Says
he's captain and we've got to do just what he says."
"Get Francis to come down to your yard tomorrow noon," John counseled,
as he stood up and stretched himself. "Teach him then."
Thus it came about that, unknown to Sid, two small figures rehearsed for
a good hour, such intricacies as "Two fingers against the glove means a
swift one," "when I pound like this, it means an 'out,'" and "this means
an 'in'" until Francis became letter-perfect in them.
That Friday afternoon, the "Tigers" gathered for the final practice
before the first and most important game of the season. Silvey knocked
grounders innumerable to the different members of the infield who
handled them with uncanny dexterity, or sent long flies out to the
waiting players until he grew tired and Sid supplanted him. Red Brown
and one or two of the fleeter spirits of the team raced from base to
base, practicing a little trick of sliding which Red had noticed at a
park baseball game, and Sid took his position as pitcher for a few
minutes' erratic practice with Silvey. John left them for the night,
wavering between confidence and despair as to the result of the morrow.
Everything had gone marvelously well with the exception of Sid.
"If he quits early," Silvey consoled him as they sat on the Fletcher
front steps just before bed time, "we'll win after all."
"We'll have to," said John, stubbornly, as he rose in answer to his
mother's call. "So-long, Bill."