THE TRIPLE PLAY
The days flew rapidly by and the time drew near for the Spring trip. All
the members of the team were to get a thorough trying out in actual
games with the crack teams of various colleges before the regular
pennant race began. Then the "weeding out" process would have been
completed, and only those remain on the team who had stood the test
satisfactorily. The trip was to take about two weeks, and they were to
"swing around the circle" as far west as Cincinnati and as far south as
Washington.
They did not expect much trouble in coming back with a clean score. As
one of the "Big Three," their team was rarely taken into camp by any of
the smaller colleges. They usually won, occasionally tied, but very
seldom lost. Yet, once in a while, their "well-laid schemes" "went
agley" and they met with a surprise party from some husky team that
faced them unafraid and refused to be cowed by their reputation.
Bert's college was one of the largest and most important in the country.
The "Big Three" formed a triangular league by themselves alone. Each
played three games with each of the other two, and the winner of the
majority was entitled to claim the championship of the "Big Three." And
it was generally, though not officially, admitted, that the team capable
of such a feat was the greatest college baseball team in the whole
country. Their games were followed by the papers with the greatest
interest and fully reported. The "Blues," as Bert's college was usually
referred to on account of the college colors, had won the pennant the
year before from the "Grays" and the "Maroons," their traditional
opponents, after a heart-breaking struggle, and columns of newspaper
space had been devoted to the concluding game. This year, however, the
prediction had been freely made that history would not repeat itself.
Both the Grays and Maroons were composed of tried and tested veterans,
while, as we have seen, Ainslee had been compelled to fill several
important positions with new material. No matter how good this might
prove to be, it takes time and practice to weld it together in one smooth
machine, and it is seldom done in a single season.
Moreover, the time was at hand when Ainslee would have to rejoin his own
team, and his keen eye still noted a number of rough places that needed
planing and polishing. For this reason he was all the more anxious to
secure good results during this trip. After it was over, he would have
to turn over the team to a manager and to Reddy, the assistant coach and
trainer. The manager would confine himself chiefly to the technical and
financial features, but it was arranged that Reddy should have full
charge of the team on the field. Ainslee reposed implicit confidence in
him because of his shrewd judgment, his knowledge of men, and his vast
baseball experience.
West Point was to be their first stop, and it was a jolly crowd, full of
the joy and zest of living, that embarked on the steamer _Hendrik
Hudson_, and sailed up the lordly river, the finest in the world, as
most of the boys agreed, though some, who had traveled, were inclined to
favor the claims of the Rhine to that distinction. They were disposed to
envy the Dutch explorer, who, first among civilized men, had sailed up
the river that bore his name and feasted his eyes upon its incomparable
beauty; a delight that contrasted so strongly with the final scene when
he and his little son had been thrust by a mutinous crew into an open
boat on storm-tossed Arctic waters, and left to perish miserably.
The reward, as Dick cynically insisted, of most of the world's great
benefactors, who have been stoned, burned, or otherwise slain by their
fellows, while posterity, too late, has crowned them with laurels and
honored them with monuments.
The game with Uncle Sam's cadets was a fight "for blood," as was
entirely appropriate for future soldiers. In the seventh, with the
cadets one run behind, one of them attempted to steal from second to
third. Hinsdale got the ball down to Tom like a shot, but, in the
mix-up, it was hard to tell whether the runner had made the base or not.
The umpire at first called it out, but the captain of the cadets kicked
so vigorously that the umpire asked Tom directly whether he had touched
him in time.
For an instant Tom hesitated, but only for an instant. Then he
straightened up and answered frankly:
"No, I didn't; he just beat me to it."
It is only just to Tom's companions to say that, after the first minute
of disappointment, they felt that he could and should have done nothing
else. The standard of college honor is high, and when it came to a
direct issue, few, if any, of the boys would have acted differently.
Even Reddy, with his free and easy views on winning games "by hook or
crook," as long as you win them, felt a heightened respect for Tom,
although he shook his head dubiously when the man from third came home
on a sacrifice, tieing the score.
The tie still persisted in the ninth, and the game went into extra
innings. In the tenth the Blues scored a run and the cadets made a
gallant effort to do the same, or even "go them one better." A man was
on second and another on third, when one of their huskiest batters came
to the plate. He caught the ball squarely "on the seam" and sent it
straight toward third, about two feet over Tom's head. He made a
tremendous jump, reached up his gloved hand and the ball stuck there.
That of course put out the batter. The man on third, thinking it was a
sure hit, was racing to the plate. As Tom came down, he landed right on
the bag, thus putting out the runner, who had turned and was desperately
trying to get back. In the meantime the man on second, who had taken a
big lead, had neared third. As he turned to go back to second, Tom
chased him and touched him just before he reached the bag. Three men
were out, the game was won, and Tom was generously cheered, even by
the enemy, while his comrades went wild. He had made a "triple play
unassisted," the dream of every player and one of the rarest feats ever
"pulled off" on the baseball diamond.
During the trip, Winters and Benson occupied the pitcher's box more
often than Bert, and it was evident that, despite Bert's showing in the
early spring practice, both Ainslee and Reddy were more inclined to pin
their faith this season on their tested stars than on the new recruit.
They really believed that Bert had "more on the ball" than either of the
others, but were inclined to let him have a year on the bench before
putting him in for the "big" games. They knew the tremendous importance
of experience and they also knew how nerve-racking was the strain of
playing before a crowd of perhaps twenty-five thousand frenzied rooters.
Bert _might_ do this, but Winters and Benson had actually _done_ it, and
they could not leave this significant fact out of their calculations. So
they carried him along gradually, never letting up on their instruction
and advice and occasionally putting him in to pitch one or two innings
to relieve the older men after the game was pretty surely won.
Bert was too sensible and sportsmanlike to resent this, and followed
with care and enthusiasm the training of his mentors. A better pair of
teachers could not have been found and Bert made rapid progress.
Something new was constantly coming up, and, as he confided to Dick, he
never dreamed there was such a variety of curves. There was "the hook,"
"the knuckle," "the palm," "the high floater," "the thumb jump," "the
cross fire," and so many others that there seemed to be no end to them.
But though he sought to add them all to his repertory, he followed
Ainslee's earnest urging to perfect his wonderful fadeaway, and gave
more attention to that than to any other.
"And to think," he said to Tom, one day, "it isn't so very long ago that
people didn't believe it was possible to throw a curve ball at all and
learned men wrote articles to show that it couldn't be done."
"Yes," said Tom, "they remind me of the eminent scientist who wrote a
book proving, to his own satisfaction, at least, that a vessel couldn't
cross the Atlantic under steam. But the first copy of the book that
reached America was brought over by a steamer."
"Yes," chimed in Dick, "they were like the farmer who had read the
description of a giraffe and thought it a fairy story. One day a circus
came to town with a giraffe as one of its attractions. The farmer walked
all around it, and then, turning to his friends, said stubbornly, 'There
ain't no such animal.'"
Reddy joined in the laugh that followed and took up the conversation.
"Well," he said, while the others in the Pullman car in which they were
traveling drew around him, for they always liked to see him get started
on his recollections, "the honor of having discovered the curve rests
between Arthur Cummings and Bobby Mathews. It's never been clearly
settled which 'saw it first.' Before their time it used to be straight,
fast ones and a slow teaser that was thrown underhand. But even at that,
don't run away with the idea that those old fellows weren't some
pitchers. Of course, they were handicapped by the fact that at first
they had to keep on pitching until the player hit it. The four-ball
rule, and making a foul count for a hit, and all those modern things
that have been invented to help the pitcher, hadn't been thought of
then. Naturally, that made heavy batting games. Why, I know that the old
Niagara team of Buffalo won a game once by 201 to 11."
"Yes," broke in Ainslee, "and the first college game in 1859 was won by
Amherst over Williams by a score of 66 to 32."
"Gee," said Hinsdale, "the outfielders in those days must have had
something to do, chasing the ball."
"They certainly did," agreed Reddy, "but, of course, that sort of thing
didn't last very long. The pitchers soon got the upper hand, and then,
good-by to the big scores.
"I suppose," he went on, "that the real beginning of baseball, as we
know it to-day, goes back to the old 'Red Stockings' of Cincinnati, in
'69 and '70. There was a team for you. George and Harry Wright and
Barnes and Spalding, and a lot of others just as good, went over the
country like a prairie fire. There wasn't anybody that could stand up
against them. Why, they went all though one season without a single
defeat. It got to be after a while that the other teams felt about
them just as they say boxers used to feel when they stood up against
Sullivan. They were whipped before they put up their hands. The next
year they got their first defeat at the hands of the old Atlantics of
Brooklyn. I was a wee bit of a youngster then, but I saw that game
through a hole in the fence. Talk about excitement! At the end of the
ninth inning the score was tied, and the Atlantics were anxious to stop
right there. It was glory enough to tie the mighty Red Stockings--a
thing that had never been done before--without taking any further
chances. But Harry Wright, the captain, was stubborn--I guess he was
sorry enough for it afterwards--and the game went on, only to have the
Atlantics win in the eleventh by a score of 7 to 6. I've seen many a
game since, but never one to equal that.
"Of course the game has kept on improving all the time. I ain't denying
that. There used to be a good deal of 'rough stuff' in the old days. The
gamblers started in to spoil it, and sometimes as much as $20,000 would
be in the mutual pools that used to be their way of betting. Then, too,
the players didn't use to get much pay and, with so much money up, it
was a big temptation to 'throw' games. It got to be so, after a while,
that you wouldn't know whether the game was on the level or not. The
only salvation of the game was to have some good strong men organize and
put it on a solid footing and weed out the grafters. They did this and
got a gang of them 'dead to rights' in the old Louisville team. They
expelled four of them and barred them from the game forever, and,
although they moved heaven and earth to get back, they never did. And
since that time the game has been as clean as a hound's tooth. As a
matter of fact, it's about the only game in America, except perhaps
football, that you can count on as being absolutely on the square.
"It's a great sport, all right, and I don't wonder it is called the
national game. It's splendid exercise for every muscle of the body and
every faculty of the brain. Rich or poor, great or small, everybody with
a drop of sporting blood in his veins likes it, even if he can't play
it. At the Washington grounds a box seat is reserved for the President,
and I notice that no matter how heavy the 'cares of state,' he's usually
on hand and rooting for the home team. Why, I've heard that when the
committee went to notify Lincoln that he was nominated for President, he
was out at the ball ground, playing 'one old cat,' and the committee had
to wait until he'd had his turn at bat. It may not be true, but it's
good enough to be."
"And not only is it our national game," put in Ainslee, "but other
countries are taking it up as well. They have dandy baseball teams in
Cuba and Japan, that would make our crack nines hustle to beat them,
and, in Canada, it is already more popular than cricket."
"I've heard," said Tom, "that not long ago they made a cable connection
with some island way up in the Arctic Circle. The World's Series was
being played then, and the very first message that came over the cable
from the little bunch of Americans up there was: 'What's the score?'"
"Yes," laughed Ainslee, "it gets in the blood, and with the real 'dyed
in the wool' fan it's the most important thing in the world. You've
heard perhaps of the pitcher who was so dangerously sick that he wasn't
expected to live. The family doctor stood at the bedside and took his
temperature. He shook his head gravely.
"'It's 104,' he said.
"'You're a liar,' said the pitcher, rousing himself, 'my average last
season was .232, and it would have been more if the umpire hadn't robbed
me.'"
The train drew up at Washington just then, and the laughing crowd
hustled to get their traps together. Here they played the last game of
the season with the strong Georgetown University nine, and just "nosed
them out" in an exciting game that went eleven innings. While in the
city they visited the Washington Monument, that matchless shaft of stone
that dwarfs everything else in the National Capital. Of course the boys
wanted to try to catch a ball dropped from the top, but the coach would
not consent.
"Only two or three men in the world have been able to do that," he said,
"and they took big chances. I've had too much trouble getting you
fellows in good condition, to take any needless risks."
So the boys turned homeward, bronzed, trained, exultant over their
string of well-earned victories, and, in the approving phrase of Reddy,
"fit to fight for a man's life." Ainslee left them at New York to join
his team amid a chorus of cheers from the young athletes that he had
done so much to form. From now on, it was "up to them" to justify his
hopes and bring one more pennant to the dear old Alma Mater.