LAKEPORT SERIES
The Baseball Boys of Lakeport
OR
The Winning Run
By EDWARD STRATEMEYER
Author of "The Gun Club Boys of Lakeport," "The Boat Club Boys
of Lakeport," "Dave Porter at Oak Hall," "Colonial
Series," "Old Glory Series," Etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY MAX KLEPPER_
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY A. S. BARNES & CO., UNDER THE TITLE
"THE WINNING RUN."
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
THE BASEBALL BOYS OF LAKEPORT.
PREFACE
Although a complete tale in itself, this story forms the second volume
in a series devoted to sports in the forest, on the water, and on the
athletic field.
In the first volume of the series, entitled, "The Gun Club Boys of
Lakeport," I took some boys of Lakeport into the depths of the forest
during the winter months. Here, in company with a trusted old hunter,
they succeeded in bringing down game of various kinds and in learning
many of Nature's secrets which, in the past, had been unknown to them.
With the coming of summer the thoughts of the boys turned to baseball,
and it was not long before an amateur nine of no mean ability was
organized. Challenges were both sent out and received; and in this
volume a number of the games played are described in detail. The
rivalry, as in all small towns, was of the "red-hot" variety, and the
particulars are also given of a plot to injure the Lakeport nine and
thus make them lose the most important game of all.
_Baseball_ is pre-eminently an American game and as such will probably
remain the leading athletic sport of village, town, city, school
and college for years to come. It is not such a rough game by far
as football, the individual plays, good and bad, are more readily
followed, and because of these points it should be encouraged at every
opportunity.
The writer of this story is a good deal of a baseball "rooter," and
consequently the penning of the tale has been more of a pleasure than
a task. Many of the plays described are such as I have myself seen on
the diamond. In a few instances team work which would do credit to
a professional nine is mentioned, but such mentioning is in strict
conformity to facts.
EDWARD STRATEMEYER.
CONTENTS
I. A BALL GAME ON THE GREEN
II. HARRY GETS INTO DIFFICULTY
III. A BIT OF A MYSTERY
IV. HARRY'S SECRET
V. ORGANIZING THE CLUB
VI. ON THE LAKE
VII. ADVENTURES ON THE ISLAND
VIII. PRACTICING ONCE MORE
IX. A BOY AND A BULL
X. THE FIRST CHALLENGE
XI. THE LAST DAY AT SCHOOL
XII. FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP
XIII. PAUL'S GREAT CATCH
XIV. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
XV. SWIMMING IN THE LAKE
XVI. THE FINDING OF THE SLOOP
XVII. IN WHICH THE CLUB'S OUTFIT DISAPPEARS
XVIII. AN EXPOSURE, AND WHAT FOLLOWED
XIX. THE GAME AT BROOKSIDE
XX. HARE AND HOUNDS
XXI. STOPPED BY TRAMPS
XXII. A GAME AND A PLOT
XXIII. THE KIDNAPPING OF JOE AND FRED
XXIV. ON PINE ISLAND AGAIN
XXV. TRYING TO GET HOME
XXVI. PREPARATIONS FOR THE GREAT GAME
XXVII. A RACE AGAINST TIME
XXVIII. THE GREAT GAME BEGUN
XXIX. THE WINNING RUN
XXX. AFTER THE GAME--CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
HE HELD THE BALL ALOFT
ORGANIZING THE CLUB
DOWN CAME THE BAT ON THE BULL'S HEAD
THE OUTFIT DISAPPEARS
"NOW MARCH!"
HARRY CAME LIKE A WHIRLWIND
THE BASEBALL BOYS OF LAKEPORT
CHAPTER I.
A BALL GAME ON THE GREEN.
"What a beautiful afternoon for a game of ball, Fred!"
"Right you are, Joe. Let us see if we can't scare up some of the other
fellows and have a game," returned Fred Rush.
"I know Harry will be glad to play--he spoke about a game this
morning," went on Joe Westmore. "Have you that new ball of yours handy?"
"Right here," and Fred brought it forth and tossed it high in the air.
"Go and get your bat and hurry up about it. If we can scare up enough
fellows we can play sides."
"All right, you go after Link Darrow and Bart Mason and I'll tell
Frank Pemberton and Paul Shale. My! but can't Paul run!"
"Run? Well, I just guess. He's the best runner in Lakeport. Say, if
we organized a regular baseball club, he'd make a dandy base runner,
wouldn't he?"
"What put organizing a regular baseball club into your head, Fred?"
"Oh, I don't know. They have a regular club up to Brookside, and one
over to Camdale, too. We ought to be able to support a club as well as
those places."
"That's exactly my idea." Joe Westmore paused for a moment. "I think we
could get up a better team here than that up to Brookside. I don't know
much about the fellows at Camdale."
"If we organized a regular club we could send out challenges to those
other clubs and have regular contests."
"If we did that we would have to fix up a regular ball field."
"That would be easy. I know father would let us use the ten-acre lot
back of the milk station. We could build a little grand stand, and
have things in real city style."
"If we went that far we'd want uniforms, too."
"We'd have to save up for the uniforms--or else take up a collection. I
guess my father would give something. He used to love baseball when he
was a boy--and he likes to look at a game still."
"So does my father like it. He used to be a pitcher on his town club.
It would just be grand if we could get up a real good club, and fix up
those grounds with a stand, and get uniforms and gloves, and masks and
those things, and have a clubroom somewhere----"
"Phew! but you've got it all cut and dried, Joe."
"We can do it--I know we can," answered Joe Westmore, confidently.
"Some of the boys laughed at us last winter, when we started to
organize our gun club. But the plan went through, and----"
"We had the best outing in the woods any set of fellows ever had,"
finished Fred Rush. "Do you know, I shall never forget our camp on
Pine Island," he went on. "What a lot of sport we did have! If this
baseball club would afford as much sport----"
"It will."
"Then I'm in favor of it this minute. But come on, let us have our
game first and talk club afterwards," added Fred, and ran off in one
direction while Joe made off in another.
Fred Rush was the son of a hardware dealer, whose establishment was
located in the thriving town of Lakeport, situated at the foot of
Pine Lake. Fred was a stout youth, with a round, ruddy face. He was
generally bubbling over with energy and good humor and numbered a host
of friends among those who knew him.
Fred's closest chums were Joe and Harry Westmore, the sons of a local
flour and feed dealer. The Westmores were fairly well to do, and had
recently come into possession of valuable land near the head of the
lake.
As already intimated, the three boys had, during the previous winter,
organized the Gun Club of Lakeport, the doings of which organization
have already been set down by me in another volume, entitled, "The Gun
Club Boys of Lakeport." With an old hunter named Joel Runnell they set
out for Pine Island, located near the head of the lake, and there spent
several weeks in hunting and trapping game, and in fishing through the
ice. During a part of the outing they had had with them two of their
fellow members, Link Darrow and Bart Mason, and also a young Irish lad
named Teddy Dugan. Some of their adventures had been perilous, but all
had ended happily, and when they had returned to Lakeport with their
game the success of the gun club had been the talk of the town for
several weeks.
"Those boys are all right," was the comment of Mr. Paxton, the
postmaster. "I reckon a lot of other young fellows wish they had been
along."
"Well, I wish I had been there," Paul Shale had answered, and in this
declaration he had been joined by Frank Pemberton, Walter Bannister,
Matt Roscoe, and half a dozen other lads of Lakeport, who had hung fire
about going.
The outing in the woods had been productive of one very important
result. A dishonest real estate dealer of Brookside had been claiming
some land which rightfully belonged to the Westmore family. On the
island the young hunters had picked up some legal documents which
proved the Westmore claim, and Hiram Skeetles, the real estate dealer,
had been made to right the wrong done. Skeetles had had as his friend
a bully of Lakeport named Dan Marcy. When the exposure came the real
estate dealer departed for parts unknown. But Dan Marcy was more
brazen, and as soon as the talk over the affair subsided he returned to
the vicinity of Lakeport, to begin his bullying habits as of yore. So
far he had not bothered the Westmores and Fred Rush, but the time was
coming when he would do so, as we shall presently see.
Joe found his brother Harry working over some photographs which he had
been printing. Harry owned a good snap-shot camera, and during the
outing in the woods had taken a number of really fine photographs, one
of which had been enlarged and now hung framed in the parlor.
"Give it up, Harry!" he called out. "Fred wants us to play ball. I'm
going to drum up some of the other fellows and he is going to do the
same."
"All right, just as soon as this picture is finished," answered Harry,
who was just a year and a day younger than his brother. "Isn't it a
dandy!" and he held up the print in hand. It represented all of the
young hunters and old Runnell in front of the campfire, each with a
gun, ax, or kitchen utensil in his hand. "I'm going to send it to Aunt
Laura. She asked me for it."
"Those were surely gay old times, Harry. But hurry up--we don't want to
keep the others waiting."
Joe ran off, to find Frank Pemberton and Paul Shale, who lived but a
short distance away. He found them trying their skill at long jumping.
"Come on, fellows, we are going to have a game of baseball!" he cried.
"Harry and Fred are coming, and some of the others, too."
"Whoop! That's me!" ejaculated Paul Shale. "There, beat that if you
can, Frank!" And he made an extra long jump down the garden path.
"Not to-day," laughed Frank Pemberton. "Your legs are too long for me.
But I think I can beat you at playing ball," he added.
"Can you? Come on and see," answered Paul, and running up to the picket
fence he cleared it at a bound. Frank had to go around by the gate, and
then both boys joined Joe on his way to the field where the ball game
was to come off.
When they arrived, they found Fred already there, with Bart Mason and
Link Darrow. Harry was also coming up, with several others, including
Teddy Dugan, who chanced to be in town on an errand for his father.
"Sure an' I love baseball, so I do!" cried the Irish boy, with a
twinkle of his eye. "It's meself as is goin' to be a professional
pitcher when I grow up."
"Good for Teddy!" cried Link Darrow. "Just wait till he's the leading
pitcher in the regular league at ten thousand a year, won't he be some
pumpkins?" And a laugh went up.
"Are they after payin' a ladin pitcher ten thousand a year?" asked
Teddy, curiously.
"To be sure, Teddy," answered Bart Mason. "And when they travel he gets
the best room in the hotel, and turtle soup every day for dinner."
"And a gold medal every time he strikes out a man," added Fred.
"And a diamond if he hits the umpire in the eye," came from Joe.
"Now you're pokin' fun at me!" grumbled the Irish boy. "Just the same,
I'm going to be a pitcher some day," he continued, brightening. "Mike
Leary once pitched for the Red Stockings, of Pittsfield, an' they paid
him five dollars the game. 'Twas easy money, my dad said."
All told, twelve boys had assembled, and it was speedily settled that
they should choose sides, with Fred and Joe as leaders, one having
furnished the bat and the other the ball. Fred's first choice of a
player was Harry, while Joe took Bart, and the other choices followed
rapidly. A game of five innings was arranged, with Joe's side first to
the bat.
"Here is where you go out in one, two, three order," said Fred, as he
stationed himself behind the home plate. He had put in Harry as pitcher
and Frank as first baseman. "Harry, don't you favor Joe, even if he is
your brother!" he called out.
"No favors granted or expected!" sang out Harry. "All ready?"
"Ready," answered Joe, who was the first player up.
With care Harry sent the ball in, but it was too high and Joe did not
strike at it.
"One ball!" cried out the youth who had been selected as umpire.
Again the ball came in. This time Joe struck at it and missed it.
"One strike!"
"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Fred, as he threw the ball back to the
pitcher.
Again Harry made his calculations with care. But Joe was on the alert
and as the ball came in just where he wanted it he met it fairly and
sent it sailing down to centerfield.
"Hurrah, first blood!" yelled Bart. "Leg it, Joe!" And Joe did "leg
it" for all he knew how and reached third base in safety.
"Hi, there, stop up!" called out Harry, ruefully. "Don't try to make a
home run the first thing."
"Never mind. I'll put him out at the home plate," said Fred, but he
failed to do so, and Joe came in when Bart made a safe hit to first
base.
Thus the game went on until the beginning of the third inning, when the
score stood 7 to 7.
"Sure an' it's a foin game, so it is!" cried Teddy Dugan. "It's a real
baseball club Lakeport ought to have, wid yourselves as mimbers."
"Perhaps we shall have a club," answered Joe.
Link was at the bat, and after he had made a safe hit to second, Harry
followed.
"Here comes Mr. Jadell," remarked Frank. "See that you don't hit him,
or there'll be a row."
Mr. Montgomery Jadell was the principal of the Lakeport school. He was
a fussy old gentleman, who wore a high, silk hat on all occasions and
big, gold-rimmed spectacles. Only a few of his pupils liked him, and
the majority of the lads spoke of him as Old Stovepipe behind his back.
He was a bachelor and had a maiden sister named Angelina who kept
house for him.
"Old Stovepipe is going to walk right across the ball field," came
from Paul. "Guess he is in a hurry to get home." And evidently the
schoolmaster was in a hurry for he scarcely gave the boys a look as he
passed those in the outfield.
Harry let one ball pass him and then the sphere came in just where he
wished it. Taking a step forward he swung around the bat with vigor.
There was a sharp crack! and away flew the ball over the pitcher's head
and out toward centerfield.
"Hi! hi! look out!" yelled several voices at once, and the player in
centerfield started to catch the ball. But before he could do so, it
landed fairly and squarely on the school principal's high hat, crushing
in the top of the silk tile and sending Mr. Montgomery Jadell flat on
his back on the grassy field.