THE MAN TO PITCH
To the left of the bench, which was set well back against the railing
in front of the third-base bleachers, on which a carload of Bancroft
fans were bunched, Jock Hoover, the star slabman of the team, was
warming up with Bingo Bangs, the catcher.
Hoover, speedy, pugnacious, with an arm of iron, the face of a Caliban,
and the truculence of an Attila, was well calculated to inspire respect
and fear when on the mound; and his mid-season acquirement by Bancroft
the year before had doubtless fixed that team in first position, and
marked the assured downfall of Kingsbridge, against whom he was most
frequently worked.
In Bancroft, Hoover was admired and toadied; in Kingsbridge he was most
cordially hated. More than once his intimidating methods on the latter
field had come perilously close to producing a riot, which, had it ever
started among the mill men, must have been a nasty affair.
Never in the most threatening moments of the rough crowd’s clamoring,
however, had Hoover turned a hair. Always through it all he had sneered
and grinned contemptuously, apparently inviting assault, and showing
disappointment when the better element among the crowd, who cared for
the sport as a sport, and knew the harm to the game that a pitched
battle must bring, succeeded in holding the hot-headed and reckless
ones in check.
Biting off the end of his cigar, Riley stood watching Hoover
meditatively. Out on the field the locals were getting in the last
snappy bit of preliminary practice, and the game would begin in a few
minutes. The manager’s eyes had left Hoover and sought “Butch” Prawley,
one of the other two pitchers, when a hand touched his arm, and some
one spoke to him. Rolling his head toward his shoulder, he saw “Fancy”
Dyke standing on the other side of the rail.
Francis Dyke, a young sporting man of Bancroft, was one of the backers
of the team. To him a baseball game on which he had not placed a wager
worth while was necessarily slow and uninteresting, even though well
fought and contested to the finish. Son of a horseman who had won and
lost big sums on the turf, Fancy, apparently inheriting the gaming
instinct, had turned to baseball with the decline of racing. His
nickname came through his taste for flashy clothes.
“Don’t you do it,” said Dyke, vapory bits of bluish cigarette smoke
curling from his thin lips as he spoke.
“Do what?” grunted Riley in surprise.
“Run in Prawley. You were thinking of letting Hoover squat on the
bench.”
“How’d you know that?” asked the manager, still more surprised.
“Saw it on your face.”
“If my mug gives me away in that fashion, I’ll trade it for another,”
growled Mike, in displeasure. “But why not pitch Prawley? He can
swaller that bunch, one after another, without greasin’. This is our
first game here, and Jock ain’t so pop’ler in this town.”
“What do you care about that? It’s our first game here, and we want it,
to hold first place. If they should happen to trim us to-day, they’d
have us tied.”
With the mutilated and lifeless cigar gripped in his coarse teeth,
Riley pulled down the corners of his big mouth disdainfully. “Trim
us――with that bunch of scrubs and has-beens! Why, they couldn’t do it
if I went in and pitched myself.”
“Take it from me, ’tain’t wise to be so cocksure. I’ve been watching
their new pitcher warm up. He’s a southpaw.”
“And a green one from the scrub pastures somewhere. The boys will send
him to the stable in about three innin’s.”
“Perhaps. But I walked over in range while he was limbering his
flinger, and he’s got a few good benders, not to mention some speed.
You don’t want to forget that we’ve got five left-hand batters, and a
southpaw that can really pitch may bother ’em some. I reckon that’s
just why they’ve raked in this feller Locke.”
“Don’t you b’lieve it. Just spoke to Hutch about him, and Hutch don’t
know no more’n you or me. Old Cope signed Locke and the most of the
team, and he’d never figger on a lefty worryin’ us because we’ve got so
many left-hand hitters.”
“That,” persisted Dyke, “don’t alter the conditions any. This Locke
stopped Fryeburg after they blanketed Deever, and Kingsbridge wants
this game to-day――_bad_. I’ve heard some of the Bridgers talkin’, and
they’re plenty confident, thinking they’ve got a wiz in this southpaw
kid.
“To-morrow’s Sunday, and Hoover can rest,” he added. “He’s hard as
nails, and you won’t hurt him, even if you have to use him again
Monday. Always play the game safe when you can――that’s my motto. I’ll
take chances, all right, if I have to, but I’ve never yet let my
conscience fret me into ducking a bet on a sure thing. Hoover is the
Kinks’ hoodoo, and it ought to be pretty safe with him handing ’em.”
“Safe,” gurgled Riley, highly amused. “I should guess yes. They think
they’ve got some players, but, with Hutchinson furnishin’ only four out
of the ’leven men they have, as he told me, and Cope diggin’ up the
rest, most of ’em holdovers from last year, it’s a joke.
“Why, I let old Cope have Pat Deever, though he thinks he got Deever
away from me. Just as I was about to close with Pat, I got it straight
that he’d put his wing on the blink for fair, and, by pretendin’ I was
hot after Deever all the time, I helped him make a fancy deal with Cope.
“Pat was batted out by the Brownies after fooling ’em along to the
seventh with a slow ball that made him sweat drops of blood ev’ry time
he boosted it over the pan; but he’s foxy, and he’ll manage to hang
on by bluffing ’em that his arm’ll come round soon, see if he don’t,”
added Riley. “The only pitcher they’ve got is Skillings, and even he’s
frappéd his wing, pitchin’ the drop all the time, which he has to, as
he’s a mark when he lets up on it.”
“You’re manager,” said Fancy, “and I’m not trying to show you; but I
hope you’ll play safe by sending Hoover out to start with. If it proves
so easy, you can pull him out when you see the game is clinched.”
“All right. Jock’s name is on the battin’ order, and I’ll let him start
her off.”