THE DETECTIVE DONS A MASK
Almost every day after that Tom and Mr. George spent the half-hour
preceding dinner in the side-yard. Frequently the half-hour lengthened
into three-quarters and the two had to brave Mrs. Tully’s coldly
disapproving glances when they sought the table. Tom, though, was
too happy to mind, while Mr. George seemed always quite unconscious
of having transgressed a rule of the house. The more Tom saw of
the detective the better he liked him. When they were together Mr.
George--Tom discovered in time that his full name was Benjamin Culloden
George--forgot that he was nearly forty-five, and made Tom forget
it, too. He was jolly and full of jokes, infinitely patient while
instructing Tom in the mysteries of the in-shoot or the drop ball, and
a veritable mine of anecdotes of the playing field. And, best of all,
he was able to impart what he knew about pitching a baseball, as able
to teach as Tom was eager to learn. And Tom learned, too, putting his
whole heart and soul into mastering the intricacies of pitching. Once
Mr. George said to him:
“One thing I like about you, Tom, is you don’t say you understand when
you don’t. You make me tell it all over again and then you go and do
it. Lots of folks will say they know what you mean and then show that
they haven’t got any idea!”
“I guess I’m kind of stupid about that wrist work,” said Tom
apologetically. “I--I don’t get the hang of it very well.”
“Don’t you worry, it’ll come to you. It just takes practice, lots
of practice. After awhile you’ll be snapping the ball away without
knowing you’re doing it. Now you try again. Never mind about putting
it over the plate; just throw at the fence. Snap her under now! That
was better. Oh, never mind where the ball went. We don’t care about
that--yet. See what I mean about the snap, don’t you?”
“I see what you mean, all right, but I can’t get it--yet.”
“That’s the idea! You can’t get it--_yet_. That means that you know you
will get it finally, eh? Sure! Now, always remember that a ball curves
the way you pinch it. It’s that pinch that gives the drag to it as it
leaves your hand. The more drag the more spin, and the more spin the
more curve. Only you don’t ever want to pitch an in-curve, Tom. You
see, you’ve got to start it off with a round-arm delivery and that puts
the batter on every time. He knows what’s coming, do you see? And he
lams it! But if you give him an in-shoot he can’t tell what it’s going
to be because an in-shoot starts off like any other ball. Curve ’em
wide to the out, if you want to, but don’t do any ‘barrel-hoops’ on the
in. One more now.”
Mr. George was very strict about one thing, and that was not allowing
Tom to overwork his arm. “Stop just as soon as it begins to heat up,”
he would say. Often Tom begged to be allowed to continue when that
condition of affairs was reached, but the detective was firm on that
point. “Nothing doing, Tom. That’ll be all for this time. You can’t
afford to monkey with a good arm like that.”
By the first week in May, Tom knew how to pitch an out-shoot and
in-shoot and a drop. I say he knew how, but I don’t affirm that he
always succeeded, for he didn’t. This discouraged him at times, but
Mr. George only laughed. “Why, Tom, if you could do what you wanted to
with that ball every time, you’d be a--a sort of infant prodigy that
you read about! How old are you, anyway?”
“Sixteen and a half.”
“Well, that half may help some,” laughed the detective. “But you’ve got
several years ahead of you yet before you’ll reach top-form, son. Why,
I couldn’t do as well as you’re doing when I was seventeen!”
At which Tom took comfort. Tom had read or heard of many more
deliveries, such as the “fade-away,” the “knuckle-ball,” the “floater,”
and the “spit-ball,” and was eager to have Mr. George show him about
them. But his teacher put it off. “I can’t pitch a ‘spit-ball’ myself,
Tom,” he said. “That came along after I quit the game. I know how
it’s done and some day we’ll have a try at it. Same way with the
‘knuckle-ball’ and a lot of the other ‘freaks.’ What you want to do now
is to learn control. You’ve got enough to start on; three good breaks
and a straight ball is enough for any pitcher. After that it’s just
a matter of putting the ball where you want it, fooling the batter,
teasing him with the wide ones, sneaking in the good ones under his
nose, changing your pace, and having him hit too soon. Oh, there’s a
lot in the pitching game besides just curving the pellet, son! Why, I
knew a fellow once, Purdy of the old Bristol team it was, who didn’t
have a thing on the ball except an out-shoot, ‘two fingers only’ we
used to say. Of course he knew others, but they wouldn’t work for him.
Well, that old side-wheeler used to go into the box and have them
eating out of his hand! Yes, sir, he just used his head, Gus did, and
the way he’d serve ’em what they didn’t want and make ’em bite at
’em was a caution! Why, fellows used to say that they’d rather go up
against almost any of the big-uns than Gus Purdy when Gus was really
pitching! You want to remember that there’s all kinds of hitters in
the world: hitters that want them high and hitters that like ’em low
and hitters that will reach for ’em and hitters that won’t. And here’s
another thing, Tom. Bear in mind that the plate is only a pretty narrow
contrivance after all, but that the distance from a man’s knee to his
shoulder is something like three feet. Get that?”
“You mean it’s better to pitch for up and down position than
for--for----”
“Right-o! You get me! You’ve got more room up and down than you have
across. Learn to put them just about where you want to from knee to
shoulder. That worries a batter more than having ’em come to him near
or wide. But you’ve got to study your man, son. It always seemed to me
that the best of the pitchers in my time were sort of mind readers.
Some of ’em just seemed to know what the batter was thinking and what
he was looking for. Yes, sir, there’s a lot more to it than just
pitching the ball!”
Frequently, Tom went down to Mr. George’s room on the second floor and
listened breathlessly while the former minor leaguer told of exciting
battles on the diamond or of queer experiences he had met with. There
was always much practical advice mixed up with the stories, and this
Tom imbibed thirstily. How or when his pitching ability was to prove
of use to him he did not know, for there was certainly no present
prospect; but his enthusiasm never waned. Day after day, save such
times as the detective was away or Tom was detained late at the store,
the two spent the half-hour before dinner in the side-yard. There,
masked and mitted, Mr. George stood behind the plate--a slab of wood
of the correct dimensions had long ago taken the place of the barrel
lid--and caught the balls that Tom hurled to him. Sometimes, and this
was when Sidney had gone to some party or entertainment to which all
his persuasion failed to entice Tom along, there was an extra session
after dinner. On such occasions there was invariably an interested
audience of at least one, the one being Mr. Tully.
Mr. George was drilling Tom in control now and it was a good deal
like hard work. They had made up a set of signals and Tom, ball in
hand, would watch Mr. George’s fingers laid across the back of his big
mitten and then do his best to put the ball over where it was wanted.
High balls that cut the inner corner of the plate, high balls that
passed over the middle of it, high balls that cut the outer corner,
followed each other. Sometimes they were slow and sometimes fast. Mr.
George was always calling for a change of pace. After the high balls
came “waisters” and then low ones, and finally, as Tom’s control
progressed, Mr. George would “mix them up.”
“Here’s a ‘chopper,’” he would announce, referring to the mythical
batsman. “What you going to give him, Tom?”
And Tom, winding up, would put the ball over the plate knee-high.
“That’s the ticket! Now here’s a ‘swinger,’ Tom.” Whereupon Tom would
serve a waist ball that passed across the inside of the plate.
“Strike! Sneak one over on him now.”
A fast ball, between shoulder and waist, would follow and Mr. George
would triumphantly announce another strike. “And now let’s get rid of
him, Tom!”
And Tom, his imagination almost visualising the non-existent ‘swinger,’
would, with a sudden change of pace, pitch a slow one straight over the
centre of the plate, and:
“Striker’s out!” Mr. George would declare.
Once they enlisted the services of Mr. Fales, a head clerk in Miller
and Tappen’s shipping department, to stand at the plate with a bat and
strike at the balls as they went by. He had explicit directions not to
hit it, and probably didn’t intend to, but he did finally and the ball
passed through an open window in the parlour and demolished the glass
in the framed picture of Washington Crossing the Delaware. After that
they got along with less realism.
Tom pitched with very little “wind-up,” a fact which Mr. George greatly
relished. One swing of his right arm, a short poise on the right foot,
and then a long step forward and a good carry-through with arm and
body. That was Tom’s style, and Mr. George declared he couldn’t better
it. “I’m not saying that a hard ‘wind-up’ may not give more speed, but
there’s a lot of lost effort in it. Besides that, it gives a runner
a fine chance to steal on you. Why, I’ve seen three men in one game
steal home on a pitcher with a long ‘wind-up.’ Nowadays, with a fast
runner on bases, the pitcher cuts out the ‘wind-up’ and pitches from
the shoulder, not taking any chances, but what’s the good of learning
to pitch one way if you’ve got to pitch another way a dozen times in
a game? Not that I’d advise a man who’d learned to pitch with a long
‘wind-up’ to change his style, though. I wouldn’t. But I say to a
fellow who’s just learning: Go through as few motions as you can. You
notice I always twist myself into a bunch. It never did me any good,
except maybe it let me pitch a faster ball. Control’s the thing, Tom,
and it’s usually the pitcher who keeps his feet on the ground most who
has it best. Anyway, that’s how it seems to me.”
Meanwhile, the high school team had struggled through the first three
games of its schedule, losing two and winning one. So far neither
Farrar nor Williams had shown enough stamina to pitch the full nine
innings, and Sidney reported that Mr. Talbot was getting rather
discouraged. Tom had not yet found an opportunity to see a game
played, for business at the store was pretty brisk and he hesitated to
ask for an afternoon off. Such an afternoon came, though, and in an
unlooked-for way.