BEN MYATT ADVISES
If, however, Starling Meyer had heard Jimmy’s version of that encounter
with Dud, he certainly gave no sign. When he and Dud met, which was
frequently now that daily baseball practice was going on in the
cage, he either looked over Dud’s head or deigned him a fleeting and
disdainful glance. But Dud didn’t feel at all badly because he received
no more attention. In fact, he was extremely glad every time he looked
at Star and pondered on that youth’s wealth of muscle and length of
arm, and he hoped from the bottom of his heart that Star would keep
right on treating him with distant disdain――the more distant the better!
Meanwhile Jimmy, being a firm believer in preparedness, had procured
two pairs of light-weight boxing gloves from different sources and Dud,
much against his inclination, was made to don a pair every day before
supper and do his best to master the rudiments of self-defense. I don’t
believe, just between you and me, that Jimmy knew a whole lot about
boxing, but at least he knew more than his friend did. Dud was the
veriest tyro and those first lessons, undertaken by Dud with no relish
and one might well say under compulsion, were strange affairs. With
the study table drawn back to the length of the green cord connecting
droplight and ceiling plug――the droplight met a natural fate during the
third lesson――an eight-foot “ring” was secured, and in this, with much
thudding of shoes and thumping of gloves, the two feinted and parried
and struck. The striking, though, was somewhat one-sided at first,
Jimmy being the striker and Dud the strikee, to coin a convenient word.
Anyone pausing outside the door of Number 19 might have heard, in spite
of the closed transom, a conversation calculated to arouse curiosity.
“Watch your head now!... Well, I warned you, didn’t I?... Keep your
right in front of you! Don’t drop your arm like that or.... Now
lead! Quick! Oh, put some pep in it, Dud!... More like this; see?...
Feint with your right and come up quick with your left straight for
my chin!... Get it? Try it again.... That’s better, only you’re too
slow. You give it away beforehand. Keep your eyes on mine and don’t
look where you’re going to hit.... Sorry, Dud! Was it too hard?... You
had your guard down, you see.... Quicker on your feet, old chap! Keep
moving! Don’t get set or I’ll.... I just wanted to show you what would
happen, Dud. Don’t get mad about it. The only way to learn.... Good
one! You got me that time! Right on the nose! Bully work!...”
After some half-dozen lessons Dud began to learn. And Jimmy, having
procured a paper-covered book in the village which was entitled “Boxing
Self-Taught,” studied it diligently and became more proficient. I
doubt that Jimmy, even when at his best, was what might be termed a
scientific boxer, and Dud never developed beyond the hammer-and-tongs
stage, but they got to fancying themselves quite a bit after a
fortnight or so and talked learnedly of “hooks” and “upper-cuts” and
“side-stepping” and other mysterious things. And by that time Dud
had become really interested and viewed Star Meyer with far less
awe. In fact, though I grieve to relate it, he even got to the point
where he speculated on what it would feel like to place his fist in
violent contact with Star’s supercilious nose! The conclusion that
he invariably arrived at was that the sensation would be distinctly
pleasurable! But much to Jimmy’s disappointment――and a little to Dud’s,
too, I fancy――Star offered the latter no possible excuse for doing such
a thing.
“He’s afraid of you,” grieved Jimmy. “Isn’t that the limit? A big,
husky chap like him――――”
“He,” corrected Dud.
“――――Being afraid of a fellow six inches smaller,” continued the other,
superbly disregarding the interruption. “Wouldn’t it make you weary?
What we’ve got to do, Dud, is force a quarrel on him. There’s no use
waiting for him to start anything!”
“Well, but why?” asked Dud doubtfully. “As long as he isn’t bothering
me――――”
“He _is_ bothering you! He――he’s a thorn in your flesh!”
“Oh!” said the other vaguely. “Is he?”
“Of course he is! He’s talking, too. Some of the things he’s said have
got back to me.”
“What?” asked Dud.
“Never mind what. You wouldn’t want to hear ’em, I guess.”
Dud laughed. “You’re making that up, Jimmy,” he charged. “You’re just
dying to get me into a scrap with him. I wouldn’t mind――much, although
I guess he’d lick me, but I don’t see any use in fighting him about
nothing. Of course, if he _did_ anything, or _said_ anything――――”
“Haven’t I been telling you――――”
“And I heard him say it,” added Dud hastily, “why, that would be
different.”
“Oh, if you’re going to wait for him to knock you down!”
“I’m not,” replied Dud indignantly, “but I can’t fight him for nothing
at all!”
“Huh!” Jimmy viewed his chum gloomily. “I don’t see what use it is then
to go to all that trouble to learn to fight if――if you aren’t going to
make use of――of your knowledge. That’s an economical waste, Dud. And
waste is sinful.”
“It isn’t a waste,” said Dud. “It’s a good thing to know how to defend
yourself. Besides, that boxing business has put my arm back in shape
for pitching. It feels great nowadays. Just feel of that muscle, Jimmy.”
“Not bad,” decided the other, grudgingly. Then, more brightly: “Say,
you ought to be able to hand Star a peach of a wallop with that, Dud!
Well, all we can do is hope for the best. We don’t want to fight, but
if we have to――――”
“We?” queried Dud. “I don’t see where you come into it! You’re always
talking about ‘we’ fighting Star Meyer, but it’s me――――”
“I,” said Jimmy sweetly.
“It’s I, then, who would have to do it. If you want Star licked so
plaguey much why don’t you do it yourself?”
Jimmy considered a moment. “Well, say, that isn’t a bad idea,” he
replied at last. “Someone ought to do it, that’s sure! If you’re quite
certain you don’t mind――――”
“I’m dead sure,” said Dud emphatically.
“Then maybe――――” Jimmy felt of his arm muscles. “I’ll think it over,”
he concluded thoughtfully.
Baseball practice had by this time really become baseball practice.
I mean by that that the period of dumb-bell exercises and setting-up
drills had passed and the candidates, reënforced by some dozen or so
late-comers, were passing and batting and learning the tricks of the
game. The battery candidates comprised Nate Leddy, Ben Myatt, Gus
Weston, Will Brunswick, Joe Kelly and Dud Baker, pitchers, and Pete
Gordon, Hal Cherry and Ed Brooks, catchers. Of the pitchers, Myatt was
last year’s star and a clever twirler, Leddy was a good man but not
so dependable. Weston had speed but little control, and the others
were still unknown quantities, except that both Kelly and Dud had
twirled a few times for the second nine the spring before. Pete Gordon
was the regular catcher and Brooks the second-choice man. Cherry was
a beginner who showed promise. At the end of the first two weeks of
indoor work, the battery candidates were given their first try-out one
afternoon at the conclusion of the regular practice, and Dud, somewhat
to his surprise, survived. Still, as Jimmy kindly pointed out to him
later, that didn’t mean much since it was the custom to keep all the
would-be pitchers until the team got out of doors. Nevertheless, Dud
was encouraged and did his level best to make good. Myatt, a big,
likable chap of eighteen or over, took a real interest in the efforts
of the younger members of the staff and was generous with advice and
instruction. One afternoon, shortly before the candidates got out-doors
for the first time, he took Dud in hand after practice.
“Say, Baker,” Ben called as Dud was leaving the cage, “got time to
pitch me a few?”
Dud, pulling his glove off, turned back. “Why, yes,” he answered. “Want
me to?”
“Yes. Yell to Ed Brooks to lend me his mitt, will you?” A minute later
Ben took his place in front of the net and thumped the big mitten
encouragingly. “All right now, boy! Try a few easy ones. That’s nice. I
say, Baker, mind if I give you a hint or two?”
“I’d be awfully glad if you would,” replied Dud eagerly. “I know I’m
not much good.”
“Who says so?”
“I do.” Dud smiled.
But Ben shook his head reprovingly. “You ought to be the last one to
say it,” he announced gravely. “First thing you want to do, boy, is
stop tying yourself in a knot on your wind-up. You’ll never last nine
innings if you go through all that gymnastic stuff. What’s the big
idea?”
“I don’t know,” faltered Dud. “That’s the way I’ve always done it, I
suppose.”
“Well, I wouldn’t do it any more. You see if you can’t reach the
toe-plate without going through so many motions. Cut out that second
swing of yours, why don’t you? Here’s you.” Ben went through an
exaggerated imitation of Dud’s wind-up. “Too much work, see? If you had
a man on second, now, you couldn’t do half that, boy; he’d be sliding
into the plate before you were through. Get your body into it and stop
throwing your arm around. It’s the body that puts the speed into the
ball. You want to start easy and work up gradually until, when the ball
leaves your hand, you’re at the top of the pitch. The way you do it,
Baker, you get a lot of motion up and then lose it before you pitch.
And you tire yourself a lot. I couldn’t last five innings if I threw my
arms around like that. I hope you don’t mind my criticizing you, Baker.”
Dud didn’t, and tried to say so, but his response was not much more
than a murmur. However, Ben went on cheerfully.
“Just at first you won’t have the control you have now, I guess, but
after you’ve got on to the hang of it you’ll find you can pitch a lot
easier. Just try it, will you?”
Dud’s first attempt was a complete failure, for he started unthinkingly
on that second swing, tried to stop it and got so confused that he
didn’t even let the ball out of his hand. Ben suggested getting used
to the wind-up before trying to pitch, and so Dud twirled and twisted a
number of times, uncomfortably conscious of the few loiterers watching
through the netting, and finally got so that he was able to reach the
moment of delivery without falling over his feet. But when he tried to
pitch a few straight balls into Ben Myatt’s mitten he discovered that
the change in his method had seemingly spoiled his direction, for more
than once Ben had to reach for a wide one or else scoop one off the
floor.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Ben. “You’ll get your eye back again.
That’s enough for now, I guess. There’s one more thing I’d suggest,
though, Baker. You’re trying to pitch too many different things. You
were hooking them in and out and dropping them and trying to float
’em, too. You don’t need all that, boy. Not yet, anyhow. You take my
advice and learn to pitch a good straight ball. Get so you can send it
high, low, in or out or right in the groove. Then learn to change your
pace without giving it away to the batsman. After that there’s plenty
of time for drops and hooks. I tell you, Baker, the fellow that has
control is the fellow the batters hate to stand up to. This thing of
having fifty-seven varieties of balls doesn’t cut much ice, old man.”
Ben opened the door and gently pushed Dud out ahead of him and they
went across to the locker-room. “A chap who can tease the batter with
the straight ones, slip one across for a strike now and then, follow
a fast one with a slow one and do it all without changing his style
is the fellow who wins his games. I’m not saying hooks and floaters
and all those aren’t useful, for they are, but I do say that when a
fellow’s beginning he ought to pin his faith to just one thing, and
that’s control. Don’t be worried if they hit you hard at first; they’re
bound to; but just keep on learning to put ’em where you want to, and
the first thing you know you’ll be fooling them worse than the curve
artist. Practice that new wind-up, boy, and cut out all the unnecessary
gee-gaws that just use up your strength. Nine innings is a whole month
sometimes and it’s the very dickens to feel your muscles getting sore
along about the sixth. So long, Baker. Good luck.”
Dud thought it over while he stood under the shower and while he pulled
on his clothes. Maybe Ben Myatt was right, he reflected, but he was a
bit proud of his ability to “put something on the ball” and confining
himself to straight ones didn’t sound interesting. For a moment he
wondered if Ben was trying to steer him away from his hooks and drops
so that he wouldn’t prove a rival. Then the absurdity of that suspicion
dawned and he smiled at it. In the first place, Ben wouldn’t be in
school another year, and in the second place Dud was certain that he
would never be able to pitch as Ben could if he kept at it all his
life! In the end, by which time he was tying his scarf in front of one
of the little mirrors, he decided that Ben’s advice was excellent and
that he would follow it, for a while at least.
The next afternoon, Hal Cherry, catching Dud and Kelly, looked a trifle
surprised and a bit disgusted, too, when Dud’s delivery suddenly
exhibited a strange eccentricity. Cherry had to spear the air in
all directions that day, and Mr. Sargent, watching and counseling
the fellows, followed Dud’s doings with dubious eyes. Nor was Dud
perceptibly more steady the day following, and Brooks, who caught him,
protested more than once. By that time Dud was getting discouraged and
was strongly tempted to go back to his former more elaborate and far
more labored wind-up, and would have done so probably had it not been
for Ben Myatt’s brief encouragement after practice.
“Haven’t got the hang of it yet, I see, Baker,” remarked the veteran.
“Keep on, though. It’ll come to you in another day or two, I guess. Try
not to slow up just before your pitch, boy. That’s your trouble now.”
Pondering that hint, Dud hauled Jimmy out of bed early the next morning
and conducted him out back of the dormitory, where, stationed midway
between two windows, he made cheerful efforts to get his hands on the
balls that Dud pitched him. Many of them, however, bounded unchallenged
from the bricks and trickled back to Dud. One particularly wild heave
came so near a window that Dud shivered, pocketed the ball and led the
way back to the room.
“If,” said Jimmy disgustedly, on the way, “that’s a sample of what you
can do with this simplified wind-up you’re telling about you’d better
go back to the old stuff. There’s nothing in it, Dud!”
“I’m going to stick it out a bit longer, though,” was the answer. “Ben
says it will take time, Jimmy.”
“Yes, and patience,” said Jimmy sarcastically, “the catcher supplying
the patience. After you’ve ‘beaned’ a few batters, Dud, they’ll put you
in jail as a danger to the community. I’m glad I don’t have to stand up
to you!”
Two days after that, March having departed very lamb-like, the cage was
abandoned and outdoor practice began.