The Young Pitcher by Zane Grey (popular ebook readers TXT) 📖

charged that usually he was paid for his services.

Ken's first feeling when he learned this news was one of blank dismay. The great varsity team wiped off the slate! How Place and Herne would humble old Wayne this year! Then the long, hard schedule, embracing thirty games, at least one with every good team in the East—how would an untried green team fare against that formidable array? Then Ken suddenly felt ashamed of a selfish glee, for he was now sure of a place on the varsity.

For several days nothing else was talked about by the students. Whenever Dale or his players appeared at Carlton Hall they were at once surrounded by a sympathetic crowd. If it was a bitter blow to the undergraduates, what was it to the members of the varsity? Their feeling showed in pale, stern faces. It was reported about the campus that Murray and Arthurs and Dale, with the whole team, went to the directors of the athletic faculty and besought them to change or modify the decision. Both the trainer and the coach, who had brought such glory to the university, threatened to resign their places. The disgrace of a pitiably weak team of freshmen being annihilated by minor colleges was eloquently put before the directors. But the decision was final.

One evening early in February Worry Arthurs called upon Ken. His face was long, and his mustache drooped.

“Kid, what do you think of 'em fat-heads on the faculty queerin' my team?” he asked. “Best team I ever developed. Say, but the way they could work the hit-and-run game! Any man on the team could hit to right field when there was a runner goin' down from first.”

“Maybe things will turn out all right,” suggested Ken, hopefully.

Worry regarded his youthful sympathizer with scorn.

“It takes two years to teach most college kids the rudiments of baseball. Look at this year's schedule.” Worry produced a card and waved it at Ken. “The hardest schedule Wayne ever had! And I've got to play a kid team.”

Ken was afraid to utter any more of his hopes, and indeed he felt them to be visionary.

“The call for candidates goes out to-morrow,” went on the coach. “I'll bet there'll be a mob at the cage. Every fool kid in the university will think he's sure of a place. Now, Ward, what have you played?”

“Everywhere; but infield mostly.”

“Every kid has played the whole game. What position have you played most?”

“Third base.”

“Good! You've the arm for that. Well, I'm anxious to see you work, but don't exert yourself in the cage. This is a tip. See! I'll be busy weedin' out the bunch, and won't have time until we get out on the field. You can run around the track every day, get your wind and your legs right, hold in on your arm. The cage is cold. I've seen many a good wing go to the bad there. But your chance looks good. College baseball is different from any other kind. You might say it's played with the heart. I've seen youngsters go in through grit and spirit, love of playin' for their college, and beat out fellows who were their superiors physically. Well, good-night.... Say, there's one more thing. I forgot it. Are you up in your subjects?”

“I surely am,” replied Ken. “I've had four months of nothing but study.”

“The reason I ask is this: That faculty has made another rule, the one-year residence rule, they call it. You have to pass your exams, get your first year over, before you can represent any athletic club. So, in case I can use you on the team, you would have to go up for your exams two months or more ahead of time. That scare you?”

“Not a bit. I could pass mine right now,” answered Ken, confidently.

“Kid, you and me are goin' to get along.... Well, good-night, and don't forget what I said.”

Ken was too full for utterance; he could scarcely mumble good-night to the coach. He ran up-stairs three steps to the jump, and when he reached his room he did a war dance and ended by standing on his head. When he had gotten rid of his exuberance he sat down at once to write to his brother Hal about it, and also his forest-ranger friend, Dick Leslie, with whom he had spent an adventurous time the last summer.

At Carlton Hall, next day, Ken saw a crowd of students before the bulletin-board and, edging in, he read the following notice:

 

BASEBALL!

 

CALL FOR CANDIDATES FOR THE VARSITY BASEBALL TEAM

 

The Athletic Directors of the University earnestly request every student who can play ball, or who thinks he can, to present himself to Coach Arthurs at the Cage on Feb. 3rd.

 

There will be no freshman team this year, and a new team entirely will be chosen for the varsity. Every student will have a chance. Applicants are requested to familiarize themselves with the new eligibility rules.

 

The Cage

Ken Ward dug down into his trunk for his old baseball suit and donned it with strange elation. It was dirty and torn, and the shoes that went with it were worn out, but Ken was thinking of what hard ball-playing they represented. He put his overcoat on over his sweater, took up his glove and sallied forth.

A thin coating of ice and snow covered the streets. Winter still whistled in the air. To Ken in his eagerness spring seemed a long way off. On his way across the campus he saw strings of uniformed boys making for Grant Field, and many wearing sweaters over their every-day clothes. The cage was situated at one end of the field apart from the other training-quarters. When Ken got there he found a mob of players crowding to enter the door of the big barn-like structure. Others were hurrying away. Near the door a man was taking up tickets like a doorkeeper of a circus, and he kept shouting: “Get your certificates from the doctor. Every player must pass a physical examination. Get your certificates.”

Ken turned somewhat in disgust at so much red tape and he jostled into a little fellow, almost knocking him over.

“Wull! Why don't you fall all over me?” growled this amiable individual. “For two cents I'd hand you one.”

The apology on Ken's lips seemed to halt of its own accord.

“Sorry I haven't any change in these clothes,” returned Ken. He saw a wiry chap, older than he was, but much smaller, and of most aggressive front. He had round staring eyes, a protruding jaw, and his mouth turned down at the corners. He wore a disreputable uniform and a small green cap over one ear.

“Aw! don't get funny!” he replied.

Ken moved away muttering to himself: “That fellow's a grouch.” Much to his amazement, when he got to the training-house, Ken found that he could not get inside because so many players were there ahead of him. After waiting an hour or more he decided he could not have his physical examination at that time, and he went back to the cage. The wide door was still blocked with players, but at the other end of the building Ken found an entrance. He squeezed into a crowd of students and worked forward until stopped by a railing.

Ken was all eyes and breathless with interest. The cage was a huge, open, airy room, lighted by many windows, and, with the exception of the platform where he stood, it was entirely enclosed by heavy netting. The floor was of bare ground well raked and loosened to make it soft. This immense hall was full of a motley crowd of aspiring ball-players.

Worry Arthurs, with his head sunk in the collar of his overcoat, and his shoulders hunched up as if he was about to spring upon something, paced up and down the rear end of the cage. Behind him a hundred or more players in line slowly marched toward the slab of rubber which marked the batting position. Ken remembered that the celebrated coach always tried out new players at the bat first. It was his belief that batting won games.

“Bunt one and hit one!” he yelled to the batters.

From the pitcher's box a lanky individual was trying to locate the plate. Ken did not need a second glance to see that this fellow was no pitcher.

“Stop posin', and pitch!” yelled Arthurs.

One by one the batters faced the plate, swung valiantly or wildly at balls and essayed bunts. Few hit the ball out and none made a creditable bunt. After their turn at bat they were ordered to the other end of the cage, where they fell over one another trying to stop the balls that were hit. Every few moments the coach would yell for one of them, any one, to take a turn at pitching. Ken noticed that Arthurs gave a sharp glance at each new batter, and one appeared to be sufficient. More and more ambitious players crowded into the cage, until there were so many that batted balls rarely missed hitting some one.

Presently Ken Ward awoke from his thrilling absorption in the scene to note another side of it. The students around him were making game of the players.

“What a bunch!”

“Look at that fuzzy gosling with the yellow pants!”

“Keep your shanks out of the way, Freshie!”

“Couldn't hit a balloon!”

Whenever a batter hit a ball into the crowd of dodging players down the cage these students howled with glee. Ken discovered that he was standing near Captain Dale and other members of the barred varsity.

“Say, Dale, how do the candidates shape up?” asked a student.

“This is a disgrace to Wayne,” declared Dale, bitterly. “I never saw such a mob of spindle-legged kids in my life. Look at them! Scared to death! That fellow never swung at a ball before—that one never heard of a bunt—they throw like girls—Oh! this is sickening, fellows. I see where Worry goes to his grave this year and old Wayne gets humbled by one-horse colleges.”

Ken took one surprised glance at the captain he had admired so much and then he slipped farther over in the crowd. Perhaps Dale had spoken truth, yet somehow it jarred upon Ken's sensitive nature. The thing that affected Ken most was the earnestness of the uniformed boys trying their best to do well before the great coach. Some were timid, uncertain; others were rash and over-zealous. Many a ball cracked off a player's knee or wrist, and more than once Ken saw a bloody finger. It was cold in the cage. Even an ordinarily hit ball must have stung the hands, and the way a hard grounder cracked was enough to excite sympathy among those scornful spectators, if nothing more. But they yelled in delight at every fumble, at everything that happened. Ken kept whispering to himself: “I can't see the fun in it. I can't!”

Arthurs dispensed with the bunting and ordered one hit each for the batters. “Step up and hit!” he ordered, hoarsely. “Don't be afraid—never mind that crowd—step into the ball and swing natural.... Next! Hurry, boys!”

Suddenly a deep-chested student yelled out with a voice that drowned every other sound.

“Hard luck, Worry! No use! You'll never find a hitter among those misfits!”

The coach actually leaped up in his anger and his face went from crimson to white. Ken thought it was likely that he recognized the voice.

“You knocker! You knocker!” he cried. “That's a fine college spirit, ain't it? You're a fine lot of students, I don't think. Now shut up, every one of you, or I'll fire you out of the cage.... And right here at the start you knockers take this from me—I'll find more than one hitter among those kids!”

A little silence fell while the coach faced that antagonistic crowd of spectators. Ken was amazed the second time, and now because of the intensity of feeling that seemed to hang in the air. Ken felt a warm rush go over