Weatherby's Inning: A Story of College Life and Baseball

“I’m not a baseball enthusiast, as I’ve acknowledged, but I am an Erskine enthusiast, fellows. Perkins says we ought to beat Robinson at baseball. I say let’s do it! I say let’s beat Robinson at everything. If anybody will start a parchesi club I’ll go along and stand by and yell while they down the Robinson parchesi club. That’s what Providence made Robinson for – to be beaten. Providence looked over the situation and said: ‘There’s Erskine, with nothing to beat.’ Then Providence made Robinson. And we started in and beat her. And we’ve been beating her ever since – when she hasn’t beaten us.

“I’ve done a whole lot of talking here this evening, and I guess you’re all tired of it.” (There was loud and continued dissent at this point, interspersed with cries of “Good old Tidball!”) “But I promised to talk, and I like to give good measure. But the time for talking is about up. Mr. Hanson has something to say to you, and as he knows what he’s going to talk about, whereas I don’t know what I’m talking about, I guess I’d better stop and give him a show. But before I stop I want to point out a self-evident fact, fellows. You can’t win from Robinson without a baseball team, and you can’t have a baseball team unless you dig down in your pockets and pay up. Manager Patterson says the Baseball Association needs the sum of six hundred dollars. Well, let’s give it to ’em. Any fellow here to-night who thinks a victory over Robinson isn’t worth six hundred dollars is invited to stand up and walk out; we’ll unlock the door for him. Six hundred dollars means only about one dollar for each fellow. I am requested to state that after Mr. Hanson has spoken his piece a few of the best-looking men among us will pass through the audience with small cards upon which every man is asked to write his name and the amount he is willing to contribute to secure a victory over Robinson that will make last year’s score look like an infinitesimal fraction. If some one will go through the motions, I’d like to propose three long Erskines, three times three and three long Erskines for the nine.”

Anthony bowed and sat down. The senior class president sprang to his feet, and the next moment the hall was thunderous with the mighty cheers that followed his “One, two, three!” Then came calls of “Tidball! Tidball!” and again the slogan was taken up. It was fully five minutes ere the head coach arose. And when he in turn stood at the platform’s edge the cheers began once more, for enthusiasm reigned at last.

Hanson realized that further speechmaking was idle and confined his remarks to an indorsement of what Anthony had said. The distribution of blank slips of paper had already begun and his audience paid but little attention to his words, although it applauded good-naturedly. When he had ended, promising on behalf of the team, and in return for the support of the college, the best efforts of players and coaches, confusion reigned supreme. Pencils and fountain pens were passed hither and thither, jokes were bandied, songs were sung, and the tumult increased with the pushing aside of chairs and the scraping of feet as the meeting began to break up. But, though some left as soon as they had filled out their pledges, the greater number flocked into noisy groups and awaited the announcement of the result.

At length, Professor Nast accepted the slip of paper handed him by Patterson and advanced to the edge of the platform. There, he raised a hand for attention, and at the same time glanced at the figures. An expression of incredulity overspread his face, and he turned an inquiring look upon the manager. The latter smiled and nodded, as though to dispel the professor’s doubts. The hubbub died away, and the professor faced the meeting again.

“I am asked,” he said, “to announce the result of the – ah – subscription. Where every one has responded so promptly and so heartily to the appeal in behalf of the association, it would be, perhaps, unfair to give the names of any who have been exceptionally generous. But without doing so it remains a pleasant – ah – privilege to state that among the subscriptions there is one of fifty dollars – ”

Loud applause greeted this announcement, and fellows of notoriously empty pocket-books were accused by their friends of being the unnamed benefactor, and invariably acknowledged the impeachment with profuse expressions of modesty.

“Three of twenty-five dollars,” continued the professor, “six of ten dollars, seventeen of five dollars, and many of two dollars and over. The total subscription, strange as it may seem, reaches the sum of five hundred and ninety-nine dollars, one dollar less than the amount asked for!”

There was a moment of silent surprise. Then, from somewhere at the left of the room, a voice cried: “Here you are, then!” and something went spinning through the air. The head coach leaped forward, caught it deftly, and held it aloft. It was a shining silver dollar.

“Thank you,” he said.

The incident tickled the throng, and cheers and laughter struggled for supremacy. Jack pushed his way to the door, and remained there waiting for Anthony, one hand groping lonesomely in a trouser pocket where a minute or two before had snuggled his last coin.

CHAPTER XVI

JACK COURTS THE MUSE

April passed into May, and uncertain skies gave way to placid expanses of blue, whereon soft fluffs of white moved slowly, blown by warm and gentle winds. Down at the boat-house, bare-legged and bare-headed, men filed across the floats, bearing the slender, glinting shells, or, with hands on oars, bent and unbent in unison to the sharp commands of important and diminutive coxswains; on the newly rolled cinder-track other men sped or jogged, heads well back and knees high, with white trunks fluttering in the breeze; in front of the stand the jumpers and pole-vaulters plumped themselves into the freshly spaded loam; on the diamond, brilliantly green in its carpet of carefully tended turf, the players darted hither and thither amid the crack of batted ball and the cries of coaches.

By the beginning of the second week in May, baseball affairs had assumed a more encouraging look. The training-table had taken on six more men – among them Showell and Clover – and the unsuccessful candidates had gone to the freshmen team or found other branches of athletics to interest them. Erskine had played eight games, had won six, tied one, and lost one. What was practically a preliminary season was well-nigh over and with the middle of the month the serious contests would begin.

Meanwhile, Jack had found himself. After a vicarious existence as a general outfield substitute, he had settled down as substitute second-baseman, a position which he had never attempted hitherto, but one which he took to in a way that vindicated his right to it. He showed that he possessed the three essentials of a good second-baseman: coolness, quickness, and judgment. With the exception of third base, second is the most difficult of the infield positions; it has been called the “keystone of the infield,” and that very aptly. So far as handling the ball is concerned – that is, catching, stopping, or throwing – second-baseman has no harder work than shortstop or third-baseman; it is in studying the batsman that he encounters his difficulties.

Jack started in with a good knowledge of the fundamentals of baseball and took kindly to coaching. Gradually he acquired the intuitive sense which enabled him to tell where the ball was going before it had left the bat, and to govern himself accordingly. He learned that a nine’s success depends upon team-work and not upon individual brilliancy, and to control his zeal; to anticipate the shortstop’s movements and to know, without looking, where that player and the third-baseman were; to keep always in mind that the best policy is to put out the runner nearest home; and much more besides.

With a definite position to try for, Jack found it much easier to put every effort into playing. Even the fact that “Wally” Stiles, the first choice for second-baseman, would in all likelihood play out the big games, those with Harvard, Artmouth, and Robinson, did not trouble him. There would be other games which, if less important, were well worth winning, and in those he would probably take part.

So Jack put his whole mind into learning his position, studying its possibilities, developing an eighth sense, which enabled him time and again to judge almost with exactitude in what direction, and how far, the ball, scarcely away from the bat, was going, and learning, too, to “size up” a batsman’s prowess from the way he stood and looked and swung his stick. I have said that he possessed a good knowledge of the fundamentals of the game when he started in; but there were still things to learn which his baseball education had not taught, such little niceties as stopping grounders with his feet together so that, in case of a miss, the ball could not go between his legs, and, after catching or stopping a ball, to start at once toward the point whither the ball was to be thrown instead of standing still, so that by the time he had gathered himself for the throw the distance for the ball to travel had been lessened; little things these, but of the sort that win or lose a game.

One thing that had a deal to do with Jack’s ability to put his heart into his work on the diamond was the attitude of the other players toward him. Had the old scarcely concealed contempt and dislike been manifested he could never have shown up as varsity material. But that was past. In the minds of most of the fellows time had dimmed the memory of the incident at the river, now nearly three months ago, and Jack’s attitude and behavior of late had aided.

For a while the neutrality observed by Gilberth made him suspicious that the pitcher was only husbanding his powers of annoyance in order to indulge in some more than usually brutal expression of contempt. But, as time went by, Jack was forced to conclude that hostilities from that source were over. At length, the neutrality was succeeded by a show of friendliness. It was impossible to practise together day after day without an occasional word or two, and Jack and Tracy soon found themselves in the habit of greeting each other when they met, very ceremoniously, to be sure, and of sometimes exchanging observations on the bench much after the manner of slight acquaintances who find themselves thrown together at a party. Jack was very glad. The old thirst for vengeance on his enemies had wasted perceptibly under the influence of congenial companionship, and he was ready to cry quits. Just what Tracy’s sentiments were at this time it is hard to say; it is doubtful if he knew himself.

He had made up his mind to let Jack alone, and was doing it. Only one thing troubled him, and that was the fear that Anthony Tidball might think that his course was the result of the other’s threats. And it is only fair to state on behalf of Tracy’s physical courage that such was not the case. Joe Perkins’s remonstrances had borne weight, and when, shortly after Anthony’s visit, Professor White had added his request, Tracy had decided that, after all, he had possibly mistaken the sentiment of the college. Professor White had said to him very much the same things that Joe had said, but he had put them more convincingly. He knew Tracy, and did not make the mistake of ruffling his temper; on the contrary, when he had left, Tracy felt that there was one person at Erskine who understood him. And for the sake of that person and of Joe he would do as they asked him.

Professor White’s efforts in Jack’s behalf were not limited to the talk with Tracy. He saw Joe Perkins and Hanson and King and several others with whom Jack came in daily contact and asked for the boy fair treatment. And he encouraged Jack to visit him and, when the latter did so, used every effort to hearten him. On the whole, it is safe to say that to the professor belonged a greater part of the credit for the betterment of the boy’s condition. Such was the state of affairs when, on a certain Saturday evening, about the middle of the month, Jack and Anthony sat talking on the edge of Mrs. Dorlon’s porch.

Anthony had washed up his supper dishes and Jack had just strolled back from dinner at the training-table. The moon, well into its first quarter, was sailing in a clear sky over the tops of the elms in the yard. The evening was musical with the hum and whirr of early insects and the varied sounds from open windows. Somewhere farther up the curve of Elm Street an uncertain hand was coaxing the strains of Mandalay from a guitar, and now and then the faint music of a piano floated across from Walton Hall. Anthony had lighted his pipe and, with its bowl aglow in the dusk, was leaning against a pillar, one knee tucked up under his chin. Jack sat a yard away, his hands in his pockets, staring up at the moon.

“Did you ever write poetry, Anthony?” he asked suddenly.

“No.” Anthony sucked reflectively at the pipe and shook his head slowly. “No, I’ve had the measles and whooping-cough and scarlatina, but I’ve never had poetry yet. Of course, I’ve tried my hand at blank verse in Latin, but it wasn’t poetry; even the instructor acknowledged that.”

“Oh, I meant just plain every-day poetry, you know,” Jack explained. “I thought if you had you could tell me something about it.”

“Well, I didn’t say that I didn’t know poetry when I saw it,” answered Anthony. “I’ve read a good deal of it, you see. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know whether you have to have all your lines rhyme.”

“Depends, I guess. What are you going to do, anyway, turn into a poet?”

“No, only I thought I’d try my hand at writing some verses for the fellows to sing at the games, you know. The Purple says we ought to have some new songs for the Robinson game.”

“Oh. Well, now, from what I’ve seen of such things it doesn’t matter any whether lines rhyme or don’t rhyme, I should say. As long as the words fit the music the rhymes just hump along as best they can. Have you written anything yet?”

“N – no, not exactly,” answered Jack cautiously. “I’ve got an idea, but I didn’t quite know about rhyming. Of course, all the poetry you read rhymes all through, like Tennyson, or else it doesn’t rhyme at all, like Milton. What I was wondering was whether it was all right to just rhyme now and then, you know, when you could, and not bother about it when you – you can’t. What do you think?”

“Oh, I’d just do the best I could and not worry,” answered the other gravely. “The – hum – sentiment seems to be the most important thing about college songs.”

“Yes, I suppose so. It’s funny how few rhymes there are when you come to look for them,” said Jack thoughtfully. “Now there’s ‘purple’; I can’t find anything to rhyme with that.”

“Purple? Now that does sound difficult. Let’s see; I guess ‘turtle’ wouldn’t do, eh?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve tried everything. I thought maybe it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t rhyme.”

“Don’t believe it will. Let’s hear what you got.”

“Oh, it isn’t anything much,” answered Jack modestly. “It – it goes to the tune of ‘Hail, Columbia!’ you know.”

“All right; sing it if you’d rather.”

“I can’t sing; I’ll just say it. It – it begins like this:

Hail to Erskine, conq’ring band!Firm together we will stand!While the battle rages highWe will fight until the last!Underneath the purple banner weWill live or die for victory!

What – what do you think of it?”

“Well, if you want my honest opinion,” replied Anthony, “I think it’s too classic, Jack. Seems to me what you want in those kind of songs is a lot of ‘rah, rah, hullabaloo!’ And I don’t believe ‘Hail, Columbia!’ is a good tune; seems too jerky. Course, I’m not an authority, and maybe I’m mistaken. But if I were you I’d try again; get more swing into it. I’ve always thought ‘John Brown’s Body’ was the best tune to set football songs and such things to. Of course, it’s older than the hills and has been used by every college from Maine to Mexico, but that doesn’t matter if you get some good words. I’d forget about the rhymes at first; just find some lines that’ll swing along, you know; kind of sing themselves; afterward, you can go back and tuck a rhyme in here and there. Try it.”

“I guess I will. I wasn’t just satisfied with that ‘Hail, Columbia!’ one, but I didn’t know what ailed it. I thought maybe it was because I couldn’t find a rhyme for ‘high.’ There was ‘die,’ but I’d used that in the last line, you see.”

“I see.” Anthony knocked the ashes from his pipe and stretched himself. “Guess I’ll have to go up and do some studying,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” Jack pleaded. “There’s another thing I wanted to ask about. Is it hard to learn to swim?”

“Never learned, Jack, and can’t say from experience. But from what I’ve seen I’d say it was blamed hard.”

“Never learned! But I thought – ”

“It was like this with me. When I was about knee high to a grasshopper I went in wading and saw my daddy out in a dory about fifty feet from shore. So I went out to him. They say I didn’t have much breath left when they pulled me in; I don’t remember. I guess I swam, though; if I didn’t I don’t know how I got there. Anyhow, after that I knew how all right.”

“Just imagine,” mused Jack. “I know I couldn’t do that, but I do want to learn. Do you think I could?”

“Course you could, but I guess it would take time. If you want me to help, I’ll do it.”

“Will you, really?” exclaimed the other. “Glory! that will be fine! I wanted to ask you, but didn’t quite like to; I’ve been so much of a bother to you already.”

“Oh, get out. We’ll go down to the river and find a place where it’s not too deep; I think I know of one. The water’ll be plaguy cold, though, this early. Want to wait a while longer?”

“No, I want to begin right off – before my courage fails me; you know, I’m an awful fool about water, Anthony.”

“Because you don’t understand it. Water won’t hurt you if you know what to do.”

“And you won’t mind if – if I’m a bit scary at first?”

“No, I won’t mind. If you say you want me to teach you to swim, I’ll do it if I have to throw you in the water and hold you there. Do you?”

Jack took a long breath and looked hard at Anthony’s face in the moonlight. What he saw evidently reassured him, for after a pause he said faintly:

“Y – yes!”

CHAPTER XVII

ERSKINE VS. HARVARD

The nine took its first long trip when it journeyed to Cambridge and played Harvard in a warm drizzle of rain that made the ball slippery and hard to hold, and set the players to steaming like so many tea-kettles. Erskine met her second defeat of the season that afternoon. She had an attack of the stage-fright usual to the teams of lesser colleges when confronting those of the “big four,” and it lasted until the fifth inning, when, with the score 9 to 0 in her favor, Harvard’s pitcher slumped and allowed the bases to fill for the first time during the contest.

Erskine awakened, then, to the fact that her opponents were only human beings, after all, and not supernatural personages protected by the gods, a fact which Hanson had been seeking to convince them of all day long, but without success. With bases full, one man out, and Bissell at bat, there seemed no reason why the Purple should not place a tally in her empty column. This was evidently the view that Bissell himself took, for after having two strikes and two balls called on him, he found what he wanted and drove it hard and straight between first and second. Gilberth scored, but Billings was caught out at the plate. Motter reached third and Bissell went to second. Hanson whispered to Lowe as he selected his bat. Harvard shortened field.

“Last man!” called the crimson-legged first-baseman.

“Last man!” echoed the shortstop.

Lowe’s first attempt at a bunt missed fire and the umpire called a strike on him. Then came two balls, each an enticing and deceptive drop. Lowe was the last man on the batting list, but if he wasn’t much of a hitter he at least was capable of obeying orders. He watched the balls go by in a disinterested manner that was beautiful to see. Then came another strike, and for an instant his round, freckled face expressed uneasiness. The Harvard pitcher decided to end the half, and threw straight over base. Lowe shortened his bat a trifle and found the ball, and the next moment both were going toward first base, the ball very slowly, Lowe about as rapidly as he ever moved in his life.

It was the pitcher’s ball, and the pitcher ran for it. Motter, at third, started pell-mell for home, only to stop as suddenly and dive back to the bag. But the pitcher knew better than to throw there, and as soon as Motter had turned he sped the ball to first. But he had delayed an instant too long, and the umpire dropped his hand in the direction of Lowe, who, with both feet planted firmly on the bag, was obeying Perkins’s repeated command to “Hold it, Ted!” It was a close decision, but there was no reason to judge it as unfair, and the game went on with the bases again filled and Erskine’s heavy batters up.

Joe Perkins stepped to the plate, gripped his bat, and looked over the field. Shortstop was covering second, and the infield was playing close. Out toward the corner of the Carey building the right-fielder was stepping back. Erskine’s captain had already sent two long flies into his territory, and it wouldn’t do to take risks. Joe looked with longing eyes upon a stretch of undefended territory behind first base and out of reach of right-fielder. If he could bring a low fly down there it was safe for another tally. But the pitcher had himself in hand again. He was more than usually deliberate and the first delivery didn’t lend encouragement to Joe’s hopes, for although that youth, staggering away from the base, sought to impress the umpire with the fact that the ball had gone well inside of the plate, that astute, black-capped person called “Strike!”

The three or four hundred students who, with raincoats and umbrellas, were braving the discomforting drizzle, applauded. Jack, huddled between Clover and Northup on the bench in the lee of the west stand, sighed and took his hand from the folds of his sweater to beat them anxiously on his knees. Clover wiped the rain from his cheek and turned.

“We could use a home run, couldn’t we?”

“You might as well talk about winning the game,” growled Northup, who had overheard. “That pitcher hasn’t given any one a home run yet this season, and you can bet he isn’t going to present us with one.”

“Ball!” droned the umpire.

“Well, I’ll be satisfied with a hit,” sighed Jack.

“You’re wise,” Northup answered with a grin. “There it is again,” he muttered then, as Joe, reaching for an outshoot, swung in the air and stepped back to tap the plate with his bat and look exasperated.

“Say, doesn’t that make you mad,” asked Clover, “to reach for something when you know you shouldn’t, and then get fooled? I’ll bet Cap could bite nails now!”

But Joe got over his annoyance the next instant, and gave his attention to the ball. When it had passed he sighed with relief and silently gave thanks to the little red-faced umpire. It was now two strikes and two balls. Back of first and third King and Gilberth were coaching frantically:

“Two out, Ted! Play off! Play away off!”

“Run on anything, Teddy! Two gone! Now! Now! NOW!”

“With two Teds on bases,” said Northup, “it seems as though something might happen.”

“Two? Is Lowe’s name Ted?”

“Yes, Theodore Coveney Lowe, Esquire, is the gentleman’s full – Hey!” Northup was on his feet, and a second later the bench was empty. Ten purple-stockinged maniacs danced and shrieked over the sopping turf, waving sweaters and caps. Motter and Bissell and Lowe were racing home almost in a bunch. Joe Perkins was speeding for second. He had put the ball where he wanted it, well over first-baseman’s head, and yards and yards in front of right-fielder; had placed it there as carefully as though he had walked across the diamond and dropped it exactly in the middle of the uncovered territory.

First-baseman started back for it, and the pitcher ran to cover first. But right-field was racing in, and it was that player who reached the ball first and fielded it home just too late to catch Lowe at the plate. Then the sphere flew back to second, but Joe, hearkening to the coaching, slid across the brown mud and got his fingers on a corner of the bag in plenty of time.

There followed a pause in the progress of the game while Harvard’s pitcher and her captain tried to convince the umpire that Lowe had not touched second base in his journey toward home. In that interim the little band of Erskine players and substitutes gathered together and cheered, with the rain falling into their wide-open mouths, until the Harvard stand applauded vigorously.