"Strike!" called the umpire, though the batter had not moved. There was some laughter from the grandstand, and the batter tapped the plate nervously. Joe smiled.
"Good work!" called Gregory from the bench.
Again the ball went sailing in, but this time Joe's luck played him a shabby trick, or perhaps the umpire was not watching closely. Certainly Joe thought it a strike, but "ball" was called. Joe sent in the next one so quickly that the batter was scarcely prepared for it. But it was perfectly legitimate and the umpire howled:
"Strike two!"
"That's the boy!"
"Good work!"
"Another like that now, Joe!"
Thus cried the throng. Gregory looked pleased.
"I guess Mack didn't make any mistake picking him up," he said.
The batter knocked a little foul next, that the catcher tried in vain to get. And then, when he faced Joe again, our hero sent in such a puzzling drop that the man was deceived and struck out.
"That's the boy!"
"What do you think of our ten thousand dollar college pitcher now?"
"Come on, Clevefield! He's got some more just like that!"
The home team and its supporters were jubilant, and Joe felt a sense of elation as he walked in to the bench.
"Now see what my opponent can do," he murmured.
McGuinness was an old time pitcher, nothing very remarkable, but one any small club would be glad to get. He had the "number" of most of the Pittston players, and served them balls and strikes in such order that though two little pop flies were knocked no one made a run. The result of the first inning was a zero for each team.
"Now Joe, be a little more careful, and I think you can get three good ones," said Gregory, as his team again took the field.
"I'll try," replied Joe, earnestly.
He got two men, but not the third, who knocked a clean two-bagger, amid enthusiastic howls from admiring "fans."
This two-base hit seemed to spell Joe's undoing, for the next man duplicated and the first run was scored. There were two out, and it looked as though Clevefield had struck a winning streak, for the next man knocked what looked to be good for single. But Bob Newton, the right fielder, caught it, and the side was retired with one run.
Pittston tried hard to score, but the crafty pitcher, aided by effective fielding, shut them out, and another zero was their portion on the score board.
"Joe, we've got to get 'em!" exclaimed Gregory, earnestly.
"I'll try!" was the sturdy answer.
It was heart-breaking, though, when the first man up singled, and then came a hit and run play. Joe was not the only player on the Pittston team who rather lost his head that inning. For, though Joe was hit badly, others made errors, and the net result was that Clevefield had four runs to add to the one, while Pittston had none.
They managed, however, to get two in the following inning, more by good luck than good management, and the game began to look, as Jimmie Mack said, as though the other team had it in the "refrigerator."
How it happened Joe never knew, but he seemed to go to pieces. Probably it was all a case of nerves, and the realization that this game meant more to him than any college contest.
However that may be, the result was that Joe was effectively hit the next inning, and when it was over, and three more runs had come in, Gregory said sharply:
"Collin, you'll pitch now!"
It meant that Joe had been "knocked out of the box."
"We've got to get this game!" explained the manager, not unkindly. But Joe felt, with bitterness in his heart, that he had failed.
CHAPTER XI
OLD POP CONSOLES
Collin flashed a look of mingled scorn and triumph on Joe as he walked past him. It needed only this to make our hero feel that he had stood about all he could, and he turned away, and tried to get rid of a lump in his throat.
None of the other players seemed to notice him. Probably it was an old story to them. Competition was too fierce--it was a matter of making a living on their part--every man was for himself, in a certain sense.
They had seen young players come and old players go. It was only a question of time when they themselves would go--go never to come back into baseball again. They might eke out a livelihood as a scout or as a ground-keeper in some big league. It was a fight for the survival of the fittest, and Joe's seeming failure brought no apparent sympathy.
Understand me, I am not speaking against organized baseball. It is a grand thing, and one of the cleanest sports in the world. But what I am trying to point out is that it is a business, and from a business standpoint everyone in it must do his best for himself. Each man, in a sense, is concerned only with his own success. Nor do I mean that this precludes a love of the club, and good team work. Far from it.
Nor were Joe's feelings made any the less poignant by the fact that Collin did some wonderful pitching. He needed to in order to pull the home team out of the hole into which it had slipped--and not altogether through Joe's weakness, either.
Perhaps the other players braced up when they saw the veteran Collin in the box. Perhaps he even pitched better than usual because he had, in a sense, been humiliated by Joe's preference over himself. At any rate, whatever the reason, the answer was found in the fact that Pittston began to wake up.
Collin held the other team hitless for one inning, and the rest of the game, ordinary in a sense, saw Pittston march on to victory--a small enough victory--by a margin of two runs, but that was enough. For victory had come out of almost sure defeat.
Poor Joe sat on the bench and brooded. For a time no one seemed to take any notice of him, and then Gregory, good general that he was, turned to the new recruit and said:
"You mustn't mind a little thing like that, Joe. I have to do the best as I see it. This is business, you know. Why, I'd have pulled Collin out, or Tooley, just as quick."
"I know it," returned Joe, thickly.
But the knowledge did not add to his comfort, though he tried to make it do so.
But I am getting a little ahead of my story.
The game was almost over, and it was practically won by Pittston, when a voice spoke back of where Joe sat on the players' bench. It was a husky, uncertain, hesitating sort of voice and it said, in the ear of the young pitcher:
"Never mind, my lad. Ten years from now, when you're in a big league, you'll forget all about this. It'll do you good, anyhow, for it'll make you work harder, and hard work makes a good ball player out of a middle-class one. Brace up. I know what I'm talking about!"
Joe hesitated a moment before turning. Somehow he had a vague feeling that he had heard that voice before, and under strange circumstances. He wanted to see if he could place it before looking at the speaker.
But it was baffling, and Joe turned quickly. He started as he saw standing behind him, attired rather more neatly than when last he had confronted our hero--the tramp whom he had saved from the freight train.
On his part the other looked sharply at Joe for a moment. Over his face passed shadows of memory, and then the light came. He recognized Joe, and with a note of gladness in his husky voice--husky from much shouting on the ball field, and from a reckless life--he exclaimed: