CHAPTER XIII

THE MONATOOK LAKE LEAGUE

"Now, now, don't all get excited," admonished Frank, who, all the same, was immensely delighted with the sensation he had stirred up by his announcement.

"Don't keep us waiting, Frank," pleaded Fred, who would rather play baseball at any time than eat.

"Out with it, like a good fellow," chimed in Bobby, whose pitching had won a game from Belden the previous term.

Frank, with the instinct of the true story teller, waited until he had got his audience worked up to the proper pitch. Then when they were on edge, he proceeded:

"It's this way," he explained. "Up to now we've been going on in a kind of rut. Belden is about the only team we've ever played any real games with, and that hasn't given us enough practice. We've had our own scrub nine to practice with, but as a rule they've been so easy that we haven't had to work hard enough to win. The only way we can learn to hit different kinds of pitching is to come up against nines that give us a stiff fight to win."

"But we have played with village nines sometimes," interrupted Fred.

"We played the Benton team last year and beat them six to five," reminded Bobby.

"Yes, I know," admitted Frank; "but those were only single games, and there wasn't enough at stake. It didn't make much difference whether we won from them or not as long as we put it all over Belden.

"Now, don't you see how much more exciting it would be to have several different teams, all members of one league, each one playing the other a certain number of games, each one fighting hard for every game and each team working its head off to get the pennant, which would be given to the nine that had won the most games at the end of the season?"

The boys broke into a chorus of delighted exclamations.

"That would be bully!" cried Bobby.

"It would be a regular see-saw!" exclaimed Fred. "First one team would be in the lead and then the other. It would be a rattling hard fight all the way from the start of the season to the finish."

"It's a corker," agreed Skeets.

"A pippin of a scheme," declared Sparrow with emphasis.

"I thought you fellows would like it," said Frank, much pleased at the enthusiastic reception of his plan. "I talked it over with Dr. Raymond, and he said that he saw no objection to it."

"The doc's a good old sport," commented Fred.

"And Dr. Raymond saw the head of the Belden school and he agreed to it too," continued Frank, "while the captain of the Belden nine is fairly daffy over it."

"How many clubs are there to be in the league?" asked Bobby.

"We decided that four would be enough," answered Frank. "You see, we have only Saturdays to play, and if we had too many clubs in the league we couldn't play enough games to really make the thing go. But with four teams, each can play three games with every other team and that would give us a pretty good line on the strength of each nine."

"Every team would play nine games altogether, then," figured Fred.

"Yes, and that would take nine Saturdays. Allowing for some days when it might be too rainy to play that will just about cover the playing season before school closes for the summer."

"Who are to be the other two nines besides Belden and ourselves?" asked Sparrow.

"We've been scouting around and have found two town nines that will be glad to go in with us," answered Frank. "One is at Somerset and the other at Ridgefield. They're all within a few miles so that we wouldn't have to travel far to play them. The fellows are about the same age as we are, from eleven to fourteen."

"What will be the name of the league?" asked Skeets.

"How does Monatook Lake League strike you?" asked Frank. "Both towns are right on the lake, just as Rockledge and Belden are."

"Just the thing," was the verdict of all.

"Some of those town boys are dandy players," said Skeets. "I saw the Somerset team play once and they certainly put up a fine game."

"And the Ridgefield boys have a pitcher who is a peach, all right," said Frank. "But that's just what we're looking for. It wouldn't be any fun defeating a lot of dubs."

"We'll have to look out that they don't ring in some good players from other towns to fill up weak places on their team," said Fred.

"Of course we'll have to take a chance on that," admitted Frank. "But I don't think we'll have to worry much. I know some of the boys on both teams and they seem to be pretty square fellows."

"You'll have to limber up that pitching arm of yours and get it in good shape, Bobby," cried Fred jubilantly, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

"How do you know I'll get a chance to pitch?" asked Bobby modestly. "The nine isn't made up yet and won't be till we've had a chance to practice. Some of the new fellows may be a good deal better than I am at pitching."

"I don't believe they will be," returned Skeets. "Do you remember, Fred, that last game when Bobby pitched and we beat Belden by three to two?"

"You bet I do," replied Fred. "And I remember that catch that Bobby made in the ninth inning when he rolled over and over and yet held on to the ball. If he had let it get away from him, Belden would have won sure."

"I wish we could go right out on the field tomorrow!" exclaimed impatient Fred, who was very much worked up over the prospect of sport that the new league opened up.

"That would be rushing things for fair," laughed Frank.

"It would hardly do to be playing ball in overcoats and mittens," grinned Skeets.

"Let's see," said Sparrow. "This is the twenty-fifth of January. To the twenty-fifth of February is one month and to the twenty-fifth of March is another. The field ought to be in shape for playing by that time. Don't you think so, Frank?"

"If we have a fairly early spring it ought to," said Frank. "Still in this climate I've seen snow on the ground sometimes in April."

"February is a short month," said Fred hopefully. "That will cut the time down some."

"Anyway we can do a whole lot of practicing indoors," said Bobby. "The gymnasium is good and warm and we can rig up some kind of a cage for pitching and catching."

"Just as they do in colleges," said Sparrow proudly. "I tell you, fellows, we're some class!"

"I'll bet the town papers'll put in reports of the games," said Fred, who already in imagination saw his name in print.

"Sure they will," agreed Skeets. "They'll be glad of a chance to fill up space."

This was not very flattering, and Fred, who saw fame coming his way with giant strides, rather resented it.

"They won't do it only for that reason," he said indignantly. "I bet there'll be some dandy games played and lots of people in the towns will come out to see them."

"Maybe, especially as they won't have to pay to get in," retorted Skeets, who was not averse at times to stirring Fred up just for the fun of seeing him roiled.

"Well, we can always count on big crowds when Rockledge and Belden play anyway," put in Bobby, before Fred had a chance to throw back at Skeets.

"We ought to get some kind of monogram sewed on our uniforms or caps to show the name of the league," said Sparrow, who was quite as alive as Fred was to the new dignity that was coming to them.

"The letters M. L. L. would look nifty, sure enough," agreed Bobby.

"Well there's plenty of time to think of those things before the season opens," remarked Frank. "The main thing now is to get up a team that will put it all over the other fellows."

"Just think how it would feel to be the champions of the league," said Sparrow.

"And to pull up the pennant on the flagpole just back of center field," gloated Fred.

"Rockledge wouldn't be big enough to hold us," said Bobby.

"That's all right, fellows," cautioned Frank. "But remember all the other fellows are feeling the same way. It's easy enough to win games in our dreams, but the only ones that count are those that are won on the diamond."

"We'll win them all right there too," replied Fred, who already saw himself cracking out a home run with the bases full. "We'll be there with bells on from the time the season opens."

"I bet we'll go all through the season without losing a game," declared Sparrow, in a wild flight of fancy.

"Come off the perch," warned Bobby.

"Turn over, turn over, you're on your back," said the irreverent Skeets.

"You'll bring bad luck on us if you talk like that," cautioned Frank. "It stands to reason that we'll have to lose some games. The other fellows are no slouches, don't you forget that, and they'll be out to win just as we are."

"The best teams in the big leagues lose lots of games, even to the poorest ones," said Bobby. "You'll notice that the nines that win the championships don't often come through the season with much more than six hundred per cent."

"Just what does that mean?" asked Skeets, who had never been especially strong in mathematics.

Bobby did a swift sum in mental arithmetic.

"That means they won three games out of five," he announced. "So you see they had lots of losses before they won the pennant. We've got a swell chance of winning every game--I don't think. If we win six out of the nine, I shall be perfectly satisfied. That will give us a percentage of six hundred and sixty-seven."

"Bobby's right," confirmed Frank. "That would be two out of every three, and the team that wins isn't likely to do any better than that. The best team in the world will sometimes be whipped by a poor one. That's what makes baseball such a bully game. Lots of good luck and hard luck come into a game, and it's never settled until the last man is out in the ninth inning."

"But in the long run it's the best team that wins," protested Fred, still undaunted. "And the best team in the Monatook Lake League this year will be the team of Rockledge School."