CHAPTER XVII

WHAT HEAD WORK DID

When Alf had finished the Head Coach nodded.

“I was wondering,” he said, dryly, “how long it would take you fellows to find that out. I might have told you about it after the first inning, but I thought I’d just wait and see how much baseball sense you all had. So far, Loring, you appear to be the only one with enough gumption to study the situation.” Durfee blinked and colored. Payson turned to him quizzically. “Durfee, couldn’t you have made that discovery just as well as Loring? Seems to me it would have come better from you, as captain. But the trouble was that you lost your temper just as soon as you found you couldn’t hit Holmes, and instead of looking around to see where the trouble lay you just went up there and hit out blindly at anything he offered you. Isn’t that about the way of it?”

“I guess so,” acknowledged the captain, looking not a little chagrined. At that instant Dan connected with the ball and sent a long fly out to center fielder, and the discussion ceased until the ball had been caught and Dan walked dejectedly back to the bench.

“Wheelock at bat!” called the scorer.

“That’s a whole lot better, Vinton,” said Payson, as Dan joined the group at the end of the bench. “How did you do it?”

“Durfee said I’d been swinging too soon,” answered Dan, “so I waited. If I’d pushed that a little harder he wouldn’t have got it,” he added, regretfully.

“Well, don’t let him fool you on those drops,” said Payson. “See what you can do next time. When an average good batter,” continued Payson, including Durfee and Alf with a glance, “finds that he can’t hit a pitcher, the thing for him to do is to keep his eyes open and study the fellow’s delivery. There’s some perfectly simple reason why he isn’t finding the ball, and it’s just a case of using his head and finding out what the reason is. That’s what Loring did. I’ve seen a good many chaps pitch ball, and it didn’t take me long to see that Holmes there was pitching a ball that started out fast and then slowed up in front of the plate. And it didn’t take long to see that that was about all he did have. If you don’t let him fool you on speed you won’t have much trouble hitting him.”

Wheelock fouled out to third baseman and Smith took his place, Durfee giving him whispered advice as he chose his bat.

“But there’s another thing,” continued Payson, when Durfee had returned, “that no one has discovered yet; something that has a whole lot to do with Holmes’s effectiveness.”

“What’s that, sir?” asked Durfee. Payson shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s for you――or some one else――to find out, Durfee. Use your eyes. The game may depend on your finding it out. I sha’n’t tell you. A coach has no business to run the game; that’s the captain’s work.”

Durfee turned frowningly to observe the Porter pitcher. He had sent in two balls, and now was winding himself up for his third delivery. When it reached the plate it was dropping fast, and Smith struck several inches over it. The Porter sympathizers howled gleefully.

“He isn’t doing what he was told to,” said Payson.

“Slow down, Smith,” called Durfee. “Wait for them, old man. Pick out a nice one and paste it hard.”

But Smith wasn’t an apt pupil, and a moment or two later Holmes had another strike-out to his credit.

“That’s three,” called Durfee. “Out on the run, fellows!”

The score remained at two to nothing until the beginning of the eighth inning. Then Porter put a man on first, got him to second by a neat sacrifice, and presently, with two out, brought him home on a long fly to right field. With three runs against them, the Yardley players went to bat in the last of that inning determined to at least even things up. Loring’s discovery had gradually accomplished an improvement in Yardley’s hitting, and there were now several base-hits credited to her on the score-book. Unfortunately, however, none of the hits had yielded a tally.

Reid went to bat first. The pitcher, like many other pitchers, was not a good man with the stick, and the best he could do on this occasion was to lay down a little bunt in front of the plate that was fielded to first almost before Reid had started to run. The next batter was Black, who was substituting Carey at first. Black was a better hitter than he was a fielder, and had already twice managed to reach the first corner. Durfee went down back of the base to coach. Squatting there, with a grass-blade between his teeth, he recalled Payson’s puzzling remark; and for the twentieth time he watched Holmes in the hope of discovering the coach’s meaning. Holmes fixed the ball in his lean hand, got the signal from his catcher, threw his long arms above his head, twisted one foot around the other leg, turned half around, paused for an instant, and then quickly unwound himself and stepped forward with a long stride, launching the ball away breast-high toward the plate. Durfee leaped to his feet, his eyes flashing. “Mr. Umpire!” he shouted. “Watch that pitcher! He’s stepping out the box!”

The Porter captain came hurrying in from third, denying, expostulating. Holmes smiled scornfully. The umpire sauntered down from the plate. “Play ball!” he commanded.

“Watch his foot, please,” begged Durfee. “He goes away over the line every time, sir! You can see where he steps.”

Holmes proceeded to show just where he stepped, carefully placing his toe well back of the boundary of the pitcher’s box.

“Then what’s that hole here?” demanded Durfee. “That’s where you’ve been stepping; any one can see that!”

The umpire looked rather more impressed now.

“All right,” he said. “Go ahead with the game.”

Holmes slanged Durfee while that youth returned to his place behind first base, and the others went back to their positions. Holmes was careful to keep inside the box on the next delivery, and as a result his second attempt was adjudged a ball. A third ball followed that and Yardley howled with delight. Holmes frowned; and when he sent the next delivery in quite forgot about his foot. The ball was a beautiful one, but Black let it go by and started to walk to first.

“Take your base,” said the umpire. Porter sent up a shout of angry denunciation, and Holmes hurried toward the plate.

“What kind of a deal is that?” he demanded. “That was a strike, and a peach, too! What are you giving us?”

“You stepped out of your box,” replied the umpire, coldly. “You want to watch out for that. Batter up!”

“That’s a raw deal!” cried the Porter captain, running up. “He didn’t step out! I was watching him! Why don’t you give them the game and be done with it?”

“I saw it,” said the umpire. “I don’t want your judgment. Play ball.”

When things had calmed down, Black was sitting cozily on first base, and Durfee was at the plate, Hammel having taken his place in the coacher’s box. Holmes was angry; and from sheer bravado set to work digging new holes for his feet as near the back of the box as he could. Durfee found the first ball that came and sent it skipping away between third and shortstop. Black took second and Durfee was safe on first. Condit let Holmes pitch two miserable balls, and then found one to his liking and sent a Texas Leaguer back of first baseman that scored Black and put Durfee on third. Yardley cheers rang out loudly.

Not to be outdone, Alf chose a ball that seemed to please him and slammed it down toward third so hard that the Porter captain couldn’t handle it in time to get it across to first, and so made an absurd effort to catch Condit at second. Second baseman was not looking for the throw, and the ball went by him. Durfee went home, Condit took third, and Alf made second by the fraction of an inch.

After that it was a slaughter. Wheelock cleaned the bases with a long drive over left fielder’s head, and when the inning finally came to an end, Yardley had scored eight runs! And, to use Alf’s language, the game had been put on ice. All that was necessary now was to hold Porter in her half of the ninth and that proved an easy task, for the visitors were angry, discouraged, and much disappointed. Eight to three was the final score, and Mr. Holmes left the field sadly disgruntled and with his fame much tattered.

“Well,” said Payson on the way to the gymnasium, “you finally discovered him, eh, Durfee?”

“Yes, sir, finally,” answered the Yardley captain somewhat sheepishly.

“Yes, he had been stealing six or eight inches on you every delivery,” said Payson. “I might have told you, but I wanted you to learn to keep your eyes open and find such things out for yourself. It nearly cost us the game, I guess, but the lesson would have been worth even that. Baseball, Durfee, isn’t all physical skill. It’s like almost everything else; there’s a chance to use your head in it!”