Chapter VI: The Tryout

Winter in Maryland that year was unusually severe, and all through the latter part of January and well in February cold weather prevailed, with snow and ice enough to make winter sports possible. There was skating on the inlet for several weeks and half a dozen impromptu hockey teams combated for supremacy. Tom, who had learned skating on the frozen Hudson, captained the “Terrors,” and, largely because of his ability on the steel runners and his superior knowledge of the game, the “Terrors” virtually captured the school championship, although the “Wanderers,” formed of first class fellows from McCrea House, disputed their claim. Tom had successfully completed arrangements for a game with a team from Brackett School, in Baltimore, when a change of weather came and the ice, hard and firm one day, was mush and slush the next. That ended the skating season, for, although there was more cold and another snowstorm a week later, the inlet never again that winter presented a safe surface.

It was nearly the middle of February when Tom made good his promise to give Jerry a tryout. The ball field was too soft underfoot for use and so, one afternoon, the two descended to the batting cage in the basement of the gymnasium building. The cage was not large enough to be very practical, but it answered well enough for pitching and bunting. Tom, pulling off his sweater, warned Jerry against “slugging.” “Just meet the ball, Jerry,” he said, “If you lam it you’re likely to knock my bean off!”

So Jerry agreed to be gentle and Tom lobbed over some slow ones and Jerry swung very gingerly at them. The result was that he failed to connect with any. “What’s the matter?” he demanded. “They ain’t――aren’t curves, are they?”

“Of course not,” answered Tom. “The matter is that you bring your bat around so slow that the ball’s past before you get there. Swing quicker, but hold your bat loosely as if you were bunting. And swing shorter, too. Don’t hold your bat away around like that. Here, I’ll show you.” Tom illustrated, and Jerry, now somewhat vague of movement and unsettled in his mind, strove to profit by the advice given him. He hit one now and then, but seldom squarely, and at last he shook his head.

“I reckon I ain’t much good at this parlor baseball,” he announced a trifle disgustedly. “Reckon if we were outdoors where you could speed ’em over I’d manage to bust a few, Tom.”

“Busting them’s all right,” answered the other, “but it’s well to know how to bunt them, too. The main thing, Jerry, is to be able to hit them. I’m putting these right over the plate and you’d ought to be able to get your bat in front of every one of them. You pitch me a few and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

They changed places and Jerry threw a straight, slow ball. Tom, without any swing, caught it on the face of his bat and sent it rolling back to the pitcher. He did the same thing a dozen times. Not once was Jerry able to get the ball against the wire net at the end of the cage.

“That,” said Tom, “is the best practice there is for a batter. You learn to watch the ball and keep your eye on it until the last instant, and whether you’re going to lay down a bunt in front of the plate or roll one down the base line or bust out a home run you’ve got to know where the ball is coming. Want to try it again?”

“Yes,” replied Jerry thoughtfully. “I reckon I see how it’s done now. You don’t swing none, Tom. All you do is hold your bat out and let the ball hit it!”

“That’s about it,” Tom laughed. “Here you are. Show me.”

Jerry wasn’t as successful as his companion, but he did fairly well, on the whole, and better yet when he was at last able to resist his desire to take a long swing. Then Tom instructed him how to hold his bat loosely so that the ball would drop almost dead in front of him. “But don’t try to bunt low ones, Jerry,” he warned. “If you do you’re likely to pop one up in the air and the catcher or pitcher will get it. High ones are the best to ‘lay down.’ I’ll show you what I mean. Here’s a low one. Try to bunt it.”

Jerry did, and missed it entirely. And so with the second. But he found the next offer, and it went almost straight in air, bounded from the netting overhead and landed back on top of his head!

“See what I mean?” laughed Tom. And Jerry, rubbing the spot where the ball had hit, ruefully “reckoned” he did. After a few more tries, they tossed the bat aside and Tom showed Jerry a few “hooks” and “floaters” and a “drop” that wasn’t half bad. Tom wasn’t much of a pitcher, but he had some deliveries that were novel to his audience. Some ludicrous efforts by Jerry to emulate the other ended the program. By that time they had warmed themselves up in good shape, and Tom discovered that the small amount of pitching he had done had “caught” the unaccustomed muscles of his right arm. They wandered off then to the showers, a form of ablution unknown to Jerry, and a moment later a fearful howl from the next bath apprised Tom of the fact that all was not well there.

“What’s the matter?” he shouted above the hiss of the water.

“Matter!” replied Jerry aggrievedly from the corridor. “Why, I’m boiled alive! What sort of a contraption you call that?”

Tom put his head out and viewed an indignant and unclothed Jerry hopping about on alternate feet, while from the bath came a cloud of steam. Jerry was certainly somewhat red about the shoulders but, fortunately, he had not remained under the shower long enough to get scalded. Tom tried not to laugh as he went to the rescue and turned the water off, but the attempt wasn’t wholly successful, and Jerry, still smarting about the shoulders, observed him disgruntledly.

“I ain’t going in there no more,” he declared firmly if ungrammatically. “Golly, I mighty nigh burned the hide off me!”

“I told you not to turn the hot water faucet,” protested Tom. “Can’t you read, you silly goop? Here, try that now. Come on, it won’t hurt you. You ought to take it plumb cold, but if it’s your first shower maybe you’d better not.”

Jerry finally allowed himself to be persuaded and Tom returned to his bath and listened smilingly to the gasps and grunts that came over the partition. While he was drying himself with one of Tom’s towels a minute or two later, Jerry acknowledged that shower baths had their merits. “They sure do make a feller feel good,” he said. “Reckon I’ll get me some towels in my locker so’s I can do it again, Tom.”

The baseball candidates were called for the last Saturday in the month, although just now there seemed little prospect of outdoor practice then. On the Thursday before the first gathering, however, Tom brought the cheering report that the field was almost dry, and, as the weather had been mild and sunny for more than a fortnight and promised to remain so, it began to look as if the period of indoor work would be brief. That afternoon Tom and Jerry had another bout of batting practice, but this time they went over to a corner of the baseball field where a big batting net stood. Already in places the grass was green close to the earth and the warmth of the sun gave promise of spring.

“Don’t go and bust them, Jerry,” cautioned the other, “because if you do you’ll have to chase them. Just hit them easy.”

So Jerry hit them easy and did fairly well until Tom began to sneak some curves over. Jerry swung wildly at several before it dawned on him that Tom was playing a joke on him. Then he smiled a little, with his eyes mostly, gripped his bat further back and waited. As the next ball sped toward him he glued his gaze to it until it was almost to him and swung mightily. There was a resounding crack and the sphere went arching off across the field!

Tom turned to watch it in silence. It would have been good for three clean bases in a game unless a fielder had managed to get his hands on it. Jerry seated himself on the ground and met Tom’s look very placidly when the latter at last swung about to view him. Tom looked the least bit silly and not a little surprised.

“I told you not to lam them,” he said. “You go and get that, son.”

But Jerry shook his head untroubledly. “Reckon that’s your fault,” he explained. “If that had been a straight ball, like you was――were supposed to give me, it wouldn’t have gone away off there, Tom. Reckon it’s up to you, neighbor!”

Tom grinned, hesitated and at last set off on his errand. Luckily, a small fourth class youth was crossing the field and saved Tom half the journey, and the latter entered into negotiations with him when he threw the ball back. “Say, kid, want to field some for us?” The boy did and said so eagerly. He happened to be one of Tom’s devoted admirers, although the fact was not known to Tom. “All right then. Stick around about where you are and I’ll let Benson whack them as hard as he likes! Much obliged.”

The boy, who would have chased balls tirelessly all the afternoon without thanks, and considered it a privilege, was almost overcome with mingled pleasure and embarrassment, and later on that day recounted the Great Adventure many times to his cronies in Follen House.

“The kid’s going to field for us,” called Tom as he came back to the mound. “So you can hit them where you like, you wild Indian. Only don’t shoot ’em through the box! What’ll you have now? Straight ones or curves? I’ve got everything there is, son. Name your shot!”

“Give me anything you like,” answered Jerry grimly. “I’ve got my batting eye to-day!”

“Fine!” jeered Tom. “Hit this one, Babe Ruth!”

This one happened to be a slow ball that fooled Jerry badly, but he only smiled as he tossed the ball back, and gripped his bat more firmly. Again he swung, and a weak foul resulted. Then came two clean misses and, at last, a scratch hit that Tom fielded himself. Curves and floaters and such deceptions were too much for the batsman, and at last he had to acknowledge it.

“I can’t hit those things yet, Tom,” he pleaded. “Give me some straight ones, will you?”

“Sure,” laughed Tom, “but you’ve got to learn to hit the curves, too, Jerry, before you run your batting average up to three hundred! Here you are, son. Bust it!”

And Jerry certainly busted it! The ball went well over the head of the volunteer fielder and would have cleared the bases nicely had there been any bases to clear. Tom looked after the ball and then turned to Jerry approvingly. “That was a whingdinger, Jerry,” he said. “You certainly can lace out the straight ones!”

When the ball came back Tom offered another with nothing on it and which, being breast-high, Jerry sent into deep left field with the speed of a cannon ball. “That’s better,” said Tom. “It’s the liners that count. But, look here, you always hit into left field. Can you put one into right or through center?”

Jerry looked doubtful. “Reckon I’d have to face different, wouldn’t I?” he asked.

“No, but you’ve got to meet the ball later. If you hit the ball before it’s opposite you it’s going into left field; that is, if you’re a right-hand hitter, which you are. If you hit it when it’s dead in front of you it will go into center field. If it gets a little way past you before you hit it, it will go to right field. At least, that’s the theory. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t work out that way. You’ve got a good, clean swing, son, and don’t ‘chop,’ but I don’t believe you gain anything by holding your bat so far behind you. You have to bring it around a pretty long way before you meet the ball, and I’d say that it increased your chance of missing. Still, if you’re used to hitting like that maybe you’d better not try to change; anyway, not yet. Now try to drive this into right field.”

Perhaps because he was so intent on meeting the ball late, Jerry missed it entirely. But a second attempt proved slightly better, for, although the ball didn’t go into right field, it at least went to the right of left field, and Jerry was encouraged to try again. The next effort resulted in a pop fly that Tom ran under. Then a low delivery was hit squarely on the end of the bat and described a high arc into right field.

“A nice Texas Leaguer!” called Tom. “Want any more?”

“Yes, if you-all ain’t tired. I’d like to see can I make them go where I want them to. I ain’t never aimed to put them anywhere in particular before.”

“Well, I guess I’m good for a dozen more before the old whip gives out,” laughed Tom. “I warn you, though, that I’m going to mix in a few slow ones now and then, Jerry, so watch out for ’em.”

Jerry’s “form” at the plate might well have elicited criticism. He stood away from the rubber with his feet spread far apart and the bat well behind him. It wasn’t a graceful posture. When he swung, he brought the bat around with a mighty sweep that completely carried him off his feet and, when he missed, left him facing third base. If he was so fortunate as to meet the ball he was already a stride or two on his way to first by the time the sphere was in flight. One thing he did not do, however, and Tom noted it with satisfaction. He did not, having taken his stance, shift his feet about or swing his bat in useless flourishes or once take his eyes from the front. But Tom smiled a little to think what Keegan, the coach, would say to Jerry when he observed his batting style!

The slow ones still fooled Jerry badly. He managed to get to every one, but the result in each case was unprofitable. Usually the ball, since Jerry struck too early, trickled away outside what would have been the third base line had they been on a diamond. But Jerry caught most of the groove balls and sent them far afield, and the small boy in attendance was kept very busy indeed. To some extent Jerry found that he could give direction to his hits, and the fact opened a new and fascinating field of endeavor. As Tom pointed out on their way to the gymnasium, a batter who invariably hit to the same place, no matter how surely he hit or how far he made the ball travel, was at a disadvantage, for the opponent would shift its outfield to meet him.

“If the side needs a run with men on bases,” said Tom, “that kind of a hitter is mighty useful, because, although he flies out himself, he brings in a run, so long as there aren’t two men out already. But he doesn’t generally get a regular position on the team. He sticks around the bench as a pinch hitter. And he has to be pretty good at his job to be even a pinch hitter, Jerry.”

“Reckon there’s a heap more to baseball than I knowed――knew about,” said Jerry thoughtfully. “Reckon, though, if I try hard I can learn to bat the way you say, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do, Jerry. I think you’ve got the making of a good batter. I guess I’d better warn you, though, that the coach is going to make you change your style of batting when he gets here. They have a lot of cut-and-dried notions――the coaches, I mean――about how a fellow ought to stand at the plate and how he ought to swing the bat and a lot of other things. And Keegan’s a great hand for having everything according to Hoyle.”

“Who’s he?” asked Jerry.

“Who’s who? Keegan?”

“No, the other feller you said.”

“The other―― Oh, Hoyle? Well, Hoyle’s a fellow who once wrote a mess of rules for playing cards, Jerry, and when you say ‘according to Hoyle’ you mean according to――to accepted rules, in the regular way. Get me?”

“Hm-hm. I thought maybe he was one of those professional baseball players you read about in the papers, like that feller Ruth, or Speaker. Reckon a feller who plays cards ain’t much account when it comes to baseball, Tom. When’s this coach feller get here?”

“In about two weeks, Jerry. He doesn’t come until we start outdoors. He’s a mighty decent sort, Keegan, and you’ll like him. But don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you know better how a thing ought to be done than he does, Jerry. Keegan’s all right, but he’s a regular martinet. Don’t ever try to argue with him.”

“I ain’t aimin’ to, Tom,” answered Jerry soberly. “I’m a pretty small pig in this pen, and I’m willin’ to grow.”