Frank Armstrong at College

by Matthew M. Colton

  CHAPTER IX.

  A JUMP IN BASEBALL AND THE RESULT.

  The fact that the Freshman diamond lies very close to the runningtrack, and more particularly that the right field foul-line impingeson the back stretch of the track, by a peculiar circumstance had avery important influence on the college life of Frank Armstrong. Andso do great things turn on small incidents.

  On a particular day in May, Freshman baseball practice was in fullswing. Frank was still an humble outfielder with little hope of apromotion to the pitcher's box, for three men of more experience wereahead of him. Thomas, however, attracted by the bearing of Frank,had held him on the squad in spite of the fact that he was not anexceptional fielder. He was attentive to instructions and because ofhis willingness and earnestness to do whatever was told him to do,held his place as a substitute right fielder.

  "In these days," the coach told him, "no pitcher can get alongwithout a good assortment of curves. Your straight ball is fine, butthey get to it. You can curve the ball but you can't get it over theplate when you do curve it."

  "That's my trouble, but I'll learn if you'll show me," said Frank,"that is, I'll do my best to learn."

  But Thomas was not a pitcher and therefore could not show him justhow to get that puzzling break to the ball which assured a pitcherof success with even a moderately good control. So Frank languishedin the outfield much to the disgust of Turner and the Codfish whothought he was being done an injustice.

  A practice game was in progress between the First and Second nines,and the First nine was at bat. Frank was playing right field. Downalong the first base line came a sizzling grounder just inside thebase. An undercut to the ball caused it, when it struck the turf, topull off into foul ground. At once the man on second shot for home.Frank started at the crack of the bat, while the batter set sail forfirst base with the evident intention of making second at least onthe hit which seemed good for two easy bases.

  Frank, who was playing closer in than he should have been, went forthe grounder with all his speed, but seeing no hope of interceptingit by ordinary means, leaped in the air to a point in the line of therolling ball. His feet, as they struck the ground, formed a barrierwhich the ball struck and jumped into the air in easy reach of hishand. He recovered his balance, seized the ball and drove it likelightning to the plate, catching the runner. The catcher snapped theball to second, completing the double.

  It was a pretty play and brought forth hand-clapping from the twoscore of bystanders who were watching the game.

  Now it chanced that the trainer of the track team, Johnny Black byname, was looking over his runners as they loped around the backstretch of the track. His eye for the moment was off his half-milers,and was attracted by Armstrong's leap for the rolling ball. Hecrossed the track to the Freshman outfield, searching for the markof Frank's cleats when he left the ground. Having found the startingpoint, he searched carefully till he found the marks of his landing,which happened to be on a bit of ground bare of turf where the cleatmarks showed plainly. A ball whizzed past his ear, but he paid noattention, and even the shout of the Freshman coach that he was inthe field of play apparently had no effect upon him. He measuredthe distance of Armstrong's jump with his eye, then stepped itdeliberately.

  "Hey, right-fielder," demanded Johnny, as Frank, the batting sidehaving now been retired, trotted toward the plate, "what's your name?"

  "Armstrong," shouted that individual over his shoulder.

  "Come here, Armstrong," said the trainer in peremptory tones.

  Frank halted and went back to him.

  "You look to me like a jumper. What are you doing over here when youcan jump 18 feet with baseball clothes on?" he demanded.

  "Trying to play ball the best I know how."

  "Any chance to make it?" said the trainer as he walked along towardthe plate while the First team went to their places in the field.

  "Not very good looking now," returned Frank. "I'm sort of aseventeenth sub-pitcher and outfielder."

  "So! I want you over at the track for a day or two. You ought to jumpa mile. Say, Thomas," this to the coach, "let me have Armstrong fora day or two. I'm in an awful hole for jumpers and he ought to makeone or I miss my guess. If he doesn't turn out right, you can havehim back again. If he does, you'll never get him!"

  "That's right, come and take my men away from me," grumbled Thomas."But I can spare him just now as he is a pitcher and I've got threepretty good ones. Send him back here if he doesn't make good."

  "All the work I'll ask him to do in training for the jump, if he hasthe goods, won't prevent him from working with you if he wants to,but I want him first."

  "All right," said Thomas. "Armstrong, report to Black to-morrowafternoon, and when you have shown him how far you can't jump, comeback here for what practice you can get."

  "All right, sir," returned Frank.

  "Two o'clock to-morrow at the track house. Bring a track suit withyou and jumping shoes if you have them."

  "All right, I'll be there," said Frank but he did not relishthe change. His heart was set on baseball, and it was a greatdisappointment to him to be pulled into the track work. But his mottowas to do the best that was in him without question, which is thestarting point for success in most things.

  The coming of the Freshman jumper did not create much interest on thetrack squad. His jumping did not please the trainer.

  "Your form is bad," Black told him. "In jumping, form is everything.You may get to twenty-one or twenty-two feet the way you are going,but that will be the end of it. You must get higher in the air at thetake-off."

  Frank worked hard to master the new style. In school he had jumpednaturally and without much coaching, but felt himself that he was notgetting his greatest distance. He redoubled his efforts but could notlengthen out beyond nineteen feet or a little better. Then he beganto fall below that even.

  "You're jumping like an old brindle cow," said Black one day. "Areyour legs sore?"

  "My shins feel as if they would crack every time I land in the pit,"said Frank, feeling the offending legs gingerly.

  "Why in thunder didn't you tell me that before? You can't work at thebroad jump the same as you do at football or baseball. Lay off for aday or two and keep off your feet."

  The rest did Frank a world of good for when he returned to thejumping pit he cleared over twenty feet in his first trial, much tothe trainer's delight. Thereafter he was watched with the closestattention by Black. In the spring games which came the last week inApril he won third place in the handicap broad jump; and after a hardfight succeeded in beating out Warrington, the Freshman jumper whohad done the best work up to that time.

  Two weeks later at the Princeton Freshman meet Frank won second placewith a jump of 21 feet 5 inches, and first place in the HarvardFreshman games a week later, bettering his mark by three inches.

  Armstrong was ineligible, of course, for the 'Varsity meets withPrinceton and Harvard, but kept at work perfecting his form andwatching closely the work of Hotchkiss, the Junior, who was aconsistent performer around 22 feet 6 inches, and who occasionallyapproached 23 feet. But as Frank daily increased his marks, theinterest of Hotchkiss waned.

  The Intercollegiates came and went, and Hotchkiss maintained hisposition as Intercollegiate champion by winning the broad jump forYale at 22 feet 10 inches. But Armstrong never ceased his efforts.A trip to Cambridge for the finals in the Intercollegiates showedhim the styles used by the greatest collegiate jumpers, and afterreturning to New Haven he put his observations to such good effectthat he cleared 22 feet 4 inches.

  "What's the use of keeping up that old grind at the track," said theCodfish one night. "Why don't you go over to the Freshman baseballsquad? You may get a chance there yet."

  "I'm after something," returned Frank, "and it's coming so fast thatI don't want to let go."

  "And that something?"

  "Don't laugh, it's Hotchkiss. He's been so blamed cocky that I'd givemy shoes to lick his mark in the Intercollegiates just f
or personalsatisfaction. I'm too late to do anything with the baseball squad nowanyway."

  "Noble ambition," said the Codfish, "but what's the use? There'snothing more for the track men this spring."

  "Just the same I'm going to keep at it."

  "Go ahead then, jump your legs off, while Turner and I win the glory."

  Turner had by steady improvement worked himself into the position offirst catcher on the Freshman team. The Codfish, leaving temporarilyhis ambition to break into the exclusive ranks of the Mandolin Club,had won the position of official scorer of the Freshman, a placewhich he filled with great credit.

  "Another sit-down job," said Turner laughing. "Trust the Codfish toget something easy."

  "Why not? I don't love violent exercise. If I hanker for the coolshade of the scorer's bench and can record the glorious deeds of ouryoung catcher and ease up on him when he makes flub-dubs, who is tosay me nay? But I'm a believer in hard work, just the same----"

  "For the other fellow," broke in Frank.

  "Sure, that's what gives Yale her prestige, doesn't it? If it becomesnecessary for me to don the baseball suit to uphold the athletics ofYale, then I'll do it. Till then, with all you good workers around, Idon't see any reason why I shouldn't take the shade."

  "Noble youth," said Frank. "We'll keep on in the sun and let youtake the shade," and nothing either the Codfish or Turner could saychanged Frank's determination to keep everlastingly at his jumpingpractice, uninteresting though it appeared to his roommates.

  "Now I know why you stuck to the jumping," said the Codfish onemorning as he scanned the first page of the _News_.

  "Elucidate," said Frank.

  "Here it is right in our lively little daily. Oxford andCambridge-Yale-Harvard meet arranged. Teams about evenly matched.Sail for England July 2nd, and a whole string of likely candidates inwhich I see your name."

  "O, but I'm a Freshman, and a Freshman can't compete in 'Varsitymatches," said Frank, but his heart gave a bound just the same.

  "You won't be a Freshman after June 17th, you bonehead," returned theCodfish joyfully, "provided you don't flunk your examinations. You'llbe a jolly Sophomore with all the blackness of Freshman year behindyou."

  "But there's Hotchkiss. He's better than I am, and a Junior."

  "He'll be a Senior, don't you savez, but that will make mighty littledifference if you can outjump him. They will take only the best, orI'm a galoot."

  "You generally are, Codfish, but I'll work my head off to make thatteam."

  "You've nearly worked it off already, and you've got to make thatteam. Pictures in the papers, details of your early life, movingstories about your many virtues, weeping relatives at the dock as theship sails out of the bay and all that sort of thing. I can see itall now."

  Frank laughed at his enthusiastic friend. But his pulse quickenedat the thought of the possibility of making the team which shouldrepresent America in this international contest. Turner, too, waswild with delight at the turn affairs had taken. "Now I wish I hadbeen a jumper. We'll read the cable dispatches every day. You'rebound to make it."

  "Don't count your chickens," said Frank, "till they are safelyhatched. You forget that Hotchkiss is doing nearly 23 feet."

  Two days later a call in the _News_ brought all the first stringtrack men together in the trophy room of the Gymnasium, and FrankArmstrong was among them. Captain Harrington read the challenge fromthe English Universities, and told them what was expected of them.

  "This is going to be a free field, and everyone will have hischance. The team will be the best that Harvard and Yale can gettogether. Practice will be held at the Field every day as usual, andthe trials will be at Cambridge a week before we sail. Only firstplace counts in this meet with the Englishmen so it will not benecessary to take any but the best men in each event. I want you togive the best in you. We must give a good account of ourselves hereat Yale."

  The captain got a rousing cheer at the end of his speech whichwas a long one for him, and the athletes clattered down the wide,marble steps in excited discussion of the coming event and Yale'spossibilities.

  "Armstrong," said the trainer next day at the field, "you have achance to make this team. I want you to go to it as hard as you knowhow."

  "I've been doing that for the last month."

  "Well, you've improved a lot in that time. You've got to beatHotchkiss to win out. It's up to you."

  During the remainder of the college year Frank put every spare minutein the preparation for the final test for the team. Even in thetrying time of examinations he managed to squeeze out half hours atthe Field, and when it was not possible to get out there, he studiedthe theory of broad-jumping, searched the library for information onthe subject and found little enough. At Commencement a famous jumperof former years took him in hand and gave him some advice whichhelped him greatly. Steadily, if slowly, he continued to improve hismarks, until one hot morning he raced down the runway and cleared 22feet 10 inches, much to the discomfort of Hotchkiss who, in spite ofhis experience, did not relish the fact that the Freshman was drawingnearer and nearer to equality with him.

  "Twenty-two feet ten inches," announced Black. "Hotchkiss, you've gotto look out for your laurels. This Freshman will beat you out if youdon't improve your jump."

  Hotchkiss scowled and tried harder than ever, but he seemed to havereached his limit, and was unable to surpass his distance in theIntercollegiates.

  That night Frank wrote to his mother: "Mother, I have a chance, onlya chance, mind you, to make the team that is going to England torepresent Yale and Harvard. If I win a place are you and dad willingto let me go?"

  And the answer came back on the next mail: "Yes."

  "That settles it," cried Frank, flourishing the letter above his headas he capered about the room. "I'll win out or die trying."

  The Codfish spoke up: "Perhaps you don't know that I'm going too."

  "For what?" inquired Frank.

  "To see that you keep in strict training and out of mischief."

  "You actually mean you would go across if I should make the team?"

  "Bettcher life," came the quick answer. "I've got to do somethingthis summer, and I can't imagine anything better than to see theJohnny Bulls properly tanned."

  "Jimmy, how about you?" inquired Frank.

  "I'm not a bloated bondholder like the Codfish. It's work for minethis summer. But I'll read all the cablegrams and pray for you!"