by Zane Grey
Enoch had scarcely reached the batter’s box when the Kenton pitcher delivered the ball. “Strike!” called Silk, then in low voice, “Foggy eye.” Another ball came speeding up. “Strike two!—Up late last night?”
Enoch’s round face grew red, and the lump in his cheek swelled out. He slammed at the next ball and sent it safely past the third-baseman. Thatcher hurried up and took his position on the left side of the plate.
“Strike!” called Silk. “Hair brushed fine, Dude!”
Thatcher bunted the next ball and dashed for first. The pitcher fielded the ball and overthrew, letting Enoch go to third and Thatcher to second.
“Don’t wait!” Whispered Mac to Chase. “Bing the first good one!”
Chase did bing one, and that with a vengeance. He had the ability to line the ball. This particular hit seemed to be going straight into the hands of the centre-fielder, but just before reaching him it sailed up and shot over his head.
“Oh—h!” yelled Cas, on the coaching line. “Take your time, Enoch. Slow down, Dude, it’s easy. Oh, my! I guess it wasn’t a beaut. Come on! Come on! Come on! Slide, Chase, slide. That’s the way to hit the ground.”
Havil batted up a high fly to an outfielder. Chase leaned forward and watched the ball till it landed in the fielder’s hands, then he darted for the plate. The fielder threw quickly, making a fine race between ball and runner. But Chase had never yet been thrown out on such a play. He slid over the plate just as the ball sped into the catcher’s hands.
The game progressed. Kenton came in for their inning and failed to score. Castorious was in rare form; on a hot day his arm was like India rubber. Findlay added one run in the second and again blanked their opponents. In the third Chase got his second hit, and three hits following his, coupled with a base on balls and two errors, netted three more runs. Again Cas foiled the Kenton batters, and the impatient crowd stamped. In the fifth, two Kenton players hit safely with one out.
The crowd began to howl. Hicks snapped the ball to Benny, who tagged the runner trying to get back to second.
“Out!” called Silk.
The Kenton players ran in a body for the umpire. The grandstand raged; the bleachers rose as one man.
“He’s safe! He’s safe!”
“Robber! Robber!”
“Kill him! Kill him!”
Silk ordered the players back to the bench. Cas struck out the next two batters, and elicited another storm from the bleachers. Someone threw a huge firecracker at Cas.
“Boom!” It exploded like a bursting cannon. Cas shook his fist at the bleachers, and that brought forth a rain of smaller firecrackers.
Enoch went up and had a strike called on him. He looked at Silk and made a motion with his hand to indicate the ball had passed wide of the plate.
“Strike two!” called Silk, imperturbably. Enoch glared at him.
“Strike three!” called Silk, more imperturbably. “You’re out!”
Enoch leaned gracefully on his bat, spat tobacco juice about six yards, and said in his soft voice:
“Do you know a ball when you see it?”
“That costs you five dollars,” sang out Silk.
“Make it ten, you mullet!”
“Why, Enoch, how sweet you talk! Ten it is!”
“Make it fifteen, pinhead!”
“Dear me, the older you get the more you gab! Fifteen it is!”
“Make it twenty, you web-footed bat!”
“Twenty it is, and out of the game. The bench for yours!”
Enoch roared something in inarticulate rage.
“Get out of the grounds!” ordered Silk. And he held his watch till Enoch shouldered his bat and left the field. Mac threw up his hands as if he knew the game was all over then.
But even without their captain and third-baseman, Findlay kept blanking Kenton. In the eighth, Cas went to the bat. A silence ensued that seemed to presage some striking event. It came in the shape of a huge red firecracker, that tumbled over and over in the air, and dropping behind Cas, exploded with a terrific report, tearing the seat out of his trousers.
Cas jumped about eight feet, and then, transformed into a veritable demon, brandishing his bat and roaring like mad bull, he made for the bleachers.
If Mac and several policemen had not intercepted him, the scene might have passed from comedy to tragedy. As it was, all Cas could do was to wave his fist at the hooting bleachers and yell:
“I can lick the man who threw that!”
“Boo! Boo! Redhead! Redhead!”
“I can lick you all,” bawled Cas, foaming at the mouth.
In the prevailing excitement, the Findlay supporters naturally and foolishly poured out of the stands upon the field. Silk promptly called the game 9 to 0 in Kenton’s favor. Then began one of those familiar scenes common to a baseball crowd on the glorious Fourth. Like water the Kenton spectators spilled themselves into the mélee.
What with the angry altercations between partisans of the teams, and yells and horn blowing and shooting of the winners, and pushing, jostling, crowding of both sides, the affair might well well have degenerated into a real fight. But this did not happen. It almost never happens. Great rivalry, great provocation, never yet spoiled the fair spirit of the game.
But the Findlay players ran a not-soon-to-be-forgotten gantlet to the railroad station. Sore were they, particularly Cas, who was not able to sit down on the way home; and threatening were the supporters, but by the time the gong rang for the afternoon game in Findlay, resentment vanished in present enjoyment.
For the attendance was very large, the afternoon perfect, and the game a spirited and thrilling one. Only a single misplay marred the brilliant fielding.
Both pitchers kept the hitting down. The final score was 2 to 1 in Findlay’s favor. Chase’s star rose higher; and if there were any who did not admit his popularity before the game, there were none after. For at the right time, at the one great absorbing climax, at the moment when eyes flashed, hands clenched, and hearts almost stopped beating, he performed the unexpected feat, the one thing absolutely glorious to the hoping, despairing audience—drove the ball far over the fence.
That hit settled it. Never had there been one like it save Dan Brouthers’ great and memorable drive of years gone by. Mac threw up his hands and stared in rapture at his star. The crowd carried Chase off the field.
When a player became the idol of the fans it meant something; but when a player made fans out of staid businessmen, and young society men, and girls in school, and women prominent in town and church affairs, then it meant a great deal. It meant money in the boxoffice, support for the team, willing, eager, working baseball champions.
And such a wave carried the Findlay team to the top of popularity, with Chase on the very crest. He was the recipient of more presents in the way of suits, hats, shoes, canes, umbrellas, than he knew what to do with. He received a beautiful gold watch, with his monogram engraved on it. He was asked to luncheon with prominent businessmen; he was invited everywhere. And last, a photographer lured him into his den, there took his picture, and reproducing it on small buttons, sold them by the hundreds. Every youngster and almost every girl in town proudly wore Chase’s picture. He was public property.
This latter fact became a source of pain to Chase. One day Mittie-Maru, having met Marjory by the river, had enlarged upon this matter of the picture buttons, with the result that he had interesting news for Chase.
“She wouldn’t hev one! Wot do you think of thet? Said you were conceited to allow ’em sold. Somehow she blamed you fer it. An’ when I asked her if ’t wasn’t nice to see all the girls a-wearin’ ’em—wot you think she said? ‘Sickenin’,’ thet’s wot—‘sickenin’!’ Now, I’m wise ’bout girls, an’ I up an’ tol’ her she was a victim of the green-eyed monster. Then wot you think she said? ‘Mittie-Maru, you needn’t speak to me ever any more.’ Queered myself pluggin’ yer game along, thet’s wot I did.”
Thereafter whenever Chase saw one of the
buttons decorating the front of a schoolgirl’s blouse, he had a moment of chagrin and called himself names for ever going into that picture-gallery. And when he saw Marjory, he learned what she thought of the selling of his pictures all over town for ten cents each.
“But, Marjory,” said Chase, “even if they do sell so cheap, it’s good business. It advertises the team, and I get a percentage.”
“Every girl in town can have your picture,” replied Marjory, severely.
Evidently the possibilities of the case weighed more with Marjory than the notoriety.
Mac, too, showed concern because of the popularity of his shortstop. More than once he hinted to Chase the necessity of a ball-player’s duty not to be carried away by praise and entertainment. There would come a time, Mac averred, when he would strike a spell of bad form, when the tide of popular favor would ebb, and then he would wish he had not let himself be made so much of.
* * * *
One day towards the close of July, Mac sought Chase out in the evening. He seemed eager and excited, yet anxious. He chewed on his cigar stub and talked and held to Chase.
“Got a date again tonight?” he asked for the twentieth time.
“Yes,” said Chase.
“I’ll let you go in a minute. There’s somethin’ I want to say. Chase, are you shure you won’t go up in the air, if I tell you? It’s great.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, I’ve been a little scairt of all this hobnobbin’ an’ fussin’ of yours. You’re only a kid, Chase. An’ mebbe only another puff or so’ll blow you out of sight.”
“Haven’t I listened to you always and kept both feet on the ground?”
“Sure, Chase, shure you have. I never trained a lad who took to things as you.”
“You needn’t worry about me, Mac. I’m having a great time here, there’s no doubt about it. I like everybody. I’m not missing anything. But what they say or think about my playing hasn’t anything to do with it, one way or another. On the surface it all looks easy, like real play. But you know how I’ve worked and am working to learn the game. I’ve got to succeed.”
“Good! Thet’s the spirit. Now listen. Ranney, the manager of Cincinnati, wrote me about you, an’ today Burke, manager of Detroit, was here, in the grandstand watchin’ your work. None of us knew it till after the game. He sneaked in foxy-like. It’s just as well, because mebbe you’d been nervous. As it was, you put up your usual hard, fast game. He sez to me just now—I walked to the station with him—he sez, ‘Thet’s a fast lad; can he hit?’ An’ I sez, ‘Can he? Well, he’s been rippin’ the boards off the fence all season.’ Then he sez, ‘Send me his battin’ average, an’ give me first say on him when the season’s over.’”
Mac spat out his cigar, moistened his lips, and producing papers from his pocket went on:
“I asked Mannin’ of the Chronicle to make out the averages. Here they are. You’re hittin’ 398, an’ leadin’ the Dude by a mile. It’s hard to believe, Chase, but there’s the figgers. You keep puttin’ the wood on ’em, an’ besides you work a good many bases on balls. That tells. Now get this an’ keep it under your hat. If you can hang on with thet kind of stick work, I’ll sell you for big money when the season’s over. An’ if you make it an even 400, I’ll give you one-third of the purchase price. Got thet!”
“Do I? Mac, I’ll tear the legs off all the third-basemen in the league from now on,” replied Chase, with fire in his eye. He saw the tired face of his mother and her toil-worn hands, and he saw the pale, thoughtful features of his brother.
* * * *
That afternoon he got two triples and a home-run out of five times at bat.
“Sure nothin’ can stop him now!” choked Mac, from the bench.
And what spoke well for Chase and his future was his popularity with the team. The “course of sprouts” had long since been gone through. Poke and Ford were now the butts of the players. Cas adored him, Enoch called him “Sonny” now with fatherly friendliness, the Dude and Havil sought his society, and Benny hung to him like a leech.
“Cut out the drinking and come with me,” Chase had said one evening. And he had taken Benny from among the hangers-on ’round the hotel, the young sports who liked to buy drinks, the rich oil-men who had nothing but money.’ Benny was ashamed and backward, but he enjoyed the evening. And Chase took him again and came to like him.
“How much do you draw, Benny, if you don’t mind telling?” asked Chase.
“One-fifty.”
“What do you do with it all?”
“Blow it in.”
“Don’t you save any?”
“How can a man save an’ skate with that fly crowd? What doesn’t go for booze goes for poker. Sometimes I manage to send a ten-spot home.”
“I send money home every month.”
“I ought to,” Benny bowed his head.
“Folks need it?”
“Lord! They’re poor, sometimes awful poor when the governor is laid up with rheumatiz. There’s mother. She’s well an’ strong, but my sister’s ’most always ailin’. I never let myself think of them when I’m sober, an’ can’t when I’m drunk.”
“Benny, you’d be the best second-baseman in this league if you didn’t drink. Think how much you could help your folks, even now, let alone what you might do if you worked up to a bigger job.”
“I don’t care so much for the booze. There’s always somebody jollyin’ me,” said Benny.
It happened that Chase knew a Molly McCoy, a saucy, sparkling-eyed girl, who admired Benny and wanted to meet him. So Chase, when he had worn off Benny’s rough edges and made him manifest some interest in his appearance, took him to see Molly. The little lady fell in with Chase’s deep-laid plot, perhaps more from the eternal feminine than from any other reason, and she made her sparkling eyes complete Chase’s good beginning. She attached Benny to herself. And he, unable to comprehend, quite overcome, stuttered to Chase about it, and said most foolish and irrelevant things.
Wise Chase! He pretended there was nothing remarkable about the matter. To be sure, Molly was simply delightful. Of course she had wonderfully lovely eyes. He took care to hint to Benny that there were any number of young men in town who thought so and tried to tell Molly so. And vastly Chase said, as if it were a thing Benny did not need to be told, as if it were a simple conclusion: “It wouldn’t do to drink if any fellow wanted to go with Molly.”
Benny bought gorgeous neckties regularly after that, looked mysterious when his player friends chaffed him, and wore cool towards his former boon companions. The hotel bar-rooms seldom saw him, and it was noticeable that the heated flush faded out of his face. And when some misguided ball player hit a ball anywhere in the vicinity of second-base, the bleachers sang: “Benny’s barred the door!”
* * * *
During the latter half of July, Findlay kept the lead over Columbus by a small margin. And when that team presented itself for a series of three games the excitement waxed keen.
After the first game, which Findlay won, Chase met a very agreeable, smoothfaced, quiet-looking man. Chase had seen him about town somewhere, and was under the impression that Cas or Mac had said he was one of the many gamblers known in the oil-belt. He talked baseball and appeared friendly, so Chase treated him civilly. The next day he met him again. They sat in the lobby of the hotel and talked a while. It appeared the man had an engagement with Speer and was waiting for him. Some time later Chase saw the stranger with Speer and noticed that the latter had been drinking. This occasioned Chase some surprise, because Mac expected to pitch Speer in the next game, and Mac’s rules in regard to drink were stringent.
On Saturday, when Chase passed the small park near his boarding house, he encountered the agreeable gentleman sitting on one of the park benches.
“Hello, Chase. Fine hot day for the game. Sit down. I’ve been enjoying the shade.”
Chase took a seat, more from his habit of pleasantry than from any desire to converse with the m
an. He was aware of a close scrutiny, but being used to that sort of thing took little heed of it.
“How about the game today?” asked the fellow.
“We’ll win. We’ve got to have two out of three.”
“Think there’s any chance to win some money?”
“I never advise bets.”
The gentleman adjusted his cuffs, picked a thread off his coat sleeve, and flicked the dust from his patent leather boots. Then quite casually he glanced all around the park. “Have you seen Speer this morning?” he asked.
“No.”
“Hum! I—he said he expected to see you. Mebbe he will yet.”
Then he took a roll of bills from his pocket, snapped off a rubber and unrolled them, showing tens and twenties, rolled them up again and snapped on the band He was most deliberate. His next move was to hand the roll to Chase. “Stick that in your pocket.”
Chase would have been more surprised if he had not already been the recipient of so many presents; still this seemed out of all proportion. He could not imagine why a big sum of money should be handed him by a total stranger, and he said so.
“You’re wise. If not, Speer will put you wise,” replied the man, again adjusting his cuffs.
“Is this money for me?”
“Sure.”
“What for?”
“Aren’t you wise?”
“I certainly am not.”
“Well, I got a chance to win a few thousand this afternoon—”
“Here, I won’t try to place any money for you.”
“That bundle’s for you, and you’ll get another like it—if I win.”
“Do you mean you are going to bet on Findlay and give me this money to make me play all the harder? Because, if you do, take it back. I couldn’t play any harder for ten thousand dollars.”
“Not exactly. You see, I’m betting on Columbus.”
“Oh-h!”
Then the man shook off his slow, deliberate manner, rose to his feet, and glanced at Chase with keen, hard eyes.
“You’re wise now, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly,” said Chase, slowly.
“It’s a cinch. You’re going to pull off a couple of hundred. It’s like finding money. I’ve got Speer fixed. Now all you need to do is to fall over a couple of grounders this afternoon or make a wild throw at a critical time. See!”
