“You take the other fellers, Dan,” said “Red.” “I got me a catcher.”
Wayne was a little embarrassed and awkward at first, but by the time “Red” was getting warmed up and putting speed into the ball he was so interested that he forgot all self-consciousness. “Red” was feeling in fine form this morning, possibly as a result of yesterday’s game, and some of his deliveries were hard to judge. There was a “jump ball” in particular that always caused Wayne anxiety until it had settled into his mitten. Crane, Nye, and Cotton, who were pitching to Young, and Young, too, for that matter, observed the emergency catcher with interest. It was “Hop” who asked presently: “You and Steve got together yet, kid?”
“Not yet,” replied Wayne cheerfully, rolling the ball from mitt to hand and tossing it back to Herring. “There’s no hurry, I reckon.”
“Better not leave it too long,” advised Cotton. “Chris Farrel’ll be sending another rookie along first thing anyone knows. He’s a great one for that sort of thing.”
“Oh, Chris is all right,” said Herring. “He discovered Cob Morgan and Bee Bennett, didn’t he? And I sort of guess they ain’t so poor.”
“Chris makes about one lucky guess in ten,” observed Pitcher Crane, “but maybe that’s a good average. I don’t know.”
“You twirling this afternoon, Nick?” asked Herring.
“I guess so. The boss is crazy to cop the next two games.”
“Don’t look like it,” said Cotton innocently. “You’d think he’d put a good pitcher in today.”
Crane only smiled. Nick, in the words of the Harrisville baseball scribes, was the “dean of the pitching corps,” and didn’t have to answer such aspersions. Just then Manager Milburn summoned Herring to take Casey’s place on the mound and Wayne was for removing his mitt. Young, however, suggested his taking Nye off his hands and Wayne assented. “Hop” was easy after Herring, for he used straight balls a good deal and although they came like lightning they were far easier to judge than “Red’s” eccentric slants. Later, when the players moved to the nets, Wayne encountered another of Manager Milburn’s sarcastic glances, but he didn’t mind. As long as the manager didn’t object to his being on the field during practice Wayne was for the present satisfied.