World Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

you?”
    “Nosir. But I’m better now. Awful glad to be back.”
    “And I’m mighty glad to have you. We can use that old mahogany of yours out there at the plate, Roy. Watch yourself, now.” He turned away. Soon the familiar voice of the announcer came through the loudspeaker above.
    “For Cleveland...Thomas, No. 19, pitching; McCormick, No. 2, catching. For Brooklyn, McCaffrey, No. 11, pitching; West, No. 18, catching.”
    He saw Dave beckoning and squeezed into a place at his side. Up and down the bench rang the chatter of the jockeys trying to ride the Indian pitcher. This was the game they wanted, the game which would put them once more in the lead.
    That afternoon the Kid felt he learned as much baseball sitting beside Dave Leonard as he had learned all season. It was a pitcher’s battle, with each manager hoping to wear down the other hurler. Thomas was an old timer, smart, keen, with a team of quick thinkers behind him. Sitting quietly in the dugout as a spectator, Roy could appreciate the skill of the man in the box, watch his strategy and that of the men in the field. As a non-combatant from the dugout, things were different. From the dugout the pitcher’s mound really was a mound, and sitting on the scarred wooden step you saw things a man missed when he was playing. Closely he watched Dave shift his fielders around for each batter, trying to outguess them. Things were moving in the first inning.
    Red Allen hit a sizzling grounder at Lanahan in short. The Indian player was slow getting it away, and the batter was safe at first. “Huh! The old fella’s slowing up. Harry’d have had that one in his pocket.”
    Dave was an old timer himself. He came to the veteran’s defense. “Yeah, yeah, maybe so. But he’s still one of the best fielding shortstops in the league and still able to pull ’em out of the bag.” The next Dodger smacked a hit over second. That is, it was going over second. Somehow Lanahan got there, deflected it toward Gardiner who scooped it up and shot it back to him in time for the force-out. “See! What’d I tell you? He’s an old player, he forgets his errors once they are made. Put it out of your mind. If you make a bumble, Roy, forget it. Don’t hang on to it. Don’t let your mistakes get you down. We all make ’em.”
    The Kid, however, was loyal to his teammates.
    “Harry and Eddie would have had that ball, too. Likely they’d have had a doubleplay out of it, even.”
    “They’d have tried for it, maybe. Point is, experienced men don’t always try for a double. They want to be sure of getting the man at second. Youngsters might have tried for a double on that play; they’d have probably fumbled the ball and then where would you be? Everybody safe, see?”
    Yes, he saw. He saw there was lots to baseball he didn’t know, even if he was playing on a pennant winner. It was strange to be sitting there, watching his team from the dugout and not from his spot in deep right. To see Red Allen astride the bag and not his back with the big number 3 on it; to notice the changes in Elmer’s face in the box; and have Harry’s “Hurry up...take yer time...” come sharp and clear across the diamond. Strangest of all was to watch his substitute, Paul Roth, out in right. He could see the man clench and unclench his fists, and the tenseness of his movements as he snapped his sunglasses back on his cap after a foul to the stands. It made him restless to watch them out there fighting without him.
    “Dave, I’d sure like to be out in that ball game with the boys.”
    “Yeah, I know how you feel. I remember when I was hurt in the Series in nineteen and thirty-five. Don’t you worry, boy, you’ll get lots of chance to play. It won’t be over tonight...looka that!” Disgust and disappointment were in his voice. “Another pop-up. Those boys are all tightened up. They’re gripping too hard. Harry...go get us a hit there, will ya?”
    From the dugout the Kid watched the eternal duel