ROFESSIONAL baseball, much less the bush-league variety, had never been the goal of Jack Pennington’s ambition; but a seemingly inherent distaste for Virgil and higher mathematics, combined with superior acquired skill in the art of warping a horsehide covered sphere over a rubber pentagon had lighted the beacon of destiny.
The wrath of an irate parent fanned the torch. For, on learning that his only son, for whose educational advancement he had spent money cheerfully and with an open hand, had been dropped a year at college, old Gardiner Pennington, rich alarm-clock manufacturer, escaped by a narrow margin indeed an apoplectic stroke that might have been fatal.
The ensuing interview between father and son was of a most unpleasant nature. Placing the blame for the boy’s failure wholly upon baseball, Pennington, Senior, made the grim announcement that no more money should be wasted in sending him to college; either he could enter the clock factory as an unskilled workman at eight dollars a week and learn the business from the bottom up, or get out and hustle for himself.
Although in some degree he was like his gentle, refined mother, whom he could barely remember, Jack was a Pennington at bottom, having inherited sufficient of the spirit which had enabled Gardiner Penning ton to fight his way upward from a poor inventor at twenty-three to become a wealthy manufacturer at fifty.
If the boy regretted his hasty choice of the latter alternative, he was not the sort to let it become known.
Directly following the game in which he had pitched for his college against the “Indians” of the Big League, but lately arrived North after Spring training in a more balmy clime, Pennington had been approached by the manager of the professionals, who, secretly in need of twirlers, had offered him a try-out.
But the college pitcher had laughed at Dugan’s overtures, turning him down flatly.
Cast upon his own resources, following the break with his father, the young man had bethought himself of Dugan’s offer, not, however, with even the remotest idea of taking up baseball as a permanent career.
Seldom has a raw cub so quickly obtained his opening in fast company. The season had been cold and wet and, with his entire firing staff carrying lame arms swathed in flannels, Dugan sent the collegian on to the mound three days after Pennington joined the team.
Pitted against the Gazelles, the youngster surely had his work “cut out for him,” but perfect support in the early periods pulled him out of the bad holes without serious damage being done. As his natural nervousness wore off and his confidence returned, he settled down into his best form and held the Gazelles runless and almost hitless in the last six innings.
Pennington had chosen to appear on the batting order under a fictitious name, but there were baseball reporters who had seen him pitch before and his subterfuge was unavailing. Nearly every printed report of the game mentioned him as a well-known college pitcher and gave his right name.
He could well imagine the feelings of his father. “He will be about as proud of me,” thought Pennington, “as if I had been caught red-handed cracking a safe!”
S A Big League pitcher, Pennington’s career was brief. He had fancied that success in the first game would settle everything, but, to his surprise, he found his position still far from assured. Dugan took care to impress upon him the fact that support of the hair-lifting variety alone had saved him from being slaughtered early in the game, and assured him that his swift “chin-wiper,” on which he relied for a strike-out ball, would be pie for real batters when they got wise to it.
Nor were Pennington’s team-mates more friendly and encouraging. Some of the sore-arm brigade of flingers sneered at him openly; others ignored him; not a man of them had a cheerful word for him. The Indians were reputed to be the biggest bunch of grouches in the business.
Whether or not they conspired to throw him down, he had his troubles next time he was sent to the firing-line. In direct contrast to the first occasion, his backing was of the most wretched order. The day was cold and marrow-piercing, but a succession of seemingly bone-headed plays behind him made the youngster hot enough.
Deciding that he must rely on himself, he whipped the ball over with savage fierceness, using his high in-shoot for almost every strike-ball pitched. For a time, the surest hitters of the opposing team were as helpless before his speed as back-lot players might have been. The spectators were with him, and up to the eighth inning it looked as if he would get away with it.