Well, the letter was sent and Connie wrote back to Bull, and says a boy named Gregory had been mentioned to him, and ast Bull was he worth a trial. Bull answered that Gregory was a kid with great natural ability and one or two faults that’d have to be overcome. Then Connie fixed it with the Montgomery club, and Bull thought he’d finished his job.
But he found out different. W’ile Maggie consented to becomin’ engaged, she wasn’t in no hurry to get married. She says her parents was gettin’ old and she didn’t want to leave ’em all summer, and besides, she didn’t have no clo’es, and besides, it would be a whole lot nicer to wait till fall and spend the honeymoon where they’d first met each other and when Bull was just startin’ his vacation instead of endin’ it. Bull coaxed and coaxed, but her rules was just like his’n—she couldn’t change a decision on a question o’ judgment.
In the three weeks before Martin was to report in Jacksonville, Bull done nothin’ but try and shoot him full o’ confidence.
“The pitchers down here have got everything you’ll see in the big league,” he told him. “You don’t need to be afraid o’ none o’ them. A man that handles a bat the way you do can hit anything in the world if he’ll just swing. Connie or any other manager don’t care how many times you strike out in the pinch, provided you strike out tryin’. You got the stuff in you to make Cobb and Baker and them look like a rummy. Don’t get scared; that’s all.”
Bull pulled that talk on him right up to the day the kid left Montgomery. Down at the train, Bull says to him:
“Remember, they’s nothin’ to be scared of. Make us all proud o’ you! Make good!”
“I’ll make good if they give me a square deal,” he says.
“Yes,” Bull says to himself, “it’s a cinch it’ll be somebody else’s fault if he falls down. It always is.”
Well, in a little w’ile it come time for Bull to leave too. And here’s what the girl sprung on him at the partin’:
“You’ll help him all you can, won’t you?” she says.
“They’s not a chance for me to help him,” says Bull. “A man in my place can’t favor nobody.”
“A man could,” she says, “if a man knowed it would please the girl he was stuck on.”
Now if it’d of been me that she made that remark to, I’d of ast for waivers. But you know what they say about love bein’ blind. And when it’s a combination o’ love and an umpire—well, how can you beat it!
Bull kept close tab on the papers and he seen that Martin was at second base in the lineup o’ the Ath-a-letics’ regular club. This was w’ile they was still South. Then, in one o’ their last exhibitions before the season started, Martin’s name was left out. He wrote to the kid and he wrote to Maggie, tryin’ to find out what was doin’. Maggie wrote back that she didn’t know and Martin didn’t answer at all.
The season begin and Bull was workin’ in the West. Every mornin’ he grabbed the papers and looked to see if Martin was back in. Four times in three weeks the kid went up to bat for somebody, but without doin’ no good. Then come the second week in this month and the first series between the Eastern clubs and us.
Bull had the Detroit–Philadelphia series. Just before the first game he run into Connie outside o’ the park. They shook hands and then Bull says:
“Didn’t you ask me about a ball player this winter?”
“Yes,” says Connie, “a boy named Gregory.”
“How’s he comin’?” says Bull.
“I don’t think he’s comin’,” says Connie. “I think he’s just gettin’ ready to go.”
“What’s the trouble?” ast Bull.
“Well,” says Connie, “once in a w’ile our club happens to not be more’n two or three runs behind, happens to have a chance to tie or win. Gregory’s one o’ the kind o’ ball players that spoils them chances. In practice down South he looked like a find. He hit everything and fielded all over the place. But we got into some tight exhibitions on the way up and when the opportunities come to him to do somethin’ big he faded away. He ain’t there in a pinch; that’s all.”
“Is he with you yet?” Bull ast him.
“He’s with us,” says Connie; “he’s with us for one more trial. If they’s a place in this series where I can use a substitute hitter, Gregory’s goin’ to be the man. And if he don’t swing that club the way he can swing it when it don’t mean nothin’, I’ll hand him his transportation back to Montgomery.”
“Does the kid know that?” ast Bull.
“Yes,” says Connie, “and if they’s any stuff in him the knowledge that this is his last chance should ought to bring it out.”
“You mean,” says Bull, “that if he strikes out again in a pinch he’s through?”
“No, I don’t,” says Connie. “I mean he’s through if he doesn’t try to murder that ball. I don’t care if he strikes out on three pitches, just so he swings.”
“But suppose,” says Bull—“suppose they don’t throw him nothin’ he can hit; suppose they walk him.”
“O’ course,” says Connie, “if the count gets down to two and three, I’d want him to pass the ball up if it was bad. But if it was where he could
