Keystone Kids by John R. Tunis Read Free Book Online Page B

you to be the punch.”
    Bob was puzzled. “What’s that mean? I guess I don’t get you.”
    “From now on you’re going to be our holler guy—”
    “Holler guy?”
    “That’s it. Holler. Pep. Pepper. Lots of it. too. Don’t let the crowds that’ll come to see us play the Giants this weekend frighten you. I’ve got things sized up and, as I see ’em, you’re a holler guy. All right, you go out and holler. Give ’em all you got.”
    He looked at the slender figure in uniform. Maybe, after all, Cassidy is right. Maybe it’s a good thing Ed Davis got injured; it’ll give me a chance this fall to see what these kids can do, and anyhow we aren’t getting any place fast the way it stands now. Since I’m not in there they need pepping up; maybe this boy’s youth and freshness will do the trick.
    “O.K., sir, if you say so.”
    “That’s it. Let me hear you holler plenty; let me hear you yelling at the infield and the pitcher, too.”
    “Shucks, the crowd don’t scare me; but, gee whiz, do I have to holler at the other fellas on the team who are older and been longer on the club?”
    “Yes, you do. Forget the others. Just you holler.”
    “I will if you want me to. I’ll holler if you say the word. But, golly... that’s some job, that is.”
    However, no one ever had to tease Bob Russell to “holler.” As he remarked that night in their room to his brother, “I can take a hint when a steam roller runs over me.” In Nashville despite his youth he had been the “holler guy” of the team, and once out there beside second for the Dodgers, all he needed was a go-ahead from the boss. For he was naturally full of salt, yes, and pepper, too, giving it as well as taking it. His voice echoed daily over the infield. “Go get ’em, gang, le’s go get ’em.” And his chatter toned up everyone’s play.
    Moreover, he backed up his voice with deeds. It was Bob’s single in the ninth that sent them ahead in the first game of their important series with the Giants. At first some of the older men looked on him as a brash youngster and muttered under their breaths about the “old college try.” But his stops and throws around second, his sensational fielding and his work with the stick, forced them to respect this youngster. Gradually they saw that he was more than just a fresh youngster with a strident voice.
    Bob made one bad error in the second game against the Giants, dropping a quick throw from the pitcher which would have picked a man off second. The man scored later and the Giants won the game, and for a few days the fans were muttering that the boy certainly booted that one. But in the next game and the game after, which they won, the pair were the Russell boys again.
    Spike, tall, lean, was cutting down liners in deep short that a smaller man would never have touched; Bob was darting here and there, like an insect, stopping hot ones behind the bag and then racing out to steal hits between his position and first base. When the big behemoths came roaring down the basepaths, looking as they crashed in like human locomotives, Bob never gave an inch; in fact, he even went out to meet them.
    The boys were playing good ball. Of course they were playing good ball; at last they were happy. For they were together as a pair, they understood each other and each other’s method of play. Best of all, no shadow of a possible separation hung over them because both felt that with the chance to prove what they could do, they’d never be split again. Chances came often, and they took advantage of them.
    There was the series against the Cubs, in the first game of which Mallard, ever a dangerous pitcher, was facing the Dodgers. Going into the eighth, Brooklyn had worked into a three to nothing lead, but the eighth was almost always a dangerous inning for an old-timer like Rats Doyle, in the box for the Dodgers. Accordingly as the inning started Crane gave the warm-up signal, and two pitchers rose in the bullpen and began