over him. The big catcher still had his dirty uniform on. A look of resentment was pinching his heavy face.
“How come you shake off my sign on that kid in the seventh? I signaled for a curve.” Boyle fairly ripped it out.
Roxy grinned. “Wanted to see what he could do with it.”
Boyle’s face kept its pinched look. “Well, you saw. He hit it a mile. What’s the matter with you, Roxy?” He bit the words off like they were chaws of tobacco.
The pitcher dropped his hands to his sides. It was the old story again. Who’s more important? The catcher or the pitcher?
“I don’t get you, Deac.”
“Listen, Roxy, I’ll make it plain.” Boyle moved in belligerently. “I don’t know what satisfaction you get outa lettin’ rookies tag you for homers, and I don’t care. All I do care about is this. I’m callin’ them behind the plate. Me. Got that?”
The pitcher straightened and got to his feet. Roxy’s locker was in the corner of the clubhouse, and they were alone except for a couple of ball players down at the far end of the room.
Roxy’s jaw set in a hard line and his eyes lost the warm, friendly look usually found in them.
“You’re a little mixed up, aren’t you, boy?” His voice was cucumber cool, which only seemed to make Boyle’s voice get louder.
“Yeah? If it wasn’t for my signals, me doling out the right signals, mixin’ them up for you, that soup bone of yours would have folded months ago. I know how to save your wing. You don’t.”
“You’d better shut up, Deac.” Roxy’s voice was even lower now. He was sore. Plenty sore. Boyle had sounded off on the same subject too many times. Why, the bum would be down on some hot Texas team now if he, Roxy, hadn’t asked Manager Wilks to give him a break. Gratitude!
Boyle ignored him. “Listen, Carter. The catcher runs the battery, not the pitcher. Cut the tricks. I’ll decide what you throw and what you don’t throw. Next time you shake a sign off when it’s called, I’ll ram the ball down your throat!”
They were close to each other now, angry words flying fast, when some spittle from Boyle’s mouth flew between his teeth and landed squarely on Roxy’s face.
That did it. What had been just a disagreement over tactics now became something else.
Roxy balled up a fist and rammed it into the catcher’s left eye. Boyle howled in pain. The pitcher, lighter of the two, rushed him and flailed with his arms. It was a game, but futile, gesture.
Boyle stood his ground and protected his head with his arms. The blows staggered him, but Roxy didn’t have enough weight to back them up. The heavier catcher reached out, blocked his swings and threw a punch of his own.
Crack!
His meaty fist sent Roxy crashing into a locker door that opened into the aisle and the game hurler went down. Swearing violently, Boyle went after him, throwing one punch after the other. The room began to dance before Roxy’s eyes.
Stunned by the unexpectedness of the fight and cowed by Deacon Boyle’s rep as a back alley fighter, the other players held back. Roxy Carter was taking his lumps unassisted. The insensate Boyle might have wrecked the pennant chances of the Hawks beyond repair if the big green kid hadn’t suddenly loomed in the doorway.
One big hand plucked Boyle backwards and spun him around.
The catcher’s mouth showed his astonishment. He recognized Oll in the split second before the kid’s huge right hand rocked him off his feet. A left hook, even harder than the right, sent him crashing to the floor.
He was flat on his back, out. The dazed Roxy was helped to his feet by suddenly remorseful teammates. He sat down heavily on a bench and struggled to open his eyes. He got them wide-open and grinned.
Deacon Boyle was a silent heap on the floor. Roxy looked around some more and spotted the big, wide-shouldered kid standing by, looking bashful about something.
“Say—” he began and groaned. Blood was running from his split lips. Oll held out a handkerchief in his thick fingers, and Roxy took it.
“Don’t talk, Mr. Carter,” the kid said. “You’re bleeding bad.”
Roxy nodded and winced. He shook his head.
“The Deacon really gets some cute ideas. Thanks.”
The rookie smiled down at him proudly and said, “Shucks. It was a pleasure, Mr. Carter.”
“Good thing you happened by, that’s all. He would have killed me.”
Suddenly, as if sensing a bond between them, Oll dropped on the bench beside him. “What happened? I always thought catchers and pitchers were pals.”
“Don’t you believe it!” Roxy shot it out, dabbing at his mouth with the handkerchief. “Take me and Boyle there. We get along like married people— And hey!—it’s all your fault, too!”
Oll looked hurt.
“I don’t see what you mean, Mr. Carter.”
Roxy was not to be turned. “Back there in the seventh—and don’t call me Mister Carter—I gave you a high, hard one when Deac signaled for a curve. You got four bases on it and he got ulcers. He gets mad as a wet hen when I shake off his sign. He’s funny that way.”
“I really got hold of that one, didn’t I?” The kid wasn’t bragging; he simply said it.
Roxy stopped wiping his mouth in bewilderment. “Say, what the hell are you doing in here anyway? I’ve been in baseball ten years and never saw an opponent in the rival locker room yet.”
Oll’s big, pleasant face dropped like one of Roxy’s own deliveries. He compressed his lips so that his nostrils flared. A deep, red flush made his face comical.
“Well—I—you see—”
“Out with it. You spying on us for the Browns or something?”
“Oh, no, no!” The kid was vehement in his protests. “Nothing like that. It’s just that this was my first game of major league ball—”
“Go on.”
“Well, I got a homer today in my first at bat, pinch hitting besides, and I sorta wondered—”
Roxy looked at the red handkerchief in his hands. “I suppose I owe you a favor. If you hadn’t come by when you did—”
“Well,” Oll rushed it out, “I was wondering, seeing as how you’re my first homer victim, could I have your autograph, Mr. Carter?”
THE WILD MAN, by Octavus Roy Cohen
I can’t say just where the grudge between Pat Nelligan and Bill Davis started. Sandy MacPherson claims to have known them both when they were in the Pacific Coast League, and he says that there’s a girl mixed up in it somewhere, but I can’t swear to that. All I know is that they were drafted into our circuit
