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 CHAPTER III

THE MAN TO PITCH

To the left of the bench, which was set well back against the railing in front of the third-base bleachers, on which a carload of Bancroft fans were bunched, Jock Hoover, the star slabman of the team, was warming up with Bingo Bangs, the catcher.

Hoover, speedy, pugnacious, with an arm of iron, the face of a Caliban, and the truculence of an Attila, was well calculated to inspire respect and fear when on the mound; and his mid-season acquirement by Bancroft the year before had doubtless fixed that team in first position, and marked the assured downfall of Kingsbridge, against whom he was most frequently worked.

In Bancroft, Hoover was admired and toadied; in Kingsbridge he was most cordially hated. More than once his intimidating methods on the latter field had come perilously close to producing a riot, which, had it ever started among the mill men, must have been a nasty affair.

Never in the most threatening moments of the