WON IN THE NINTH - 1910 - DEDICATION To the memory of Henry Chadwick, The Father of Baseball, whose life was centered in the sport, and who, by his rugged honesty and his relentless opposition to everything that savored of dishonesty and commercialism in connection with the game, is entitled to the credit, more than any other, of the high standing and unsullied reputation which the sport enjoys to-day, and to the boys who love the great American game I dedicate this book. C. M. WON IN THE NINTH CHAPTER I THE WINTER TERM EYAH E YAH H ughie, RAH-RAH. A wiry redhaired boy about twenty-three years old swung lightly from the train with a big valise in his hand into a crowd of college boys in caps and heavy ulsters. They gathered round him at once, and while one crowd took charge of his valise, he was lifted on to the shoulders of a half dozen fellows and carried through the streets to his rooms in Elihu Dormitory. In a twinkling his rooms and the halls outside were blocked with the lads of Lowell who had come to welcome the most popular boy in school, Hughie Jenkins. . It was the day of the opening of the winter term of the University. Hughie Jenkins had been the successful manager for three years of the College Baseball team and on the Thanksgiving Day previous, Hughie as Captain of the Football Eleven, with the help of the other members of the team, had won the College Championship for the first time in - five years. The boys of Lowell University had never been I WON THE NINTH I very successful in football against their old rivals at Jefferson, and the fellows were so chock-full of enthusiasm over it that they had not yet had enough opportunity to satisfy it. As each of the members of the team had arrived he had been welcomed in much the same way, but the great welcome was, of course, given to good old Hughie as they called him, and now that he was with them again it was possible, taking the boys view of it, for the work of the Uni versity to go on. As Captain Larke had said, Hughie is entitled to all the credit we can give him. He has been a wonder at baseball because he has always kept the boys fight THE WINTER TERM ing hard to win, no matter what the score was, and we have won many a game just because we wanted to do our best for him, and the way he made us get out and win in the last few minutes of the big football game kind of shows that he knows how to put them over. F Thats right, said Kirkpatrick, who was right end on the team, if good old Hughie hadnt put some of the fight back in us when that old score was o to o in the last five minutes of play, and then himself kicked that field goal from Jeffersons twentyfive-yard line, we wouldnt have won. Well, said Hughie, this is fine all right, boys. We did win, didnt we l and its very kind of you to try to give me all the credit, but if it hadnt been for the other ten fellows on the team, I guess I couldnt , have done very much, and anyway it took eleven pretty 1 good men to beat that team from Jefferson. Then, turning to Johnny Everson he said, Gee, I wish the snow would melt. Id like to find out what kind of new fellows we have who can play baseball. And that was just like Hughie. Here it was winter, with snow on the ground, and a month or two...