A little later on, when playing on his school nine, he had obstacles of a different character to surmount. The bully of the school sought to down him, but found that he had made a mistake in picking out his victim. Joe's natural skill and constant practice enabled him to win laurels for himself and his school on the diamond, and prepared him for the larger field that awaited him when later on he went to Yale. As may be easily understood, with all the competition he had to meet at the great University his chance was long in coming to prove his class in the pitching box. But the homely old saying that "it is hard to keep a squirrel on the ground" was never better exemplified than in his case. There came a time when the Yale "Bulldog" was hard beset by the Princeton "Tiger," and Joe was called on to twist the Tiger's tail. How well he did it and what glory he won for his Alma Mater can be read in the third volume of the series, entitled: "Baseball Joe at Yale; Or, Pitching for the College Championship." But even at the top notch of his popularity, Joe was restless at college. He was bright and keen in his studies and had no difficulty in standing up well in his classes. But all his instincts told him that he was made for the out-of-door life. His mother had hoped that Joe would enter the ministry, but Joe, although he had the greatest respect for that profession, did not feel that his life work lay in that direction. He had been so successful in athletic sports and took such pleasure in them that he yielded to his natural bent and decided to adopt professional baseball as his vocation. His mother was sorely grieved at first, and the more so as she felt that Joe was "stepping down" in entering the professional ranks. But Joe was able to show her that scores of college men were doing the same thing that he planned to do, and she had too good sense to press her opposition too far. The opening that Joe was looking for came when he was offered a chance to play in the Pittston team of the Central League. It was only a minor league, but all the great players have been developed in that way, and Joe determined to make it a stepping stone to something higher. How he speedily rose to leadership among the twirlers of his league is told in the fourth volume of the series, entitled: "Baseball Joe in the Central League; Or, Making Good as a Professional Pitcher." While Joe had been winning his spurs, the keen-eyed scouts of the big leagues had not been idle. The St. Louis team of the National League drafted him into their ranks and took him away from the "bushes." Now he felt that he was really on the highway to success. Almost from the start he created a sensation, and it was his pitching that brought his team into the first division.