“Old hoss,” retorted the Buccaneer manager, “if you had the Deers it would be just the same, believe me.” “Perhaps so,” said Kennedy. Twenty minutes later he was talking with Peter McLaughlin in a private room at the hotel. “What was that proposition you made to me, Peter?” he asked. “Did you say the town generally thought Sperry inefficient as a manager and wanted someone else?” “That’s what I said,” answered the landlord. “We’ve talked it over, and you’re the man we’d like to have. Sperry would get out willingly, too. He’s got about enough of it, with everybody kickin’ at him.” “If you’re giving it to me straight,” said Kennedy, “I’ll stand. You may tell the association that.” At a meeting of the directors, called that night, Sperry resigned as manager of the Deering baseball team and Jack Kennedy was chosen to fill the position vacated. CHAPTER XXII BUILDING UP THE TEAM With the season three-quarters over, it was no cinch for anybody to whip into winning form a bush team like the Deers, and Jack Kennedy soon realized that he had a real problem on his hands. Having shouldered the responsibility, however, he went at it with the same conscientious earnestness he would have devoted to a Big League organization, and the bushers, who had been taking things easy and “soldiering” under Sperry, quickly learned that there would be no loafing or fooling with the new manager. Whenever possible there was regular forenoon practice, and when this could not be secured it was necessary for the team to appear on the playing field for a long warming-up before any league game. The code of signals arranged and put into use by Sperry and Toots Kilgore, second baseman and captain of the Deers, was promptly cast into the discard. In place of these incomplete and rather simple signals, old Jack introduced a new code, at which the men were drilled on the field and off, the requirement being that every one of them should become so familiar with the signs that there could be no possible misunderstanding, doubt, or hesitation in any event. Of course, Kennedy secured a suit for himself, which enabled him not only to sit on the bench and direct his men, but to go on to the coaching lines or take the place of another player as a pinch hitter or upon the field. The loose ends were quickly gathered up, and the former hit-or-miss style of going after a game was abandoned for something bearing a genuine resemblance to inside baseball.