The high school baseball team disbanded after school closed, for many of its members went away in the summer. But this year a few of the fellows who were to remain at home formed themselves into the Amesville Blues, filling the vacant places on the team with boys of their acquaintance. Sidney held his place in left field while he remained in the city, and it was Sidney who proposed that Tom be made manager of the team. So it fell to Tom’s lot to arrange games with rival nines in and out of town. This he did so well that the Blues played three times a week on an average and had a lot of good fun. They made short trips to neighbouring towns--the matter of railroad fares prohibited very long excursions--and once or twice Tom went with them. It was on one of these trips that Tom made his first entry into real baseball. Tommy Hughes, who was the regular centre fielder on the school team and filled the same position with the Blues, developed a bad case of stomach-ache on the way to Union Vale--he quite frankly owned to having put away three chocolate ice-cream sodas and half a dozen peaches!--and, as from motives of economy, the team had brought no substitute along, there was only one thing to do. “I may be all right after awhile,” moaned Tommy, “but I couldn’t play now if you gave me a thousand dollars. Let Tom take my place, Walt.” (Walter White was captain and catcher.) “He can play fine, Tom can.” So Tom, squeezing himself into Tommy’s suit and donning Tommy’s blue stockings, went out into the glare of centre field and nervously waited, wondering whether he would muff the first ball that came into his territory. As a matter of fact, he did, allowing the Union Vales to tally two runs, but after that he had five chances and accepted them all, while at bat he made the very creditable showing of two hits for a total of three bases out of six times up. The Amesville Blues won that game handily, and Tom returned home filled with the joy of victory and a new enthusiasm for baseball.