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[Illustration: "GOOD-BYE, JOE!"]




 Baseball Joe at
 Yale

 OR

 Pitching _for the_ College Championship

 _By_ LESTER CHADWICK

 AUTHOR OF

 "BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS," "BASEBALL
 JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE," "THE RIVAL
 PITCHERS," "BATTING TO WIN," "THE WINNING
 TOUCHDOWN," ETC.

 _ILLUSTRATED_

 [Illustration]

 NEW YORK
 CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY




=BOOKS BY LESTER CHADWICK=


 =THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES=
 =12mo.  Cloth.  Illustrated=

 BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
     Or The Rivals of Riverside

 BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
     Or Pitching for the Blue Banner

 BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
     Or Pitching for the College Championship

 (_Other Volumes in Preparation_)


 =THE COLLEGE SPORTS SERIES=
 =12mo.  Cloth.  Illustrated=

 THE RIVAL PITCHERS
     A Story of College Baseball

 A QUARTER-BACK'S PLUCK
     A Story of College Football

 BATTING TO WIN
     A Story of College Baseball

 THE WINNING TOUCHDOWN
     A Story of College Football

 THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS
     A Story of College Water Sports

 (_Other Volumes in Preparation_)

 =CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York=


 Copyright, 1913, by
 CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY


 =Baseball Joe at Yale=

 Printed in U. S. A.




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                           PAGE
       I  JUST IN TIME                1
      II  A HOME CONFERENCE          15
     III  ONE LAST GAME              23
      IV  A SNEERING LAUGH           30
       V  OFF FOR YALE               37
      VI  ON THE CAMPUS              48
     VII  A NEW CHUM                 55
    VIII  AMBITIONS                  66
      IX  THE SHAMPOO                73
       X  A WILD NIGHT               84
      XI  THE RED PAINT              93
     XII  JOE'S SILENCE             100
    XIII  EARLY PRACTICE            107
     XIV  THE SURPRISE              116
      XV  HIS FIRST CHANCE          126
     XVI  JOE MAKES GOOD            135
    XVII  ANOTHER STEP              144
   XVIII  PLOTTING                  158
     XIX  THE ANONYMOUS LETTER      164
      XX  THE CORNELL HOST          170
     XXI  EAGER HEARTS              178
    XXII  THE CRIMSON SPOT          185
   XXIII  JOE'S TRIUMPH             193
    XXIV  HARD LUCK                 200
     XXV  AT WEST POINT             210
    XXVI  A SORE ARM                216
   XXVII  THE ACCUSATION            223
  XXVIII  VINDICATION               230
    XXIX  BUCKING THE TIGER         236
     XXX  THE CHAMPIONSHIP          239




BASEBALL JOE AT YALE




CHAPTER I

JUST IN TIME


"Joe Matson, I can't understand why you don't fairly jump at the
chance!"

"Because I don't want to go--that's why."

"But, man alive! Half the fellows in Riverside would stand on their
heads to be in your shoes."

"Perhaps, Tom. But, I tell you I don't think I'm cut out for a college
man, and I don't want to go," and Joe Matson looked frankly into the
face of his chum, Tom Davis, as they strolled down the village street
together that early September day.

"Don't want to go to Yale!" murmured Tom, shaking his head as if unable
to fathom the mystery. "Why I'd work my way through, if they'd let me,
and here you've got everything comparatively easy, and yet you're
balking like a horse that hasn't had his oats in a month. Whew! What's
up, Joe, old man?"

"Simply that I don't believe I'm cut out for that sort of life. I don't
care for this college business, and there's no use pretending that I do.
I'm not built that way. My mind is on something else. Of course I know a
college education is a great thing, and something that lots of fellows
need. But for yours truly--not!"

"I only wish I had your chance," said Tom, enviously.

"You're welcome to it," laughed Joe.

"No," and the other spoke half sadly. "Dad doesn't believe in a college
career any more than you do. When I'm through at Excelsior Hall he's
going to take me into business with him. He talks of sending me abroad,
to get a line on the foreign end of it."

"Cracky!" exclaimed Joe. "That would suit me down to the ground--that is
if I could go with a ball team."

"So you haven't gotten over your craze for baseball?" queried Tom.

"No, and I never shall. You know what I've always said--that I'd become
a professional some day; and I will, too, and I'll pitch in the world
series if I can last long enough," and Joe laughed.

"But look here!" exclaimed his chum, as they swung down a quiet street
that led out into the country; "you can play baseball at Yale, you
know."

"Maybe--if they'll let me. But you know how it is at those big
universities. They are very exclusive--societies--elections--eating
clubs--and all that sort of rot. A man has to be in with the bunch
before he can get a show."

"That's all nonsense, and you know it!" snapped Tom. "At Yale, I warrant
you, just as at every big college, a man has to stand on his own feet.
Why, they're always on the lookout for good fellows on the nine, crew or
eleven, and, if you can make good, you'll be pitching on the 'varsity
before the Spring term opens."

"Maybe," assented Joe with rather a moody face. "Anyhow, as long as I've
got to go to college I'm going to make a try for the nine. I think I can
pitch a little----"

"A little!" cried Tom. "Say, I'd like to know what sort of a showing
we'd have made at Excelsior Hall if it hadn't been for your pitching!
Didn't you win the Blue Banner for us when it looked as if we hadn't a
show? Pitch! Say if those fellows at Yale----"

"Spare my blushes," begged Joe, with a laugh. "Don't worry, I'm going to
college for one reason, more than another, because mother wants me to.
Dad is rather set on it, too, and so I've said I'll go. Between you and
me," whispered Joe, as if he feared someone would overhear him, "I have
a faint suspicion that my respected mother wants to make a sky pilot of
me."

"A minister!" cried Tom.

"That's it."

"Why--why----"

"Oh, don't worry!" laughed Joe, and then his face grew a bit sober as he
continued: "I'm not half good enough--or smart enough. I'm not cut out
for that sort of life. All I want is baseball and all I can get of it.
That's my one ambition."

"Yes, it's easy to see that," agreed Tom. "I wonder you don't carry a
horsehide about with you, and I do believe--what's this?" he demanded,
pulling a bundle of papers from his chum's pocket. "Some dope on the
world series, or I'm a June bug!"

"Well, I was only sort of comparing batting averages, and making a list
of the peculiarities of each player--I mean about the kind of balls it
is best to serve up to him."

"You're the limit!" exclaimed Tom, as he tried unsuccessfully to stop
Joe from grabbing the papers away from him. "Do you think you might
pitch to some of these fellows?"

"I might," replied Joe calmly. "A professional ball player lasts for
some time, and when I come up for my degree on the mound at some future
world series I may face some of these same men."

"Go to it, old man!" exclaimed Tom enthusiastically. "I wish I had your
hopes. Well, I suppose I'll soon be grinding away with the old crowd at
Excelsior, and you--you'll be at--Yale!"

"Probably," admitted Joe, with something of a sigh. "I almost wish I was
going back to the old school. We had good times there!"

"We sure did. But I've got to leave you now. I promised Sis I'd go to
the store for her. See you later," and Tom clasped his chum's hand.

"That reminds me," spoke Joe. "I've got to go back home, hitch up the
horse, and take some patterns over to Birchville for dad."

"Wish I could go along, but I can't," said Tom. "It's a fine day for a
drive. Come on over to-night."

"Maybe I will--so long," and the two friends parted to go their ways,
one to dream over the good fortune of the other--to envy him--while
Joe himself--Baseball Joe as his friends called him--thought rather
regretfully of the time he must lose at college when, if he had been
allowed his own way, he would have sought admission to some minor
baseball league, to work himself up to a major position.

"But as long as the folks want me to have a college course I'll take
it--and do my best," he mused.

A little later, behind the old family horse, he was jogging over the
country road in the direction of a distant town, where his father, an
inventor, and one of the owners of the Royal Harvester Works, had been
in the habit of sending his patterns from which to have models made.

"Well, in a few weeks I'll be hiking it for New Haven," said Joe, half
talking to himself. "It's going to be awful lonesome at first. I won't
know a soul there. It isn't like going up from some prep school, with a
lot of your own chums. Well, I've got to grin and bear it, and if I do
get a chance for the 'varsity nine--oh, won't I jump at it!"

He was lost in pleasant reflections for a moment, and then went on,
still talking to himself, and calling to the horse now and then, for the
steed, realizing that he had an easy master behind him, was inclined to
slow down to a walk every now and then.

"There are bound to be lessons, of course," said Joe. "And lectures on
things I don't care any more about than the man in the moon does. I
suppose, though,