RUBBER ARM
by
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It was the fourth Saturday in June. Seth, sitting at his porcelain topped, kitchen table, scanned the lead sports page of the
RUBBER ARM EATON SAVES COLLWOOD
He read on.
Last evening, Collwood’s ace reliever, Seth Eaton, struck out the last three Almonet batters to preserve Jessie Ward’s 4 to 1 win. Eaton came on in the top of the seventh with the tying runs on second and third.--------Quite handily, he proceeded to whiff the heart of the Almonet line-up.
Seth paused to take another slug of Coke. He read the last two lines of the article. He gulped. The drink caught in his windpipe. He coughed hoarsely. When he had finished coughing and had wiped away the tears from his eyes, he reread the lines.
Later, after the game, Collwood’s manager, Johnny Burston was seen talking to Dave Render, a scout for the Philadelphia Colonials.----Could ‘Rubber Arm’ Eaton be headed for the Big Leagues????
Seth jumped up so quickly, he knocked over the ladder back chair. He snatched the phone off iets cradle and hastily dialed Johnny’s number, LIN-2446. At the other end of the line, the phone rang five times. “Answer it! Damn it!” he swore.
“Hello,” Johnny mumbled dully.
“This is Seth!”
“Don’t shout, Seth,” Johnny pleaded. “I’ve got a terrible hangover.”
“The Courier says you were talking to the Colonials’ scout after the game last night,” Seth blurted out excitedly. “And the article hinted you might have been talking about me.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in that rag,” Johnny hedged, “we may have been discussing Jessie or Lanny or maybe Benny. We talked about a lot of things. That’s why I’ve got this hangover.”
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About the Book
Seth Eaton, who was a pretty fair college pitcher before he was wounded in World War Two, devises a way to throw a hundred and fifteen mile an hour fastball. Since most of the energy involved in hurling a baseball is expended in the throwing motion of the arm, he overcomes this obstacle by encasing his right arm in a latex sleeve inflated with helium.
Seth begins his comeback in the South Jersey Suburban Twilight League with the Collwood Bruins. Johnny Burston, the Bruins’ manager and a longtime friend, soon realizing that Seth has trouble going the distance because of his leg wounds, converts him to a short reliever. With his blazing fastball he sets the league on fire and that is Seth’s ticket to the ‘Big Leagues’. Just before the 1950 All Star Game, Seth is signed by the Philadelphia Colonials who are in the midst of a hot pennant race.
RUBBER ARM is a novel about baseball when all the games were played on grass, the players wore flannel uniforms that draped over their knees, all the stadiums were painted ‘grandstand green’, there were only nine men in the lineup and the ball players had funny nicknames.
About the Author
Following four-years service in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War Two, Eric Phillips attended and graduated from