REAL PITCHING
“Talk about horseshoes!” grinned Stillman, when the first mad uproar
had begun to lessen. “That’s the greatest ever. Looks as if the boys
had a mighty good chance of cinching the game now.”
Manager Carson had emerged from the obscurity of the bench, and was on
the coaching line again. Over by first base Captain Grant was capering
about, a broad grin on his face.
“Going up, going up, going up!” he chanted to the air of a popular
ditty. “Tied her nicely, but we won’t stop there. You know what to do,
Kid. Beat it off that cushion, Joe!”
Kid Lewis hustled to the plate, and Welsh pranced away from the sack,
ready to go down on the first slim chance. Unfortunately for the
Blue Stockings, Donovan seemed unaffected by the two blazing errors
which had permitted the locals to even up the tally. Instead of going
to pieces, he tightened up wonderfully, holding Welsh at first, and
fanning the batter with swiftness and dispatch.
As the Blue Stockings took the field for the opening of the ninth the
fans were on tiptoe with excitement. If Lefty could hold the visitors
down, there remained a chance for the home team to break the deadlock
in the last half. Could he hold them?
Bush Aldrich was the first man up. The crowd remembered vividly what
Bush had done to Pete Grist. Besides, the batters who followed were
none of them slouches. As Locke walked briskly across the diamond the
stands echoed with encouraging, beseeching shouts. Then a sudden, tense
silence fell upon the great inclosure.
Calm and steady, Lefty stepped into the box. He paused a second, his
eyes on the batter, and then handed up a high one. Aldrich started to
strike, but checked himself, and a ball was called. Then the southpaw
tried an outcurve. Bush still declined to bite.
“That’s right, Bush,” cried Murray. “Make him put ’em over. He’s got
to.”
An elusive drop followed, which Aldrich barely missed. The next ball
looked good, and he hit it. It was a line drive to right, which Rufe
Hyland should have taken with ease, instead of muffing. Aldrich
stretched himself, and reached the initial sack a second before the
ball, quickly recovered and thrown by the discomfited fielder, spanked
into Spider Grant’s mitt.
There was a groan from the fans, a spasm of joy from the Specter
coachers. Rowdy Kenyon hurried to the plate. True to his record as a
waiter, he prolonged the agony till the last moment, during which time
Aldrich, upholding the reputation of his team for being “ghosts on the
bases,” got down to second. Finally the visiting infielder hit a weak
scratch between second and short, on which he reached first by great
sprinting. A wave of tense uneasiness swept over the field.
Lefty’s eyes narrowed the least bit; his jaw seemed to tighten. In a
few minutes, through no fault of his, the situation had changed from
easy security to uncertain hazard. With none out, and a man on third,
every bit of judgment and skill he possessed was needed to save the
day. Driving Aldrich back with a threatening motion, he turned his
attention to Callahan, and the impetuous Specter Irishman, after
fouling twice, failed to touch a speedy shoot that clipped a corner.
A gasp of relief came from the stands, but lapsed swiftly into tense
silence; for this was an admirable opportunity to try the squeeze play,
and evidently from the way John Forbes held his bat he meant to do his
part.
The infield crept into the diamond, balancing on their toes, alert and
ready. Lefty pitched, and almost as soon as the ball left his hand he
was on the jump. Forbes shortened his bat, and chopped one down the
foul line straight into the flying pitcher’s glove on the first bound.
Lefty Locke flashed it to third. But, for some reason, Aldrich had
faltered, and now he dove back to the sack in time to save himself.
“Safe!” bawled the umpire, his flat hand extended.
The decision brought an avalanche of hoots and yells and taunting
insults down upon his head, but he stuck to it; and when the fans
settled back to take count their hearts sank within them. With the
bases full and only one out, the situation was not exactly hopeful.
Lefty made short work of Donovan. The visiting pitcher did not
touch the ball once, missing the last bender by more than a foot.
As he strolled back to the bench, however, there were few sounds of
rejoicing. The end of the batting list had been reached. The bases were
still densely populated, and Dutch Schwartz, the mighty hitter whose
average the year before had come close to equaling that of the amazing
Wagner, was sauntering out with his war club.
Apparently he had no weaknesses with the stick, and his ability to
outguess pitchers had made him a terror throughout the Big League.
Cautious twirlers usually walked him when it was possible to do so at
a dangerous time without forcing a run; but, even had he wished to do
it, such a course was not open to Lefty now.
Whatever anxiety the southpaw might have been feeling, he faced the
batter without a tremor. The first ball was a trifle close, and
Schwartz let it pass without suffering a penalty. The next, delivered
with a long side swing, came over at an odd angle. The batter fouled
it, evening up the score.
Lefty then tried an underhanded delivery that was productive of another
foul. Then the big Specter center fielder refused to nibble at a
coaxer, which evened things once more.
“Two and two,” muttered Stillman on the reporters’ bench. “I wonder if
he’ll do it? By Jove! He’s got to!”
With anxious, admiring eyes he watched his friend’s cool, deliberate,
yet not in the least dragging, work. Lefty’s perfect control enabled
him to bend the ball over the rubber from any angle.
Foul after foul resulted with a nerve-racking regularity which brought
the fans to the edges of their seats in tense, breathless suspense.
Three balls were called, but the struggle continued. With each swing
of the southpaw’s long arm, Schwartz swung his bat, and the ball
caromed off in a foul. One could almost have heard a pin drop in the
vast inclosure. Even the raucous voices of the coachers had been
momentarily stilled.
The end came at last, suddenly. When it seemed almost certain that
Locke had exhausted every trick at his command, the pitcher, with his
toe on one end of the slab, stepped straight out to one side with the
other foot, and brought his arm over. The ball left his fingers at the
moment when his hand seemed to be extended at full reach above his
head. Apparently it was not a curve he threw, but from his extended
fingers the sphere shot downward on a slant, to cross the outside
corner of the plate.
Schwartz struck at it with a sharp, vicious snap――and missed!