FILLING THE BREACH
Like Jewett in the first two innings, Heines was lucky, and the change
enabled the Deers to hold the locals, despite their savage efforts to
increase the lead.
“Keep after them!” urged Kennedy, as the players came to the bench.
“There are six more innings to follow. If you can hit this fellow Elgin
at all, and we can hold them where they are, we’ll be neck and neck
with them to-night, or I’ve never seen a game of baseball. Elgin has
got a jinx, and he’ll show up before long. Don’t let him put the Injun
sign on you with his bean ball.”
But, in spite of old Jack’s attempt to encourage his batters, Elgin
seemed to have the “Injun sign” on the Deers.
“You can’t hit him,” Yapp told the three batters who faced Buck’s
pitcher in the first of the fourth. “If you did you’d never get farther
than first, for you’d see him tighten like a bowstring. You never could
hit a real pitcher, anyhow.”
He made them believe it, too. And when a batter thinks he cannot hit a
pitcher it is only by the most remarkable bull luck that he ever gets
as much as a scratch single. So Elgin had it easy, striking out two men
and fielding the weak roller which the third sent his way.
“Gods of war!” growled Kennedy. “I’ll have to get out there myself, and
show them how to hit this gink. If they ever fell on him he’d take a
sail. Where’s Locke? Oh, there he is――at it.”
Old Jack watched the work of Heines like a hawk, waiting for the first
show of wabbling; for by this time Locke had loosened his wing, and
could come to the rescue. Just what he could do against Bert Elgin,
Kennedy believed he knew. The old manager remembered that first game
with the Hornets, when the two youngsters had faced each other in
the Big League; remembered that Elgin had gone down to defeat and
disgrace, while Lefty Locke made his reputation under the most trying
circumstances a new man could possibly meet. Just now, as on that other
occasion, with the great mass of spectators favoring him, Elgin seemed
invincible; but with the first cry of “Take him out!” Kennedy believed
the yellow streak would show. Would the break in the game lead the
local crowd to shout for his removal? While he was going strong the
little bunch of Deering fans might howl themselves black in the face
without effect.
Peter McLaughlin kept up his efforts to get Elgin’s goat, even though
by so doing he was inviting personal injury from rabid Hatfielders
within reach of him. And when a scrap starts out in the bush it
is liable to make Ty Cobb’s whipping of an insolent fan look like
fisticuffs between kittens at play. McLaughlin, however, had a mouth,
and he was not afraid to use it in Hatfield or at home.
“Shut up, you old toad,” commanded an angry spectator, “or somebody
will hand you a wallop on the ear!”
“When you come to Deering,” old Peter flung back, “you can talk and
holler all you please, and anybody that tries to stop you will get into
trouble with me. You can’t muzzle me here.”
Those who knew him were aware that nothing save a sleep jab or a gag
would keep him still, and some there were who found amusement in his
apparently futile efforts to jar Elgin.
Two more outfield catches promised to let Heines get away with another
inning, but, with every man hitting the ball when he put it near the
plate, it was his support that saved him to that point. Two safeties,
however, landed runners on first and second, and a successful double
steal caused Kennedy to shove out the hook again. Then the change
catcher told Locke that his turn had come. The crowd watched the
southpaw jogging to the slab; only McLaughlin and the Deering fans
cheered him. Following that cheer, Elgin, on the coaching line, called
to Pop Doyle, the man at bat:
“Here’s a portsider with a straight ball and a prayer. He’ll put one
over in your groove if you wait, and then you’ll show ’em why he isn’t
pitching in the Big League now.”
Doyle, a left-handed hitter, did not like southpaw pitchers, but Elgin
had told every man on the team that the fellow who called himself
Stranger was a frost; and the batter grinned like a wolf while Locke
got the range of the pan with two or three throws, after Coffin had
told him the signals.
“There’s the fence, Pop!” cried Bristol, swinging two bats, with the
expectation of following Doyle. “Get another pair of shoes by putting
it over. You’ve won enough footwear to last you five years already. You
can start a little retail store of your own when the season’s over.
Make Kennedy’s new man contribute to your stock.”
“You can’t get his goat that way,” howled McLaughlin. “He’s your jinx,
and you know it. Give him a cheer, boys!”
The bunch of Deering rooters responded lustily, but their cheer was
drowned by the crowd roaring for Doyle to lace it out.