IN THE TENTH
“Play ball!”
“Go on with the game!”
“We can’t stay here all day!”
These and other calls were coming not only from the mere spectators of
the game, but from the students of the military academy who had come to
root for their side. Some of the Boxwood Hall boys, especially those
who liked Jerry and his chums, and who did not have much use for the
high-handed methods of Frank Watson, added their voices to the din.
“Better put ’em in,” suggested Bart, nodding toward our heroes, who, in
their uniforms, sat on the scrub bench, not a little embarrassed by the
attention they were attracting.
“You mind your own----” began Frank angrily, when Oscar Durand, the
captain of the Kenwell team, stepped forward.
“Say,” he remarked in his slow, good-natured drawl, “go on and put in
all the new men you want to. We don’t care. We’ll play a whole new
team if you say so. Only do something, and don’t delay the game.”
Frank still hesitated. It was clear that he hated to give in to the
boys whom he so disliked, but still he was enough of a ball player to
realize that unless something were done Boxwood Hall would go down to
defeat.
“Play ball!” came the insistent cries from the stands.
Ted Newton, the football hero of the school, hastened out to the sullen
baseball captain.
“Put the three in, Frank,” he said. “It’s your only chance.”
Ted was chairman of the athletic advisory board, and he had much
influence. Frank felt that his position was a shaky one.
“All right,” he said, sullenly. “I’ll let ’em play. Come on,
Hopkins--Slade--Baker!” he called. “Get in the game.”
“Am I to pitch?” asked Ned.
“I suppose so.”
“And I hope you do better than I did,” remarked Jim Blake
good-naturedly. He was enough of a real sport to put the team ahead of
himself.
“I ought to have a little warm-up practice before I go in,” Ned
suggested.
“Get over there and practice,” said Frank. “We’re at bat now, and Jake
Porter can catch for you. No, I’d better do it myself, as I’m going to
be behind the plate.”
Frank was a good catcher, and it must be admitted that he had not been
at fault so far in the contest. It was the other players. And once
he had made up his mind to play our three heroes, he did not do it
half-heartedly.
He did not act in a friendly manner toward Ned, but in practice he put
forth his best efforts, and urged the new pitcher to do his best to
“sting them in,” which Ned did.
“Now, boys, we’re out to win!” exclaimed Frank, when Charlie Moore went
up to bat to open the fifth inning, Kenwell having won the toss, and,
as usual, chosen to go up last.
The mere fact that Ned, Bob and Jerry had been put in the game seemed
to have inspired confidence at once, for Charlie, who was a notoriously
poor hitter, singled for the first time in a long while, and went to
first amid cheers. And when Jerry knocked a three bagger, bringing
Charlie in, and adding to the slender score of Boxwood Hall, there was
a riot of cheers on the stands opposite those occupied by the military
lads. Then another single by Sid Lenton brought in Jerry, and made the
score eight to three, in favor of Kenwell.
“Oh, I guess we’ll pull up all right,” said Jim Blake, from his
position in retirement.
“There’s a lot to do yet,” Ted Newton reminded him. “The game is a good
way from being in the ice-box, as far as Boxwood Hall is concerned. But
those three fellows are going to help a lot.”
Two runs that inning was all the rivals of the academy could bring in,
the succeeding batters being pitched out by “Sock.” But when Boxwood
took the field for the last half of the fifth there was a different
atmosphere. Boxwood Hall’s team had “tightened up,” and the same might
be said of the military academy players, for they realized they had to
meet some snappy players.
“Hold ’em down, Ned,” begged Bob, as he went to his position at
shortstop.
“I will,” promised Ned.
“And don’t you make any wild throws, Chunky,” cautioned the tall lad on
first.
“You watch me,” Bob remarked.
However, for all his promise, he nearly brought disaster in the next
few minutes of play. For a bounding ball came his way, and though he
scooped it up in a clever catch that earned him applause, he threw it
so high to Jerry that the tall lad had to leap in the air, and spear it
down with one hand.
That he got it was due not only to luck, but to efficient playing, and
as he came down on the bag with one foot just in time to catch the
runner out, a yell of approval arose from the crowd.
Everything did not go as well as that, though, for one of the fielders
missed an easy fly, thereby being indirectly responsible for letting in
a run, making Kenwell nine. But that was all they got that inning--Ned
pitching some wonderful ball, and retiring two men in succession
without letting them even foul.
“Well, at that rate, we won’t beat ’em,” said Bob, gloomily, as his
side came in to bat. “We’ve got four more innings to play, and if we
get two runs each inning that will make eight for us, or a total of
eleven. They’ve got nine now, and one run in each of the four left will
make them thirteen----”
“Which is unlucky,” broke in Jerry.
“I’d like to be unlucky that way,” said Ned. “Well, we’ll hope for the
best.”
It did look a little more hopeful when, instead of two, Boxwood Hall
got three runs that inning, making their tally six, as against nine.
“We’ve got a chance!” exclaimed Frank, and he seemed to smile at Jerry
and his chums. But he did not offer them a friendly word.
There was much excitement now. Both teams were “playing their heads
off,” and the rooters, the cheerers and the coherents on either side
were sending out song after song, and yell after yell. If Boxwood Hall
could win the game it meant that she would have an even chance for the
local championship, for a third game with Kenwell would have to be
played.
It was in the ninth inning that Boxwood Hall tied the score. For by
dint of wonderful playing on the part of the whole team, and by a
thrilling exhibition of pitching on the part of Ned, Kenwell had been
allowed only two more runs, making their score eleven, and now, in
their half of the ninth, Jerry and his chums had tied it.
“If we can hold ’em down the remainder of this inning, it will mean
another chance,” cried Bob. “We’ll have to play ten innings.”
And a ten inning game it proved to be. For not a Kenwell lad got
farther than second base.
Up to the plate in the tenth inning came Bob. He was not a sure hitter,
but he got his base on balls, and the crowd started gibing the academy
pitcher. But he tightened up and struck out the next man. Then came
Jerry.
“Another three bagger!” begged the Boxwood lads. Jerry smiled
confidently and let the first ball go by.
“Strike!” snapped out the umpire.
“Oh you robber!” howled the crowd.
The next was a ball, and the next--well, they talk about it yet at
Boxwood Hall. For Jerry with all his might and main smote the horsehide
spheroid squarely on the “nose” and then he ran. And Bob spun around
the bases too.
“Home run! Home run! Home run!” yelled the wild lads.
The ball Jerry knocked went deep into centre field, and the frantic
fieldsman raced back after it. On and on ran Jerry. Ahead of him sped
Bob. And as Bob crossed home plate with his run, Jerry was not far
behind him. Nor was the ball a great way off, for it thumped into the
hands of Ford Tatum, the catcher, with a vicious thump. But the umpire
cried “Safe!” and Boxwood Hall had two more runs.
The score was thirteen to eleven, and only one man was out. But that
was the best Boxwood Hall could do. “Sock” disposed of his next two
rivals in short order.
“And now if we can hold ’em down--hold ’em down!” murmured Jerry as
they went to the field, and Kenwell came up for its last raps.
It looked like another break when Ned gave two men their base on balls,
but then his nerve asserted itself. Amid a riot of calls, designed to
disconcert him, he stood his ground, and he and Frank put up a game
that made a new record for efficiency. For not a man got a hit in the
last half of the tenth, and a goose egg went up in that frame for
Kenwell, while the score stood
Boxwood Hall, 13.
Kenwell, 11.