THE CHAMPIONSHIP FOR YALE.
Not for years had the baseball championship of the colleges come down to
so narrow an issue. For the first time it was a really national title
that was at stake, for the defeat of Michigan, the recognized leader of
the West, by Yale, had made it impossible for any team to dispute the
honors to be won by the victor of this final battle between Harvard and
Yale. It was a fitting test, too, and thousands without an interest in
either college rejoiced at the thought that the historic rivals should
finally have come to fight it out between themselves. Princeton for
years had been the most formidable baseball college in the East. There
had been none to dispute successfully the claim of the Tigers to the
premier honors for a long time, and the general public was glad to see
the Princeton monopoly invaded at last.
That was the reason for the tremendous crowd that filled the famous Polo
Grounds. It was a crowd bigger than any that had ever assembled there,
except for a professional world’s championship contest. The great arena
was a riot of color, and a very bedlam of sound long before the game
began. Those who had not been lucky enough, or gifted with sufficient
forethought to buy reserved seats, had to come early, in order to get a
place, and even out on the bleachers, where the peanut-eating fans sit
through the long summer afternoons, pretty girls, glad even of so
exposed a place to view the struggle, appeared in swarms.
And in the covered grand stand, where all the seats were reserved, the
crowd was just as big, and came just as early. The people there were
sure of their seats, but they wanted to see the crowd, to hear the
college songs and cheers, and to watch the practice. It was a thrilling
and unusual spectacle, certainly, and none of those who had bolted early
luncheons, or gone without their mid-day meal altogether, to be at the
grounds early, at all regretted their sacrifice when once they had
arrived and taken their places.
From one side of the great grand stand, behind third base, and all the
way out to left field, the Harvard cheer came constantly—nine long
’rahs, and a long Harvard at the end. That side was a mass of crimson,
too. Girls in crimson dresses, crimson hats, with red flags and great
red sleeve bands, were to be seen in abundance. And the cheer leaders
from Cambridge were busy constantly, urging their fellow students in the
stands to renewed efforts, so that the fellows on the field, practicing
diligently, might know that the college was with them, rooting as hard
as it could for them to win the coveted championship.
Yale was opposite, behind first base and right field. There were just as
many Yale men and Yale girls there as Harvard had sent, and it seemed as
if they made even more noise. Both teams had had splendid seasons, but
the odds favored Yale a trifle. For Harvard, although facing Yale’s
weakest pitcher, save for part of one inning, in the great Commencement
Day game, had been unable to make any real superiority plain. It had
been all that Harvard could do to bat out a victory over Dick Winston,
despised as the poorest sort of a match for either Briggs or Wooley
before the game began, and the Yale men, who knew that, if only Winston
had been able to begin well, he would have won his game, had no idea
that Harvard would be able to do anything against the strong right arm
of Jim Phillips, and the best efforts of the team that Dick Merriwell
had coached so brilliantly through the preliminary season, with its
victories over Cornell, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Princeton to prove
its class.
Dick Merriwell himself, sitting quietly on the bench while the players
of the two teams ran through their final practice, was confident of
victory; but he had anxieties, too. He knew, what the cheering crowds
above him did not, that Jim Phillips had been through enough in the last
two days to make it impossible for any ordinary pitcher to do himself
justice. But he knew, also, that Jim was by no means an ordinary
pitcher. The rest of the team was all right, and Dick felt that Jim
could count upon it for perfect support.
While the fielders chased batted balls, getting used to the playing
surface of the field, entirely different from that at New Haven, Dick
watched Jim shooting curve balls over a practice plate to big Bill
Brady. Look as closely as he would, Dick could see no signs of
nervousness or distress in Jim’s face. The sophomore pitcher—really a
junior, now, since commencement was over, and the classes had all been
promoted—had his usual perfect control, and he smiled and joked with
Brady as he pitched. Dick gave a sigh of relief, and went out to give a
few last orders to the players.
Harry Maxwell, as the most dependable outfielder on the Yale team, had
been shifted to right field for the game, since right field is the
hardest of all to play at the Polo Grounds. The new concrete stand makes
the trouble. A ground ball, hit to right, bounds off the fence at most
peculiar angles, and Dick, taking a bat, drove a dozen balls against it,
that Harry might learn to judge the probable direction of all such hits.
The knowledge might easily save the game, later on, Dick felt, by
keeping a hit that an unwarned fielder would allow to be good for two
bases, to a single. It was by just such foresight and preparedness that
Dick had enabled Yale to win many games that, under another coach, the
team would have lost.
In the press box a bell rang abruptly, and in a moment the great crowd
settled back tensely to watch the beginning of the contest. The bell was
the signal for play to begin, and the blue-clad umpires appeared
punctually to the minute, one from each of the two great major leagues,
assigned to arbitrate this most important of college games.
Captain Bowen, of Harvard, already arrayed in his chest protector and
wearing his big catcher’s mitt, went to the plate to arrange final
details with Captain Sherman, of Yale, playing his last game for the
blue, and one of the umpires spun a silver quarter in the air.
Sherman called the turn, and sent Harvard to the bat. Jim walked slowly
and confidently to the pitcher’s box, and, with one mighty roar of
delight from the crowd, the game was on.
Well as he looked, and strong as he undoubtedly was, Jim was tired. His
muscles ached, and his eyes hurt as the glare of the sun struck them.
But he was determined to win, and he felt that nothing could keep him
from doing it. The honor of Yale was in his keeping, and he intended to
make no Yale man regret it.
Behind him, as he faced Reid, the first Harvard batter, he heard a
rapid-fire chatter from the infielders. Sherman’s deep bass calling,
“Steady, old boy, make them work!” was echoed by Carter’s excited
falsetto, cheering him on. And the others, Jackson, and Horton, the
shortstop, added their voices. But he paid little attention to them. His
eyes were fixed on Brady’s hands, playing aimlessly, as it seemed, first
with his mask, then with his glove, but really, to those who knew the
Yale code of signals, giving Jim his decision on the sort of ball to be
pitched.
Thud! The first ball split the plate before it landed in Brady’s big
mitt, and as the umpire’s hand went up and he yelled “Stri-i-i-ke one!”
the whole right side of the stands, where the Yale rooters were massed,
burst into a sea of waving blue flags, while ten thousand throats were
split with a wild Yale yell. It was a good start.
But Reid, smiling, his jaws working mechanically as he chewed the gum
that baseball players use to keep their nerves steady, was unconcerned.
He was too old a hand to be impressed by a single ball, and he knew that
in this game a single run was likely to settle the issue. He had faced
Jim before, and knew how fine a pitcher he was, and he was determined to
wait for the sort of ball he could hit, even if he struck out three or
four times before it came to him. Reid was a fine, scientific batsman,
too good to care about his average, as long as he made hits when they
would count toward runs; and Jim’s reputation worried him no more than
did the enormous crowd. He even forgot the crowd—his whole concern was
for the diamond, for the pitcher, and for the fielders in front of him.
Jim followed his first strike with a wide curve, but Reid only smiled as
it broke away from the end of his bat, outside of the plate—a ball, and
so counted against the pitcher. He would never play into Jim’s hands by
striking at such a ball as that.
Then came a teasing, floater of a ball, that seemed sure to cut the
plate right at the line of his waist. But again Reid smiled. He had been
fooled twice by that ball at Cambridge, and he knew that, if he struck
at it, his bat would swing through the empty air. For it was pitched so
that at the last moment, just above the plate, it would stop dead and
drop. That was just what it did this time, and again the umpire called
“Ball!”
The next ball puzzled Reid. It was almost straight, and, as it came, he
exulted. It looked like the sort of a ball he could hit, but he wanted
to be sure. He was willing to sacrifice a hit now to get information for
use later in the game, and he swung awkwardly, missing the ball by six
inches or more. But he exulted inwardly, though a strike was called on
him, and he knew that he had practically put himself at Jim’s mercy, for
he had seen exactly what sort of a ball that was—and the next time he
struck at it he wouldn’t miss. The next ball was a curve that fooled him
completely, cutting in and across the plate so that he couldn’t hit it,
and he struck out, but he was entirely contented. And so, when he went
back to the bench and made his report, was Bowen.
Dick Merriwell knew exactly how tired Jim was. Also, he expected Harvard
to play a waiting game, and trust to a fierce attack in the closing
innings to produce a victory. He wanted to see Yale score and take the
lead as early as possible, and he was prepared to take stiff chances for
that purpose. If Jim were in the lead, Dick felt, it would be easier for
him to stand up under the fierce strain of the game. Harvard, behind,
would have to play a different game. And, therefore, when the Yale team,
after Harvard had been blanked in the first inning, came in to take its
turn at the bat, a plan of campaign, daring and aggressive, had been
mapped out.
Sherman, batting first, looked hard at right field. He was known to the
Harvard men as a right-field hitter—that is, it was almost certain that
if he hit the ball at all, it would travel in that direction. He stood
up to the plate, too, and, as Briggs delivered the first ball, swung
viciously at it, with a full, free swing, and missed it. The Harvard
infielders drew back, and the right fielder swung clear over to the
fence, ready to make the catch if the ball went in that direction. But
it didn’t. Even as the next ball left Briggs’ hand, the Yale captain
shortened his grip on his bat, poked it forward, and bunted beautifully
toward third base.
Sherman was a real sprinter, and there was a wild yell from the Yale
crowd as he raced down to first. The Harvard third baseman was taken
completely by surprise. It was the last thing he had expected Sherman to
do. By the time he got his glove on the slow-rolling ball, Sherman was
within a yard of first base, and the throw was hopeless, since there was
no chance to make a put-out. But he threw, nevertheless, and then there
was a sudden outbreak of excited, shrill yelling from all over the field
and the stands.
Sherman, instead of stopping at first, had just touched the bag with his
foot, and kept right on for second. Bowen ran angrily out in the
diamond, shouting to the first baseman, who was also confused. He
juggled the ball a moment, and then threw low to second, so that Sherman
slid safely in, credited with a two-bagger on a bunt that hadn’t gone
forty feet after it left his bat. The play was a masterpiece of planning
and brilliant execution, daring in the extreme, and successful just
because it was so daring that no one would have looked for it.
When Jackson came to the bat, the Harvard infield played close. It
wasn’t going to be caught again by a bunt, and certainly this really
looked like the time for a quick sacrifice play. Sherman took a long
lead off second, ready to make a swift dash for third if Jackson hit the
ball, but he was cautious, and, though Briggs threw twice to second in
an effort to catch the Yale captain, Sherman got back safely to the base
each time.
And then Jackson, who had tried to bunt at the first two balls pitched
to him, but clumsily, and without success, got a ball that was just
right, and pushed it right over the third baseman’s head for the
prettiest of Texas Leaguers. Had the infielders not been drawn in to
field a bunt, that seemed so likely to be the play, the ball would
certainly have been caught; but, as it was, there was no chance for it
to be reached, and Sherman raced home with the first run of the game,
while Jackson got to second base on the left fielder’s hurried throw to
the plate in a vain attempt to catch Sherman as he slid home.
Dick Merriwell, quiet and self-contained as he usually was, could not
refrain from throwing his hat into the air as he sat on the Yale bench,
and the enthusiasm of the Yale crowd may be guessed. Dick had planned
the play out; but, unless he had had good, well-trained men on the team
to take advantage of his plans, not all the planning in the world could
have scored that run. He was proud of his team, and of the spirit with
which it obeyed every order he gave, no matter how unlikely those orders
seemed to be to produce a winning result.
But he wanted more than one run out of this inning. He could see that
the Harvard team showed signs of going up in the air. Briggs, nervous
and flurried, came in to consult with Bowen, and, in the infield, the
men were quarreling, and trying to show how all the trouble could have
been avoided if only some one else had done something in a different
way. The confidence that had made the crimson team so dangerous before
the game was being dissipated; and, knowing that Bowen, as soon as he
had a chance, would be able to pull his team together, Dick wanted to
strike while the iron was hot, and make the lead as big as possible.
Harry Maxwell was the next batter, and his orders were simply to tire
Briggs out.
“Foul off as many balls as you can,” Dick told him. “I don’t want you to
make a hit—at least, I don’t care whether you do or not. Just tire him
out.”
Harry obeyed his orders to the letter, and Briggs, furious, and getting
more nervous every minute, had to pitch nearly thirty balls before
Bowen, by a wonderful sprint, finally managed to get under one of those
towering fouls, right in front of the Yale bench, and hold it as it came
down. And then, making use even of that chance, Jackson had time, after
the catch had been made, to sprint to third base, so that Harry was
credited with a sacrifice.
Bill Brady, the next batter, having been moved up, had orders to hit.
Briggs, tired out after his struggle with Maxwell, hot and thirsty, lost
his control for the moment, and Bill’s smashing drive bounded out from
the left-field fence, to the confusion of the Harvard outfielder, who
hadn’t, as Dick had made the Yale players do, spent any time in studying
the peculiar angles and rebounds of that new concrete wall. Jackson
scored easily, and Brady himself reached third, whence it was an easy
matter for him to score while Steve Carter was being thrown out at first
base. That made three runs, and Dick Merriwell was well satisfied with
the harvest. Horton was an easy out, and the inning was over, but it had
been a mighty fruitful one, and Dick felt that there was no reason, with
such a lead, why Yale should not win.
But, as the players started to take the field, he warned them against
being overconfident.
“Briggs will be all right after a five-minute rest,” he told them. “And
we won’t catch them asleep that way again. There was a whole lot of luck
in the way we got those three runs, and they’ll be watching us like cats
for the rest of the game. Anything more we get, we’ll have to earn—be
sure of that. But that won’t matter—if they can’t do any scoring. You’ve
got enough runs to win this game right now—see that they don’t creep up
on us and tie the score.”
There isn’t any record of what Bowen said to his team after that
disastrous first inning, but it had the effect he wanted. The Harvard
team seemed to have been turned into a machine. Every trick Yale tried
was met and defeated, and Briggs, rallying, pitched like the master of
the game that he really was. But Jim Phillips, too, was at his best.
Tired he might be, and sore, but there was nothing in his pitching to
let the Harvard players know it. He wasted none of his remaining
strength as the game went on, but there were few men on the Harvard team
who studied him as Reid did, and they kept on biting at wide curves that
were meant to fool them with a break that came after they had thought it
impossible for a ball to desert its straight course.
Reid outguessed him in the fourth inning, and got a base on balls, but
there were two out at the time, and it made no difference. And Bowen
himself, a batter who could at times hit any sort of a ball, even if a
Mathewson had pitched it, got a long two-bagger in the sixth frame, when
no one was out. But he was held at second, a brilliant catch by Bill
Brady of a twisting foul and hard work by Jim himself disposing of the
next three batters.
More and more, as the game went on, the crowd was forced to think that
its result had been decided in that one tumultuous first inning, when
Yale strategy and Yale pluck—though the Harvard people called it the
proverbial Yale luck—had produced three runs. But the Harvard team kept
on fighting, never willing to admit itself beaten. And the Yale men on
the field, like Dick Merriwell, watching every move from the bench, knew
that Yale could not claim the championship until the last Harvard man
had been put out. It was a glorious struggle—one worth coming hundreds
of miles to see, as many had done.
The ninth inning began, and it was Harvard’s last chance. Bowen, almost
ready to admit that his team was beaten, was first at the bat, and,
frantic with the determination to save the day, began with a slashing
drive to left that put him on second. Jim Phillips smiled at Brady, not
a bit concerned, but the next play went wrong. The Harvard batter
bunted, and Sherman, running in, saw a chance to catch Bowen at third.
He threw to Carter, but the throw was the fifth of a second too late,
and both runners were safe. A clean steal put the man on first on second
base, and Reid, smiling and cheerful, was the next man up.
Jim knew him for the most dangerous batter on the whole Harvard team. He
pitched five balls to him, and at their end the count was three balls
and two strikes. Reid had refused to bite on any one of the three
curves—he had not struck at either of the strikes, because he had seen
what they were too late. The next ball would settle matters. Brady, more
disturbed even than Jim, walked out to speak to him. They had to get
close together to be able to hear, for the din from the stands was
deafening.
“You fooled him on that cross-fire ball in the first inning,” said
Brady.
“That’s a dangerous ball,” said Jim, shaking his head. “I think he’s
just waiting for me to use it again.”
“Try it,” Bill insisted.
And Jim, against his better judgment, and because he deferred always to
Bill’s signals in such an emergency, pitched the ball that Brady wanted.
It was the ball Reid wanted, too. He had anticipated such a chance since
the very beginning of the game. He saw it coming, recognized the swing
of Jim’s shoulders as he pitched, and he bared his teeth in a happy grin
as he saw it approaching. Then, squaring his big shoulders, he put all
his power into the drive, and sent the ball hurtling far over the centre
fielder’s head.
The Harvard crowd went mad. Round and round the bases the crimson legs
twinkled, Reid racing as if he were pursued by demons. Two men scored—if
Reid got home the score would be tied. But he had to stop at third. The
score was three to two in Yale’s favor—a man was on third, and none was
out. Dick Merriwell groaned. It was the tightest hole that Jim had ever
been in. Briggs, as fresh as when the game began, looked good for a
dozen innings more, while Jim, already very tired—and no wonder!—could
hardly last for a tenth.
But Harvard had not tied the score yet. Jim, calmly confident, grinned
at Brady, stricken by remorse for his error of judgment, and settled
himself down to work.
Bowen had raced back, as soon as he had scored, to the coacher’s box
behind third base, where he could take control of his team and see to it
that the most was made of the sudden chance to win the game, a rally at
the eleventh hour, when all hope seemed to be gone.
Jim was studying the batter with the utmost care. He felt that
everything depended upon him. But as he pitched, a thrill of agonizing
pain shot through his arm, beginning at the tired shoulder muscles and
running down to his wrist. He found his control completely vanished.
While the Harvard crowd went mad, the next two batters walked to first,
and the bases were filled. Dick Merriwell, seeing what was wrong, had
sent Gray to warm up with Taylor, and now Brady came out and begged Jim
to give way. But Jim shook his head resolutely.
“I can get them yet,” he said. “My arm’s better now. I’ve just been
lobbing them over.”
Suddenly he remembered something—the game he had pitched against
Pennsylvania.
“Quit stalling!” yelled the Harvard men, as he called Brady out again.
They thought he was playing for delay.
“I’m going to finish with my left arm, Bill,” he said. “They’ll never
look for it. I’m going to pitch this fellow a drop—he’ll be so surprised
that he can’t do more than chop it.”
Bill saw a dim chance to save the game.
No one on the Harvard team suspected what was coming. They knew nothing
of Jim’s ability to pitch with his left hand. And when, with a sudden,
deceptive motion, he shifted the ball and pitched it, the Harvard
batter, as he had predicted, swung wildly. But he didn’t chop the ball.
He hit it full—but on a line. Jim swung up to meet the ball, caught it
with his extended left hand—he had discarded his glove—and then raced
for third base. Reid was struggling to get back, but Jim’s throw to
Carter beat him, and Carter, with a lightning toss, threw to Jackson at
second, completing a wonderful triple play that ended the game and gave
Yale the championship.
For a moment the crowd was dazed. The play had been so swift, so
paralyzingly sudden, that very few had seen it. But as the Harvard
players, stunned, ran from the field, the great crowd realized to the
full what had happened. And the Yale men gave Jim a demonstration such
as few players had ever had. Wild with joy, they carried him on their
shoulders to the dressing room, and the Harvard crowd, after it had
cheered its own gallant team, was not slow to honor the great Yale
pitcher who had saved the day.
Once safely inside the dressing room, and away from the frantic crowd
that was still cheering outside, Sherman sprang to a bench.
“Now, fellows,” he shouted, “we’re all here. It’s as good a time as any
to elect next year’s captain. What do you say?”
There was a roar of delight. Then Carter sprang to his feet.
“I nominate Jim Phillips,” he cried.
A dozen voices seconded the nomination. There was no other candidate,
and in two minutes Jim had been unanimously elected captain of the team.
And when he got outside, where the news had spread, the first man who
was waiting to congratulate him was Parker—who had seen, at last, what
it meant to be a Yale man.
The next great event in sports in which Yale men were to take part was
the Yale-Harvard boat race. And for this important battle on the water,
the busy universal coach now hastened to New London to give final
instructions to the crew, which had long been at work under his
coaching.
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