IN THE TWELFTH INNING
Joe started the game at first that afternoon and had a busy five
innings, for Morristown was a hard-hitting aggregation and slammed Carl
Moran all over the lot during two innings and then tried its best to
do the same with Toby Williams. Sharp fielding alone allowed Carl to
last as long as he did, and it was not until the fourth inning that
the visitors got their first run across. In the meanwhile Amesville
had scored twice, once in the first and once in the third. Sam Craig’s
three-bagger, with George Peddie on first, did the trick in the first
inning, and two hits and a stolen base accounted for the second run.
It was a snappy game from start to finish, and a good-sized audience
was on hand to enjoy it. Morristown played in hard luck during the
first part of the contest, for, although she hit hard and often, her
hits didn’t earn runs. In fact, it was a dropped ball at the plate that
gave her her single tally in the fourth. Smith’s throw may have been
a bit low, but Sam Craig ought to have held it and had the runner out
by a yard. He didn’t, however, and so when the home team came to bat in
the last of that inning the score was 2 to 1.
The batting order had been changed subsequent to Buster Healey’s
departure and Hale was hitting in fourth place, followed by Peddie,
Craig, and Faulkner, or Foley. Cummings and the pitcher ended the list.
The new arrangement had not, however, been producing very satisfactory
results. In the fourth Steve Hale started off well by banging out a
liner that was too hot for shortstop to hold and reaching his base
before that player could recover the ball and peg it across. Joe had
two strikes against him before he found one that he liked, and then hit
a slow one to first and sacrificed Hale to second. Sam Craig fouled off
three and finally flied out to left fielder. Cummings made the second
out, third to first, and Toby Williams came up with the task of scoring
Hale from second. Toby wasn’t very much of a batsman, although when he
hit the ball usually travelled far. The Morristown pitcher had been
putting the first delivery over time after time and Toby was instructed
to go after it. He did and he got it, and it whizzed straight down the
third base line, just out of reach of the baseman, and rolled gaily
into deep left while Hale sprinted home and Toby reached second. Smith
brought the inning to an end when, following Toby’s example, he hit the
first ball pitched and slapped it squarely into the pitcher’s glove.
Neither side scored in the fifth, although the visiting team got men on
third and second on errors by Hale and Smith, and Jack Strobe got to
first on a Texas Leaguer. In neither case could the following batsmen
bring home the bacon. Joe yielded first base to Frank Foley when the
sixth inning began and saw the rest of the game from the bench, save
when, in the eighth, he caught Tom Pollock, who warmed up in case the
visitors should develop a rally. But the game went through to the end
with the score 3 to 1. Morristown did her best to even things up in the
eighth and ninth, but some one of the enemy always managed to get in
front of the ball, and so, although the visitors knocked the ball to
every part of the field, they had to submit to defeat.
Amesville’s winning streak held for a fortnight and three other games
were played and won. Then came the return contest with Lynton. The
team travelled to the neighbouring town on a cloudy Saturday forenoon,
much in doubt as to whether their journey would prove worth while.
But when, after they had partaken of a hilarious dinner at the Lynton
hotel, they started for the ball grounds, the sun broke through and for
the rest of the afternoon tried its best to broil them. To Joe that
was a memorable game, for it marked his elevation to the position of
regular first baseman. That day, since hitters were needed badly, Frank
Foley remained on the bench throughout the game, and Jack was jubilant.
He had a fine time twitting Foley whenever he came to the bench, and
when the seventh and eighth innings had passed and the deposed first
baseman still squirmed uneasily there in idleness his temper, which had
proved equal to Jack’s gibes during the early innings, quite deserted
him and he earnestly begged Jack to come behind the stand for a few
minutes and see what would happen! But Jack declined the invitation,
politely yet firmly, and Foley, angry clear through, was denied even
that slight consolation.
That was a pitchers’ battle. Tom Pollock twirled for Amesville, for
Coach Talbot wanted the game, as, you may be certain, did the forty or
fifty patriotic rooters who accompanied the team. Opposed to Tom was
one Corrigan, a shock-headed youth who, it was more than suspected,
would have had difficulty in proving himself a high school pupil in
good standing. Buster Healey, who was among the devoted youths who made
the trip to Lynton, afterward said that he had heard that Corrigan was
an imported article and that he was far more at home in Marion than in
Lynton. That as may be, Corrigan could certainly pitch, as Amesville
soon discovered. Not a safety was made off him until the third inning,
when Tom Pollock smashed out a two-bagger that produced no result.
Corrigan had a slow ball that was the undoing of batsman after batsman.
He mixed it up with fast ones and a couple of hooks and had the
opposing team standing on their heads. And he fielded so well that, as
Sam Craig remarked disgustedly once, the rest of the Lynton team might
just as well have remained on the bench.
But Corrigan had an opponent in Tom Pollock that was not to be
despised. Perhaps, when all is said, Tom, for once, was outpitched
that day if we go by the final score, but there was little to choose
between the rival moundsmen. Tom proved better at the bat than did
Corrigan, for the latter was a typical pitcher when he went to the
plate and swung harmlessly at the first three deliveries and retired in
a perfectly matter-of-fact way to the bench. If Amesville had trouble
hitting Corrigan, Lynton had as much difficulty getting to Tom. Except
for that two-bagger of Tom’s, not a hit was made by either side until
the fifth. In the fourth two errors by the visitors put a Lynton runner
as far as second, but he died there. Joe was guilty of one of those
miscues when he dropped a perfectly good throw of Hale’s, and Smith
made the other when he fumbled Sam’s throw-down and let the runner
steal second. Lynton made errors, too, but nothing came of them until
the first of the fifth.
In that inning Sam, the first man up, fouled out to catcher. Joe struck
out and Cummings, with two strikes on him, swung desperately at a
poor one and rolled it toward third base. Third baseman over-ran it,
threw hurriedly and pegged wide of first, and Cummings legged it to
second with lots of time to spare. Amesville’s rooters became audible
for almost the first time since Sam had made his hit, and Tom Pollock
strode to the bat. Discretion seeming the better part of valor, Tom was
promptly passed. That brought Gordon Smith up, with runners on first
and second, and Gordon was not just the batter Coach Talbot would have
chosen for the situation. But the shortstop proved, after all, the man
for the job, for, after cunningly allowing Corrigan to get himself in
a hole, he leaned against a fast ball and streaked it into short right,
scoring Cummings and placing Tom on third.
Sidney Morris tried very hard to come across, but Corrigan was too
much for him, and Sidney fanned. One run, however, looked very big in
that game, and Amesville breathed a bit easier until, in the last of
the sixth, Lynton tied up the score by a combination of one hit, a
barefaced steal of second and a sacrifice fly. One to one the score
remained until the eighth. Then Corrigan showed the first signs of
weariness and passed Smith. Smith stole second when Morris tried for
a hit and missed it, the catcher getting the throw away too late.
Morris again fanned and Jack, who had determined to profit by his own
advice to Joe, shortened his swing and managed to connect with one
of Corrigan’s offerings. The hit was pretty scratchy, but it placed
Smith on third and left Jack himself safe on first. Hale fouled off
two, spoiling as many attempted steals by Jack, and finally bunted
toward the box. Corrigan held Smith at third and threw out the runner
at first. With Peddie up there seemed a chance for a tally, for Peddie
had been delivering the goods quite regularly. But when Corrigan had
scored two strikes against him the outlook darkened and Sam Craig,
coaching at third, sent Smith to the plate on the wind-up. But Corrigan
was too old a bird to be unsteadied and he slammed the ball swiftly to
the catcher and Smith was nailed a yard away.
Lynton went out in one, two, three order in her half and the ninth
started with the score still 1 to 1. Peddie struck out and Sam walked.
Joe sacrificed. Cummings hit past third baseman, but Sam Craig was out
at the plate on a fine throw-in by left fielder. The tenth inning was
profitless to both sides. In the first of the eleventh Corrigan wobbled
a little and a base on balls followed by a safe bunt placed two runners
on bases. But Morris, Jack, and Steve Hale went out in order. It was
Tom Pollock’s turn to let down and he did it until Lynton had men on
second and third with but one out. After that, however, Tom steadied,
fanning the next batter and causing the succeeding one to pop up a fly
to Joe.
It looked very much like a tie game when Peddie had gone out, shortstop
to first baseman, and Sam Craig had fanned in the first of the twelfth
inning, for the visiting team would have to get the five-twelve train
back to Amesville, and it was then well after four o’clock. But many
a game has been pulled out of the fire with two men down, and this
was to prove one of them. Joe went to bat with his mind made up to
hit somehow, somewhere. This would, he was sure, be his last chance
to do anything worth while against the crafty Mr. Corrigan, and he
did want to have something more to show than two weak sacrifices.
He had profited by experience and close study of Corrigan’s methods
and was heartened by assurance when he gripped his bat and faced the
shock-headed twirler. Corrigan seldom pitched the first ball over, and
Joe knew it, and so, although he made a fine show of being anxious
to swing at it, he let it go by and had his judgment sustained by
the umpire’s decision. The next one was a fast ball that looked good
until it broke in front of the plate and just escaped a corner. With
two balls and no strikes, Corrigan became careful. Joe swung at the
third offering and missed it. Corrigan smiled at him, and the catcher,
who usually kept up a running fire of comment, told Joe that he was
a fine, free swinger, “just like a gate, old man, just like a gate!”
Corrigan concluded that the batter was ready to take a chance now and
so he uncorked a fast and high one that had Joe feeling anxious until
the umpire decided that it was a ball. After that, Corrigan had to
make them good, but, with two down, he wasn’t troubled much. His next
offering was one of his famous slow balls, and Joe, having one to
spare, let it severely alone. It proved a strike.
“One more, now, just like the last!” called the catcher. “Let’s have
it, Jimmy!”
But Joe knew very well that it wouldn’t be like the last at all, that
Corrigan would change his pace, and, in all likelihood, put a fast one
over in the groove. And that is what happened. And Joe, staking all on
his “hunch,” swung and caught it fairly and streaked down the base-path
and was waved onward by Toby Williams, who was dancing about in the
coacher’s box, and finally pulled up at second, standing, just as the
ball came back from right field. Somehow, that unexpected hit changed
the luck, it seemed. Cummings got his second hit of the game and sent
Joe to third. Tom Pollock was again passed, filling the bases, and Jack
Speyer went in to bat for Gordon Smith. Speyer wasn’t any phenomenon
with the stick, but he had been known to hit lustily. Perhaps in nine
cases out of ten a pinch-hitter proves a broken reed, but this must
have been the tenth time, for there was nothing broken about Speyer.
Probably the fact that he had not been playing kept him from any awe
of Corrigan. At all events, he let the first ball go past unheeded,
untroubledly heard it called a strike, and then swung hard on the next
one. Second baseman made a heroic try for it, but it went a foot over
his upthrust glove and Joe and Walter Cummings trotted over the home
plate.
That ended the scoring. Sidney Morris hit into third baseman’s hands
and was an easy out. Then all that Amesville had to do was to retire
Lynton in her half of the twelfth, a feat not at all difficult as it
proved. Tom struck out the first man, the second laid down a bunt and
beat out the throw to first, and the third batsman hit into a double,
Smith to Peddie to Joe, and the game was over, the score 3 to 1.
Amesville, cheered and cheering, made a wild dash for the station and
got the five-twelve train by a minute’s margin.
On the way home Jack tried to sympathise with Frank Foley, but Frank
was in a particularly disagreeable frame of mind, and Jack gave him up
as a bad job. Instead, huddled in a seat with Joe, hugging his knees
ecstatically, he spoke of that bat-case with the air of a proprietor.
“I’m two games ahead of him, Joey,” he exulted. “He will have to play
in two more than I do now to win, and he will never do it! Not this
year! You’ve cabbaged that place for keeps, Joey. Why, even if you
dropped half the throws you got, Bat couldn’t do without you! Not after
the way you lambasted that old pill today, son! It’s a cinch!”
“You can’t tell,” began Joe.
But Jack would have nothing to do with doubts. “Piffle! It’s all over
with Handsome Frank, I tell you. You win!” Jack was silent a moment.
Then he laughed rather queerly, and, in answer to Joe’s questioning
look, said: “It’s funny, but, do you know, I’m sort of sorry for Frank!
Isn’t that silly?”
“So am I,” replied Joe truthfully.
“Well!” Jack took a deep breath and abandoned regrets. “To the victor
belong the spoils, as the poet so beautifully puts it! And it’s been a
pretty little fight!”
However, had Jack but known it, his sympathy for Frank Foley was, in a
measure, at least, somewhat premature!