OUT AT THE PLATE!
Clearfield turned out well on Saturday for the first Springdale game,
while the visitors swelled the proceeds by filling most of one whole
section behind third base. The day was fair but rather too cool for
the players, with a chilly east wind blowing down the field, a wind
that puffed up the dust from the base-paths, whisked bits of paper
around and interfered to some extent with the judging of flies in
the outfield. Springdale was in holiday mood, armed with a multitude
of blue banners and accompanied by a thick sprinkling of blue-gowned
young ladies whose enthusiasm was even more intense than that of
their escorts. Clearfield’s cheerers had to work hard to equal the
slogans that came down from that third-base stand, and Toby Sears,
cheer-leader, was forced to many appeals before he got the results he
wanted.
Clearfield’s line-up was the same she had presented in Wednesday’s
game against Benton: Bryan, 2b.; Farrar, cf.; Merrick, 1b.; Scott,
3b.; Cotner, lf.; Jones, ss.; White, c.; Browne, rf.; Nostrand, p.
Haley was expected to go to the rescue if needed, and seven substitutes
adorned the bench and hoped to get into the game. Springdale started
with her left-hander, Newton, on the mound, and Newton, who was a big,
lazy-looking but quite competent youth, disposed of Bryan, Farrar and
Merrick without difficulty. Neither team hit safely, in fact, until
the last of the third, when Lanny managed to land a short fly just
beyond third-baseman’s reach. But Lanny, although he reached second on
a sacrifice bunt by Browne, didn’t see the plate, for Newton registered
his third strike-out against Nostrand and caused Bryan to hit into
second-baseman’s hands.
In the fourth inning Springdale had a batting streak that lasted
until she had men on third and second with but one out. Then Tom
Nostrand passed the next batsman, who had a reputation for long hits
to the outfield, and, with the bases filled and the blue flags waving
hopefully, he struck out the next two opponents. The cheer that went up
from the Clearfield stand when the last man turned away from the plate
was undoubtedly plainly heard on the other side of town!
Clearfield’s inning produced plenty of thrills. Farrar went out,
shortstop to first, but Gordon drove a clean safety over second and
went to third when Scott doubled to right. Cotner did his best to
sacrifice to the outfield, but the result was a foul back of first
and a second put-out. The Springdale catcher made two bluff throws to
second, hoping to coax Gordon to the plate, but the trick didn’t work.
With two balls and one strike against him, Captain Jones refused the
next delivery and had the satisfaction of hearing it declared a ball.
Then Newton floated a slow one over for a second strike and, with the
Clearfield coachers howling like wildmen and the Purple’s supporters
shouting from the stands, tried to cut the outer corner of the plate.
Warner spoiled it and the ball glanced into the seats. On third Gordon
danced and ran back and forth, while Scott, halfway between third and
second, dared a throw. Again Newton wound up and again he stepped
forward, and the ball sailed straight along the groove. Gordon dashed
up the path from third, bat and ball met and Captain Jones sped to
first. Scott rounded the last corner and headed for the plate just
as the ball bounded into the hands of the second-baseman. The latter
had plenty of time to peg across to first ahead of Warner Jones, but
something, perhaps the sight of the two runners flying home, made
him hesitate for one fatal instant. When the ball did reach the first
baseman’s impatient glove Jones was crossing the bag.
Scott slid unchallenged past the plate and tallied the home team’s
second run, and Clearfield exulted strenuously and waved purple flags.
Two runs looked very large just then, but Dick wanted more and sent
Lanny after them. Jones had instructions to steal on the second pitch
and Lanny to hit it out if he could. Newton drove Lanny back from the
plate with his first delivery and it went for a ball. Then, after
throwing twice to first to teach Jones discretion, he sailed a low
one over. Lanny swung at it but missed and Jones beat out the throw
to second by an eyelash. Clearfield howled its glee. That steal upset
Newton and he allowed a pass. With men on second and first and Joe
Browne up another tally seemed quite within the bounds of reason, but
Newton found himself again and, working Browne into the hole with two
strikes and one ball, fooled him on an outshoot that looked very wide
of the plate. Clearfield shrieked disapproval of the decision, but
disapproval didn’t put the runners back on the bases or return Browne
to the plate. Still, two runs were two runs, and, unless Springdale did
a lot better than she had been doing, would prove sufficient to win
the game.
The fourth and fifth passed uneventfully. Springdale worked hard and
took advantage of everything, but luck was against her when Cotner ran
back to the shadow of the fence in deep left and pulled down a long fly
that might easily have been good for two bases. Springdale had a runner
on first at the time and Cotner’s spectacular catch undoubtedly robbed
her of a tally. After that Scott threw out the next batsman and Bryan
tossed to Jones on the following play. In her half Clearfield got one
man to first on balls, but watched the succeeding three retire on easy
outs.
It was in the sixth that Springdale began to look dangerous. Dick
had substituted Breen for Joe Browne, in the hope that the former
would take more kindly to Newton’s delivery, and it was Breen who was
directly responsible for what happened. Nostrand disposed of the first
batsman easily enough, but the next man waited him out and finally,
after popping fouls all over the place, secured a pass. The next man
laid down a slow bunt toward the box and Nostrand fielded to Jones.
The latter, however, failed to complete the double. The following
batter hit safely past Scott and second and first bases were occupied.
Springdale’s catcher was up now and he had so far proved an easy victim
to Nostrand’s slow ball. But this time the signs failed. With two
strikes against him he managed to connect with a waister and sent it
arching into short right field. Gordon started back, but it was quite
evidently Breen’s ball, and Breen was trotting in for it. But something
happened. Perhaps the wind caught the sphere and caused the fielder’s
undoing. At all events, the ball went over Breen’s head by several feet
and two runs crossed the plate!
In the ensuing dismay and confusion the batsman slid safely to second.
Springdale stood up and yelled like mad, and, after a minute of
dismayed silence, Toby Sears managed to arouse the purple-decked seats
to response. But the Clearfield cheering was lacking in conviction just
then! Breen, feeling horribly conspicuous out there in right field,
ground his fist into the palm of his glove and gritted his teeth.
Captain Jones’ voice came back to him cheerfully:
“Never mind that, Howard! Let’s go after ’em hard now!”
And go after them hard they did, and when Newton, the subsequent
batsman, slammed the ball into short center Breen was there as soon as
Farrar and could have fielded the ball had not Farrar attended to it.
As it was the batsman was satisfied with one base, although the runner
ahead reached third in safety.
Tom Haley had begun to warm up back of first base now. That his
services would be required was soon evident, for Nostrand put himself
in a hole with the next batsman and finally watched him walk to first
and fill the bases. Then Dick nodded, Nostrand dropped the ball and
walked out and Clearfield cheered lustily as Tom Haley peeled off
his sweater. Going into the box with the bases full, even when there
are two out, isn’t a thing to rejoice and be merry over, but, as
Fudge confided to Perry just then, Tom Haley had been put together
without nerves. Tom sped some fast and rather wild ones in the general
direction of Lanny while the Springdale shortstop leaned on his bat and
watched satirically, and the Blue’s supporters expressed derision. But
none of the Clearfield fellows were worried by Tom’s apparent wildness.
Tom always did that when he went as a relief pitcher. And then he
usually tied the batsman in knots!
Tom did that very thing now. He landed the first ball squarely across
the center of the plate. He put the next one shoulder-high across the
inner corner, and he wasted two more in trying to coax the batter to
reach out. Then, finding that the blue-stockinged one would not oblige
him, he curved his fingers cunningly about the ball and shot it away
and, without waiting, swung on his heel and walked out of the box and
across the diamond, while Clearfield applauded hysterically and a
disgruntled Springdale shortstop tossed his bat down and turned toward
the field wondering if he had really hit as much too soon as it had
seemed to him!
The Purple went out in order in their half and the seventh inning,
which Clearfield, according to time-honored custom, hailed as the
“lucky seventh” and stood up for, passed into history without adding
further tallies to the score of either team. Springdale went after
the game savagely and succeeded in connecting with Haley’s offers so
frequently that the Clearfield supporters sat on the edges of their
seats and writhed anxiously. But, although the Blue’s batsmen hit
the ball, they failed to “put it where they ain’t,” and sharp, clean
fielding did the rest. For her part, the Purple did no better. One long
fly to deep left looked good for a moment, but the nimble-footed player
out there got under it without any trouble. No one reached first in
either half of the “lucky seventh” and the game went into the eighth
with the score still 2 to 2.
When the first man had been thrown out, Haley to Merrick, Haley let
down a mite and the Springdale right-fielder smashed out a two-bagger
that sailed high over Bryan’s head and rolled far into the outfield.
After that Haley tightened up again and struck out the next candidate,
and the half was over a few minutes later when the runner was caught
flat-footed off second by a rattling throw-down by Lanny which Bryan
took on the run.
Merrick was first up in the last half of the inning and, obeying
instructions, hit desperately at the first ball pitched, missed it to
the glee of the Springdale “rooters” and staggered back out of the box.
The next delivery was low and wide. The next one, too, was a ball. Then
came a slow drop, and Gordon, sizing it up nicely, stepped forward and
laid his bat gently against it. It wasn’t an ideal ball to bunt, but
Gordon managed to get his bat a bit over it and at the same moment
start for first. The ball trickled but a scant six feet to the left of
base, but the catcher overran it slightly and threw low to first and
Gordon was safe.
Scott tried hard to sacrifice with a bunt, but Newton kept them almost
shoulder-high and before he knew it Scott was in the hole. With the
score two and one Newton could afford to waste one, and after he had
tried the patience of the crowd by repeated efforts to catch Gordon
napping at first, he sent in a slow ball that Scott refused. Then,
since the batsman had two strikes on him and would naturally not risk
an attempt to bunt, Newton tried to end the agony by sending a straight
ball waist-high over the outer corner of the plate. Whereupon Scott did
exactly what he’d been told to do and laid the ball down very neatly
halfway between plate and box and streaked to first. He almost made it,
too, but a quick turn and throw by Newton beat him by a foot. Gordon,
however, was safely on second, and Clearfield rejoiced loudly.
Cotner continued the bunting game, but although he advanced Gordon to
third his bunt went straight to the waiting third-baseman, who had been
playing well in, and he made the second out. Warner Jones got a fine
round of applause as he stepped to the bat and there were cries of
“Give us a home-run, Cap!” “Knock the cover off it!” “Here’s where we
score!” At third-base Gordon ran back and forth along the path and the
coach shouted vociferously, but Newton refused to get rattled. Instead,
to the deep disgust of the Clearfield adherents, he pitched four wide
balls and Warner, tossing aside his bat, walked resentfully to first.
Clearfield loudly censured the pitcher, impolitely intimating that he
was afraid, but Newton only smiled and gave his attention to Lanny.
Four more pitch-outs and Lanny, too, walked, filling the bases and
eliciting derisive and disappointed howls from the Purple.
Breen was next at bat and, since in spite of being a left-hander, he had
so far failed to solve the Springdale pitcher, the audience expected that
Dick would pull him out and substitute a pinch-hitter――probably McCoy or
Lewis. But, after a momentary stir at the bench and a quick consultation
between Dick and Haley, Breen advanced to the plate, bat in hand. Knowing
ones in the stands shook their heads and grumbled, and Fudge emphatically
condemned proceedings and became very pessimistic. Perry, daring to hint
that perhaps, after all, Dick Lovering had some good reason for allowing
Breen to bat, was silenced by exactly four perfectly good arguments
against such a possibility. By which time Howard Breen had a ball and a
strike on him, the coachers were jumping and shrieking and the purple
flags were waving madly while several hundred voices roared out a bedlam
of sound. For it was now or never, in the belief of most, and a safe hit
was needed very, very badly!
Breen faced Fortune calmly. Perhaps that misjudgment in right-field――it
couldn’t be scored as an error, but that didn’t take any of the sting
out of it for Howard――had put him on his mettle and endowed him with a
desperate determination to make atonement. And possibly Dick Lovering
was counting on that very thing. At all events Breen came through! With
one strike and two balls against him, Breen picked out a wide curve
and got it on the middle of his bat. It was a lucky hit, but it did
the business. It started over Newton’s head, went up and up, curved
toward the foul-line and finally landed just out of reach of first- and
second-basemen a foot inside the white mark!
And when second-baseman scooped it up Breen was racing across the bag,
Gordon had tallied and Warner Jones was just sliding into the plate.
For the succeeding three minutes pandemonium reigned. Purple banners
whipped the air, new straw hats were subjected to outrageous treatment
and caps sailed gloriously into space. At first-base Bryan was hugging
Breen ecstatically and midway between the plate and the pitcher’s box
a half-dozen Springdale players were holding a rueful conference. When
comparative quiet had returned, and after Fudge had saved his face by
carefully explaining that Breen’s hit had been the luckiest fluke that
he, Fudge, had ever witnessed in a long and eventful life, the game
went on.
Newton for the first time showed nerves. Haley, who was only an average
batter at the best, was sent to first after five deliveries. The
Clearfield cheering, momentarily stilled, broke forth with renewed
vehemence. It was Bryan’s turn at bat. Bryan stood disdainfully inert
while two bad ones passed him, and then Springdale’s relief pitcher,
who had been warming up off and on for the last four innings, took the
helm and Newton, who had pitched a remarkable game up to the eighth
inning, retired to the bench.
The new twirler, Crowell, was a right-hander and was regarded as
slightly better than Newton. He took his time about starting to work,
but when he finally began he finished the performance neatly enough,
causing Bryan to swing at two very poor offerings and then sneaking a
fast one over for the third strike.
Springdale ought to have realized then and there that she was beaten.
Everyone else did, and there ensued the beginning of an exodus from the
stands. But those who were on their way out three minutes after the
ninth inning began either scuttled back to their seats or sought places
along the side of the field.
The new pitcher had done the unexpected. Far out in the field Farrar
and Cotner were chasing back after the rolling ball. Crowell had
landed squarely on Haley’s first pitch and driven it whizzing past the
surprised Captain Jones for three bases! Tom Haley looked about as
astounded as he ever allowed himself to look as he walked to the box
after backing up Lanny. With none out and a runner on third, victory
looked less certain for the Purple. Springdale’s “rooters” yelled
wildly and triumphantly and Springdale’s coachers leaped about like
insane acrobats and volleyed all sorts of advice to the lone runner,
most of it intended for the pitcher’s ears.
“It’s a cinch, Johnny! You can walk home in a minute! He’s up in the
air like a kite! There’s nothing to it, old man, there’s nothing to it!
Here’s where we roll ’em up! Watch us score! Hi! Hi! Look at that for a
rotten pitch! His arm’s broken in two places! Just tap it, Hughie, just
tap it! He’s all gone now, old man! He hasn’t a thing but his glove!
Come on now! Let’s have it! Right down the alley, Hughie! Pick your
place and let her go!”
But Hughie struck out, in spite of all the advice and encouragement
supplied him, also the next man up, and Clearfield began to breathe a
bit easier. But the trouble was by no means over, for an inshoot
landed against the ribs of the next batsman and he ambled to first,
solicitously rubbing his side and grinning at Tom Haley.
“Sorry,” called Tom.
“I’ll bet you are!” was the response.
Springdale’s center-fielder, second man on her batting list, waited
until the runner on first had taken second unchallenged and then lifted
a fly to Breen. The latter got it without altering his position and
pegged to the plate, but Crowell beat out the throw by a yard and the
score was 4 to 3. On the throw-in the batsman went to second and with
two out and two on bases the infield spread out again. There was some
delay while Springdale selected a pinch-hitter, and then, when he had
rubbed his hands in the dirt, rubbed the dirt off on his trousers,
gripped his bat and fixed his feet firmly to earth, all with the grim,
determined air of an eleventh-hour hero, Lanny stepped to one side of
the plate and Tom Haley tossed him four wide ones!
It was the Blue’s turn to howl derisively and the Blue did it. And the
Purple shouted derisively back. So much, you see, depends on the point
of view! The bases were filled now and a hit would not only tie the
score but add a second tally to Springdale’s column. But neither Lanny
nor Haley appeared worried, not even when the next batsman appeared in
the person of the Blue’s captain and third-baseman. Still, Tom worked a
bit more deliberately than usual, studied Lanny’s signals thoughtfully,
seemed bent on consuming as much time as possible. The Blue’s captain
swayed his bat back and forth and strove to restrain his impatience,
but that he was impatient was proved when Tom’s first delivery, a ball
that Lanny picked almost out of the dirt, fooled him into offering at
it. Clearfield shouted joyfully as the bat swept harmlessly above the
ball and the men on bases scuttled back. The batsman grew cautious
then and let the next two deliveries pass unheeded, guessing them
correctly. The noise which had been for some minutes loud and unceasing
dwindled to silence as Tom nodded a reply to Lanny’s signal, wound up
and lurched forward. The Springdale captain expected a good one and
recognized it when he saw it. Bat and ball met sharply and he raced
down the first base path.
Cries filled the air, the bases emptied. The ball, smashed directly at
Tom Haley, bounded out of his glove and rolled back toward the third
base line. Tom, momentarily confused, sprang after it, scooped it up
from almost under the feet of the speeding runner from third and,
without a moment’s indecision, hurled it to Lanny. And Lanny, dropping
to his knees on the plate, got it a foot from the ground just as the
spiked shoes of the runner shot into him. Catcher and runner, blue
stockings and purple, became confusedly mixed up for a moment, and then
Clearfield, seeing the umpire’s arm swing backward over his shoulder,
burst into triumph and flowed onto the field!
[Illustration: “Lanny, dropping to his knees on the plate, got it a
foot from the ground”]