THE “SQUEEZE PLAY”
In a town like Kingsbridge, such a movement meant a general stampede,
followed by a riot, in which more than one participant would “get his.”
Harney continued to talk to Hoover until the raging pitcher, the
freckles on his face seeming to stand out like innumerable islands in a
grayish sea, promised to behave. The umpire seemed practically helpless.
Locke had waited quietly. He gripped his bat, and squared away as he
saw Hoover making ready. The ball came over the outside corner with
a shoot, and Tom met it. It was a beautiful, clean single into right
field.
The crowd was still roaring when Labelle rushed forth to the pan,
signaling that he would attempt a sacrifice. Locke was on his toes, and
ready, and he started as Hoover began his short delivery. True to his
signaled promise, the Canadian dropped a bunt in front of the pan, thus
easily giving the runner ahead of him second, although he himself was
cut down in his last jump for first.
With one out, a runner on second, and Captain Larry Stark ready to
wield the willow, the local crowd whooped it up like crazy Indians at a
ghost dance, believing Kingsbridge had its chance to score.
It was plain that the new pitcher, besides being fast on his feet and
ready to take chances, had the faculty of leaping away almost at top
speed with his first stride or two, and a long, clean single might
enable him to score from second.
Hoover knew this, and was inwardly disturbed. Although he had already
twice cut Stark down at the pan, previous experiences warned him that,
as a batter to advance runners, the cool, heady, sure-eyed Kingsbridge
captain was far more dangerous than the heavier-hitting Crandall, who
followed him. Therefore, being supported by a sign from the bench, Jock
decided to pass Larry, and take his chances with Crandall and Anastace.
First driving Locke back twice to second, but being unable to keep him
hugging the cushion, Hoover handed up a wide one with such elaborate
method that he betrayed his purpose immediately.
Promptly with the next pitch, something happened: Locke was leaping
away toward third before the ball left Jock’s fingers. Grady covered
the sack, and Bangs scorched the air with his quick line throw, but
the runner slipped under, and was safe by a narrow margin. Bill Harney
disputed the decision, while the crowd howled; but the umpire waved him
back to first.
Eyes bulging, throats dry, nerves twitching, the Kingsbridge spectators
rooted for a run. Some were purple-faced and perspiring; others were
pale and cold; all were wrought to the highest pitch of expectation and
excitement.
The face of the wrothy Hoover was twisted into a snarl, and, as the
ball came back to him, he betrayed momentary indecision.
Immediately Locke caught a signal from Stark, given by the Kingsbridge
captain with his back toward third, his attention seemingly focused on
the man on the slab, and the runner knew Larry would seek to hit the
next pitched ball if he could possibly reach it without stepping out of
the box. Crouching like a runner ready for the crack of the starter’s
pistol, Locke crept off third.
The ball was wide of the rubber, but, reaching far across, Stark found
it with the end of his long bat, and tapped it into the diamond,
immediately getting away on the jump for first.
Locke had not failed to obey the signal for the “squeeze,” and he
was coming like the wind when the bat and ball met. Hoover forked
fruitlessly at the ball as it caracoled past, but it was McGovern who
scooped it, and lined it home in hope of nipping the runner.
A blighted hope it was, for the flying man slid safely, and Bangs,
recognizing the uselessness of trying to tag him, winged the sphere to
first, where it arrived a moment too late to get Stark.
Far better than words, imagination may picture the uproar of that
hysterical moment.
Gradually the cheering ceased, and the hoarse and happy Kingsbridgers
became semirational. To Stark, in a way, as much credit was due for
that finely worked squeeze as to Locke; but it seemed that the name of
the latter was on every lip. He had made the play possible by his hit
and steal, and the delighted crowd howled blessings at him long after
he was seated on the bench.
Locke’s manager looked him over unemotionally, and then sent Crandall
out to the pan, with instructions. Hutchinson did not believe in
spoiling a youngster with praise. Furthermore, the game was far from
over, and experience had taught him that the time to count chickens was
after the hatching.
One man, at least, was wholly happy; Henry Cope was confident that,
after this, his fellow members of the Kingsbridge Baseball Association,
who had given him carte blanche to secure a star pitcher, at any price,
could not make much protest when they learned that he had contracted to
pay Tom Locke one hundred dollars a week and board, a sum far greater
than many a minor-league pitcher of promise received.
Janet Harting was delighted beyond words; so delighted, indeed, that
her ebullient expressions of joy and unreserved admiration for Locke
brought a slight frown to the dark face of Benton King.
There were those, however, who felt no touch of rejoicing.
The Bancroft crowd was silent. Mike Riley sat on the bench, and chewed
at his dead cigar, turning only to snarl at Fancy Dyke when the latter
called to him anxiously from behind the rail. He had already sneered
at his players because of their inability to hit Locke, but there was
something of a still more caustic nature awaiting them when they should
again assemble at the bench.