THE FIRST GAME
When, at two o’clock, the invading hordes swept down on Grafton it
looked as though Mount Morris Academy had arrived in toto. Of the
hundred and eighty-odd students enrolled at the Greenbank school
that year, fully a hundred and fifty swarmed over from the station
after the arrival of the train. They came in hilarious mood, marching
along Crumbie and River Streets four abreast and waving small green
megaphones through which they hoped to later roar the enemy into
subjection. Green and white, the Mount Morris colors――I am aware that
white is not a color, but how else can I put it?――were much in evidence
in the shape of pennants and neckties and arm-bands, while a frivolous
fox-terrier led the procession, straining at his leash, attired in
a green blanket with the school monogram in white. Altogether, that
invasion was notable and picturesque, and Grafton, looking on from the
windows of Lothrop and Trow or from along the campus fence, cheered
approvingly. Mount Morris cheered back and waved her pennants, turned
into School Street and disbanded at the gate. Subsequently those who
had acquaintances at Grafton were to be seen climbing stairways, while
others wandered around in critical survey of the school buildings.
Add some two hundred Grafton fellows and another hundred sympathizers
from the village and roundabout and you’ll understand that the seating
capacity of Lothrop Field that afternoon was severely taxed. Politely,
but not over-eagerly perhaps, Grafton yielded the grandstands to the
visitors and townsfolk and found accommodation on the grass. Only a
band was lacking to make the occasion complete; and I’m not sure that a
band would have had much chance with all that cheering and singing!
The game started at two-thirty, or, to be exact, four minutes after
the scheduled time. The sun was pretty hot and what slight breeze
crept up now and then from the river did little to mitigate its ardor.
Nate Leddy began proceedings by slipping a strike over on the head of
the Mount Morris batting list, and the Scarlet-and-Gray cheered what
they were pleased to consider a good augury. The enemy retired without
reaching first and when the teams changed places it was seen that Mount
Morris, instead of putting in her best pitcher, Saylor, was going to
use Moulton. Moulton was a left-hander and Grafton had taken very
kindly to his pitching last year in the second game of the series.
Saylor was evidently to be saved for use against Myatt.
But it was soon apparent that Moulton had progressed in the gentle
art of pitching a baseball since the previous season, for Blake and
Winslow both fanned and the best Ordway could do was to fly out to
second-baseman. Save that the cheering and singing and coaching were
in their enthusiasm sufficient to mark the occasion as one greatly out
of the ordinary, no one would have suspected anything unusual from the
first few innings of the contest. Both teams played hard but ragged
ball, and the rival scorers had to jot down many errors. And yet, since
every spectator was thoroughly partisan, those scoreless innings were
not without their interest. There were some brilliant plays by both
sides: a running, one-hand catch by Left-Fielder Porter of the visitors
that deprived Guy Murtha of a two-bagger, a superb throw to second by
Gordon of the home talent that cut down a green-legged runner, a double
by Blake and Ayer that brought the fourth inning to an inglorious――or
glorious, according to whether you sported green or scarlet――ending.
And the two pitchers, neither seriously threatened, also deserved
laurels. To offset such commendable incidents, however, there was a
sickening muff of an easy toss by Murtha at second, the dropping of a
foul by Ayer after he had it nicely in his hands, the booting of a
hit by Winslow and a “solid ivory” play by Gordon in the third when he
called for a pitch-out and then pegged the ball over first-baseman’s
head when the runner was half-way to second. And the visitors made
quite as many slip-ups and, I think, more displays of bad judgment of
the kind that count in results but do not show in the error column.
Leddy met his first batch of trouble in the fifth――the “crucial fifth,”
as Ben Myatt had called it two days before――when he passed the first
man up and allowed the next to hit safely past Winslow. After that he
struck out the next two batsmen but couldn’t prevent a run coming over
when the following green-leg popped a Texas Leaguer behind Winslow.
Nick Blake made a valiant effort to get that hit, but the best he could
do was to scoop it up and get the man at third. Grafton got men to
third and second in her half, but they died there.
That ended the scoring until the seventh, and it was in the seventh
that Leddy gave way to Weston in the first half, and that the home
team put the game away in the second period. Mount Morris began by
getting a scratch hit that put a runner on first. The next man tried
to sacrifice, but Leddy threw wild to Blake at second and both runners
were safe. A short fly to left field settled in Hobo Ordway’s hands and
he held the runners. Then Leddy let down and passed the next batter
on four consecutive balls and the bases were all occupied with but one
out. Leddy showed nervousness and risked a tally by trying to catch
the runner at second. Only quick work by Blake sent the man at third
doubling back to that base. With a strike and two balls on the batter,
Nate let go of a wild one and, although Gordon managed to partly block
it, the enemy scored her second run. Leddy pitched another ball, worked
a strike across and finally passed the batter. It was then that Gus
Weston, who had been warming up to Brooks for two innings, was hurried
to the rescue.
Gus started erratically by pitching three wild ones in a row and then
settled down and struck out the green-leg and got a fine salvo of
applause from some three hundred anxious Grafton sympathizers. Another
five minutes of suspense followed, during which Dud and Jimmy and the
other non-combatants sat on the final two inches of the bench and
clenched their hands and yelled their heads nearly off. In the end,
after the batsman, who happened also to be Mount Morris’s captain, had
three balls to his credit and two strikes against him and had fouled
off exactly five offerings, a screaming fly to center field that Star
Meyer caught ended the trouble.
But if it ended Grafton’s trouble it only began Mount Morris’s, for it
was that last of the seventh that saw the downfall of Moulton, the
Green-and-White’s second-best twirler. Gordon led off with a sizzling
shot to right that the fielder had to take on the bound and was secure
on first. Weston went out, second to first. Nick Blake tried the first
thing that came his way and bounced it off Moulton’s shins, advancing
Gordon and arriving at first without question. Winslow came across with
a two-base hit to left that sent Gordon home with Grafton’s first tally
and a minute later Hugh Ordway slammed one down the third-base line,
scoring Winslow and putting himself on second.
That was enough for Moulton and he disappeared, a tow-headed youth by
the name of Whitten taking his place. Whitten, though, was easy from
the first moment and hit followed hit, interspersed by a couple of
infield errors, until Grafton had crossed the platter with six runs.
In the eighth Gus Weston almost produced heart disease among the home
team supporters by passing the first batsman, hitting the next on the
leg and then committing a most apparent balk and moving the runners to
third and second. Ben Myatt drew on his glove about that time and moved
down the field with Brooks, but Ben’s services were not needed, after
all, for a weak grounder was pegged home for the first out and Gordon
shot the ball to first for the second. A fly to Boynton, which he
juggled for one awful instant and then captured, brought the suspense
to an end.
In the Grafton half of the eighth both Winslow and Ordway hit safely,
Murtha flied out to center, Ayer got his base on a fielder’s choice
that failed to catch Winslow at third, and the sacks were again filled
and the stage set for a tragedy. But the best Boynton could do was to
pop up an infield fly, and it was left to Coach Sargent, assisted――very
capably assisted――by one James Townsend Logan, to produce the
appropriate climax.
It was Star Meyer’s turn at bat, but Star had failed all the afternoon
to do more than reach first on one occasion by virtue of a fielder’s
choice. So Mr. Sargent looked about him for a pinch-hitter. There
was, to be sure, Ben Myatt, but Ben was down the field gently tossing
the ball to Brooks. Perhaps it was a gleam of eagerness in Jimmy’s
eyes that decided the coach. At all events, Star Meyer, armed for the
struggle, was called back half-way to the plate and it was Jimmy who
jumped to his feet, seized a bat at haphazard, possibly afraid that the
coach would change his mind if he gave him a chance, and fairly leaped
to the plate.
Jimmy got a fine round of applause and a lot of advice as to what to
do. It was evident that many of the audience would be satisfied with
nothing less than a home-run, but, on the other hand, the advice he
got from the bench and the coachers was to “just tap it, Jimmy!” Jimmy
did not so well as the stand demanded and did better than his teammates
advised. He smote it. He didn’t smite at once, though. He let Whitten
put one straight over that looked too low to Jimmy and just right to
the umpire, and he let Whitten follow that strike with two deceitful
hooks that looked fine at first and then didn’t. And then, when Whitten
tried to sneak one over again opposite his knee-pads, Jimmy did his
smiting. Jimmy got that ball on the one square inch of his bat best
calculated to produce results, a square inch located about four inches
from the end, and he put all his contempt for Mount Morris and Whitten
and, incidentally, Star Meyer, into his swing, and the ball traveled
away with a _crack_ that was heartening indeed to the three impatient
runners, shot over second-baseman’s upthrust glove, still ascending,
went curving into center field at a place where neither the guardian of
that territory nor his left-hand neighbor had any chance of reaching
it, and finally dropped to earth to roll joyfully along the sward
pursued by two pairs of agitated green legs!
Need I narrate that all Grafton arose as one and shrieked hysterical
delight? Or that the bases, filled a scant moment before, were speedily
emptied? Or that Jimmy, finding them empty and having his choice of
any, decided to annex second and then, urged on by coachers more
capable of judging the demands of the moment, spurned second and set
his heart on third――and would have gone tearing home if Guy Murtha
himself hadn’t seized him forcibly and thrust him back to the bag?
Well, perhaps you wouldn’t have guessed the latter details, but I
fancy you’d have surmised the others. That hit of Jimmy’s went down
in local history as one of the famous hits of the national pastime.
It wasn’t that it won the game, for the game was already captured.
Had he struck out Grafton would still have been returned the victor
that afternoon. But there was something beautifully satisfying about
it, one might almost say artistic. The audience was on the _qui vive_
for it, the setting was right to the most minute detail and it was
made when and where it would do the most good. To be sure, it might
have been a home-run and so scored four tallies instead of three, but
I maintain――and I am supported by Dud and Nick and Hugh and half the
school――that there is nearly always the element of luck in a home-run,
whereas Jimmy’s three-bagger was a solid, meritorious, honestly-earned
hit as soul-satisfying as any homer ever lifted over a fence!
Perhaps you think I am dwelling over-long on the glory of that
performance and to the holding up of the game. But as a matter of fact
it ended the game there and then to all intents and purposes. To be
sure, Gordon did get to first on a pass, while the cheering was still
going on, but nobody cared, any more than they cared a minute later
when Gus Weston fanned. Anything that might happen now would be an
anti-climax. The audience was satisfied, surfeited. Mount Morris had no
fight left in her and went out in one, two, three order in the ninth.
Subsequently there was chaos and noise and the sight of numerous
scarlet-and-gray-hosed heroes bobbing about above a sea of joyful
faces and open mouths. And Mount Morris trotted subduedly off the
field, after returning Grafton’s cheer, and was next seen attired in
street clothes being borne in hacks to the station, a number of rather
tired-looking but still smiling young gentlemen whom Fate had used
unkindly. And yet, as they passed Lothrop Hall they tossed a final
cheer behind, and there was a grimness and determination in the tone
of it that seemed to say: “Make the most of your triumph, Grafton! Our
turn comes next!”