Making the Nine

by Albertus T. Dudley

The Hillburyites were on their feet, oblivious of cheer-leaders and programme, howling their pride and hope. The score was tied! A hit, an error, a long fly, would let Ribot in, and put Hillbury in the lead. Tompkins was watching Ribot out of the corner of his eye, but his whole mind was concentrated on the problem of putting the ball just where it was required. Unworried, but more deliberate than ever, he responded to Sands’s signals. “One strike! one ball! a foul! two balls! two strikes!” The eager Seatonians began to breathe more easily. A strike out would improve the situation vastly.

Sands signaled for a slow high ball over the inside corner. Tompkins shook his head, but Sands repeated the signal and the pitcher obeyed. The ball came true, but Kleindienst, fearing a called strike, waited until it was near him and then slashed recklessly at it. Almost simultaneously Phil heard the crack of the bat, saw the ball rising high above the second baseman’s head, and felt his heart sink with a sudden stab of pain. The fly was so far out that, even if Sudbury caught it, it would be next to impossible for him to return the ball in time to hold the runner on third.

And so it proved. Sudbury got the fly after a hard run, turned quickly, and sent it hot to the second baseman, who lined it home; but Ribot was across the plate by ten feet when the ball came to rest in Sands’s grasp.

Wildly as the Hillburyites yelled, Seaton matched them cheer for cheer, shouting to keep their courage up and show the nine men in the field that their schoolfellows were not despondent. Haley struck twice, then lifted the ball over Hayes’s head into short left-field. Phil had a sharp run to get under the ball, but he took it safely enough, and then, though the three men were out, he set himself for a throw and sent it in to the home plate. Sands had to go forward a step to meet it. “A little longer next time,” thought Phil, as he trotted in. “I can do it if necessary.”

Seaton’s half of the fifth inning was soon over. Waddington went out on a high foul, Hayes on a fly to left-field, and Tommy very tamely on strikes. When Webster stepped up to the plate to lead off for Hillbury, more than one timid Seatonian felt a mysterious foreboding that this was to prove a fatal inning. Webster thought so too, for he waited bravely until two balls had been called, and then drove a beautiful liner over the second baseman’s head, that only a brilliant stop by Vincent prevented from being a three-base hit. Webster rested at first. The Hillburyites brandished their arms and whooped; while the Seaton in-fielders spat on their gloves and braced themselves for great deeds, encouraging Tommy meantime to “Be right there with the goods!” and “Put ’em straight over, old man!” Whether Tompkins profited by these admonitions it would be hard to say; he certainly did his prettiest to “deliver the goods,” conscious that every pitch was a critical one.

“One strike! three balls!” Cunningham waited, hoping for a chance to “walk.” “Two strikes!” The batsman gathered himself for his last chance and smote hard at the ball, but succeeded only in sending a grounder to the pitcher. Tompkins turned and threw deliberately to second base, where Webster was forced out, though Robinson was not quick enough to catch the man at first. Still, one man was out, and the spectators were encouraged.

Millan came to bat, glaring defiance at the Seaton pitcher. The first one looked promising, and he swung hard at it. The Seatonians heard the crack, had a momentary impression of the ball going like a rifle-shot toward first base, saw Waddington put his hands together, stagger, and dart for first,—and after an instant understood that the fifth inning had ended suddenly with a double play.

As Dick turned round to do his part in leading the cheers for “Waddy,” he caught a glimpse of Bosworth climbing down from his place into the passage that led to the rear of the seats. In the excitement of the scene, Melvin would hardly have noticed this departure of a single member of the disorderly crowd, had not the last look that the fellow cast along the benches had in it an element of fear and stealth that drew his attention as the glint of distant water reflecting the sunlight catches the eye of the mountaineer. An absorbing suspicion, which made even the game seem of secondary interest, suddenly possessed his mind. Hastily turning over his baton to one of his fellow-leaders, with an explanation that did not explain, Melvin pushed his way to the rear of the crowd that thronged the entrance passage through which Bosworth had just gone. There was his man thirty yards away, walking toward the entrance to the grounds!

The senior halted, turned back into the enclosure, and ran his eye along the benches to Varrell’s seat. “He’s gone!” he muttered in dismay. “Just my cursed luck! And I can’t stop to hunt him up!” He waited a moment longer, sweeping the tiers of seats with his eye in vain search for his missing friend; then he turned back again into the passage, and watched Bosworth out of the grounds.

At the gate Bosworth stopped and exchanged a few words with the man on duty. “They are asking him about the score,” thought Dick; “I wonder how he explains his sudden leaving.” As Bosworth passed out of sight down the street, Dick set off on a run for the gate.