Jim was studying the batter with the utmost care. He felt that everything depended upon him. But as he pitched, a thrill of agonizing pain shot through his arm, beginning at the tired shoulder muscles and running down to his wrist. He found his control completely vanished. While the Harvard crowd went mad, the next two batters walked to first, and the bases were filled. Dick Merriwell, seeing what was wrong, had sent Gray to warm up with Taylor, and now Brady came out and begged Jim to give way. But Jim shook his head resolutely.
“I can get them yet,” he said. “My arm’s better now. I’ve just been lobbing them over.”
Suddenly he remembered something—the game he had pitched against Pennsylvania.
“Quit stalling!” yelled the Harvard men, as he called Brady out again. They thought he was playing for delay.
“I’m going to finish with my left arm, Bill,” he said. “They’ll never look for it. I’m going to pitch this fellow a drop—he’ll be so surprised that he can’t do more than chop it.”
Bill saw a dim chance to save the game.
No one on the Harvard team suspected what was coming. They knew nothing of Jim’s ability to pitch with his left hand. And when, with a sudden, deceptive motion, he shifted the ball and pitched it, the Harvard batter, as he had predicted, swung wildly. But he didn’t chop the ball. He hit it full—but on a line. Jim swung up to meet the ball, caught it with his extended left hand—he had discarded his glove—and then raced for third base. Reid was struggling to get back, but Jim’s throw to Carter beat him, and Carter, with a lightning toss, threw to Jackson at second, completing a wonderful triple play that ended the game and gave Yale the championship.
For a moment the crowd was dazed. The play had been so swift, so paralyzingly sudden, that very few had seen it. But as the Harvard players, stunned, ran from the field, the great crowd realized to the full what had happened. And the Yale men gave Jim a demonstration such as few players had ever had. Wild with joy, they carried him on their shoulders to the dressing room, and the Harvard crowd, after it had cheered its own gallant team, was not slow to honor the great Yale pitcher who had saved the day.
Once safely inside the dressing room, and away from the frantic crowd that was still cheering outside, Sherman sprang to a bench.
“Now, fellows,” he shouted, “we’re all here. It’s as good a time as any to elect next year’s captain. What do you say?”