Reid was facing Jim when the New Haven team had to take the field again, and there was a murmur of surprise when it was seen that Jim was to continue pitching.
“They must be looking for trouble,” said one man to another, near the New Haven bench. “When a pitcher gets a lacing like that, it’s time to send him to the scrap heap.”
“What’s the difference?” asked the other man. “With Briggs pitching the way he is, they’ll never make up that lead, anyhow, and they might as well let this chap Phillips take his medicine. Just proves what I’ve said all season—he’s the most overrated pitcher in any of the colleges.”
They were Harvard men, those two. But they did not quite understand Jim’s true caliber.
Reid was sure that he was going to make another hit. But he didn’t. He tried hard enough. Jim was too much for him.
All Jim’s cunning seemed to have returned; and, after a pretty duel of wits between them, Reid was worsted, and trotted back to the bench, a victim on strikes, filled with new admiration for the Yale pitcher.
“That chap never knows when he’s beaten, anyhow,” he said to Bowen. “He didn’t have a thing with him but his glove in the last inning. And now he’s smoking them over just as if he didn’t know what it was to have one of his benders hit.”
“He’s got nerve,” agreed Bowen. “That’s what counts. All the skill in the world won’t do a pitcher any good if he’s yellow. I thought he’d gone up in the air in that last inning. But I guess it’s a good thing we hit him while we had the chance. If I am not mistaken, we’ll have our own troubles getting another hit off him in this game.”
And, to the surprise of the crowd and both teams, Bowen was right. Jim grew stronger and better as the game wore on, and inning after inning saw the Boston team retired without a hit or a run. In the fifth inning, Briggs wavered for a moment and gave a base on balls to the man who preceded Brady at the bat. Big Bill, sore and angry at the pounding Jim had suffered, swung his big bat with terrific effect, and New Haven had one more run as the result of his slashing triple. But he was left on third himself, and the score was still seven to four in favor of Boston.
It wasn’t at all the sort of game the fans had looked for. A victory for one team or the other by a score of one to nothing, or two to one, had been anticipated, and the course of the game was a stunning surprise, for neither Briggs nor Jim Phillips had been half as effective as their friends had expected them to be.