Dick Merriwell's Heroic Players; Or, How the Yale Nine Won the Championship

by Burt L. Standish

There was no mistake about that. Sherman, Jackson, and Harry Maxwell, who led the Yale batting order, were retired easily in the first inning, and not one of them reached first base. But it was not time yet for the Yale attack to cut loose. Briggs was a pitcher to be studied, and every man on the Yale team, keyed up to a high pitch of enthusiasm and excitement, was studying every motion of the Harvard twirler, to get used to him, and be ready, when the time came, to deliver a crushing blow.

Jim Phillips, if Bowen expected to find that he was pitching as he had done in the amateur game at Cambridge, must have disappointed the Harvard leader mightily. No one could have told that he was the same pitcher. Every ball was the result of careful planning and coöperation between Jim and Bill Brady, and each was pitched with a deliberate purpose. Jim wasted no strength in trying to pitch strikes, but the effect was the same. The Harvard men, knowing themselves to be opposed by a really great pitcher, were canny and cautious, but he was too much for them, and inning after inning saw the crowd working up to new heights of excitement, as the duel between the two pitchers went on, with neither able to gain any advantage for his side.

In the fifth inning, there came the first shift in the simple attack that Harvard had been using. Dick Merriwell had given no specific orders as yet for an attempt to make a run by strategy. He had a plan, but he was holding it in reserve. The Harvard batters, too, had fallen easy victims for Jim. The first two men in each inning had tried to hit the ball out, picking out the first offering that seemed to them hittable; the third, when two were out, had tried to outguess Jim and get a base on balls by waiting.

But, in the fifth inning, there was a change. Bowen batted third for Harvard, and in the fifth inning he was the first man up. Instead of letting the first ball, a cross-fire shot that swung sharply across the plate, go by as a strike, Bowen just chopped it with his bat. The ball trickled along toward Carter, at third, but, as it seemed sure to roll foul, Carter let it alone. But Bowen had been practicing for weeks to make that play, and the ball, instead of rolling over the base line, spun round and round, and stopped finally, halfway between the plate and third base, leaving Bowen safe.

Bowen was a fast runner, and a tricky player as well. As Jim faced the next batter, the Harvard captain darted away from first base. Jim hesitated a moment, then threw to Sherman. As he did so, Bowen broke for second base, and by the time Sherman had swung the ball down to Jackson, Bowen was safe on a pretty delayed steal. Jim was angry at himself, for he had been caught by a trick that he should have guarded against, but many a big-league pitcher has been in the same hole, and Jim really had little to blame himself for.

He had to watch Bowen closely now, and the Harvard captain, quick and alert as a cat, as he danced about second base, made him waste two balls on Reid, the crimson shortstop, who was at the bat. This put Jim in the hole, and when he had to pitch a straight ball to Reid, it was cracked to Jackson, who, while he threw Reid out at first, was unable to keep Bowen from getting to third. It was pretty, inside baseball that Harvard was working, and Jim knew it. But he was not the sort to get rattled or confused, and, with Bowen at third, he was less worried.

Still, he had to be careful. From third, Bowen could score on a long fly, or even on an infield out, if he got a good start. Hazlitt, batting for Harvard, was more or less of an unknown quantity; but Jim thought he could hit a straight ball. He thought, also, however, that he would hit such a ball straight before him, on a line, and he took the chance. He pitched the ball, and then ran backward. Just as he had expected, the ball came straight for him, and, because he had run back almost to second base, he was able to make a flying leap and catch the ball. Bowen had figured on a safe hit, and a quick throw to Steve Carter disposed of the Harvard leader on a snappy double play, that sent the Yale crowd into a wild burst of cheering.

But Harvard had proved its mettle. The attack, designed to bring home a single run, had been well planned and well carried out, and it was not in accord with preconceived notions of how Harvard would play. Dick Merriwell had been right when he had said that there was danger that the crimson would try to spring something new.

At the beginning of the seventh inning, Dick decided that the time had come for action. Carter was the first batter, and he went to the plate, for the first time, with definite orders.

“Hit everything he pitches,” Dick told Carter. “If you can’t make it safe, foul them off. Better to do that than to try for a hit on his first balls. Never mind getting in the hole. I want to worry him.”