CHAPTER XXII.
THE MAN WHO LOST THE GAME.
The baseball season had fairly opened up.
Yale men were full of enthusiasm for their nine, which easily wrested victory from the Princeton Tigers in the first game of the series. But the confidence of the rooters met with a severe shock, and it was a pretty sore lot of lads that came back from Princeton after the second game with the Tigers. The first game had been won so easily that Yale counted on taking two straight without much trouble, and a great crowd of fans had accompanied the nine to “whoop ’er up” and rejoice and have a high old time.
During the game the rooters from New Haven had done their best to make as much noise as the great throng of Princeton admirers, and some of the Yale crowd quite lost their voices; but, alas! all this whooping and cheering could not save the game when the final pinch came, and Princeton lowered the blue to the dust.
During the first four innings Yale led, and it looked like a repetition of the first game, when Yale had never been headed from the start throughout the game. But in the fifth inning came a change.
The score was five to two. The “hot end” of Princeton’s batting order came up, and the first man sent a skipper past Morgan, who was playing short. It was not an error, for Dade did not touch the ball. Some thought he might have touched it if he had tried hard.
The next batter dropped one just over the infield and out of reach of the outfield. Then an error by Carson at third filled the bags.
Then came the first great catastrophe. Starbright was pitching. The next batter connected with one of his curves, driving a long fly into center field. Mason made a run for it, and it struck fairly in his hands.
But he did not hold it! It dropped down somewhere, and, while he was wildly searching for it about his feet, four men romped in over the home plate, putting Princeton one in the lead.