Lefty shook his head. His face was white now, his eye desperate. He knew he was making a miserable exhibition. He should not have started; he should have gone to Ogan before the game and told him he wasn’t in fit condition to pitch. His head was splitting so that he could scarcely see. He seemed to have no strength left in his arm.
“Perhaps you’d better take me out, Al,” he muttered. “I seem to be on the fritz.”
“You bet you are!” retorted the captain hotly. Then, catching a glimpse of Lefty’s wretched face, he hesitated an instant. “I’ll give you one more chance, Locke,” he went on shortly. “If you don’t make good, out you go. I’m not going to have this game handed over on a silver tray if I can help it. You’ve got the goods, Locke; brace up and hand ’em out.”
When Ogan had gone back to his position, Lefty turned and glanced at the plate. His heart sank when he saw that Buck Fargo stood there, swinging his bat negligently. Nevertheless, with set teeth, the southpaw toed the rubber and pitched.
It was a straight, high ball that cut the plate in half, and Brennan’s voice droned out “Strike!” as the batter let it pass. Lefty was heartened, and, at a signal from Whalen, he tried an outcurve. As before, this curved too far out even to cut a corner. Another ball followed, and then another strike. Then Fargo swung above a drop ball, and was declared out.
As the big backstop tossed his bat aside and strolled, grinning, to the bench, there was a sigh of relief from the Yannigan infield. Perhaps their pitcher was taking an almost-despaired-of brace. One or two gave voice to brief words of commendation; but Lefty did not hear them. He was staring after Fargo in a puzzled way. No one knew better than he—unless it was Andy Whalen—how far those deliveries had fallen short of his usual form. He could not understand why Buck had failed to make connections.
There was no time to think of that, however, for Bill Hagin was strutting to the plate. To Lefty his expression seemed more cocky and self-assured than ever, and the bush pitcher felt a sudden ardent longing to send him back to the bench as his predecessor had gone.
Whalen signaled for a drop, but Lefty had watched Hagin batting the day before, and felt that a straight, speedy one, placed high, would bother him more. He notified the catcher to that effect, toed the rubber, tried to forget his pounding head, gathered every muscle for the effort, and pitched.
The horsehide whirled toward the plate with speed enough, but crossed it a good foot below where Lefty intended. The bat met it squarely, with every ounce of the big fielder’s muscle behind it, and Lefty uttered a stifled groan of despairing surrender as the regulars began to circle the bases blithely.