“There’s pitchin’ fur ye!” yelled a Bancrofter. “What d’ye think o’ that?”
“Nom de tonnerre! ” said Labelle again, as he retired to the bench. “Where he come from, de circus?”
Stark, following, fouled three times, but eventually the Bancrofter twirler outguessed him, and sent him, fanned, to take his place beside Labelle.
“Whut’s he got?” asked Reddy Crandall, pawing among the bats.
“Curves and speed,” answered Larry, in a low tone. “Don’t get to watching his delivery and forget to watch the ball. Go to him! He can be hit.”
But Reddy could not hit him that time, and the Bancroft crowd howled as their new projector fanned the third man in succession. There were some who began to prophesy that the Kinks would be shut out without a hit on their own field. There are always wise heads who make foolish prophecies early in every game.
The second inning opened with Bancroft’s left-handed hitters coming up, and Locke, knowing they had been practicing against a left-handed pitcher, worked with the utmost care and judgment, his change of speed being most effective, as it caused two of the four men who faced him to bump weak grounders into the diamond, to their complete undoing.
With two down, Bernsteine, standing well back from the plate, with a long bat grasped near the end, stepped into a “roundhouse,” and lined out a pretty single. It did no good, however, for Lisotte banged a grasser into the clinging paws of Labelle, and Bernsteine was out at second on a force.
“You all hit him, boys,” cried a Bancroft man. “You’ll straighten ’em out by and by, and lose the balls over in the slashings at the foot of Bald Mountain. He’s due to get his bumps.”
Craddock continued his remarkable work, and, one after the other, Anastace, Hinkey, and Lace were mowed down, even as their comrades had fallen in the first round.