It was his turn at bat, and he walked to the plate with high hopes of making at least a two bagger. The first ball looked like a straight one so Hal took a good swing at it and missed. “That’s all right,” called Hughie from the coaching lines, “there will be two more better ones coming over directly.” The next was a ball. The third was a slow one, and as Hal noticed the left-fielder playing pretty far out he thought he would just tap it for a nice little short fly back of third. He thought of this as the ball was coming toward him from the pitcher’s hands. He whirled his bat with a short, quick swing and—thud—he heard the ball strike the catcher’s mitt.
“Well,” he heard Hughie calling him, “you only need one to hit it, and you got one left.” The next two balls he fouled off. The next two the umpire called balls and it was two strikes and three balls. Hal set himself for the last one. It was now or never. Here was probably his only chance to-day to make a hit and he might not get into another game for weeks and show what he could do with his bat. Slowly the pitcher started to wind up. Hal watched every move. Here it came waist high and straight. Now watch it. He swung at it hard. He heard first—a tick, then a thud. He had made a foul tip and the ball had struck in the catcher’s mitt.
“That’s all right,” he heard Hughie saying, “we don’t expect pitchers to hit ’em anyhow.” But Hal was disappointed and sore as he walked to the bench. The next two men were retired on infield hits, and as Hal walked to the box to pitch the first half of the ninth inning he was nervous and mad at himself.
The result was he served up four bad balls in succession and there was a man on first. The next up hit the first ball right at Ross who was hugging the base and he booted it. Hal was over on first bag in a jump but Ross got the ball to him too late to earn an assist and there were two men on and nobody out. The crowd began to yell, “Take him out.” “Where’s Miner?” but Jenkins paid no attention. Many a pitcher had given a base on balls, and Hal was not responsible for the second man.
He got ready to pitch as he faced the batter; he somehow felt the man was going to bunt. As he delivered the ball he started toward the plate on the run, following the ball in. The batter bunted. Hal was almost on top of him. [He] reached out, [caught the ball] off the bat [before it had reached the ground], thus making a caught fly out of what would have been a perfect bunt, whirled around and fired the ball to Everson at second, who nearly missed it because the play was almost too quick for him, thus completing a remarkable double play.
[“He caught it before it hit the ground.”]
The crowd cheered. He heard them saying: “Oh! You! Hal! Good boy! You needn’t take him out!” and he felt so good he went back into the box and struck out the next batter and the game was over. Then there was the usual rush to get the sweaters, and the fans and players hustling to get off the field as fast as they could together—the fans to get home to dinner and the players to the shower baths and rub-downs.
Hal hustled along with the rest. On the way he caught up with and passed Jenkins and Everson, together as usual. They did not see him, but he heard Jenkins say: “He looks more like a fielder than a pitcher,” and he thought they meant him. Later, as he walked along to his boarding house with Hans, they talked about the game, and the part each of them had taken in it, and Hans said, “I think you would make a good first baseman,” but Hal, who thought he had come out of his pitching test pretty well said, “But you see they don’t need a first baseman (they all have their bad days like Dill and Ross to-day), and they may need a good pitcher any time.”