Won in the ninth

by Christy Mathewson

One of the things he asked his father for in the early spring was a new automobile. His father would just as soon have sent it as not, but he had been reading something about other boys doing wonderful things in football at college, and he was disappointed that his son wasn’t in it. So he had what to him was a brilliant idea, and he wrote his son that he would present him with a new $15,000 imported car the day he was named for the Varsity. This looked easy to Crossley.

At home, Crossley, the rich man’s son, had bought the suits for the High School nine. His father had fixed up a fine ball park for the boys to play in and he had done all this because his son had asked him to and because he had insisted upon it.

Of course, Crossley had a right, under the circumstances, to say which position on the team he would play, and he had promptly selected the job as pitcher. At first he was no good at all, but he hired a professional player to teach him and at the end of the year he had developed into a pretty good pitcher. In fact, he might easily have become a first-class flinger if his habits had been steady. Crossley had come to Lowell from White College, a little school in the West, and he had been the pitcher for the team there.

When Hughie first began to take notice of Crossley he couldn’t understand how a fellow could do so well one day and so poorly another. It puzzled him a good deal. He finally wrote to a friend who was coach at White College and from him he found out what the trouble was. Crossley had been a good pitcher for White. As good as they ever had, but he would not observe the training rules and he would smoke cigarettes and take an occasional drink. This made him erratic and unreliable at times.

Furthermore, he had a terribly jealous disposition and bad temper and couldn’t stand it to have anybody but himself praised when he was around. Hughie’s friend doubted very much if Crossley would be of any real service at Lowell, especially if he continued his habits there as at White.

Hughie read this with a good deal of interest but Crossley had shown up pretty well in practice and Jenkins was inclined to think that the boy might have gotten over his childishness since, being at Lowell. So Hughie decided to reserve his judgment.

When the first Varsity list was made up a few days later, Hughie and the coaches had finally to decide between Crossley and Hal as left-hand pitchers. They both showed up about the same in the box and the decision was finally made in Hal’s favor. So his name went on the list and Crossley was sent to the second squad.

Now Crossley had wanted this automobile very much and he was disappointed. He felt that Case had beat him out of the position. He became furiously jealous and made a resolution that he would “get” Hal in one way or another. What the way was he himself did not know, but he had a cunning mind and he decided to lay some deep plans to undermine Hal, and then he would get the job and the auto.

A day or two after the Colfax game, the two squads were lined up for general practice. The practice was principally devoted to batting and base running. One squad would take the field lined up in the regular positions, and the other at bat. Each batter remained at the plate until he got a hit. Then he ran to first of course. From there he was expected to steal his way round the bases.

Of course it is hard to steal a base when the other side knows what you are going to do, but stealing bases is a very important part of the game. Everson was on the lines helping Hughie instructing on base stealing. And squad No. 2 was at bat. Hal had been asked to see what he could do at the second bag. A few minutes afterward Crossley came up for his turn at bat, and made a hit and went to first. Then Hughie, who was on the coaching line back of first, told him to steal on the next ball pitched. Crossley was a good runner and Hal was not used to the position. He had stuck to the bag the way first basemen do, to receive the throw from the catcher. The catcher threw quickly to Hal who had the ball in his hand waiting for Crossley when the latter was still fifteen feet from the base. The natural thing for Crossley to have done was to slide. Instead he came the rest of the way standing up, and when he was five feet from the bag he gave a jump for the bag, and landed with both feet, spikes and all, on Hal’s right foot, cutting him badly, and knocking him down. They both rolled over in the dirt, and Hal had to be picked up and carried from the field.