The second batter hit to shortstop and reached first on a fumble. Bedford now had men on first and second, with none out.
“For the luv o’ Mike, hold ’em, Dave!” screamed Wat Sanford.
Tommy Beals threw off his mask and ran half-way to the pitcher’s box to confer with Wilbur. Yells and jeers from the Bedford stand greeted this evidence of worry on the part of Truesdell’s battery, but it took more than mere noise to rattle Dave Wilbur. Strolling lazily back to the box, he fanned the next two men, and the Bedford yells subsided for the moment. The next batter, however, sent a pop-fly just out of the shortstop’s reach, and Bedford had the bases loaded with two out. Slugger Slade was up, and as he swaggered to the plate, the Bedford yells again rent the air.
“Come on now, Slugger! Knock the cover off’n it! Put it out of the lot!”
“One strike!”
The umpire’s shrill voice cut through the babel of yells from the Bedford stand. Slade glared round at the official and muttered something in protest. Dave Wilbur took his time in the wind-up and delivered the ball in his customary effortless style.
“Strrrike two!”
A yell of delight from the Truesdell rooters greeted this decision. Slade rubbed his hands in the dirt and gripped his bat till his big knuckles were white. Dave Wilbur had fooled him with two slow out-drops and the crowd fell strangely silent as the lanky youth began his third wind-up. Dave put everything he had into the pitch—a high, lightning-fast ball over the inside corner of the plate.
The sharp crack of the Slugger’s bat brought the Bedford crowd to its feet with a roar, while the silent Truesdell bleachers watched with sinking hearts as the horse-hide sphere sailed high and far between right and center fields.
Ned Blake and Dick Somers were playing deep, and at the crack of the bat both started on the instant. The ball curved away from Ned and a bit toward Dick who was running as he had never run before. For a moment it seemed to the watchers that the two racing fielders would crash together. Suddenly they saw Dick make a desperate leap into the air with upstretched arm. The ball struck the tip of his glove, and bouncing high to one side, fell into Ned’s extended hands for the final out.