“Wade, you go out and play right field for Gleason. Clarkson, put Drexel in for Grenville, will you, please? All right, everybody on your toes now. I want my team on its toes every second of every minute of a game.”
The run that Gleason brought over was the first run and the only run that the Penningtons made in the first two innings. But it was quite sufficient to keep the Penguins in second place, for none of them seemed to be able to find big George Dixon for anything but the scratchiest kind of a hit. He fanned the first two men up and while Brownie Davis reached first on an infield hit and an error by Gould at third, he stayed there because Dick Runyon’s best efforts at bat could not help him any.
Jeff was the first man up in the second inning, and while he found the third ball Dixon shot over for a slashing solid smack he did nothing more than give Gould a chance to retrieve the error he had made in the first inning. Jeff’s drive was a hot liner that shot across the diamond about waist high and looked good for a single, but Gould somehow managed to get his hands onto it and knock it down. Then with a snappy throw he got the ball to Lafe Gammage about two-fifths of a second ahead of Jeff, thus making the first out of the inning and smothering Jeff’s chances to get on base.
Tiny Drexel, who followed Jeff, fanned after three balls had been waited out, but Rabbit Warren who was next on the batting order laced out a clean single between first and second and Fat Daws followed with almost a duplicate of the same bingle and advanced Rabbit to third, taking second himself on the throw to nip Warren which did not succeed in its purpose.
With two on it began to look as if the Penguins would have a chance to flap their wings and crow or utter whatever kind of a noise Penguins are supposed to utter. But their triumph was short-lived for Honey Wiggins, while he could handle a stick better than the average pitcher, was not equal to the job of bringing in the necessary run to tie the score. He knocked a long, sky scraping foul that lumbering Dutch Hecht gathered in with that serene certainty that marked him as the most reliable kind of a left fielder, and the inning closed with Rabbit and Fat Daws still on. The score 1 to 0 in favor of the Penningtons.
The second inning closed with the big team unable to find Honey Wiggins for more than one hit which Captain Tad laced out himself. But the sturdy catcher was left on third after Lafe Gammage and Mickey Daily on instructions from the coach had sacrificed him into the position to score. Buck Hart was not able to get a hit beyond the infield and he was easily thrown out at first by Cas Gorham who fielded his drive with ease and threw the ball to Dick Runyon while Buck was still ten feet from the first sack.
Again the Penguins met a stone wall defense in the beginning of the third inning and could not get a man beyond second base. But when the Penningtons came up for their half of the same inning it “looked as if the old ball game was going up in smoke right there,” to quote Rabbit Warren.
Wade Grenville led off the batting order that inning and as he stepped to the plate his old team mates began to josh him.
“Hey, you Penguin, what are you doing in there?” yelled Cas Gorham.
“Oh, look at our first victim,” yelled Jeff. “Come on, Honey, put one over for this boy. We’ve got to get him right off. On your toes now, every one.”