The speed artist on the Custer mound looked the situation over carefully and realized that he was in a hole. He tried to coax Buck to swing at an offering a trifle wide that zipped over with the speed of a cannon ball, but Buck refused. He tried another one a little low and Buck only smiled. There were two balls on him and no strikes.
The Custer pitcher calculated that it was time now to put over a strike, figuring that Buck would pass it just on a chance that it might be called a ball, so he whipped over one that fairly sizzled as it cut the inside corner of the plate. Buck saw it was a likely ball, and he made a vicious stab at it and connected. It went crashing toward the first baseman, who was playing close to his bag, and it looked for a moment as if Buck had batted into a double play.
It was a terrifically hot ball that the first baseman tried to field, but he fumbled it, the sphere shooting at a tangent toward second base. Wildly he scrambled for it, while the pitcher raced to cover first. Meanwhile, Lafe had gone down to third and Mickey Daily was racing to second. The chances for a double play had gone glimmering with that error and it was evident that it was going to be a hard job to even catch Buck at first. Lafe overran third, and watching the scrambling first baseman started for home, Gleason, on the coaching line, gave him the signal and he sprinted for the plate.
By that time the first baseman had fielded the ball, and seeing a runner streaking for the plate he whipped the horsehide down to the catcher. But the throw was low, and as the catcher tried to dig the sphere out of the dust Lafe slid over with long arms and legs flying, and the umpire called him safe.
That left Daily on second and Buck Hart on first and Jeff Thatcher was the next man up.
Jeff had one hit to his credit so far. He decided that he wanted another to bring Daily in and tie the score. And he got it. [He leaned on the very first ball pitched] and smashed it over the second baseman’s head for a fine clean single, and meanwhile Daily, who was working on a long lead off the base, scored standing up, while Buck Hart went to third. The score was evened up, with a man on first and a man on third and only one out. It looked as if Pennington could sew up the game right there,—it looked that way but it did not work out that way. Instead, Dave Gleason, the next man up, batted into a double play. Jeff was caught at second by a snappy play by the Custer short stop, and Dave Gleason was thrown out with a yard or two to spare at first and the side was retired.
With the score tied the Custer team came up to the bat for the last half of the seventh full of determination. And they started to make good with the first player, who found Honey Wiggins for a hit just out of reach of the shortstop.
The next player up was one of the best batters on the Custer team and Jeff had been watching him the entire game. As he picked up his stick, Jeff noticed that the Custer coach passed him a signal. He could not interpret it but he made a wild guess at it. The man at the bat was a slugger. A wise coach, under the present circumstances, with all of the players looking for a slashing hit, would doubtless signal the batter to bunt and try and beat it out while the man on first went down to second. Jeff realized that there were a dozen chances to one that he had guessed wrong; but playing for a lucky break, and instead of backing out when the slugger came to bat, he set himself for a sprint in toward the plate.
He started a moment after the ball left Honey Wiggins’ hand, and sprinted toward the batter. And he had guessed right. The Custer slugger shorted his bat and bunted a soft rolling bunt that bounded directly toward the oncoming Jeff. On the run Jeff scooped it up, snapped it down to first, and Lafe Gammage, on his toes, relayed it to second for a double play. The Pennington crowd went wild, and there were cheers for Jeff even from the Custer School contingent, for he had displayed a brand of snappy baseball in a game that had been as ragged as could be, which, perhaps, was one reason why his play stood out so conspicuously. But regardless of that fact the cheers sounded good to him, and especially good came the shout from right field, where Wade Grenville yelled: