“That’s baseball, old Frog.”
With two out it looked as if the inning would be closed with the next man up, and Honey Wiggins pitched to him, determined to make him fan. But Honey did not know how really dangerous this batter was or he would have been more discreet. The third ball that was served to him evidently looked to be just what he wanted, for he swung with all his might. A startling crash resulted, and the horsehide went soaring up and up and out, far over Jeff Thatcher’s head and on into left field. Dutch Hecht was running back as fast as his short legs could carry him, which was mighty fast at times. But in this instance Dutch and his legs were not equal to the occasion, for when the ball hit the ground Dutch was still running toward the spot it dropped, and when he finally recovered it and threw it back to Jeff, a wild shout went up from the stands, for the runner had crossed the plate for a home run, and, as it proved, the winning run of the game, for in the remaining two innings neither Custer nor Pennington were able to score again, and the final tally was 9 to 8 in favor of the home team.
But despite the loss of the game Jeff did not feel as despondent as might have been the case, for on their way back to the Custer gymnasium, Coach Rice came over to his side and walked with him a little way.
“That was heady baseball you played in the seventh inning. I like to see a man use his head that way. Of course you got a lucky break, too, but I like to see a man on his toes and ready to take advantage of lucky breaks just as you did. I guess we’ll have to give you the regular job at third base, Thatcher.”
CHAPTER XXII
TREACHERY?
Spring swung swiftly onward toward June and the finals,—the examinations toward which every fellow in the school had been looking forward since mid-year with a certain amount of worry and not a few misgivings. And one after another the games on the baseball schedule were becoming history as each Saturday and Wednesday slipped by. Each game was becoming harder now, for the Pennington team was reaching the stiffest part of its schedule. But the team was making a fine record in spite of the strong combinations that the players were pitted against. Bedford Hall was well trounced in a sizzling game that brought out all sorts of fine baseball; Carlton Hill Prep was defeated by a narrow margin; Brunswick, the hard-hitting champions of Sussex County Scholastic League, were beaten in a ten-inning game, and even the Princeton Freshmen were humbled after an extra-inning session that reached a dramatic climax when Wade Grenville poled out a home run right after a smashing double by Buck Hart. Binghamton High, Hanover Prep and the Crescent Club of Dover were humbled successively, and the Pennington team seemed to be moving along irresistibly toward a complete clean-up of its schedule, when quite suddenly it received a setback that probably did the team more good than several more victories.
The Washington-Childs School team came to Pennington. It was a little school and actually a little team. The nine was composed of boys none of whom was older than seventeen, and many of them looked to be about fifteen. They were all short, stocky, sturdy players except the pitcher, who was the giant of the squad, a long, rangy country boy with hands as big as fielders’ mitts; at least they looked that big as they dangled at the ends of his grotesquely long lean arms. His feet were big and his face was big and round and good-natured and covered with freckles that ranged from the size of pinheads to some the size of a dime. He looked more like a country clown than a baseball player, and the Pennington boys looked at him and smiled. Here, they thought, was a break in their stiff schedule. This would be a romp; a veritable walkaway, and unfortunately they went onto the field with that attitude of mind.
Their supreme confidence was elevated to the heights of absolute conceit, after the first inning, for the visiting team was set down hitless while they poled out three safe drives off of the freckle-faced pitcher’s delivery which netted them a run. It certainly looked easy.
But the confident Penningtons soon discovered that things are not always the way they look from first appearances. Somehow, it really looked as if it were an accident, one of the Washington players landed on George Dixon’s delivery for a two-bagger in the second inning and the next man up placed a neat sacrifice hit between first and second and advanced the runner to third. Then in business-like fashion the next player up, a lad not a day older than fifteen, slammed a single just out of reach of Mickey Daily, and the man on third romped home. The inning ended with the next man up, but the score was tied.