The seventh inning started with the Panthers leading 3 to 1, and the Bears seemingly beaten beyond hope of recovery. An error, followed quickly by a base on balls and a successful sacrifice bunt put Bear runners on second and third bases with but one out and Holleran coming to the bat. Clancy signaled him, and an instant later Umpire Maxwell announced:
"McCarthy batting for Holleran. McCarthy will play third base, Pardridge in left field."
McCarthy came to the batter's box quickly, swinging a long, light bat. He let a fast ball cut across the plate just at his shoulders and only glanced inquiringly at the umpire when it was called a strike. The next one was a quick-breaking curve, seemingly coming straight at him. He stepped slightly forward, snapped the long bat against the ball and drove it down the left field foul line; two runners sprinted across the plate, and the score was tied.
"That auburn baby can hit them curves," commented Rice. "He certainly called the turn and waded into that one."
The game went into the ninth, then the tenth, the pitchers working harder and harder and the teams batting behind them without a break to bring the victory that meant so much to them.
Jimmy McCarthy was the first batter for the Bears. From an unknown recruit he had become the sensation of the game, and thousands were asking who he was. Twice he had hit Cooke's fast "hook curve," and hit it hard, and Cooke, remembering, shook his head as his catcher signaled for another curve. The recruit watched him, and, with a sudden jerk of his belt, he stepped into position. The first ball was fast and across his shoulders, as Cooke had placed it twice before. This time instead of taking the first strike McCarthy met the ball squarely and drove it on the line over the first baseman's head. He turned first base, going at top speed, although already McKeever, the Panther's right fielder, known as one of the greatest throwers in the league, was in position to field the ball.
The roar that arose from the crowd was chopped short as McCarthy sprinted for second base. An instant of tense uncertainty was followed by a swelling murmur of protest, disappointment and rage.
From the dust cloud just commencing to settle around second base two forms were emerging, and, as the dust drifted away, the crowd had a glimpse of a tableau. Tommy Meegher, second baseman of the Panthers, was disentangling his stocky form from the knot of arms and legs, and arising from the prostrate body of McCarthy, whose desperate slide had turned a base hit into a two-bagger. Stooping over them, his hands outspread, signifying that the runner had reached the base in safety, was Randy Ransom, crouching, in order better to see under the dust cloud raised by the hurtling bodies of the players.
A salvo of grudging applause greeted McCarthy as he arose and brushed the dust from his gray striped traveling uniform, an outburst that was followed by a frenzied spasm of enthusiasm from the Bear followers.
On the Bears' bench Manager Clancy grinned for the first time in three days.