Jim Skinner and E. T. Carr encouraged the Jays, and in the telegraph cupola where Tony Webster was at the key, sat Jimmie Anderson, Jack Tinning and John Melville, hoping to ticket the players to Western Ontario.
Considerable betting and some odds had been laid here and there on the result among the fans and normal local adherents, and in several outside quarters anticipation was keen, but down in the reeds and stone piles beside the rushing eddies, where a large water snake and his partner were basking with several smaller amphibious creatures in the sunshine, nothing was known of all this. The pair in sable and bronze habiliments, displaying the activity and boldness peculiar to the breed in mating season and their need of food after long hibernation, were fearlessly foraging beside the sedge at the river’s edge, and woe betide the luckless chub in the shallows or lazy frog on shore caught napping. The ball ground outfield ran down close to the river, terminating at a high fence, and was uniform and level save for a few depressions in the black loam where was once a swamp. Owing to the dampness and shade the grass refused to grow hereabouts. The game progressed with tantalizing uncertainty until the pivotal seventh innings, the advantage resting first with the Bluejays and then with the Redskins. At this point the Ottawas gained the ascendancy with a batting rally and Spider O’Toole, who played deep centre field, worked closer in stimulating his men with “Ginger up Germany, to the youth at second—you can’t coax a living from the public on that form.” And again, to the young spitball pitcher, “Steady Slim, nice work lad, take your time, you have them coming and going as easy as pulling on an old glove.”
At the conclusion of the eighth inning the score stood 4-4 and the Spider’s braves in their half of the ninth chalked up but one more circuit as the Bluejays, though nervous did not crack and were making no costly errors. The stands began to rumble as the home players went to bat for the last time, a boy clinging to an over-hanging branch called “Oh Mr. O’Toole, we’ll make you take your gruel” and the palpable excitement of some of the ladies who were on their feet, caused otherwise sober spectators to turn the meeting into temporary pandemonium with waving arms, hats and vocal extravagances. M. J. Baker and his friend Jamieson, came with the saints, and the stentorian tones of Stanton A. Baker, representing the “Great Western”, calling the plays to Tommie Gormally and Harvey Hagerman over at Oshawa, could be plainly heard above the din.
In the midst of the uproar Eddie D—— and his acquaintance O. G. C. Willard, faultlessly attired, when passing the grand stand, and thus perchance unconsciously giving the ladies a treat, overheard an Old Country friend with John Ransford exclaim,
“Aw, my word, this is a strange game!”
“How so strange?” queried John.
“The players seem to have an unlimited license to indulge in personalities, don’t you know—hear how they ‘rat’ each other!”
“They don’t mean it, those boys are milk-fed, college-bred, and the salt of the earth”, explained the sage from Clinton.
“My Eye, observe the pitcher and catcher are even now conspiring to beat the batter”, continued the newcomer.
“Oh, that is only camouflage to deceive the enemy,” replied his host. The visitor’s marked impartiality towards the stubborn progress of the contending teams recalls the attitude of the lady whose husband was in mortal combat with a grizzly bear, exclaiming, “I never saw a fight I cared so little about who won”.