“You bunch of four-flushers!” he stormed. “Throwing the ball all around the lot like a gang of schoolboys. You fellows are Giants—I don’t think. You’re a disgrace to your uniforms. You’re drawing your salaries on false pretenses. Letting those fellows get four runs in a single inning without making a real hit. What do you want the pitcher to do—strike out every man that comes to the bat, while you go to sleep in the field? You make me tired. You ought to join the Ladies’ Bloomer League. And even then Maggie Murphy’s team would put it all over you. Go in there now and get those runs back.”
With their faces burning from the tongue lashing of their irate manager, the Giants went in for their last inning.
Larry was first up and cracked out a sharp single to right that looked at first as though he might stretch it to a double, but it was so smartly relayed that he found it advisable to scramble back to the initial bag.
Jim was next up. The first two balls pitched were wide of the plate and he refused to bite. The next one, however, he caught right on the seam for a liner that went whistling into right for a double.
Larry had started at the crack of the bat, and had rounded second by the time Jim got to first. He kept on to third, where Iredell was on the coaching line. There he should have been retained, for Burton, who was renowned for his throwing arm, had by this time got the ball and was setting himself for the throw. Iredell, however, urged Larry on, with the consequence that when he slid into the plate the ball was there waiting for him. Jim, in the meantime, had reached second.
Larry picked himself up, brushed himself off and went to the bench, muttering growls against Iredell for having egged him on. Had two men been out there might have been some excuse for taking the chance. But with none out, it was almost certain that, either by a hit or a sacrifice, he could have been brought in with the run that would have tied the score.
Mylert tried to kill the ball, but hit it on the under side and it went up in a high fly that was easily gobbled up by the Cubs’ first baseman.
Curry, the last hope of the Giants, came to the bat. He was in a frenzy of eagerness to redeem himself, as it was his inglorious muff that had started the Cubs on their way to those four unearned runs.
Axander himself was beginning to feel the strain, and was a bit wild. Curry looked them over carefully and let the bad ones go by. A couple of good ones were sandwiched in, at which he swung and missed.
With three balls and two strikes, both pitcher and batter were “in the hole.” Axander had to put the next one over under penalty of passing the batter. And if Curry missed the next good one, the game was over.