“We’ve just been kidding him along so far,” shouted another. “All together now, boys! Send him to the showers!”
Maley came next, with orders to strike at the first ball pitched. He followed orders and missed. Again he swung several inches under Joe’s throw, which took a most tantalizing hop just before it reached the plate.
He set himself for the third and caught it fairly. The ball started as a screaming liner, going straight for the box. Joe leaped in the air and caught it in his gloved hand. Like a flash he turned and hurled it to Larry at second. Trench, who had started for third at the crack of the ball, tried frantically to scramble back to second, but was too late. Larry wheeled and shot down the ball to first, beating Naylor to the bag by an eyelash. Three men had been put out in the twinkling of an eye!
It was the first triple play that had been made that season, and the third that had been made on the Polo Grounds since that famous park had been opened. It had all occurred so quickly that half the spectators did not for the moment realize what had occurred. But they woke up, and roar after roar rose from the stands as the spectators saw the Giants running in gleefully, while the discomfited Brooklyns, with their rally nipped in the bud, went out gloomily to their positions.
“You’ll send him to the showers, will you?” yelled Larry to the Brooklyn coaches, as he threw his cap hilariously into the air.
Rance’s face was a study as he took his place in the box. He saw his winning streak going glimmering. It was a hard game for him to lose, for he had pitched in a way that would have won most games. But he had drawn a hard assignment in having to face pitching against which his teammates, fence breakers as they usually were, could make no headway.
Still, he was game, and there was still another inning, and nothing was impossible in baseball. If the Giants had expected him to crack, they were quickly undeceived. Burkett grounded out to Trench, who made a rattling stop and got him at first with feet to spare. Wheeler fouled out to Tighe. Jackwell went out on three successive strikes.
It was a plucky exhibition of pitching under discouraging conditions, and Rance well deserved the hand that he received as he went in to the bench.
“I say, Joe,” remarked Jim, as his chum was preparing to go out for the ninth Brooklyn inning. “Celebrate your birthday by showing those birds the three-men-to-a-game stunt. It will be a glorious wind-up.”
“I’ll see,” replied Joe, with a grin that was half a promise.