Inning after inning went by while the spectators watched breathlessly. Man after man of the Pirates went up to the bat, only to be turned back by Joe’s wizardry of arm and brain. He outpitched them and outguessed them. They were as helpless as babes.
Elwood stormed and raged at his men, but all to no purpose. He put in pinch hitters until his batting order looked like a crazy quilt. Joe did the pinching. They did no hitting.
Miles was doing excellent work, but compared with Joe’s it was like a tallow candle to an electric light. He kept his hits fairly well scattered, but every now and then a run came over the plate until the Giants had accumulated four tallies while the Pittsburghs’ column showed nothing but goose eggs.
Joe’s batting eye ran a close race with his pitching arm. Three times he came to the bat, and three times he knocked out homers. After that, Miles kept the ball out of his reach, to the disappointment even of the Pittsburgh crowd, who were rooting by this time for him to knock out another and equal the record of Delehanty’s that had stood for years—four homers in a single game.
When at last Joe called it a day and put out the last man on strikes that hostile crowd surrendered and there was a tempest of tumultuous cheers that could not have been surpassed on the Polo Grounds.
As for the Giants, they were simply in delirium.
Their pitching ace was still supreme, still the king of twirlers, the master of all the famous boxmen that had illuminated the history of the game.
Baseball Joe had come back!