“Get after him!”
But Rance was too much of a veteran to let the crowd get him rattled. He pulled himself together and struck out Curry on three pitched balls, leaving Mylert cooling his heels on first.
But a run was a run, and it was with fresh heart and courage that the Giants took the field.
Two more innings passed without any change in the score. The Giants were finding Rance now as they had been unable to do earlier in the game. They were meeting the ball on the trademark, and the bats rang as they crashed against it. But again and again he was saved by superb support. Leete committed highway robbery by picking a ball off the fence that, if he had missed, would have been a three-bagger at least and probably a homer. Naylor at second took a Texas Leaguer toward left, running with his back to the ball and barely picking it off his shoe tops.
“They’re certainly getting all the breaks,” grumbled McRae.
“They sure are,” agreed Robbie. “But we’ve got to admit, John, that those boys are playing ball.”
Joe in the meantime was breezing along under wraps. He had not winded himself in the least. He was conscious of enormous reserve force if he should be called upon to put it in play. His fast ball was working perfectly. He worked the corners of the plate to perfection. His curves were breaking sharply. On occasion he called on his hop and fadeaway. He had never felt more completely master of the situation.
But a game is never won until it is over, and in the Brooklyn’s ninth, their last chance, the unexpected happened.
Tonsten came up first and Joe set him down on strikes. Maley followed and popped up an easy fly to Renton at short. It was the simplest kind of catch, and perhaps for that very reason Renton let it slip through his fingers.
There was a startled roar from the crowd and those of the spectators who had begun to move toward the gates, thinking the game was as good as over, promptly sat down again.