“So I’ve just got to win this game; to make my share of the money bigger,” Joe murmured. “I’ll need every cent of it for dad—and Pop.”
The winner of the pennant, naturally, would receive the larger share of the gate money, and each man on the winning team, the manager had promised, was to have his proportion.
“We’ve just got to win!” repeated Joe.
It was a desperately fought battle from the very start. Joe found himself a trifle nervous at first, but he pulled himself together and then began such a pitching battle as is seldom seen.
For five innings the game went on without a hit, a run or an error on either side. It was almost machine-perfect baseball, and it was a question of which pitcher would break first. Joe faced batter after batter with the coolness of a veteran. Little “no count” flies were all he was hit for, not a man getting to first.
There came a break in the sixth. How it happened Joe never knew, but he hit the batter, who went to first, and a runner had to be substituted for him. Naturally this made Joe nervous and he was not himself. Then one of the Clevefield players knocked a home run, bringing in the man from first, and there were two runs against none for Pittston, and only one man out.
Then, if ever, was a crucial moment for Joe. Many young pitchers would have gone to pieces under the strain, but by a supreme effort, Joe got back his nerve. The crowd, always ready to be unfriendly when it sees a pitcher wavering, hooted and howled. Joe only smiled—and struck out the next man—and the next. He had stopped a winning streak in the nick of time.
“Get some runs, boys! Get some runs!” pleaded Gregory, and his men got them. They got three, enough to put them one ahead, and then Joe knew he must work hard to hold the narrow margin so hardly won.
“I’ve got to do it! I’ve just got to do it!” he told himself. “I want to win this game so I’ll have money enough for dad—and Pop! I’m going to do it!”
And do it he did. How he did it is history now, but it is history that will never be forgotten in the towns of that league. For Joe did not allow another hit that game. He worked himself to the limit, facing veteran batters with a smile of confidence, sending in a deadly cross-fire with his famous fade-away until the last tally was told, and the score stood: