The team was cheered singly and collectively as they came on the field and scattered for preliminary practice. McRae and Robson paid especial attention to the warming up of the pitchers, for up to the last minute the manager was undecided as to whom he should play.
Both Jim and Markwith seemed to have plenty of “smoke” as they sent their slants and benders over. But the older pitcher was inclined to be wild, while Jim’s control was all that could be asked. So with many inner quakings McRae finally decided that Jim should do the twirling.
The crowd was somewhat startled when they saw the young “second string” pitcher going on the mound. They were well aware of McRae’s predilection for his old players, and they wondered at his willingness to-day to take a chance.
But whatever may have been their misgivings, there was nothing but the heartiest applause for the youngster. If generous rooting and backing would help him to win, he should have them.
There was a host of Princeton men there, too, and they gave the old college yell that Jim had heard so often when as an undergraduate he had twirled for the Orange and Black.
But, perhaps, if the truth were told, Jim’s greatest incentive came from the fact that Clara was watching him from a box in the upper stand, her pretty face flushed and her bright eyes sparkling. It was astonishing how much that young woman’s approbation had come to mean to Jim in the short time he had known her.
He was a little nervous at the start, and Cooper, the first man up, drew a base on balls. He was nipped a moment later, however, in an attempt to steal, and with the bases again empty Jim fanned Berry and made Loomis chop a grounder to Larry that resulted in an easy out at first.
“Bully for you, old man!” cried Joe, encouragingly. “You got through that inning finely. The first is usually the hardest because you’re finding your bearings. Besides, you’ve got rid of the head of their batting order.”
Fraser was in the box for the Red Sox, and it looked at the start as though he were going to prove fully as good as in the first game. For four innings he turned back the New Yorks, who seemed to have lost all the hitting ability they had shown the day before.
“What’s the matter with the boys?” growled McRae, uneasily. “It would help Barclay a lot if they handed him something to go on.”