So Joe, at a signal from the manager, took up the pitcher’s burden with two men on bases and none out, while the Boston coachers danced up and down on the coaching lines, yelling like mad men and doing all they could to rattle him.
[CHAPTER XXI]
MAKING GOOD
“Ladies and gentlemen!” roared the umpire, taking off his cap, “Matson now pitching for the New Yorks!”
There was a yell of applause from the packed stands to greet the newcomer. There had been a great deal of curiosity stirred up by the newspaper accounts of Joe’s exploit with the madman, and the crowd was in a friendly mood. Besides, they realized that they ought to encourage him at this critical time when the game hung in the balance. So they cheered him loyally, though not many thought he could win with such a handicap.
Some of them remembered, however, how this same young pitcher had tamed their own Giants the last game of the previous season and realized that there was still a fighting chance.
Succeeding the first wild yell, a deathlike silence settled over the stands as Joe wound up for the first ball.
Straight as an arrow [it darted toward the plate,] [breaking into a wide outcurve] as the batter lunged at it.
