“Trot them out, kid,” he called, “and I’ll murder them. You’re only a false alarm, anyway.”
Joe shot the first one over for a beautiful strike and the crowd yelled in delight.
“That’s the way, old man!” sang out Larry from second. “They can’t touch you.”
The second was a ball and the next a foul. Then a high, fast one with a hop to it, eluded Zimmie’s bat and sent him back to the bench looking sheepish.
The next one up hit a slow one to short that got to first in plenty of time, and the third man closed the inning with a two-balls-three-strikes record.
A tempest of cheers compelled Joe to remove his cap as he came in to the bench.
“You’re going like a runaway horse, Matson,” said McRae. “Keep it up and the flag is ours.”
“We’ll hand you a couple of runs to start off with,” declared Larry, as he strode to the plate.
But neither in that inning nor in the next three, did the promised runs come in. Hamilton, the Chicago pitcher, was at his best, and his famous drop ball was working to perfection. It seemed as though the game were going to resolve itself into a duel between the pitchers, and the crowd held its breath as man after man went down before the rival boxmen.