It was a memorable battle. They talk of it to this day at Excelsior and Morningside. For three innings neither side got a run, goose eggs going up in regular succession until, as is generally the case “pitchers’ fight” began to be heard spoken on the stands and side lines. And truly it was rather that way. Both Joe Matson and Ted Clay were at their best, and man after man fanned the air helplessly, or stood while the umpire called strikes on them.
But there had to be a break, and it came in the fourth inning. In their half of that Excelsior again had to retire without a run, and the four circles looked rather strange on the score board.
Then something happened. Joe was delivering a puzzling drop, but his hand slipped, the curve broke at the wrong moment and the batter hit it for three bases. That looked like the beginning of the end for a little while, as the Morningside lads seemed to have struck a winning streak and they had three runs to their credit when Joe, after having struck two men out, caught a hot liner himself and retired the third man.
“Three to nothing,” murmured Captain Ward as his men came in to bat again. “It looks bad—looks bad.”
“That will only give us an appetite,” declared Joe. “You’ll see,” and it did seem as if he were a prophet, for the rivals of Morningside, evidently on desperation bent, “found” Ted Clay, rapped out five runs, putting them two ahead, and then the crowd went wild.
So did Joe and his mates. They fairly danced as they took the field again; danced and shouted, even jumping over each other in the exuberance of their joy.
“We’ve got ’em going! We’ve got ’em going!” they yelled.
Glumly, and almost in a daze, the Morningside players looked at the figures. Their rivals were two ahead in the fifth inning and Baseball Joe, the pitcher on whom so much depended, was “as fresh as a daisy,” as Tom declared.
“But we haven’t won the game by a whole lot!” warned Captain Ward to his enthusiastic lads. “Play hard—play hard!”
Morningside managed to get one run in their half of the fifth, but when Excelsior came up for her stick-work again she easily demonstrated her superiority over the other lads. Four runs went to her credit, and only one to the rival team, and then, as Peaches said, “it was all over but the shouting.”