It came waist high over the plate, and McCarthy caught it on the end of his bat. It seemed for a moment that he had made his boast good, for the ball shot on a line toward center. Iredell, however, who was playing close to second, leaped into the air and speared it with his gloved hand, while the stands rocked with applause.
Mornsby, the famous shortstop of the Cardinals, was next at bat.
“Oh, see who’s here!” remarked Markwith, with affected surprise.
“Play ball, you clown,” growled Mornsby. “You’re not on the vaudeville stage now.”
This was a fling at a theatrical venture that Markwith had gone into the preceding winter.
“So you’re the quarter of a million dollar beauty!” retorted Markwith, referring to the price that had been offered for Mornsby. “Just watch me make you look like thirty cents.”
He put over a ball at which Mornsby refused to bite. The next one he fouled off. The third he struck at too high and the ball dribbled down to the pitcher’s box. Markwith picked it up with a tantalizing grin and tossed to Burkett for an easy out at first.
“Thirty cents was too big an offer,” he called to Mornsby, as he drew off his glove and came into the bench. “I ought to have made it a dime.”
“We’ll get you yet, you false alarm,” snapped Mornsby. “You’ll curl up before the game’s half over.”
The Giants in their half made a bid for a run but were unable to score. Curry poled one out between right and center that Cooper gathered in after a long run. Iredell raised a twisting Texas leaguer over second that McCarthy and Weston both tried for but failed to reach, narrowly missing colliding with each other.