“It’s risky,” objected Tom. “Wait until we see what we can do this inning.”
But they couldn’t do anything, and after three men had gone down, one after the other, under the scientific twirling of Marshall, Mr. Leighton, Kerr and Tom, after a consultation decided to let Sid try, as he was to bat first in the next round.
Wescott managed to get two more runs, as the players were “finding” Tom, and things began to look black for the visiting team.
“See if you can’t rap out a home run,” begged the captain, as Sid went to the plate in the sixth. There was manifest surprise when he took the left-handed position, and Marshall and Bradshaw, the latter being the Wescott catcher, held a whispered consultation.
Whatever line of play they decided on availed them nothing, however, for Sid caught a “beaut” on the end of his bat, selecting the first ball pitched, and he sent it away over in the right field bleachers, easily making a three-bagger of it. He could have come on home, except for ground rules, which allowed only three bases on a ball that went among the spectators, of whom there was an enormous crowd present, almost up to the base lines.
“Good!” delightedly cried the Randall supporters, and the record was soon bettered for Holly Cross came up next, and, though he batted right handed, he managed to whale out a two-bagger, which brought in Sid and made the first tally for the visitors. That gave them confidence and they made three runs that inning, coming within one of tying the score.
Tom, too, seemed to stiffen in his work, and he struck out three men in quick succession.
“Now if we can only do as well this inning,” remarked the coach, as Dutch Housenlager came up. Dutch knocked a pretty fly, and was off like the wind to first. He never would have reached it, but for an error on the part of the right fielder who muffed the ball, amid the groans of his fellows. Then, for a time, the Wescott team seemed to go to pieces, until, when the eighth inning opened, the score was tied.
Goose eggs were chalked up in the frames of both teams in the eighth, however, the pitchers both working hard. Then came Randall’s chance at the bat in the ninth.