Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

by Matthew M. Colton

The "funeral" did not come to pass in just the way that Warwick had expected. For three innings it was nip and tuck between the two nines without a run being scored on either side. Frank was in great form, and, while he used few curves, he was able to put the ball exactly where Jimmy wanted it; and between the two of them they had the Warwick batters swinging wildly at balls which they could not hit.

In the fifth inning, through a hit and an error by the Queen's right fielder, Warwick scored a run, and in the sixth added two more. This was the signal for great yelling in the Warwick sections of the stand, but Queen's came back with two earned runs in the seventh. Jimmy's two-base hit started the trouble.

Frank's great pitching, when the bases were full with only one out, cut Warwick out of what looked like a certain score in the eighth inning, but the Queen's batters could do nothing against Warwick in this inning. The game came to the ninth without further runs, and Queen's still one behind. Warwick tried desperately to get a runner across, and with their fastest man on third, when hits were not forthcoming, tried to work the squeeze play. Frank and Jimmy nipped the runner neatly at the plate. Opinions were freely expressed that Queen's would not score, but when Taylor, the Queen's first baseman, came up and singled, the Queen's heelers let loose a howl of joy. Their glee was cut short when Taylor, in trying to steal second, was thrown out.

With one gone, Frank came to the bat.

"You are due for a hit," said Jimmy, as he left the bench. "Get on and I'll bring you in."

Frank clenched his bat and faced the Warwick pitcher with determination in his eye. Up to the present time he had done nothing in the way of hitting, and the Warwick pitcher held him rather cheaply. Twice he sent the ball across the plate for strikes, and twice the ball went wide.

"Give him a good one," howled a Warwick boy; "let him hit it if he can. He couldn't hit a barn!"

Straight over the plate came the next ball, and Frank met it with a short powerful swing. Away flew the ball over the third baseman's head, struck the ground in short left field, and, with a spin on it, rolled on and on over the close-cropped grass. The left fielder chased it desperately, but before he got his hands on it, Frank had turned second. The left fielder slammed it straight and hard, and Frank dived for the last fifteen feet, beating the ball to third only by inches. As he stood on the bag and dusted himself with his cap, Jimmy sauntered easily to the plate.

"Come on," said Jimmy to the Warwick pitcher, when the yelling had died down; "come on, and I'll do it again just like that," and he grinned at the worried boy in the box. The ball flew wide.