“Mebbe we did, but we didn’t paound Lefty Leach off the slab,” reminded Sile Crane. “Gall hang that feller! I hit him once, but I’ll be switched if I can seem to do it ag’in. He’s sorter got me locoed!”
“He seems to have rattled everybody belonging to this whole bunch,” said Chipper Cooper. “We ain’t any of us doing ourselves proud—’cepting old Stoney.”
Nor did they improve in the first of the sixth. Leach was working a sharp drop that had them all breaking their backs to the distasteful music of the Wyndham cheers. Grant was effective in the latter half, and the seventh opened with him at bat.
“Start us off, Rod,” implored Nelson, as the Texan secured his bat and left the bench. “Let’s sew this thing up with some more runs.”
The fellow from the Lone Star State made no reply, but he squared himself grimly in the batters’ box and took the measure of one of Lefty’s drops. The hit was, appropriately, a Texas leaguer, and the visiting spectators howled joyously as Rod capered to first.
Chipper Cooper, coaching on the line back of first, flapped his arms wildly and crowed like a rooster. As the cheering of the little knot of Oakdale Academy students died down somewhat, Chipper was heard whooping joyously:
“Here we go! The lucky seventh! Don’t try to steal second, Rod; that would be a base thing to do. We’re after old Lefty again, and now we’ll finish the job we started in the first round.”
On the opposite side of the diamond Phil Springer, likewise enthused and excited, was wildly stuttering at the same time:
“Gug-gug-great work, Gug-Gug-Grant. Some cuc-cuc-class to that little bub-bingle. Take a gug-gug-good lead. Shultzie saw how you dud-dud-did it. He’ll drive you round.”
There was in this contest between rival high school nines little of that calculation and method employed by professionals and generally termed “inside baseball.” Nevertheless, Jack Nelson knew the importance of team work and had done his best to drill his players in some of the rudiments. The deadly accuracy of the Wyndham catcher’s throwing to bases was well known to the Oakdale lads, and, with no one down, an attempt to steal seemed inadvisable to Nelson. Shultz, the next batter, had been hitting the ball hard, even though he had found it impossible to place his hits safely, and instantly Nelson spoke a word to him and signalled to the watchful Texan at first that it was to be a hit-and-run.