Harry Durfee looked perplexed, tapped his bat again on the place, and waited. Again the red-haired pitcher turned and twisted and threw, and again the umpire called “Strike!” Durfee turned on him indignantly.
“Oh, say now, that was away out here!” he expostulated. “Gee, get your eyes working, won’t you?”
“Cut that out, Durfee,” warned Mr. Payson, the coach, from his seat at the end of the bench.
The next delivery looked pretty good to the Yardley captain, and he swung at it viciously. But the ball dropped under the bat and, with the handful of Porter Institute supporters howling gleefully, Durfee turned away to toss his bat to the ground and meet the grins of his teammates.
“He can fool you all right,” he muttered, as he squeezed himself in between Alf and Dan. “That drop of his is a peach. Watch out for it, Alf.”
Condit, third-baseman, went out on a pop-fly to catcher.
“Loring up,” announced the scorer. “Vinton on deck.”
Alf was a good hitter and not an easy man to deceive, but the Porter pitcher managed to fool him completely on the first three balls delivered; and in the end, although Alf managed to connect with the ball, he was an easy out, shortstop to first. Porter cheered derisively, and even Yardley was amused.
But if Holmes was effective, so for that matter was Reid. Reid was less showy than Holmes, but had some curves that were hard to judge. The first batsman got to first by being grazed on the elbow, but stayed there while the next three were called out on strikes. And so the game went for four innings, both sides proving unable to hit the ball safely. Durfee was getting quite peeved about it. His specialty was bunting, and once on first, it took a sharp infield to keep him from stealing around the cushions and reaching home. But twice, so far, he had been struck out, and he was getting thoroughly exasperated. At the beginning of the fourth inning the first Porter batsman up hit safely to short center; and, although the next man fouled out ingloriously, a bunt down the third-base line advanced the runner and left a man safe on first. The Porter coachers got busy then, and from behind first and third bases howled and shouted directions to the runners and made unkind observations regarding the pitcher.