For Yardley: A Story of Track and Field

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Nordham scored first in the second inning, when Servis passed the second man up and subsequently allowed the enemy to hit him for two singles. Clever fielding held Nordham to one run. There was no more scoring until the last of the third, when Smith got to first on a slow bunt, reached second on Servis’s sacrifice and scored on a long fly to center field.

At one to one the game ran to the fifth. Twice Nordham filled the bases, and twice failed to score. Then Nordham’s catcher started the fun with a two-bagger. An attempted double play failed to work, and the runner was safe on second. The third man walked, and the bases were full with no one out. A sacrifice to left field scored the man on third, but a fine throw-in caught the next runner at the plate. With two out Yardley breathed easier, but the trouble wasn’t yet over, as was quickly proved when Servis passed the next batsman. The latter stole second unmolested, for a Nordham runner on third was waiting his chance to score. Then it was that Condit made his error that let in a tally. A slow grounder was batted toward him, and he should have assisted at an easy out, but in some way the ball got away from him, caromed off his shin, and rolled over the base line. By the time it was recovered the man from third was safely home, and there were still two men on bases. Nordham’s coaches were yelling lustily now, and it looked for a moment as though demoralization held the Yardley team. But Servis kept his head and, after getting two strikes on the Nordham captain, made him fly out to center fielder.

Yardley failed to get a man past first in her half of the inning. At the beginning of the sixth, Reid, who had been warming up for some time, took Servis’s place on the mound, and Yardley cheered approval. Reid, after passing the first man, proved too much of an enigma to the visitors, and the succeeding batsmen went out in one, two, three order. Then Yardley scored her second run on a hit through shortstop and a couple of infield errors, Wheelock crossing the plate. Nordham was harmless in the eighth. Yardley began badly with an outfield fly that put Carey down. Durfee beat out a bunt and was safe on first. Condit attempted a sacrifice, and Durfee was caught at second. With two out, Alf pushed a hot one past first baseman for two bags. Dan followed that up with one very much like it that proved too difficult for shortstop, and Alf scored. The next man struck out.

But the score was now tied at three to three, and the excitement, which had been increasing with each inning, became intense. Nordham started the ninth inning with the head of her batting list coming up. Reid worked a strike-out on the first man, but the next one hit safely into left field for one bag. Condit again fumbled, and there were runners on first and second. Then came a hot liner to Durfee, a one-handed catch that brought cheers from the spectators, and a quick double-play that again nipped Nordham’s budding hopes.

Yardley went to bat, resolved to finish the contest then and there. But Keswick steadied down and the Blue’s batters were helpless. Richards struck out, Smith was hit and got to first, Reid could do nothing against Keswick’s science, and Carey made an easy third victim, shortstop to first.

The tenth inning began hopefully for the home team, since Nordham’s dangerous batters had been disposed of in the ninth. The first man flied out to Wheelock in right field, the second laid a bunt down in front of the plate that Richards handled cleanly, and the trouble seemed over. But Nordham sprung a surprise when her catcher found a ball to his liking and sent it far into right field along the foul-line and tore off two bases. That performance, however, went for nothing in the end; for although Nordham put in a pinch batter in place of Keswick, that youth’s best was a pop-fly to Dan.

Yardley’s supporters cheered incessantly as the Blue team trotted in from the field, and Captain Durfee chose his bat.

With the head of the batting list up, something, it was felt, ought to happen. And something did. Durfee found the first ball pitched, and sent a clean one-bagger into left. Condit made a neat sacrifice, placing Durfee on second. Alf went to bat amid wild appeals for a hit. With two strikes and two balls on him, he got what he wanted, and slammed a long fly out to center. The yells of delight hushed as the center fielder ran back a few steps, and as the ball settled cozily into his hands. Durfee, one foot on the second bag, was poised for flight, and the instant the ball was caught he started for third. He was a fast man on the bases, but it seemed impossible for him to reach home on that hit. In came the ball to shortstop, and that player turned and launched it straight and hard at the catcher. But Durfee had already swung around halfway from third, and running wide he slipped across the plate behind the catcher before the latter, swinging down at him, could make the put-out. It was a desperate chance, but Durfee made it go, and the game was won, 4 to 3.

Yardley went back up the hill cheering and laughing, and the Nordham game was subject for discussion and congratulation for several days. But by the beginning of the next week the Dual Meet had become the uppermost subject at Yardley. A victory for the Blue meant the permanent possession of the Dual Cup, and all eyes were fixed now on the twenty-third. That Yardley would win, was universally granted, but that the final score would be heart-breakingly close was as generally agreed upon.