The Junior Trophy

by Ralph Henry Barbour

As may be supposed, there were lots of errors in that game, and a good deal of what I might call, were I addicted to slang, “bone-head” ball-playing. But you can’t expect Big League work from a lot of youngsters playing their first game of the season. And, besides, the misplays made for interest and excitement.

Gardner added his quota to the excitement when, in the third inning, with two day boys on bases, he caught a fly and then allowed it to trickle through his hands. This performance cast such a gloom over his spirits that for an instant he merely stood and stared at the ball at his feet and was only recalled to the duties of the occasion when the rest of the team began to yell frantically to him “throw it home!” By the time he had obeyed the runner on second had scored and the man on first had gone to third.

But that lone tally was all that Day managed to secure for a while, and, on the other hand, House, now that Morgan had settled down again, could do no better. In the fourth she got men on all three bases with only one out and then watched Waters and Grey perish before Morgan’s fatal curves.

It had clouded up ominously by the time the fifth inning commenced and the House supporters were anxious for their heroes to dispose of the Day batters before they could add to their score. But that fifth inning proved strange and wonderful. In the first place, just to start the chapter of misfortunes, Waters struck the first man up on the arm, and, after the injured member had been massaged by almost the entire Day Team in turn, the batter took his base. Waters worked one strike on the next batter and then threw him four balls. A moment later the runners decided to pull off a double steal. Ben Holden pegged the ball to Cupples, at third, but Cupples was apparently quite unprepared for such an emergency and allowed the ball to whisk over his head into left field. Gardner raced in for it, got it on the run and threw to third just as the second runner rounded that bag. This time Cupples caught the ball, but his heave to Ben was yards away from the plate and Day had tied up the score. Then they began to find Waters and hits sped hither and yon and the House outfield raced their legs off while five more tallies came over! The damage seemed done then, and perhaps it would have been as well to let Waters remain in the box and redeem himself, but Ben thought otherwise, and Sam Perkins was hurried in from right field to take his place.

Of course Sam had had no warming up and his pitching arm was stiff. But in spite of that he managed to close that half of the inning with only one more run coming across. The score now was nine to three and every moment it threatened to rain and stop further proceedings. But the clouds held up during the rest of the fifth, while House managed to send another run across, and the sixth began with the head of Day’s batting list coming up. With one out, two bases on balls and an error by Crandall, at shortstop, filled the bags. Day howled and danced along the base lines and did all it could to rattle Perkins. But the luck changed a bit then. The next batter hit a slow roller toward third and Cupples and Pierce worked the double. Encouraged by that, Perkins struck out the next batter.

With Ben calling on Pierce to “hit it out, Stan!” the last of the sixth began. Stanley obeyed instructions and lined a hot one just over shortstop’s head and, by taking a chance, reached second on a close decision. Ben laid down a bunt in front of the base and Morgan, who fielded it, chose to throw it to third. Unfortunately, the third baseman had been coaxed in by the bunt and was yards off his station when the ball reached him. Pierce was safe and Small scored “fc” after Ben’s name. Then Ben stole beautifully and House began to whoop things up. But Harold Cupples could do no better than arch a fly to shortstop and Stanley didn’t dare move from his base. Crandall waited until Morgan had two strikes and two balls on him and then shot a hard one between short and third. Pierce and Holden raced home and Crandall reposed on first. Then the unexpected happened.

Gardner, who had been playing very ragged ball, was taken out and Bert went in. Bert struck at the first delivery, caught it squarely on the nose and sent it flying far out into deep right field. So astounded was he that he had to be almost pushed from the batter’s box before he would begin his trip to first. As a result, while Crandall came all the way home from first base, beating the ball by yards, Bert got only as far as second. Morgan went up in the air then and Sam Perkins, Waters and even Lanny Grey made hits, Waters’s being a two-bagger that scored Bert and Perkins. Then Lovell, amidst the howls of his eager team-mates, strode to the plate looking fierce and heroic—and popped a little foul into the catcher’s mitt! Pierce, up for the second time in the inning, managed to send up a Texas Leaguer that might have been caught and wasn’t, and Lanny, who could run like a rabbit, raced around third and headed for home. The ball got there first, however, and instead of scoring the tying run he made the third out.

But with the tallies nine to eight the game was still not won—if the rain would hold off. House took the field determined to hold the enemy at bay for its half of the seventh and then go in and at least even things up. But with the very first ball pitched the drops began to fall. Captain Turner jumped from the bench and demanded that the game be called. Mr. Crane shook his head. The first batter went out, third to first, and still the shower was not much more than a patter. Then just as the next man had streaked a long hit over the tips of Perkins’s glove the clouds opened up and the torrents descended. Such a scurrying as there was on the part of the spectators! Doctor Merton—who had come out only an inning before—seized Mrs. Merton by the hand and scampered sans dignity for shelter. Nan, gayly encouraging them to renewed efforts, sped ahead. In a jiffy the field was deserted and the first game of the series had gone to the Day Team, the score 9–8.

The Day Team, unable to get home in such a downpour, flocked into the hall, and for a half-hour the game proceeded verbally. House declared warmly that if it hadn’t rained it would have “licked the stuffing” out of Day. (I quote the language without approval.) Day retorted that it had just begun to hit the ball when the elements had so unnecessarily interfered. And so it went, with the biggest sort of a hubbub indoors and a wild pelting of raindrops outside. And meanwhile Small, official Scorer for the House Team, and “Goldie” Duffield, who held a like position with the opposing team, were having it hot and heavy, their score-books spread before them. Except that they had each reached the same decision regarding the number of runs tallied, their records were totally at variance. It was strange how many hits Small had credited to the House and how few to its opponents, but not a whit stranger than the fact that Duffield had reversed the proceeding. And as for errors! Why, Small’s record credited Day with ten and House with six, while Duffield’s book plainly proved that House had perpetrated eleven and Day only eight! And the strangest thing of all was that each believed himself ab-so-lute-ly right!