Winning his game

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Myatt, however, did better, for Ben landed against the second delivery and whizzed it over the pitcher’s upraised glove and safely into the field, and Jimmy slid to second unhurriedly. Nick Blake went out on strikes, and it was Bert Winslow who came through with the longed-for safety, rapping the ball straight down first base line and a yard to the right of the baseman’s best reach. Jimmy scampered home, Myatt reached third, and Bert managed to get to second ahead of right fielder’s throw. But that ended Grafton’s chances for the time, for the best Hugh could do was to lift a fly to short left that shortstop got after a run.

At one to nothing the game went to the fifth, Myatt holding the enemy harmless in the fourth and Grafton failing to reach first base in her half. But in the first of the fifth a fumble by Winslow put a runner on first. Myatt struck out the next two batsmen and Grafton’s adherents began to breathe easier. But Fairway, the Lawrence twirler, who had fanned ingloriously the time before, took a liking to Myatt’s first offering and poked it straight between Blake and Winslow. Result, an eager youth on third casting longing eyes at the plate! Also, an equally anxious runner on second, Fairway having gone on to that sack during the throw to the plate.

Myatt started in with the head of the opposing batting list by putting himself promptly in the hole, pitching three remarkably poor balls one after another. Then he got two strikes across, neither of which was offered at, and tried to follow it with a third. But the heat was beginning to tell on Myatt, and the next attempt, while it looked pretty good from the bench, was adjudged a ball and the bases were full.

“Weston,” called Mr. Sargent, “get a ball! You, too, Baker.”

Possibly the sight of the two relief pitchers and Brooks trudging off to warm up put Myatt on his mettle, for he fairly stood the next batsman on his ear, fanning him with just four deliveries while the Grafton sympathizers cheered and yelped. Three disappointed runners left as many bases and turned sadly to their positions.

Grafton tried hard to add to her score in her half of the fifth, but Fairway was quite master of the situation. The sixth passed without a thrill, even if Lawrence did manage to work a pass and get a scratch hit. Nothing came of it, for Blake, Murtha and Ayer pulled off a double and stopped the rampage. For Grafton, Winslow, Ordway and Murtha went out in order.

The seventh witnessed Myatt’s Waterloo. For several innings he had been in bad shape owing to the heat, and when he faced the first batsman in the seventh it was not difficult to see that he was working on pure nerve. When the first man had found him for a single and he had pitched three balls to the second, Murtha stepped over and held a conference. Myatt shook his head and Bert Winslow joined them. Over behind third Gus Weston and Dud had taken up their work again, and Will Brunswick had been sent to join them.

“There’s a job open for somebody,” remarked Brooks, throwing the ball to Gus. “Ben’s quitting.”

The three pitchers, their backs to the bench, never turned, but three pairs of ears were, you may be certain, very alert. It was Weston who was summoned, and Gus, throwing aside his sweater, which he had worn tied across his chest, lolled onto the field. Dud watched him enviously, first because he had been chosen to relieve Myatt and secondly because he was able to approach the honor with such a wonderful assumption of indifference!

Weston pitched his trial deliveries, rather wildly as a matter of fact, received the intelligence that the batter had three balls to his credit and no strikes, and instantly supplied him with a fourth! The Lawrence coaches and the Lawrence players on the bench hooted and jeered joyfully as the batsman walked to first, the runner on first jogged down to second. But that was what might have been expected, that pass to the batter, for it is no mean task to go to the mound with the score three against you and keep the batsman from walking. Dud had to acknowledge that as he and Brunswick and Brooks retired to the thin strip of shade afforded by the little house in which were stored the tennis nets.