“That’s the pitching, Dud!” called Nick, scooping a handful of dust from the base path and tossing it joyfully into the air. “Fine work, Baker!” “Keep after him!” “No one walks!” They were all calling encouragement to him now. He almost forgot the shouting, cavorting runners and the bawling coachers. Back came the ball once more, Gordon grinning widely. Then he dropped to one knee and laid four fingers across the big brown mitt.
“Right in the slot, old man! He can’t see ’em! At a boy! Let her come!”
And Dud let her! It was a slow one that did the trick, a ball that sped away from the mound with all the ear-marks of a moderately fast straight delivery but that never crossed the rubber until the batsman’s sharp swing had passed harmlessly. Then it descended into Gordon’s eager hands and the umpire waved an arm skyward.
“He’s out!”
How the stand shouted then and how silent the Lawrence bench suddenly became! The third-baseman, disgusted and puzzled, dragged his dishonored bat away with him and tossed it contemptuously into the pile. But that was only one down, and a big, capable-looking youth with a grim determination shown in his tight-set mouth was already waiting. A wide one that went as a ball, a drop that the batter tried for and missed, a second ball—Dud had attempted to cut the inner corner of the plate with a hook and had failed by an inch—and then, in response to Gordon’s signal of one finger, a fast one that reached the batsman waist-high and which he met with his bat.
Crack!
He was speeding to first, the bases were emptying. Dud, heart in mouth, turned in time to see Nick Blake spring two feet into the air and spear the ball, and then, without a wasted motion, dash across the second sack a scant instant before the runner from first slid, feet foremost, into it in a cloud of dust!
Nick had played the double unassisted and the side was out! Grafton stood up in the stand and shouted herself hoarse. Dud, still a little dazed by the suddenness of the triumph, stood a moment beside the pitcher’s box ere he turned toward the bench. Then Guy Murtha was with him, had him by the arm and was laughing softly and saying extravagant things that he probably wouldn’t have said five minutes later. But Dud didn’t altogether sense them. He only knew during the ensuing minute that Nick had saved him—and the game! And if he could have done what he wanted to do he’d have embraced that youth on the spot. As it was, ignorant that some of the applause was really meant for him, he made his way to the bench and sat down a bit breathlessly, and someone was waving a dampened towel in front of him and there was much talk and laughter.
And so Grafton started her half of the seventh with the score still 1 to 0 and Ayer at bat. Ayer popped innumerable fouls into all sorts of out of the way places and then, with two strikes and one ball against him, stood inertly by and let a perfectly good straight one pass. He shook his head dejectedly as he turned away. Boynton reached first on second-baseman’s questionable error—the Lawrence scorer gave Boynton a hit—and went to second a moment later when Jimmy was thrown out at first. Gordon brought the inning to an end by fouling out to third-baseman.