Winning his game

by Ralph Henry Barbour

The game started at two-thirty, or, to be exact, four minutes after the scheduled time. The sun was pretty hot and what slight breeze crept up now and then from the river did little to mitigate its ardor. Nate Leddy began proceedings by slipping a strike over on the head of the Mount Morris batting list, and the Scarlet-and-Gray cheered what they were pleased to consider a good augury. The enemy retired without reaching first and when the teams changed places it was seen that Mount Morris, instead of putting in her best pitcher, Saylor, was going to use Moulton. Moulton was a left-hander and Grafton had taken very kindly to his pitching last year in the second game of the series. Saylor was evidently to be saved for use against Myatt.

But it was soon apparent that Moulton had progressed in the gentle art of pitching a baseball since the previous season, for Blake and Winslow both fanned and the best Ordway could do was to fly out to second-baseman. Save that the cheering and singing and coaching were in their enthusiasm sufficient to mark the occasion as one greatly out of the ordinary, no one would have suspected anything unusual from the first few innings of the contest. Both teams played hard but ragged ball, and the rival scorers had to jot down many errors. And yet, since every spectator was thoroughly partisan, those scoreless innings were not without their interest. There were some brilliant plays by both sides: a running, one-hand catch by Left-Fielder Porter of the visitors that deprived Guy Murtha of a two-bagger, a superb throw to second by Gordon of the home talent that cut down a green-legged runner, a double by Blake and Ayer that brought the fourth inning to an inglorious—or glorious, according to whether you sported green or scarlet—ending. And the two pitchers, neither seriously threatened, also deserved laurels. To offset such commendable incidents, however, there was a sickening muff of an easy toss by Murtha at second, the dropping of a foul by Ayer after he had it nicely in his hands, the booting of a hit by Winslow and a “solid ivory” play by Gordon in the third when he called for a pitch-out and then pegged the ball over first-baseman’s head when the runner was half-way to second. And the visitors made quite as many slip-ups and, I think, more displays of bad judgment of the kind that count in results but do not show in the error column.

Leddy met his first batch of trouble in the fifth—the “crucial fifth,” as Ben Myatt had called it two days before—when he passed the first man up and allowed the next to hit safely past Winslow. After that he struck out the next two batsmen but couldn’t prevent a run coming over when the following green-leg popped a Texas Leaguer behind Winslow. Nick Blake made a valiant effort to get that hit, but the best he could do was to scoop it up and get the man at third. Grafton got men to third and second in her half, but they died there.

That ended the scoring until the seventh, and it was in the seventh that Leddy gave way to Weston in the first half, and that the home team put the game away in the second period. Mount Morris began by getting a scratch hit that put a runner on first. The next man tried to sacrifice, but Leddy threw wild to Blake at second and both runners were safe. A short fly to left field settled in Hobo Ordway’s hands and he held the runners. Then Leddy let down and passed the next batter on four consecutive balls and the bases were all occupied with but one out. Leddy showed nervousness and risked a tally by trying to catch the runner at second. Only quick work by Blake sent the man at third doubling back to that base. With a strike and two balls on the batter, Nate let go of a wild one and, although Gordon managed to partly block it, the enemy scored her second run. Leddy pitched another ball, worked a strike across and finally passed the batter. It was then that Gus Weston, who had been warming up to Brooks for two innings, was hurried to the rescue.

Gus started erratically by pitching three wild ones in a row and then settled down and struck out the green-leg and got a fine salvo of applause from some three hundred anxious Grafton sympathizers. Another five minutes of suspense followed, during which Dud and Jimmy and the other non-combatants sat on the final two inches of the bench and clenched their hands and yelled their heads nearly off. In the end, after the batsman, who happened also to be Mount Morris’s captain, had three balls to his credit and two strikes against him and had fouled off exactly five offerings, a screaming fly to center field that Star Meyer caught ended the trouble.

But if it ended Grafton’s trouble it only began Mount Morris’s, for it was that last of the seventh that saw the downfall of Moulton, the Green-and-White’s second-best twirler. Gordon led off with a sizzling shot to right that the fielder had to take on the bound and was secure on first. Weston went out, second to first. Nick Blake tried the first thing that came his way and bounced it off Moulton’s shins, advancing Gordon and arriving at first without question. Winslow came across with a two-base hit to left that sent Gordon home with Grafton’s first tally and a minute later Hugh Ordway slammed one down the third-base line, scoring Winslow and putting himself on second.

That was enough for Moulton and he disappeared, a tow-headed youth by the name of Whitten taking his place. Whitten, though, was easy from the first moment and hit followed hit, interspersed by a couple of infield errors, until Grafton had crossed the platter with six runs.

In the eighth Gus Weston almost produced heart disease among the home team supporters by passing the first batsman, hitting the next on the leg and then committing a most apparent balk and moving the runners to third and second. Ben Myatt drew on his glove about that time and moved down the field with Brooks, but Ben’s services were not needed, after all, for a weak grounder was pegged home for the first out and Gordon shot the ball to first for the second. A fly to Boynton, which he juggled for one awful instant and then captured, brought the suspense to an end.

In the Grafton half of the eighth both Winslow and Ordway hit safely, Murtha flied out to center, Ayer got his base on a fielder’s choice that failed to catch Winslow at third, and the sacks were again filled and the stage set for a tragedy. But the best Boynton could do was to pop up an infield fly, and it was left to Coach Sargent, assisted—very capably assisted—by one James Townsend Logan, to produce the appropriate climax.

It was Star Meyer’s turn at bat, but Star had failed all the afternoon to do more than reach first on one occasion by virtue of a fielder’s choice. So Mr. Sargent looked about him for a pinch-hitter. There was, to be sure, Ben Myatt, but Ben was down the field gently tossing the ball to Brooks. Perhaps it was a gleam of eagerness in Jimmy’s eyes that decided the coach. At all events, Star Meyer, armed for the struggle, was called back half-way to the plate and it was Jimmy who jumped to his feet, seized a bat at haphazard, possibly afraid that the coach would change his mind if he gave him a chance, and fairly leaped to the plate.