CHAPTER XXIAIR-TIGHT PITCHING
O’Connor had a big reputation throughout the league as a heavy batter, and he was. But Joe and Jim had noticed that he invariably swung at comparatively low balls. High ones he did not like, so, of course, Jim was careful to give him nothing but high balls. O’Connor waited grimly for one to come across that was to his liking, but he waited in vain. Two strikes had been called on him, with no balls, and he realized that the time for waiting had gone by. The next one that Jim pitched was a high fast one that just clipped the corner of the plate. “Str-r-rike three,” chanted the umpire, and O’Connor threw his bat to the ground and walked over to the dugout.
“What’s the matter?” inquired Mylert, as the discomfited batsman passed him. “It looked as though you were standing there waiting for next Christmas to come. I thought you said you were going to win this game.”
O’Connor glared at him, but could not thinkof a fitting reply. The next man to face Jim was Jenkins. Jenkins was not a heavy batter, but when he did connect with the ball he was so fast on the bases that he often stretched an ordinary one base hit into a two-bagger. But his speed availed him little to-day, for he never got away from the home plate. Three times he swung wildly at the whispering breezes, and then retired sheepishly to the bench. The next man up fouled to Mylert for an easy out, and the Pittsburghs’ half of the inning was over, with no runs scored by either side.
“Good work, Jim,” chortled Robson. “Hold ’em down tight, and in a little while we’ll blow their pitcher out of the box. The kid’s good, all right, but he lacks steadiness. If we can once get a man or two on the sacks, he’ll blow up with a bang that they can hear over in Hoboken.”
But it was not an easy thing to “get a man or two on the sacks.” Miles seemed to get better and better as the innings began to mount up, and the game settled down into a spectacular pitchers’ duel. As the end of the fourth inning the score still stood nothing to nothing, and bade fair to stay that way. The mightiest batsmen on both sides were mowed down one after the other.
In spite of the gnawing anxiety that bit at his heart whenever he thought of his missing chum, Jim was pitching the game of his life.
At first he had hoped against hope that Joe had only been delayed, and would show up at the ball field after all, but as inning followed inning this hope faded out. But Jim was determined to win that game, for he considered that he stood in Joe’s place and that he owed it to his absent friend to chalk up a victory, as he was sure Joe would have done had he been there.
Moreover, the thrill and tingle of the game were in his blood, his brain, his pitching arm. No matter what emergency of the game might arise, he had supreme confidence that he would be equal to it.
In the first half of the fifth inning O’Connor, the captain of the Pittsburgh team, drove a vicious twisting grounder directly at Jim, a ball that fairly smoked as it traveled. But Jim picked it off the ground with a movement so swift that the eye could hardly follow it and tossed the runner out at first with a big margin of safety. When Burkett, the Giants’ first baseman, was forced far off from his position by a high fly between first and second base, Jim covered first base on the chance that Burkett might drop the ball. It was a difficult ball to handle, and while the first baseman managed to knock it down with his glove, he was unable to hold on to it. He made a snappy recovery, however, and tossed to Jim, putting the runner out. Had the Giantpitcher not been right where he was, the runner would have been safe.
But the big test came in the eighth inning. Up to this time, so perfect had been Jim’s pitching, that neither McCarney nor Hupft had had anything to do. Jim knew that if any break came in the Giant defense, it would in all probability be because of some error, intentional or otherwise, on the part of one of the two men.
This break came in the first half of the eighth inning. Ralston, of the Pittsburghs, swung wildly at a fast, straight ball, after two strikes had been called on him, and more by luck than good management connected squarely with it. The ball whistled straight over Jim’s head and almost into the hands of Hupft, who was playing center-field. But Hupft, instead of waiting for the ball, which was all he had to do, ran in on it instead, and the ball passed over his head. At the last second he made an ineffectual leap for it, but to no avail. The ball bounded along the grass until it was finally retrieved by Curry. But by this time the runner had reached third base and would probably have made the home sack had not Curry made a wonderful long throw to Jim, which made the runner think better of the attempt.
Still the Pittsburghs had not scored, but they had a man on third base, with only one out. Baskerville was the next man at bat, and hemade a sacrifice bunt in the direction of third base. It was McCarney’s ball, and he picked it up in snappy style, and threw to Mylert to keep the runner at third from reaching home. It was an easy play, but McCarney threw wild, so wild that Mylert, in spite of a back-breaking reach for it, was unable to connect. Throwing aside his mask he dashed after the ball, recovered it, and seeing that it was too late to nail Ralston at home, he made a superb toss to Larry Barrett, who nailed Baskerville at second. Jim struck out the next batter with three pitched balls, which shot over the plate so fast that the batter seemed dazed when he walked back to the dugout.
But the Pittsburghs had scored, and that lone run looked pretty big at this stage of the game. The Giants had only two chances left to overcome it, and Miles seemed to be pitching better at this time than when he started.
Larry was the first Giant batter to face the Pittsburgh pitcher, and the grim look on his usually jovial face showed that he appreciated the gravity of the situation.
“Knock the cover off that pill, Barrett, and I’ll buy you a new one covered with ten dollar bills,” said McRae, as Larry started for the plate.
“Shure, an’ I’ll do ut, thin,” promised Larry,with a flash of his usual happy grin. “This’ll be an expensive wallop for you, Mac.”
Larry did his best, but luck was against him. He poled a hot grounder between first and second base, but the Pittsburgh shortstop smothered it and pitched Larry out at first.
“Good night!” he exclaimed, as he reached the bench. “Thim Pittsburghers has more luck than brains. Shure, it wuz a lovely hit, and I had your money spint already, Mac, whin that spalpeen tuck it away from me.”
“Well, it’s the safe ones that count,” remarked the manager. “Anybody can hit them at the fielders.”
Allen was next at bat, and his team mates sat tense, waiting to see what he would do. The chances of the Giants winning the game were getting poor, and already many of the more pessimistic rooters were leaving the stands. Allen was not noted as a slugger, and Jim followed him. Many thought that McRae would substitute a pinch hitter for Jim, as a pitcher is not supposed to be a very heavy slugger, and Jim had not the reputation in that line that Joe possessed.
Two strikes were called on Allen, when the Pittsburgh pitcher loosed a wild throw that struck the batter on the arm. This sent Allen to first base and put the next move up to Jim. To many of the fans it seemed as though McRae should putin his heaviest slugger at this point, but the manager, with that knowledge of men’s hearts and minds that had made him famous in the game, thought otherwise. He understood Jim’s desire to win this game above all others, and he believed that Jim, backed by that desire, would be more apt to slam out a hit than any other man on the team.
“Go in and win your own game, Jim,” he admonished his young pitcher. “Make the crooks wish that they’d let Joe pitch this game. Show them that dirty work doesn’t pay.”
“That’s exactly what I hope to do,” said Jim, with a grim set to his square jaw. “I’d be willing to give my next year’s pay to win this game.”
Miles seemed a trifle rattled by hitting Allen, and the first two balls he pitched were wide of the plate. The next was a low, fast one, and Jim scooped it up, sending it whistling straight at Miles. The ball came so fast that the pitcher was unable to hang on to it, but he succeeded in stopping it, and it rolled along a few feet toward first base.