CHAPTER XXIIITHE CHAMPIONSHIP FOR YALE.
Not for years had the baseball championship of the colleges come down to so narrow an issue. For the first time it was a really national title that was at stake, for the defeat of Michigan, the recognized leader of the West, by Yale, had made it impossible for any team to dispute the honors to be won by the victor of this final battle between Harvard and Yale. It was a fitting test, too, and thousands without an interest in either college rejoiced at the thought that the historic rivals should finally have come to fight it out between themselves. Princeton for years had been the most formidable baseball college in the East. There had been none to dispute successfully the claim of the Tigers to the premier honors for a long time, and the general public was glad to see the Princeton monopoly invaded at last.
That was the reason for the tremendous crowd that filled the famous Polo Grounds. It was a crowd bigger than any that had ever assembled there, except for a professional world’s championship contest. The great arena was a riot of color, and a very bedlam of sound long before the game began. Those who had not been lucky enough, or gifted with sufficient forethought to buy reserved seats, had to come early, in order to get a place, and even out on the bleachers, where the peanut-eating fans sit through the long summer afternoons, pretty girls, glad even of so exposed a place to view the struggle, appeared in swarms.
And in the covered grand stand, where all the seats were reserved, the crowd was just as big, and came just as early. The people there were sure of their seats, but they wanted to see the crowd, to hear the college songs and cheers, and to watch the practice. It was a thrilling and unusual spectacle, certainly, and none of those who had bolted early luncheons, or gone without their mid-day meal altogether, to be at the grounds early, at all regretted their sacrifice when once they had arrived and taken their places.
From one side of the great grand stand, behind third base, and all the way out to left field, the Harvard cheer came constantly—nine long ’rahs, and a long Harvard at the end. That side was a mass of crimson, too. Girls in crimson dresses, crimson hats, with red flags and great red sleeve bands, were to be seen in abundance. And the cheer leaders from Cambridge were busy constantly, urging their fellow students in the stands to renewed efforts, so that the fellows on the field, practicing diligently, might know that the college was with them, rooting as hard as it could for them to win the coveted championship.
Yale was opposite, behind first base and right field. There were just as many Yale men and Yale girls there as Harvard had sent, and it seemed as if they made even more noise. Both teams had had splendid seasons, but the odds favored Yale a trifle. For Harvard, although facing Yale’s weakest pitcher, save for part of one inning, in the great Commencement Day game, had been unable to make any real superiority plain. It had been all that Harvard could do to bat out a victory over Dick Winston, despised as the poorest sort of a match for either Briggs or Wooley before the game began, and the Yale men, who knew that, if only Winston had been able to begin well, he would have won his game, had no idea that Harvard would be able to do anything against the strong right arm of Jim Phillips, and the best efforts of the team that Dick Merriwell had coached so brilliantly through the preliminary season, with its victories over Cornell, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Princeton to prove its class.
Dick Merriwell himself, sitting quietly on the bench while the players of the two teams ran through their final practice, was confident of victory; but he had anxieties, too. He knew, what the cheering crowds above him did not, that Jim Phillips had been through enough in the last two days to make it impossible for any ordinary pitcher to do himself justice. But he knew, also, that Jim was by no means an ordinary pitcher. The rest of the team was all right, and Dick felt that Jim could count upon it for perfect support.
While the fielders chased batted balls, getting used to the playing surface of the field, entirely different from that at New Haven, Dick watched Jim shooting curve balls over a practice plate to big Bill Brady. Look as closely as he would, Dick could see no signs of nervousness or distress in Jim’s face. The sophomore pitcher—really a junior, now, since commencement was over, and the classes had all been promoted—had his usual perfect control, and he smiled and joked with Brady as he pitched. Dick gave a sigh of relief, and went out to give a few last orders to the players.
Harry Maxwell, as the most dependable outfielder on the Yale team, had been shifted to right field for the game, since right field is the hardest of all to play at the Polo Grounds. The new concrete stand makes the trouble. A ground ball, hit to right, bounds off the fence at most peculiar angles, and Dick, taking a bat, drove a dozen balls against it, that Harry might learn to judge the probable direction of all such hits. The knowledge might easily save the game, later on, Dick felt, by keeping a hit that an unwarned fielder would allow to be good for two bases, to a single. It was by just such foresight and preparedness that Dick had enabled Yale to win many games that, under another coach, the team would have lost.
In the press box a bell rang abruptly, and in a moment the great crowd settled back tensely to watch the beginning of the contest. The bell was the signal for play to begin, and the blue-clad umpires appeared punctually to the minute, one from each of the two great major leagues, assigned to arbitrate this most important of college games.
Captain Bowen, of Harvard, already arrayed in his chest protector and wearing his big catcher’s mitt, went to the plate to arrange final details with Captain Sherman, of Yale, playing his last game for the blue, and one of the umpires spun a silver quarter in the air.
Sherman called the turn, and sent Harvard to the bat. Jim walked slowly and confidently to the pitcher’s box, and, with one mighty roar of delight from the crowd, the game was on.
Well as he looked, and strong as he undoubtedly was, Jim was tired. His muscles ached, and his eyes hurt as the glare of the sun struck them. But he was determined to win, and he felt that nothing could keep him from doing it. The honor of Yale was in his keeping, and he intended to make no Yale man regret it.
Behind him, as he faced Reid, the first Harvard batter, he heard a rapid-fire chatter from the infielders. Sherman’s deep bass calling, “Steady, old boy, make them work!” was echoed by Carter’s excited falsetto, cheering him on. And the others, Jackson, and Horton, the shortstop, added their voices. But he paid little attention to them. His eyes were fixed on Brady’s hands, playing aimlessly, as it seemed, first with his mask, then with his glove, but really, to those who knew the Yale code of signals, giving Jim his decision on the sort of ball to be pitched.
Thud! The first ball split the plate before it landed in Brady’s big mitt, and as the umpire’s hand went up and he yelled “Stri-i-i-ke one!” the whole right side of the stands, where the Yale rooters were massed, burst into a sea of waving blue flags, while ten thousand throats were split with a wild Yale yell. It was a good start.
But Reid, smiling, his jaws working mechanically as he chewed the gum that baseball players use to keep their nerves steady, was unconcerned. He was too old a hand to be impressed by a single ball, and he knew that in this game a single run was likely to settle the issue. He had faced Jim before, and knew how fine a pitcher he was, and he was determined to wait for the sort of ball he could hit, even if he struck out three or four times before it came to him. Reid was a fine, scientific batsman, too good to care about his average, as long as he made hits when they would count toward runs; and Jim’s reputation worried him no more than did the enormous crowd. He even forgot the crowd—his whole concern was for the diamond, for the pitcher, and for the fielders in front of him.
Jim followed his first strike with a wide curve, but Reid only smiled as it broke away from the end of his bat, outside of the plate—a ball, and so counted against the pitcher. He would never play into Jim’s hands by striking at such a ball as that.
Then came a teasing, floater of a ball, that seemed sure to cut the plate right at the line of his waist. But again Reid smiled. He had been fooled twice by that ball at Cambridge, and he knew that, if he struck at it, his bat would swing through the empty air. For it was pitched so that at the last moment, just above the plate, it would stop dead and drop. That was just what it did this time, and again the umpire called “Ball!”
The next ball puzzled Reid. It was almost straight, and, as it came, he exulted. It looked like the sort of a ball he could hit, but he wanted to be sure. He was willing to sacrifice a hit now to get information for use later in the game, and he swung awkwardly, missing the ball by six inches or more. But he exulted inwardly, though a strike was called on him, and he knew that he had practically put himself at Jim’s mercy, for he had seen exactly what sort of a ball that was—and the next time he struck at it he wouldn’t miss. The next ball was a curve that fooled him completely, cutting in and across the plate so that he couldn’t hit it, and he struck out, but he was entirely contented. And so, when he went back to the bench and made his report, was Bowen.
Dick Merriwell knew exactly how tired Jim was. Also, he expected Harvard to play a waiting game, and trust to a fierce attack in the closing innings to produce a victory. He wanted to see Yale score and take the lead as early as possible, and he was prepared to take stiff chances for that purpose. If Jim were in the lead, Dick felt, it would be easier for him to stand up under the fierce strain of the game. Harvard, behind, would have to play a different game. And, therefore, when the Yale team, after Harvard had been blanked in the first inning, came in to take its turn at the bat, a plan of campaign, daring and aggressive, had been mapped out.
Sherman, batting first, looked hard at right field. He was known to the Harvard men as a right-field hitter—that is, it was almost certain that if he hit the ball at all, it would travel in that direction. He stood up to the plate, too, and, as Briggs delivered the first ball, swung viciously at it, with a full, free swing, and missed it. The Harvard infielders drew back, and the right fielder swung clear over to the fence, ready to make the catch if the ball went in that direction. But it didn’t. Even as the next ball left Briggs’ hand, the Yale captain shortened his grip on his bat, poked it forward, and bunted beautifully toward third base.
Sherman was a real sprinter, and there was a wild yell from the Yale crowd as he raced down to first. The Harvard third baseman was taken completely by surprise. It was the last thing he had expected Sherman to do. By the time he got his glove on the slow-rolling ball, Sherman was within a yard of first base, and the throw was hopeless, since there was no chance to make a put-out. But he threw, nevertheless, and then there was a sudden outbreak of excited, shrill yelling from all over the field and the stands.
Sherman, instead of stopping at first, had just touched the bag with his foot, and kept right on for second. Bowen ran angrily out in the diamond, shouting to the first baseman, who was also confused. He juggled the ball a moment, and then threw low to second, so that Sherman slid safely in, credited with a two-bagger on a bunt that hadn’t gone forty feet after it left his bat. The play was a masterpiece of planning and brilliant execution, daring in the extreme, and successful just because it was so daring that no one would have looked for it.
When Jackson came to the bat, the Harvard infield played close. It wasn’t going to be caught again by a bunt, and certainly this really looked like the time for a quick sacrifice play. Sherman took a long lead off second, ready to make a swift dash for third if Jackson hit the ball, but he was cautious, and, though Briggs threw twice to second in an effort to catch the Yale captain, Sherman got back safely to the base each time.
And then Jackson, who had tried to bunt at the first two balls pitched to him, but clumsily, and without success, got a ball that was just right, and pushed it right over the third baseman’s head for the prettiest of Texas Leaguers. Had the infielders not been drawn in to field a bunt, that seemed so likely to be the play, the ball would certainly have been caught; but, as it was, there was no chance for it to be reached, and Sherman raced home with the first run of the game, while Jackson got to second base on the left fielder’s hurried throw to the plate in a vain attempt to catch Sherman as he slid home.
Dick Merriwell, quiet and self-contained as he usually was, could not refrain from throwing his hat into the air as he sat on the Yale bench, and the enthusiasm of the Yale crowd may be guessed. Dick had planned the play out; but, unless he had had good, well-trained men on the team to take advantage of his plans, not all the planning in the world could have scored that run. He was proud of his team, and of the spirit with which it obeyed every order he gave, no matter how unlikely those orders seemed to be to produce a winning result.
But he wanted more than one run out of this inning. He could see that the Harvard team showed signs of going up in the air. Briggs, nervous and flurried, came in to consult with Bowen, and, in the infield, the men were quarreling, and trying to show how all the trouble could have been avoided if only some one else had done something in a different way. The confidence that had made the crimson team so dangerous before the game was being dissipated; and, knowing that Bowen, as soon as he had a chance, would be able to pull his team together, Dick wanted to strike while the iron was hot, and make the lead as big as possible.
Harry Maxwell was the next batter, and his orders were simply to tire Briggs out.
“Foul off as many balls as you can,” Dick told him. “I don’t want you to make a hit—at least, I don’t care whether you do or not. Just tire him out.”
Harry obeyed his orders to the letter, and Briggs, furious, and getting more nervous every minute, had to pitch nearly thirty balls before Bowen, by a wonderful sprint, finally managed to get under one of those towering fouls, right in front of the Yale bench, and hold it as it came down. And then, making use even of that chance, Jackson had time, after the catch had been made, to sprint to third base, so that Harry was credited with a sacrifice.
Bill Brady, the next batter, having been moved up, had orders to hit. Briggs, tired out after his struggle with Maxwell, hot and thirsty, lost his control for the moment, and Bill’s smashing drive bounded out from the left-field fence, to the confusion of the Harvard outfielder, who hadn’t, as Dick had made the Yale players do, spent any time in studying the peculiar angles and rebounds of that new concrete wall. Jackson scored easily, and Brady himself reached third, whence it was an easy matter for him to score while Steve Carter was being thrown out at first base. That made three runs, and Dick Merriwell was well satisfied with the harvest. Horton was an easy out, and the inning was over, but it had been a mighty fruitful one, and Dick felt that there was no reason, with such a lead, why Yale should not win.
But, as the players started to take the field, he warned them against being overconfident.
“Briggs will be all right after a five-minute rest,” he told them. “And we won’t catch them asleep that way again. There was a whole lot of luck in the way we got those three runs, and they’ll be watching us like cats for the rest of the game. Anything more we get, we’ll have to earn—be sure of that. But that won’t matter—if they can’t do any scoring. You’ve got enough runs to win this game right now—see that they don’t creep up on us and tie the score.”
There isn’t any record of what Bowen said to his team after that disastrous first inning, but it had the effect he wanted. The Harvard team seemed to have been turned into a machine. Every trick Yale tried was met and defeated, and Briggs, rallying, pitched like the master of the game that he really was. But Jim Phillips, too, was at his best. Tired he might be, and sore, but there was nothing in his pitching to let the Harvard players know it. He wasted none of his remaining strength as the game went on, but there were few men on the Harvard team who studied him as Reid did, and they kept on biting at wide curves that were meant to fool them with a break that came after they had thought it impossible for a ball to desert its straight course.
Reid outguessed him in the fourth inning, and got a base on balls, but there were two out at the time, and it made no difference. And Bowen himself, a batter who could at times hit any sort of a ball, even if a Mathewson had pitched it, got a long two-bagger in the sixth frame, when no one was out. But he was held at second, a brilliant catch by Bill Brady of a twisting foul and hard work by Jim himself disposing of the next three batters.
More and more, as the game went on, the crowd was forced to think that its result had been decided in that one tumultuous first inning, when Yale strategy and Yale pluck—though the Harvard people called it the proverbial Yale luck—had produced three runs. But the Harvard team kept on fighting, never willing to admit itself beaten. And the Yale men on the field, like Dick Merriwell, watching every move from the bench, knew that Yale could not claim the championship until the last Harvard man had been put out. It was a glorious struggle—one worth coming hundreds of miles to see, as many had done.
The ninth inning began, and it was Harvard’s last chance. Bowen, almost ready to admit that his team was beaten, was first at the bat, and, frantic with the determination to save the day, began with a slashing drive to left that put him on second. Jim Phillips smiled at Brady, not a bit concerned, but the next play went wrong. The Harvard batter bunted, and Sherman, running in, saw a chance to catch Bowen at third. He threw to Carter, but the throw was the fifth of a second too late, and both runners were safe. A clean steal put the man on first on second base, and Reid, smiling and cheerful, was the next man up.
Jim knew him for the most dangerous batter on the whole Harvard team. He pitched five balls to him, and at their end the count was three balls and two strikes. Reid had refused to bite on any one of the three curves—he had not struck at either of the strikes, because he had seen what they were too late. The next ball would settle matters. Brady, more disturbed even than Jim, walked out to speak to him. They had to get close together to be able to hear, for the din from the stands was deafening.
“You fooled him on that cross-fire ball in the first inning,” said Brady.
“That’s a dangerous ball,” said Jim, shaking his head. “I think he’s just waiting for me to use it again.”
“Try it,” Bill insisted.
And Jim, against his better judgment, and because he deferred always to Bill’s signals in such an emergency, pitched the ball that Brady wanted.
It was the ball Reid wanted, too. He had anticipated such a chance since the very beginning of the game. He saw it coming, recognized the swing of Jim’s shoulders as he pitched, and he bared his teeth in a happy grin as he saw it approaching. Then, squaring his big shoulders, he put all his power into the drive, and sent the ball hurtling far over the centre fielder’s head.
The Harvard crowd went mad. Round and round the bases the crimson legs twinkled, Reid racing as if he were pursued by demons. Two men scored—if Reid got home the score would be tied. But he had to stop at third. The score was three to two in Yale’s favor—a man was on third, and none was out. Dick Merriwell groaned. It was the tightest hole that Jim had ever been in. Briggs, as fresh as when the game began, looked good for a dozen innings more, while Jim, already very tired—and no wonder!—could hardly last for a tenth.
But Harvard had not tied the score yet. Jim, calmly confident, grinned at Brady, stricken by remorse for his error of judgment, and settled himself down to work.
Bowen had raced back, as soon as he had scored, to the coacher’s box behind third base, where he could take control of his team and see to it that the most was made of the sudden chance to win the game, a rally at the eleventh hour, when all hope seemed to be gone.
Jim was studying the batter with the utmost care. He felt that everything depended upon him. But as he pitched, a thrill of agonizing pain shot through his arm, beginning at the tired shoulder muscles and running down to his wrist. He found his control completely vanished. While the Harvard crowd went mad, the next two batters walked to first, and the bases were filled. Dick Merriwell, seeing what was wrong, had sent Gray to warm up with Taylor, and now Brady came out and begged Jim to give way. But Jim shook his head resolutely.
“I can get them yet,” he said. “My arm’s better now. I’ve just been lobbing them over.”
Suddenly he remembered something—the game he had pitched against Pennsylvania.
“Quit stalling!” yelled the Harvard men, as he called Brady out again. They thought he was playing for delay.
“I’m going to finish with my left arm, Bill,” he said. “They’ll never look for it. I’m going to pitch this fellow a drop—he’ll be so surprised that he can’t do more than chop it.”
Bill saw a dim chance to save the game.
No one on the Harvard team suspected what was coming. They knew nothing of Jim’s ability to pitch with his left hand. And when, with a sudden, deceptive motion, he shifted the ball and pitched it, the Harvard batter, as he had predicted, swung wildly. But he didn’t chop the ball. He hit it full—but on a line. Jim swung up to meet the ball, caught it with his extended left hand—he had discarded his glove—and then raced for third base. Reid was struggling to get back, but Jim’s throw to Carter beat him, and Carter, with a lightning toss, threw to Jackson at second, completing a wonderful triple play that ended the game and gave Yale the championship.
For a moment the crowd was dazed. The play had been so swift, so paralyzingly sudden, that very few had seen it. But as the Harvard players, stunned, ran from the field, the great crowd realized to the full what had happened. And the Yale men gave Jim a demonstration such as few players had ever had. Wild with joy, they carried him on their shoulders to the dressing room, and the Harvard crowd, after it had cheered its own gallant team, was not slow to honor the great Yale pitcher who had saved the day.
Once safely inside the dressing room, and away from the frantic crowd that was still cheering outside, Sherman sprang to a bench.
“Now, fellows,” he shouted, “we’re all here. It’s as good a time as any to elect next year’s captain. What do you say?”
There was a roar of delight. Then Carter sprang to his feet.
“I nominate Jim Phillips,” he cried.
A dozen voices seconded the nomination. There was no other candidate, and in two minutes Jim had been unanimously elected captain of the team.
And when he got outside, where the news had spread, the first man who was waiting to congratulate him was Parker—who had seen, at last, what it meant to be a Yale man.
The next great event in sports in which Yale men were to take part was the Yale-Harvard boat race. And for this important battle on the water, the busy universal coach now hastened to New London to give final instructions to the crew, which had long been at work under his coaching.