CHAPTER XIIITHE LAST STRIKE-OUT
But no man on that field felt the sting of the moment as deeply as Jock Hoover, in whose heart hatred for Tom Locke burned like living fire. The wonder and terror of the league, he feared that a blazing sun had risen to eclipse him. The effect upon him was fully apparent when he carelessly let Stark steal second behind his back, which brought upon him the amused scoffing of the Kingsbridgers. Nor did it serve to lessen the bitterness of his soul when, although he still burned the ball over with the sharp slants which an expert “spit artist” commands, Crandall leaned against it for a grasser to right, and Stark, spurred by the shrieking coacher, crossed third, and reached the home plate, adding another tally.
After that, Anastace popped, and Hinkey agitated the air; but the damage was done.
Riley’s scathing, acrid arraignment of his batters did no good. Although an error let Mace get to first in the seventh, Locke disposed of the nextthree stickers with ease, and apparently without any great exertion.
Hoover returned to the slab in form, and closed the inning with three straight to his credit.
For Bancroft, hope revived when Bangs started the eighth by obtaining a pass, the first to be secured from Locke since the initial inning. Hoover strode out, thirsting for a hit. Had the stab of his eyes been deadly, Tom Locke must have dropped, mortally pierced, in his tracks.
With the head of the list coming up, Riley had called for a sacrifice, and, much as he hated to do it, Hoover sought to obey. He did not even foul the first ball he tried to bunt; but Oulds, in his haste to get Bangs going down, made a bad throw, and the runner reached second base.
“Ah!” thought Jock exultantly. “Now I can hit it out!”
But he could not hit it out, although he did his best. Locke sent him to the bench, fanned and furious.
Harney, however, batted a lingerer into the diamond, and little Labelle eagerly overran it, which put two on the sacks.
It was still a game, and the Bancroft crowd was beginning to froth, while the Kingsbridgers felt their nerves shaking again. With two on, onlyone out, and Trollop and Grady to hit, all sorts of things might happen.
What really happened was two strike-outs, which went to the credit of the Kingsbridge southpaw, and made Janet Harting declare she “just wanted to hug him.”
Locke was one of Hoover’s victims in the eighth, which, however, did not seem to disturb his equanimity in the least, and gave the Bancrofter but poor and unsatisfactory solace. There was no run-getting, and the ninth opened with the Kingsbridgers rooting for Locke to choke it off in a hurry.
The “Bullies” always fought to the finish, and they were in the game to take advantage of anything favorable that might happen. Once more Labelle, who should have easily handled Mace’s grounder for an assist, became too eager, and failed to get the ball up cleanly, following with a poor throw that presented the runner with “a life.”
Standing, every man Jack of them, the Bancrofters on the bleachers whooped things up desperately. They were disheartened a bit when McGovern hoisted an infield fly, and went to the bench; but they awoke with redoubled energy asBernsteine bingled a bone-breaker against Fred Lace’s shins, and the third baseman chased it long enough to make fruitless any attempt to get the man.
“Come, Lefty,” shouted a Kingsbridger; “you’ll have ter do it alone. You ain’t gittin’ no s’port.”
And now, as if he, too, felt the strain of it, and the tension was too much, Tom Locke handed up four balls, and filled the sacks.
“It’s the same old story!” shouted Harney from the coaching line. “They’ve gone to pieces again! We’ve got ’em! We’ve got ’em! We win it right here! Old southpaw is making an altitude record! He’s gone! He’s up out of sight now! He’ll never come down! Kill it, Bingo, if he puts one across!”
Kingsbridge was apprehensively silent, taut, and choked with dread; Bancroft howled and screamed like a lot of caged Camorrists. Bangs gripped his club, longing for a two-bagger, or even a long, clean single. Locke took his time, absolutely declining to betray signs of agitation similar to those which had marked his advent upon that field.
“You’ve got to do it, Lefty!” came entreatinglyfrom the man who had shouted before. “If you fail us now, there’ll be a fun’rul after the game.”
Locke whipped over a high one.
“Strike!” blared the umpire.
Before Bangs had finished kicking at the decision, the pitcher bent over another.
“Strike tuh!”
“Get against it, Bingo—get against it!” yelled Harney. “Spoil the good ones, anyhow.”
Two balls followed. Then came a marvelous drop that Bangs missed by many inches, and Kingsbridge roared, drowning the Bancroft groan.
Jock Hoover had been swinging two bats. He dropped one of them, and walked into the box, stooping a moment to rub his palms on the dry dirt. Never in his life had he desired half as much to get a hit, and never had he believed more firmly that he would get one.
“You’re the boy, Jock!” shrieked a rooter. “Bring ’em home! Win your own game, old fightin’ cock!”
From the opposite side came a different cry:
“He’s your meat, Lefty! Get him, and it’s all over! Don’t lose him, on your life!”
It was to be the great test. A clean hit wouldleave Hoover still supreme in the league; a strike-out would place another far above him. The lips of the Bully at bat curled back from his teeth, and he stood there ready, like a man made of steel springs. With a sort of placid grimness, Locke swung into his delivery.
Hoover fouled the first one into the bleachers.
“Strike!”
“That’s one on him!”
“You’ve got him coming, Lefty!”
“He can’t hit you!”
“You can’t let him hit!”
“Do it again!”
Hoover stamped his spikes into the ground, rooting himself, that the hit might be effective when he landed on the ball. He had felt of the first one; he would straighten the next one out. In fancy, he saw himself cantering over the sacks, with the runners ahead of him scoring, and the Bancrofters splitting their throats. Doubtless a two-bagger would score all three of the runners; and then, even if he did not reach the rubber himself, he would go out there and hold the “Kinks” runless in the last of the ninth. He knew he could do it.
“Ball-l-l!”
Jock sneered at Locke’s teaser. What a chumpthe fellow was to think he would reach for anything like that!
“Put one over!” he invited. “You don’t dare!”
It came—whistling, high, and taking an inward shoot. Hoover did not graze the horsehide.
“Strike tuh!”
That set the Kingsbridgers off again:
“Get him, Lefty—get him!”
“Oh, you, Lefty!”
“You’re the stuff, old boy!”
“Sic him, you wiz!”
“Mow him down!”
“Polish him off!”
“End his suffering, Lefty!”
“Oh, you, Lefty! Oh, you, Lefty!”
Hoover’s teeth were grinding together like millstones. Although angered by his failure, he still gripped and held his confidence that he could hit Locke at this time when a hit meant so much; for, as a pinch hitter, he had an enviable record.
Another shoot came over. Jock hit it. But again the ball went into the bleachers, causing the umpire to stop the base runners with a bellow:
“Foul!”
“That’s the best he can do, Lefty! He’s going! He’s almost gone!”
There was a delay. Some one had pocketed the ball, and presently a spotless, fresh one was tossed out to Locke.
“Where’ll that one go when he hits it?” yelled a Bancrofter.
“When he hits it!” mocked a Kingsbridger. “He never will!”
Leaning forward to get Oulds’ signal, Locke gave his head a shake. The sign for a drop was instantly changed to one calling for an inshoot, and the young pitcher lost no time.
There was a white streak in the air, and the ball almost seemed to twist round Hoover’s neck, slightly grazing the bat close to his knuckles as he swung. Into Oulds’ big mitt it plunked.
“Y’re out!” was the cry of the umpire, as he flung his hand upward above his head.
Instantly Hoover called Tom Locke a vile name, and sent the bat, with all the strength of his quivering, muscular arms, spinning straight at the pitcher’s head.