CHAPTER XXIVTHE FIRST GAME
When, at two o’clock, the invading hordes swept down on Grafton it looked as though Mount Morris Academy had arrived in toto. Of the hundred and eighty-odd students enrolled at the Greenbank school that year, fully a hundred and fifty swarmed over from the station after the arrival of the train. They came in hilarious mood, marching along Crumbie and River Streets four abreast and waving small green megaphones through which they hoped to later roar the enemy into subjection. Green and white, the Mount Morris colors—I am aware that white is not a color, but how else can I put it?—were much in evidence in the shape of pennants and neckties and arm-bands, while a frivolous fox-terrier led the procession, straining at his leash, attired in a green blanket with the school monogram in white. Altogether, that invasion was notable and picturesque, and Grafton, looking on from the windows of Lothrop and Trow or from along the campus fence, cheered approvingly. Mount Morris cheered backand waved her pennants, turned into School Street and disbanded at the gate. Subsequently those who had acquaintances at Grafton were to be seen climbing stairways, while others wandered around in critical survey of the school buildings.
Add some two hundred Grafton fellows and another hundred sympathizers from the village and roundabout and you’ll understand that the seating capacity of Lothrop Field that afternoon was severely taxed. Politely, but not over-eagerly perhaps, Grafton yielded the grandstands to the visitors and townsfolk and found accommodation on the grass. Only a band was lacking to make the occasion complete; and I’m not sure that a band would have had much chance with all that cheering and singing!
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-handerand 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 Ayerafter 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 andpassed 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 sevenththat 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 oneawful 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.
Jimmy got a fine round of applause and a lot of advice as to what to do. It was evident that many of the audience would be satisfied with nothing less than a home-run, but, on the other hand, the advicehe got from the bench and the coachers was to “just tap it, Jimmy!” Jimmy did not so well as the stand demanded and did better than his teammates advised. He smote it. He didn’t smite at once, though. He let Whitten put one straight over that looked too low to Jimmy and just right to the umpire, and he let Whitten follow that strike with two deceitful hooks that looked fine at first and then didn’t. And then, when Whitten tried to sneak one over again opposite his knee-pads, Jimmy did his smiting. Jimmy got that ball on the one square inch of his bat best calculated to produce results, a square inch located about four inches from the end, and he put all his contempt for Mount Morris and Whitten and, incidentally, Star Meyer, into his swing, and the ball traveled away with acrackthat was heartening indeed to the three impatient runners, shot over second-baseman’s upthrust glove, still ascending, went curving into center field at a place where neither the guardian of that territory nor his left-hand neighbor had any chance of reaching it, and finally dropped to earth to roll joyfully along the sward pursued by two pairs of agitated green legs!
Need I narrate that all Grafton arose as one and shrieked hysterical delight? Or that the bases, filled a scant moment before, were speedily emptied? Or that Jimmy, finding them empty and having his choice of any, decided to annex second and then,urged on by coachers more capable of judging the demands of the moment, spurned second and set his heart on third—and would have gone tearing home if Guy Murtha himself hadn’t seized him forcibly and thrust him back to the bag? Well, perhaps you wouldn’t have guessed the latter details, but I fancy you’d have surmised the others. That hit of Jimmy’s went down in local history as one of the famous hits of the national pastime. It wasn’t that it won the game, for the game was already captured. Had he struck out Grafton would still have been returned the victor that afternoon. But there was something beautifully satisfying about it, one might almost say artistic. The audience was on thequi vivefor it, the setting was right to the most minute detail and it was made when and where it would do the most good. To be sure, it might have been a home-run and so scored four tallies instead of three, but I maintain—and I am supported by Dud and Nick and Hugh and half the school—that there is nearly always the element of luck in a home-run, whereas Jimmy’s three-bagger was a solid, meritorious, honestly-earned hit as soul-satisfying as any homer ever lifted over a fence!
Perhaps you think I am dwelling over-long on the glory of that performance and to the holding up of the game. But as a matter of fact it ended the game there and then to all intents and purposes. To besure, Gordon did get to first on a pass, while the cheering was still going on, but nobody cared, any more than they cared a minute later when Gus Weston fanned. Anything that might happen now would be an anti-climax. The audience was satisfied, surfeited. Mount Morris had no fight left in her and went out in one, two, three order in the ninth.
Subsequently there was chaos and noise and the sight of numerous scarlet-and-gray-hosed heroes bobbing about above a sea of joyful faces and open mouths. And Mount Morris trotted subduedly off the field, after returning Grafton’s cheer, and was next seen attired in street clothes being borne in hacks to the station, a number of rather tired-looking but still smiling young gentlemen whom Fate had used unkindly. And yet, as they passed Lothrop Hall they tossed a final cheer behind, and there was a grimness and determination in the tone of it that seemed to say: “Make the most of your triumph, Grafton! Our turn comes next!”