Championship prospects for the Blue Stockings had led an unusual number of rooters for the team to follow it around on the short jumps, and now, with the fanning of Schwartz, they made a tremendous racket. The following batters might be equally dangerous, but, with the sturdy Dutchman disposed of, the prospect of holding the threatening Specters was bright indeed. Not a few felt, like Larry Dalton, that to get Schwartz at this time was as good as disposing of two men.
As Bugs Murray took Schwartz’s place, however, the great bulk of the gathering howled for a safety.
“Get a hit! Get a hit!” was the cry. “Put us in the game, Bugs!”
“He’s just as easy, Lefty, old boy,” chuckled Dalton. “Sew it up right here. This game counts. We need it.”
By no visible sign did Locke show that the words of his friend reached his ears. On the other hand, the rooting of the immense crowd in the stands seemed to annoy him in a most unusual way. And when one individual, with a voice like a locomotive whistle, shrieked that he was “wild,” “no good,” “easy,” and “punk,” he remained for some moments staring at the spot from which the cries seemed to come.
“Don’t mind that, old man,” pleaded Grant. “You know what you can do. Bugs is your next victim. Mow him down.”
Again the troubled pitcher seemed to lack control, for he handed up two wild ones that made Nelson stretch himself to pull them down. Again the coachers prophesied that he would be obliging enough to give the hitter a walk. It is likely Murray thought there was a good prospect of such a thing, for he held back when Locke, after a seeming struggle to pull himself together, shot one down the groove.
“Strike-ah!” called the umpire, flinging up his hand.
“Why, of course, of course!” whooped Dalton. “You’ve got him hypnotized, Lefty. No free passes this inning.”
But Laughing Larry was mistaken. With Murray waiting confidently, the laboring southpaw was unable to find the pan again, and four balls sent Bugs capering with elephantine grace to first.
“Going up! going up!” he whooped, doing a dance on the sack. “Wait it out, Dil. He’s all shot to pieces.”
After glancing toward his manager for a signal, Dillingham dropped one of the two bats he had been swinging, and hastened to put himself into position to do a little business with the other one.
Logie, fourth on the list, and therefore a most reliable club swinger, followed Dillingham. And Logie was the only man who, all through the game, had shown the ability to fathom anything Locke put within his reach. With this fact in mind, the Specter manager felt that, even though two should be down, and a runner on second, with Logie batting it meant an even chance to get the run which would tie the score.
“If we can tie it up now,” he thought, “we’ve got that left-hander’s goat. He’s barely been holding himself together, and a tie score in this inning would scatter him all over the lot.”
So Dillingham was given the signal to sacrifice, and he passed the sign to Murray, who ceased his capering and made ready to tear up the chalk line on the way to second.
Like the shouting of the crowd, the antics of Murray had seemed to disturb Lefty, and when he threw once to drive Bugs back to the initial sack he made such a wild heave that Spider Grant pulled the ball down only by a most amazing leap into the air.
“Wow! wow!” laughed the coacher at that base. “He made you stretch, Spider. He can’t even throw to the sacks. What’s the matter with him—struck by ’stigmatism?”
There really seemed that there was something the matter with Locke’s eyes, for again and again he passed his hand across them, like one brushing away cobwebs.
The restored confidence of his teammates was ebbing again. Several times during the game Grant had wondered why Carson sent no other twirler out to warm up, and now the puzzling question once more flashed through his mind. With the former manager at the helm, the captain would have suggested such a precaution, but Carson was not popular with Spider.
“He knows so much about the inside game,” thought Grant, “let him run things all by his lonesome. I’ll handle my end on the field, but I’m not going to give him a chance to call me by proposing something he ought to be wise to himself.”
And only for what he had heard from Collier, Carson would have replaced Locke with another pitcher long ere this. With such feelings governing the “powers,” there was really small chance for the Blue Stockings to snatch the coveted championship. Indeed, it was just this sort of childishness that had prevented Carson from becoming a pennant contender on the occasions when he had managed other Big League teams. The thoroughly successful manager never permits personal feelings or whims to influence his judgment.
Although Lefty’s first pitch to Dillingham would have been called a ball, the batter reached across and met it, with his club loosely held, rolling a soggy bunt into the diamond.
Murray had started with the swing of the pitcher’s arm, and therefore there was no chance to get him at second. It was Locke’s ball to field, and he should have nailed Dillingham at first by twelve or fifteen feet. Somehow, he seemed to hesitate before starting after the rolling sphere, and then, when he did get it, with barely enough time to pinch the runner at the initial sack, he threw all the way into deep right.
A sudden roar went up. The coacher at first shrieked for Dillingham to keep on. The one at third howled and waved his arms at Murray.
Lettering one gasping snarl, Rufe Hyland chased that wild peg down, got it on the rebound from the face of the bleachers, and whipped it back into the diamond in time to hold Murray at third. At second Dalton fooled Dillingham into sliding by pretending that he was going to take a throw.
The Blue Stocking fans were silent and appalled, but the stands seemed to rock with the tremendous uproar made by the sympathizers with the Specters. With second and third occupied, only one down, and Logie the hitter, it seemed a three-to-one shot that Lefty Locke had thrown away the game.
“If we only had Grist or Orth or anybody to go in now!” muttered Grant. “They’re all cold. There’s no time for ’em to warm up. Oh, this is fine management, and I’ll have to shoulder a big part of the blame!”