The crowd ate it up. So did I.
“Not bad, I’m thinkin’, for country-club lads,” said a loud voice edged with Irish brogue. “Sure an’ it’s a fact, two of the four tricksters sprang from the very soil of the Emerald Isle!”
I looked around and saw a tall, hatless, smooth-shaven man approaching. He was almost handsome in a bluff way, with thinning red hair and the beginning of a paunch.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Millar.
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“Red Jim McDermott,” said Millar. “A sharp, one of Morrissey’s crowd.”
I pondered that as I scrutinized him. A pair of calculating baby-blue eyes belied the jovial smile.
“. . . the same country lads that just thrashed the poor Niagras sevenfold, forty-two to six, in but seven innings!” McDermott guffawed to the Rochester reporters at the other end of the table. His style seemed to lie in delivering pronouncements at top volume, then looking around shrewdly to check reactions. His tone suggested that we were brothers in a fraternity of greed. “Worst drubbing in Buffalo ever—and by these same western eclectics, for the love of Jaysus and Mary.” His glance swept over us.
“Our boys play a lively fielding game,” a Rochester reporter argued. “They won’t drub us.”
“Well, now,” said McDermott, “the pool-selling lads appear to agree. They’ve set the scoring at only three to two, Reds.”
“That so?” said the reporter, rising and starting for the third-base side. “Then I’m getting in now.”
“And what d’ya Ohio lads think?” McDermott faced Millar. A diamond pin twinkled on his shirtfront. “You set for a tussle?”
“We’ll play our hardest,” Millar said shortly.
McDermott smirked. “There’s some think one or two might throw off a little today.”
Millar stiffened. “By Jupiter, we’ll give a square account. Our boys aren’t corruptible . . . like some.”
“Sure, an’ I’m a wee angel meself to believe it.” McDermott guffawed and looked around for support. “You’re tellin’ me Acey Brainard’s not placed a wager in his life? Nor taken a man’s honest earnings in a billiard parlor?”
“Go ahead and bet your money,” Millar said. “It’s not our concern.”
“Well, it’s a blunt thing to be saying.” McDermott’s smile faded as he leaned down and stared into Millar’s eyes. “But that’s exactly what I intend—and my money sure as hell won’t be on you.”
He straightened and moved away slowly.
“What was all that about?” I asked.
Millar let his breath out. “Last year I wrote about McDermott and his ilk’s control of sporting events. The Clipper reprinted it in New York. I’m not his favorite.”
“What was that three-to-two stuff?”
“He’s betting we won’t outscore the Alerts by a ratio of three runs to two.” Millar’s pudgy jaw tightened. “I hope we lay all over ’em. I hope that loudmouthed mick loses his shirt!”
I regarded him with new interest. I was about to ask how gamblers could operate so openly when the crowd stirred. Harry Wright and the Alert captain had selected an umpire, a respected local player. The contest was about to begin.
I was surprised to learn that the visiting club didn’t automatically bat first. Instead, the winner of a coin toss decided. But, since nobody had thought to bring a coin, the umpire finally spat on a flat stone, flipped it in the air, and pointed to Harry. “Dry!” called Harry. It landed wet side up. The Alerts chose the field.
I’ve watched hundreds of baseball games, but I’d never seen anything like what followed. I suppose I’d thought of old-timers as smaller, less-skilled, even comical versions of their twentieth-century counterparts. I began to get a different impression as the first inning unfolded.
George Wright marched up to home plate—an actual iron plate, painted white—and grinned cockily at the Alerts’ pitcher. He dug in, waved his bat (“grasped the ash,” Millar would write later), and called, “Low!”
“What’s he saying?” I asked.
“George wants it between his knees and belt.”
“You mean he calls his pitch?”
“Of course. ‘High’ would mean belt to shoulders.” He explained that if the ball didn’t pass through the designated zone, the umpire would warn the pitcher and begin calling balls. The batter (Millar said “striker”) took first after three called balls, or four in all. Strikes worked the same way, with the hitter first warned, then allowed three more.
There was no pitcher’s mound. The Rochester hurler, his sleeve rolled to reveal a brawny pitching arm, stood poised inside a four-by-six chalked box only forty-five feet from home, instead of the sixty feet six inches I was used to. He wound up elaborately, holding the ball over his head statuelike, then dipping into a submarine delivery much like a Softball pitcher’s. The new ball flashed in a barely discernible blur over the short distance. George swung and lofted a foul. The catcher, without shin guards, chest protector, mask, or mitt, was stationed a good forty feet back. The ball hit the turf far beyond his reach, but he hurled himself in a futile dive.
“Hustle’s fine,” I said. “But that’s ridiculous.”
Hurley turned and gave me a funny look. He said dryly, “Foul bounds are out.” Which turned out to mean any foul caught on the first bounce. Crazy rules, I thought.
“What’s the story on their pitcher?” I asked Hurley.
“He’s some swift,” Hurley said appreciatively. “But we fatten on swift tossing.”
“No, I mean why doesn’t he come in overhand?”
Again he looked at me oddly. “That’s throwing, not pitching.”
Millar explained that according to the rules, a pitcher’s hand couldn’t rise above his waist during the delivery, with no twists of wrist or fingers allowed.
Which would mean no breaking balls. It didn’t take a genius to see that with those restrictions, plus hitters getting four strikes and calling their pitches, this was a wildly offensive version of the game.
There was a sharp whack! as George lined a ball into the left-center gap.
“He’ll make his third,” Millar said, as George rounded first with impressive speed. But the Alerts played the ball promptly and held him to a double.
“They’re pretty quick out there,” I said.
“The wet grass slowed the ball,” Hurley said. “Wait’ll you see Andy run, if it’s quick
