One, two, three. How they loved it!
Stockings 32, Haymakers 30.
I could feel the game’s momentum swinging to them. All of us felt it. We took the field grimly in the ninth, knowing we had to hold them.
Brainard stared at the ball for a long moment and then called us to his box. Picking at the stitches, he said, “They switched the damn ball on us!”
Harry examined it, then summoned the ump. Brainard figured they’d made the switch in the eighth, pitching a dead ball to us while removing the original ball’s cover and inserting a Bounding Rock, then restitching it in time for their ups. If Brainard hadn’t spotted shiny threads on the discolored surface, it would have worked.
The Haymakers denied everything. A confusion of arguments ensued, each club claiming a forfeit on the grounds of unsporting conduct. The crowd stamped and whistled and booed. Finally a new ball was agreed upon and play resumed.
To our dismay their leadoff man—in this case the speed-burning Bellan—again walked on four pitches. Brainard stalked around the box angrily. I went out to steady him. He had almost nothing on his pitches now.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Like a double play!” he snapped. “Get the hell out of here!”
Fisher fouled off several pitches and finally sent one spinning high behind the plate. I wheeled and dug hard, saw the ball bounce far ahead, dove anyway, and before it bounced again managed to thrust my gloved hand—let them savor it!—between the ball and the grass; my fingers clutched it for the out. Remembering the stupid foul rule, I threw quickly and nearly doubled Bellan off before he could dive back to first.
“That’s the ginger, Sam!” yelled Harry. Praise poured in from the others.
But my satisfaction vanished on the very next pitch—a bouncer in the dirt that got by me so far that Bellan stood on third by the time I retrieved it. Shit!
The tying run strode arrogantly to the plate in the person of Clipper Flynn. He swung viciously and pulled a mammoth drive that hooked foul just before clearing the outfield carriages. Then he lined a shot that nearly tore Waterman in half. The scrappy third baseman somehow clutched the ball to his stomach for the out. We took a collective breath. Two down. One more and the game was ours. Just one more. The crowd was growing silent.
Up to the plate stalked Craver, bat twitching in his hand. His face was set in grim lines. We said nothing to each other now.
Remembering that he’d drilled a tight pitch last time, Brainard teased him with one six inches outside. Craver watched it pass. The ump issued his usual warning. We faced a tough decision: work Craver cautiously and risk putting the tying run on; or challenge him, taking our chances against his powerful bat. We decided to come at him. Brainard loosed a beauty that danced along the outside corner.
It was the wrong choice. Craver’s upper body swelled as he whipped the bat like a toy. The ball exploded and climbed the sky, soaring over the outfield. Harry and Mac turned and gave chase into the crowd of carriages and spectators. Mac shouldered desperately among them. He emerged with the ball and heaved it in with all his might to the cutoff. Craver, rounding third, abruptly retreated to the bag.
The tying run stood only ninety feet away.
Steve King strode to the plate. I called time and went to the pitching box. “What now?” Brainard demanded. I waved for Harry to join us.
“Let’s walk him,” I said.
Harry’s eyes widened. “On purpose?”
I nodded.
He shook his head. “It isn’t done.”
His propriety irritated me. “So what? Let’s do it anyway. Their shortstop’s on deck; he hasn’t hit anything all afternoon.”
Harry pulled at his whiskers, his soft eyes probing mine. “But that would set up the two-stage steal again. Even if Craver held third while the other advanced, they’d be in position to score the tying and lead runs with a single strike.”
“But Craver will try to score,” I argued. “He’s done it all day—and I want him to once more. I have a way to get that last out we need.” I told them what I had in mind. Brainard shook his head in increasing wonder.
“The rules don’t provide for it,” Harry said, his face troubled.
“Do they forbid it?” I said. “And do they provide for Craver knocking us around whenever he wants?”
After a moment Harry turned and jogged toward his position.
“That means we’re on our own.” A smile glinted in Brainard’s eyes. “I say let’s give ’em a stir, Sam.”
We walked King on four lobs far outside the striker’s box. The crowd bellowed. I was showered with new abuse, not all of it verbal: ripe fruit and several bottles thudded nearby. I had outraged their notions of how the game should be played. First the bunt. Then the glove. Now an intentional walk. Too much.
King edged off first. Craver moved down the line from third and called, “Now I’ll see what you’re made of, milk boy!”
You will indeed, I thought.
I withdrew the sponge from my belt and squeezed it into my gloved hand. As Brainard twisted into his windup, I watched King at first. Sure enough, he was off with the pitch. The ball came in hard and high; the batter made no attempt to swing. I caught it cleanly and rose to throw. From the corner of my eye I saw Craver poised to sprint. I plucked the sponge from under the ball and hurled it as hard as I could toward second, having trimmed it to the approximate circumference of a baseball. Brainard sprawled flat in the pitching box as though to get out of its way.
At the instant it left my hand Craver lowered his head and charged. “No!” the hitter yelled. Craver kept coming. I concealed the ball in my gloved hand, my heart
