Stockings 2, Mutuals 1.
Allison’s leadoff single was the only spark in our half of the eighth. Playing smoothly and confidently now, the Mutes cashed in three quick outs. The stage was set for the ninth.
The silence falling over the diamond was eerie. I could hear coughs in the stands across the field. Then a solitary voice shouted encouragement, and a chorus took it up. It built to a crescendo as the Mute hitter stepped in. Suddenly the tension was too much. Hurley and I scrambled to our feet along with the crowd. The assembled thousands stood and yelled, waiting to see who would falter. Very quickly we saw that it wouldn’t be the Mutes.
Brainard’s fastballs still looked to have full velocity, but the first two batters poked singles over the infield. The next fouled a pitch behind third. Waterman sprinted and lunged, missed by inches, somersaulted, and slammed into a grandstand support. He staggered up, spitting blood and waving off George, who tried to attend him.
The Mute used his second life to push a heartbreaker through the box and past a diving Sweasy. The tying run came home. Mac’s quick throw held the other runners at first and second, but there were still no outs. The crowd danced and stomped and screamed and waved and heaved food and trash and money and hats and umbrellas and coats and canes and scarves and parasols.
“Crap,” I said.
“In a word,” Hurley agreed.
The jubilance was choked moments later when the next hitter lifted a weak pop-up. Waterman moved in rapidly to take it.
“Two, Freddy!” George sprinted behind him to third base. “Two!”
Waterman settled under the ball, cupped his hands—and deliberately let it roll off his fingers. He snatched the ball from the sod, wheeled, and fired to George, who kicked the bag and rammed the ball to Sweasy at second. The chagrined runners were frozen. Double play!
The Mutuals argued vehemently that Waterman had caught the ball before grounding it, but the umpire ruled against him. When the confusion settled, the next Mute stepped in, swung hard, and tipped the ball straight back. Allison sprang high and speared it. He ran from the diamond yelling and holding the ball aloft triumphantly.
We’d escaped. I sat down and breathed again.
Stockings 2, Mutuals 2.
Andy was up. I moved close as he wiped his bat with his lucky rag. His face was taut. I knew he was still down on himself for dropping the foul in the eighth. Jaw muscles bunched, he stalked to the plate. I wanted to look away as he took his stance—feet wide apart, crouched slightly, choking up on the bat—and looked out at Wolters in the crowd’s stillness. He watched a high pitch go by, then got what he wanted. He swung and drilled the ball on a low line toward left. The Mute shortstop jumped, knocked it down, threw quickly. Andy’s legs blurred on the baseline. He left his feet and hurled himself at the bag as the throw came.
“Safe!”
“Yeah,” I screamed. “OH, YEAH!”
Andy looked for Harry’s sign. Steal. He broke for second on the next pitch—and slipped and sprawled. It took half the Mutes to run him down. Andy trudged to the bench, head low and cap pulled down over his eyes. I knew better than to say a word.
“Stir ’em, Acey!” yelled Hurley.
Working his toothpick, Brainard turned smoothly on Wolters’s pitch and rapped the ball safely to left. To our surprise—and certainly the Mutes’—the slow-footed pitcher didn’t stop. Hunt fielded the ball and threw it in without realizing Brainard’s intent. Even so, the cutoff man had plenty of time to nail him at second. But the Mutes’ alarmed shouts must have flustered him. He launched the ball ten feet over the leaping second baseman, allowing Brainard to puff into third.
We hooted and pounded each other. Wolters looked sick; it would take a miracle to hold us now. His very next pitch skidded on the plate and went through the hapless catcher’s legs. Brainard trotted home with the winning run. I hugged Hurley till he sputtered, then lifted Andy and pummeled him till he laughed with the rest of us.
After police had cleared a few maniacs off the field we played the contest to the last out—a nonsensical practice. Sweasy slammed a triple through the Mutes’ dispirited outfield and scored on Mac’s infield out to add a meaningless run—except perhaps to bettors—to our total.
Stockings 4, Mutuals 2.
We stood together, arms entwined, cheering the Mutes, cheering Brainard, grinning and thumping each other, and then singing at the top of our lungs.
“Standing in the central box
The “Brainy” one is found,
He beats the world in tossing balls
And covering the ground.
And as the pitcher of our nine,
He seldom needs to change.
For those will find who play behind—
Our Asa has the range!
Oh, we are a band of ball players
From Cincinnati City . . .”
It occurred to me even then, in the midst of it all, that this heady feeling of belonging, of achieving together, of winning, was high up among the very sweetest things I knew. The others’ faces showed something of the same. That happy circle in the middle of the Williamsburg diamond is burned in my memory.
Chapter 9
That night Earle’s Hotel reigned as New York’s sporting center. Reporters and fans besieged us. Brainard, Waterman, and George were in heavy demand as stars of the victory. Harry was as euphoric as I’d ever seen him.
“Thirteen blanks!” marveled a bearded reporter I later learned was Henry Chadwick, dean of America’s baseball writers, waving his notebook and citing the number of scoreless innings. “Magnificent contest! Most scientific on record!” He claimed it even surpassed the recent rowing championship between Yale and Harvard. “You western boys are rekindling the national game here, no doubt about it!”
The lobby buzzed with speculation about tomorrow’s Atlantic
