第34章 THE KNOCKER(3)

Two runs on two pitched balls! That was an opening to stir an exacting audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm.The Denver manager peremptorily called Keene off the diamond and sent in Steele, a south-paw, who had always bothered Pat's left-handed hitters.That move showed his astute judgment, for Steele struck out McReady and retired Curtis and Mahew on easy chances.

It was Dalgren's turn to pitch and though he had shown promise in several games he had not yet been tried out on a team of Denver's strength.

The bleachers gave him a good cheering as he walked into the box, but for all that they whistled their wonder at Pat's assurance in putting him against the Cowboys in an important game.

The lad was visibly nervous and the hard-hitting and loud-coaching Denver players went after him as if they meant to drive him out of the game.Crane stung one to left center for a base, Moody was out on a liner to short, almost doubling up Crane; the fleet-footed Bluett bunted and beat the throw to first; Langly drove to left for what seemed a three-bagger, but Curtis, after a hard run, caught the ball almost off the left-field bleachers.Crane and Bluett advanced a base on the throw-in.Then Kane batted up a high foul-fly.

Burns Carroll, the Kansas City catcher, had the reputation of being a fiend for chasing foul flies, and he dashed at this one with a speed that threatened a hard fall over the players' bench or a collision with the fence.Carroll caught the ball and crashed against the grand stand, but leaped back with an agility that showed that if there was any harm done it had not been to him.

Thus the sharp inning ended with a magnificent play.It electrified the spectators into a fierce energy of applause.With one accord, by baseball instinct, the stands and bleachers and roped-in-sidelines realized it was to be a game of games and they answered to the stimulus with a savage enthusiasm that inspired ballplayers to great plays.

In the first half of the second inning, Steele's will to do and his arm to execute were very like his name.Kansas City could not score.In their half the Denver team made one run by clean hitting.

Then the closely fought advantage see-sawed from one team to the other.It was not a pitchers'

battle, though both men worked to the limit of skill and endurance.They were hit hard.Dazzling plays kept the score down and the innings short.Over the fields hung the portent of something to come, every player, every spectator felt the subtle baseball chance; each inning seemed to lead closer and more thrillingly up to the climax.But at the end of the seventh, with the score tied six and six, with daring steals, hard hits and splendid plays, enough to have made memorable several games, it seemed that the great portentous moment was still in abeyance.

The head of the batting list for Kansas City was up.Hunt caught the first pitched ball squarely on the end of his bat.It was a mighty drive and as the ball soared and soared over the center-field Hunt raced down the base line, and the winged-footed Crane sped outward, the bleachers split their throats.The hit looked good for a home run, but Crane leaped up and caught the ball in his gloved hand.The sudden silence and then the long groan which racked the bleachers was greater tribute to Crane's play than any applause.

Billie Sheldon then faced Steele.The fans roared hoarsely, for Billie had hit safely three times out of four.Steele used his curve ball, but he could not get the batter to go after it.When he had wasted three balls, the never-despairing bleachers howled: ``Now, Billie, in your groove!

Sting the next one!'' But Billie waited.One strike! Two strikes! Steele cut the plate.That was a test which proved Sheldon's caliber.

With seven innings of exciting play passed, with both teams on edge, with the bleachers wild and the grand stands keyed up to the breaking point, with everything making deliberation almost impossible, Billie Sheldon had remorselessly waited for three balls and two strikes.

``Now!...Now!...Now!'' shrieked the bleachers.

Steele had not tired nor lost his cunning.With hands before him he grimly studied Billie, then whirling hard to get more weight into his motion, he threw the ball.

Billie swung perfectly and cut a curving liner between the first baseman and the base.Like a shot it skipped over the grass out along the foul-line into right field.Amid tremendous uproar Billie stretched the hit into a triple, and when he got up out of the dust after his slide into third the noise seemed to be the crashing down of the bleachers.It died out with the choking gurgling yell of the most leather-lunged fan.

``O-o-o-o-you-Billie-e!''

McReady marched up and promptly hit a long fly to the redoubtable Crane.Billie crouched in a sprinter's position with his eye on the graceful fielder, waiting confidently for the ball to drop.

As if there had not already been sufficient heart-rending moments, the chance that governed baseball meted out this play; one of the keenest, most trying known to the game.Players waited, spectators waited, and the instant of that dropping ball was interminably long.Everybody knew Crane would catch it; everybody thought of the wonderful throwing arm that had made him famous.Was it possible for Billie Sheldon to beat the throw to the plate?

Crane made the catch and got the ball away at the same instant Sheldon leaped from the base and dashed for home.Then all eyes were on the ball.It seemed incredible that a ball thrown by human strength could speed plateward so low, so straight, so swift.But it lost its force and slanted down to bound into the catcher's hands just as Billie slid over the plate.

By the time the bleachers had stopped stamping and bawling, Curtis ended the inning with a difficult grounder to the infield.

Once more the Kansas City players took the field and Burns Carroll sang out in his lusty voice:

``Keep lively, boys! Play hard! Dig 'em up an'