College stories; Sports stories; Yale University -- Juvenile fiction
"Not on your life," said Quinton with determination. "With one arm
you are better than Barrows with three. He can't hit anything."
And so it was settled that the captain should play in the field and
that Read should go into the box. It was the best thing to do under
the circumstances.
For three innings, Read held the Harvard batters hitless, and hope
began to grow in the team and in the hearts of the team's supporters
that he would last to the end. Turner's home run drive with a man on
base put Yale in the lead with two runs, in the second inning. But in
the fourth, Read, in trying to get a ball over the inside corner of
the plate, hit a batter, and in the endeavor to retrieve his error
by catching the man napping off first base, threw wild to the first
baseman. The result was that before the ball was recovered the runner
was perched, grinning, on third base.
The double error unsteadied Read, who in his endeavor to strike out
the next two batters who were both good waiters, passed them both.
The bases were filled with none out. Then came Harvard's hard-hitting
catcher with a three-base hit which drove in three runs. That ended
Read's efficiency. In the same inning he was hit for a single and two
doubles in succession. The net result of this slaughter, coupled with
a base on balls and two infield errors, gave Harvard six runs before
the side was retired.
Yale added a run in the fifth, but Harvard, now hitting like demons,
and with Read at their mercy, slammed the ball for three more runs.
Yale continued to play with dogged determination against overpowering
odds, striving to hold down the score as low as it might be. The
fielders worked faithfully, but Read was now being hit at will and
many of the balls went safely.
"Let me go in and try to stop this," Frank suggested, as he came to
the bench in the eighth inning.
"No use now," said Quinton. "It's Harvard's day and the game is gone.
Stay where you are and we'll take this back again next Tuesday."
In the eighth and ninth, Read steadied down, but then it was too
late, in spite of a dogged up-hill fight by Yale. The final score
stood 14 to 5.
Read had no appetite that night at the training table.
"Never mind it, old fellow," said Frank, laying his hand on Read's
shoulder. "That happens to the best of them once in a while; forget
it; we'll get them next Tuesday. They had all the breaks of luck,
anyway. It was their day."
"Yes, they had me; I was the best man on they had; I'm disgusted with
myself," and the big pitcher hung his head.
"Forget it," said Frank, and nothing more was said; but in spite of
the assumed cheerfulness it was a quiet lot of ball-players who took
the train for New Haven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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