The Redheaded Outfield, and Other Baseball StoriesGrey, Zane
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The Redheaded Outfield, and Other Baseball Stories
Grey, Zane
Baseball stories, American; Fiction; Short stories
With Pannell up, I saw that the Rube held in on his speed, or else he
was tiring. Pannell hit the second slow ball for two bases. Vane
sacrificed, and then the redoubtable Schultz came up. He appeared to be
in no hurry to bat. Then I saw that the foxy Buffalo players were
working to tire the Rube. They had the situation figured. But they
were no wiser than old Spears.
"Make 'em hit, Rube. Push 'em straight over. Never mind the corners.
We don't care for a few runs. We'll hit this game out."
Shultz flied to Mac, who made a beautiful throw to the plate too late
to catch Pannell. Carl deliberately bunted to the right of the Rube
and it cost the big pitcher strenuous effort to catch his man.
"We got the Rube waggin'!" yelled a Buffalo player.
Manning tripled down the left foul line--a hit the bleachers called a
screamer. When Ellis came up, it looked like a tie score, and when the
Rube pitched it was plain that he was tired. The Bisons yelled their
assurance of this and the audience settled into quiet. Ellis batted a
scorcher that looked good for a hit. But the fast Ashwell was moving
with the ball, and he plunged lengthwise to get it square in his glove.
The hit had been so sharp that he had time to get up and make the throw
to beat the runner. The bleachers thundered at the play.
"You're up, Rube," called Spears. "Lam one out of the lot!"
The Rube was an uncertain batter. There was never any telling what he
might do, for he had spells of good and bad hitting. But when he did
get his bat on the ball it meant a chase for some fielder. He went up
swinging his huge club, and he hit a fly that would have been an easy
home run for a fast man. But the best Rube could do was to reach third
base. This was certainly good enough, as the bleachers loudly
proclaimed, and another tally for us seemed sure.
McCall bunted toward third, another of his teasers. The Rube would
surely have scored had he started with the ball, but he did not try and
missed a chance. Wiler, of course, held the ball, and Mac got to first
without special effort. He went down on the first pitch. Then Ash
lined to Carl. The Rube waited till the ball was caught and started
for home. The crowd screamed, the Rube ran for all he was worth and
Carl's throw to the plate shot in low and true. Ellis blocked the Rube
and tagged him out.
It looked to the bleachers as if Ellis had been unnecessarily rough,
and they hissed and stormed disapproval. As for me, I knew the Bisons
were losing no chance to wear out my pitcher. Stringer fouled out with
Mac on third, and it made him so angry that he threw his bat toward the
bench, making some of the boys skip lively.
The next three innings, as far as scoring was concerned, were all for
Buffalo. But the Worcester infield played magnificent ball, holding
their opponents to one run each inning.
That made the score 4 to 2 in favor of Buffalo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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