Captain Church immediately sacrificed Laird and Beach to third and
second respectively. On his way to the bench, the Jefferson captain put
his right hand on Hollins’ left shoulder as he passed him and Hollins
walked to the plate and gave Laird the signal for the “squeeze” play,
Laird started for home as soon as the pitcher began to wind up and
Hollins hit the ball smartly for a grounder between third and short
which Delvin went after and fumbled. There was no chance to get the
runner at the plate of course. The squeeze had been worked beautifully,
and with the Lowell infield watching for it. Arthur’s fumble was just
bad enough in addition to give Hollins time to get to first and this
and the first score put Black in the hole to such an extent that when
La Joy came up he wanted to give him a base on balls, but only decided
to do so after Hughie gave him the signal from the bench.
This bit of strategy, however, and the hope of thereby retiring the
side on a double play didn’t work for Sam Warcford was the next batter.
Everybody was expecting him to try for a long one but he turned his
best chance into what was better still, a Texas Leaguer in left which
scored Beach.
It began to look like the kind of a game the fans like right there.
The infield came in and Twitchell, the batter, tried to drive one out
of Hans’ reach to his right, but Hans made a beautiful stop and threw
to Gibbie, forcing Hollins.
The Lowell boys breathed a little easier as there were now two out
although the bases were filled.
Roger Brest came to bat and Black had in mind the way Roger had worried
him in the other games and decided to get him. Brest let the first one
go by and it was a strike. The second ball he struck at with a mighty
swing and missed. Roger seemed to be slow in recovering from his swing
and Miner tried to sneak a straight one over on him. But Brest was only
pretending for he hit that ball for about as swift a liner as ever was
hit, about six feet to Hal’s right. It looked like a sure hit and the
Jefferson Singing Club was already cheering Roger when Hal stuck out
his right hand and the ball stuck in his glove. Then it was time for
Lowell to cheer, for the spectacular catch had saved two runs at least,
and four runs in the first half is almost too much of a handicap. It
had been a hard inning for Lowell to get by.
Everson started the ball rolling by hitting the first ball for a single
to right, just to show the other fellows that there were others who
had batting eyes. Captain Larke’s attempt at a safe one through the
pitcher’s box went a little too near where La Joy was playing and
Everson was forced at second.
Talkington tried hard to put one over Twitchell’s head, but all he got
out of it was the satisfaction of seeing that sterling right fielder
make another of his sensational catches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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