“I have never tried it,” said Hal, “but if you order me in there, I’ll do my best for you and Lowell.” By that time, however, play had been resumed. The whole team was nervous. They felt that any ball batted to Ross would be missed, and that if they did stop anything, Ross would miss the throw. Miner temporarily lost control again, giving another base on balls, making a man on first and one on second, with nobody out. This helped to increase the nervousness of the whole team, and even Hughie began to lose his nerve apparently. Webb, the batter, hit the next ball pitched for a line drive over Honus’ head, who did the best he could and knocked it down, but too late to get his man at first. Three men on bases and nobody out, and any kind of a hit meant a run, and possibly two. The next man up again directed his attention to Ross, and hit another easy grounder toward him. Ross made a beautiful stop and setting himself deliberately for the throw, for he had plenty of time, threw straight for the plate, but ten feet over Gibbie’s head, and two runs came in, tying the score. Hughie was wild, the team was wild, the Lowell “rooters” were wild, the score was tied, no one out, and Marsh of Armour was on second. Hughie walked over to Hal and said: “Go in; you can’t do any worse than that.” Hal said: “I’ll do my best.” Hal’s entry into the game didn’t help the rest of the team back to confidence any. The whole team was up in the air, and now they had an entirely unknown quantity to deal with at the initial sack. Hal was most nervous of all of them, of course, although as soon as Honus saw what was up he walked over to meet him and said: “Don’t worry, I told you several times you would make a good first baseman, and you paid no attention to me. Now you got to do it.” Of course, the Armour team knew Hal must be untried, or Hughie would not have hesitated so long about putting him in, and they decided if they could, they would continue their attack upon the custodian of first base. The situation now was a tied score, no one out and a man on second. The first man up sent a hot grounder to Honus. He got it, held it long enough to hold the man on second close to the bag, but too long to make the throw to first easy. Therefore he threw it with all his might at Hal, and in doing so he threw it very wide of the bag. Hal saw it coming with the speed of a bullet; he also saw the runner rushing toward him along the base line. His throwing or really his pitching hand was his left hand, and that was bare. To run up the base line far enough to get that ball in his gloved hand meant a collision with the runner, to take it with his bare left probably meant a crippled hand and the loss of his pitching ambition.