CHAPTER XXIX
A GLORIOUS VICTORY
It was the morning of the day of the big game--the final contest betweenMorningside and Excelsior for the possession of the Blue Banner. So farthe two nines were tied as regards their percentage of victories, andthe banner would go to whoever won the diamond battle on this occasion.
Dr. Fillmore, after hearing Luke's confession, had sent a messenger toJoe's room with instructions to see if our hero and Tom were asleep. Theapartment was in darkness and quiet reigned when the messenger listened,so he reported that both lads were slumbering. But he was not altogetherright, for Joe tossed restlessly on his pillow and thought bitterly ofthe morrow.
"Well, as long as he is asleep," remarked the good doctor to the coachwhom he had summoned, "we won't tell him the good news until to-morrow.He'll need his rest if he is to pitch against Morningside."
"Then you're going to remove the probation ban, Dr. Fillmore?" asked Dr.Rudden eagerly.
"Of course. I shall make the announcement at chapel, and wish Matson andthe others of the nine all success."
"And you don't yet know who pulled down the statue?"
"No. It was manly of Fodick to confess, and though I shall have tosuspend him, of course, I didn't even ask him to inform on the guiltyones. I really couldn't, you know."
"No, I suppose not. But I'm glad Joe is going to play. I think we shallwin."
"I hope so," murmured Dr. Fillmore.
The surprise and gratification of the students may easily be surmisedwhen the next morning at chapel, Dr. Fillmore made his announcement,stating that Joe had been on probation under a misapprehension, and thatnow the ban was removed he could play ball.
"And I hope that he and the others of the nine play their very best,"concluded the head of the school, "and win!"
There was a spontaneous cheer, and neither the doctor nor any of theteachers took the trouble to stop it. Joe's face was burning red, hisheart was thumping like a trip hammer, but he was the happiest lad inschool.
"Oh, it's great! Glorious! I can't talk! Whoop!" yelled Teeter, once outof chapel, as he balanced himself on his toes.
"Say, old man, it's too good to be true!" cried Peaches, yelling andcapering about until his usually fair complexion was like that of abeet.
"We'll make Morningside look like thirty cents!" declared Tom.
"Come on, you and Ward get in all the practice you can," orderedPeaches.
The game was to be played on the Morningside diamond, this having beendecided by lot, the choice having fallen to the rivals of Excelsior.
"Well, we'll beat 'em on their own grounds!" declared Peaches, when heand the others of the nine, with some substitutes, and a host of"rooters" and supporters, departed for the contest.
What a crowd was there to see! What hosts of pretty girls! Men andwomen, too; old graduates, students from both schools, many from otherschools in the league, for this was the wind-up of the season.
Out on the diamond trotted the Morningside nine, to be greeted with aroar of cheers. They began practice at once, and it was noticed thatSam Morton was "warming up."
"They're going to use two pitchers all right," observed Tommy Barton."Guess they heard that Joe was going to be on deck again."
A noisy welcome awaited the Excelsior nine as they trotted out, andthey, too, began batting and catching practice. Then, after a littledelay and the submitting of batting orders, the details were completed,and once again the umpire gave his stirring call:
"Play ball!"
Morningside was to bat last and so George Bland was the first of theExcelsior players to face Pitcher Clay. The two nines were the same ashad met a few weeks previously.
"Play ball!" called the umpire again, and the game was on.
It was a memorable battle. They talk of it to this day at Excelsior andMorningside. For three innings neither side got a run, goose eggs goingup in regular succession until, as is generally the case "pitchers'fight" began to be heard spoken on the stands and side lines. And trulyit was rather that way. Both Joe Matson and Ted Clay were at their best,and man after man fanned the air helplessly, or stood while the umpirecalled strikes on them.
But there had to be a break, and it came in the fourth inning. In theirhalf of that Excelsior again had to retire without a run, and the fourcircles looked rather strange on the score board.
Then something happened. Joe was delivering a puzzling drop, but hishand slipped, the curve broke at the wrong moment and the batter hit itfor three bases. That looked like the beginning of the end for a littlewhile, as the Morningside lads seemed to have struck a winning streakand they had three runs to their credit when Joe, after having strucktwo men out, caught a hot liner himself and retired the third man.
"Three to nothing," murmured Captain Ward as his men came in to batagain. "It looks bad--looks bad."
"That will only give us an appetite," declared Joe. "You'll see," andit did seem as if he were a prophet, for the rivals of Morningside,evidently on desperation bent, "found" Ted Clay, rapped out five runs,putting them two ahead, and then the crowd went wild.
So did Joe and his mates. They fairly danced as they took the fieldagain; danced and shouted, even jumping over each other in theexuberance of their joy.
"We've got 'em going! We've got 'em going!" they yelled.
Glumly, and almost in a daze, the Morningside players looked at thefigures. Their rivals were two ahead in the fifth inning and BaseballJoe, the pitcher on whom so much depended, was "as fresh as a daisy,"as Tom declared.
"But we haven't won the game by a whole lot!" warned Captain Ward to hisenthusiastic lads. "Play hard--play hard!"
Morningside managed to get one run in their half of the fifth, but whenExcelsior came up for her stick-work again she easily demonstrated hersuperiority over the other lads. Four runs went to her credit, and onlyone to the rival team, and then, as Peaches said, "it was all over butthe shouting."
"The game is in the ice box now, all right," Teeter added.
And so it was. Two runs for Excelsior in the seventh to one for heropponent; four in the eighth, while Joe held the enemy hitless in theirhalf of that inning, brought the score to the tally of fifteen to six infavor of our friends.
"Let's make it an even 20 fellows!" proposed Teeter when they came tohave their last raps in the ninth. "We can do it!"
"Sure!" his mates assured him, and it did seem possible, for Morningsideappeared to have gone to pieces. Ted Clay was being batted all over thefield, his support was poor, while the Morningside lads could not seemto find the ball.
In desperation, that last inning, Sam Morton was sent in, and he facedJoe with a scowl on his face. But Sam could not stem the winning tide,and he was batted for five runs, making the even twenty.
"Now, hold 'em down, Joe--don't let 'em get a run!" urged Teeter, whenMorningside prepared to take her last chance to retrieve her fallingfortunes.
And Joe did. Amid a riot of cheers he struck three men out in quicksuccession, and a final goose egg went up in the last frame, the scorereading:
Excelsior, 20; Morningside, 6.
"The Blue Banner is ours! The Blue Banner comes back where it belongs!"yelled Joe, and then, amid a silence, the banner was taken from in frontof the Morningside stand, where it had flaunted in the breeze, andpresented to Captain Ward Gerard, who proudly marched about the diamondwith it at the head of his victorious lads.
Baseball Joe on the School Nine; or, Pitching for the Blue Banner Page 29
