Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/299

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OUT AT THE PLATE!

rar and could have fielded the ball had not Farrar attended to it. As it was the batsman was satisfied with one base, although the runner ahead reached third in safety.

Tom Haley had begun to warm up back of first base now. That his services would be required was soon evident, for Nostrand put himself in a hole with the next batsman and finally watched him walk to first and fill the bases. Then Dick nodded, Nostrand dropped the ball and walked out and Clearfield cheered lustily as Tom Haley peeled off his sweater. Going into the box with the bases full, even when there are two out, isn't a thing to rejoice and be merry over, but, as Fudge confided to Perry just then, Tom Haley had been put together without nerves. Tom sped some fast and rather wild ones in the general direction of Lanny while the Springdale shortstop leaned on his bat and watched satirically, and the Blue's supporters expressed derision. But none of the Clearfield fellows were worried by Tom's apparent wildness. Tom always did that when he went as a relief pitcher. And then he usually tied the batsman in knots!

Tom did that very thing now. He landed the first ball squarely across the center of the plate.

He put the next one shoulder-high across the in-

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