Our bunch had been fighting with the Highlanders and the Buccaneers since mid-July for first place, and we shared it between us. I remember that on the second of August all three of us were tied for first place—a mighty unusual thing in any league.
The Reds? Oh, they weren’t in the pennant race at all, but they were scrapping with the Sailors for the leadership of the second division and were giving trouble to every one of the leading trio. Connor had gotten together one of those untrue-to-form teams which disrupt dope books and make baseball the fascinating game that it is.
They’d lose a couple of series to the tail-enders and then knock the stuffing out of the leaders. And Bill Davis was leading the league in stolen bases and swelling the hospital expenses of all the clubs.
And the funny part of it was that he was clever and never spiked a man unless that man was in his way. Nine times out of ten he could have avoided, it, but it was his policy to scare ’em; and while mighty few of our basemen had any yellow in their make-ups, it takes more than the usual amount of nerve to stand up again a flying, glinting set of spikes when they’ve got a hundred and seventy pounds of body behind ’em.
Early in September we took four straight from the Sailors and clawed our way into first place. Then came the Reds. And in the very first game of the series Thomson, our star catcher, broke his leg sliding for second!
Every game counted—every run counted, and there wasn’t a thing for Shay to do but to put Nellie behind the bat. Gardner, our third catcher, was a good enough man, but he was green and his whip wasn’t what it should have been. And the Reds were playing pennant ball at that particular time.
We needed a real man behind the bat—and it was Nellie—or run a big risk of dropping a majority of the games in the Reds’ series.
Gardner finished out the game in which Thomson broke his leg—and which he won, by the way—but four men stole on him; Davis twice—and that night Shay closeted himself with Nellie. I heard the details of the conversation later.
Shay started out paternal-fashion by lecturing Nellie. He instructed him in team-spirit and stressed the importance of burying private differences for the sake of the team. He told him that it was the duty every man owed to his club, and all that sort of stuff. Nellie was a sincere little guy and he took it all in serious as a judge.
“And so,” Shay winds up, “I’ve got to put you in regularly from now to the end of the season. We have a chance for that pennant, but it’s only a fighting chance, and unless we keep a maximum of efficiency and fighting strength we’re going to be nosed out at the finish.
“It’s up to you to forget that you and the Wild Man are enemies and play the best way you can for the team. I ain’t asking you to swallow anything from him, or to let him run you away from the plate if he gets near home—but I am putting you on your honor not to get mixed up with him in a fight or anything—and so put yourself out of the game for days and days. We need you and—”
And, of course, Nellie agreed.
That was a pretty rotten position for Nellie and it couldn’t help showing in his manner. But the next day’s game passed all right, except that Davis taunted Nellie every time he came to the bat and made fun of the grim-jawed catcher, who refused to answer.
After the game Nellie exploded.
“Th’ damn hound!” he roared. “Here I am, tied and bound and pledged not to hit ’im and he goes out there and gets my goat! I’ll show him—I’ll show him! I tell you, I’ll prove that guy the biggest four-flush that ever lived!”
That was the second time he threatened to prove Davis a four-flush and I commenced to wonder just what he meant.
The game next day was one of those slugging, seesaw contests which rouse the fans to a frenzy. There wasn’t standing room in the park and it was just our luck that ground rules were in effect. I’ll bet the Panther management made enough to finance a war that year.
* * * *
They knocked me out of the box in the third inning and we slammed their pitcher all over the lot in the fifth.
The eighth inning ended with the Reds one run behind—the score being six to five in our favor. One run would tie the game for them, and two would probably win, as they had Rudy Beiger in the box, and he was pitching air-tight ball at that time.
The first man up went out, and then the Wild Man came to the bat. While he was waiting he turned to Nellie.
“You been standin’ a heap from me lately,” he said evilly. “I reckon I must have hammered some respect into that ivory skull of yours that day we fought.”
Nellie’s jaw grew mighty firm and he turned away. Then Davis laughed derisively.
“Yellow!” he said.
Nellie faced him squarely. “You four-flush!” he said.
And then he said something else—I couldn’t catch just what it was, but Davis half way staggered back and then looked as though he was going to hit Nelligan. And Nelligan just smiled and repeated the thing, whatever it was.
Sandy thought it must be something about the girl we thought was mixed up in the affair, but I do know that I never saw a man show such terrible anger as Davis showed that minute. He was the wild man then, all right, all right.
And I knew, just as well as I knew my name, that if Davis got the chance he was going to spike Nellie—and spike him hard!
The crowd was wild by this time. Our two rivals had lost that day, as the left field scoreboard showed, and a victory meant a two-game lead for us over the next club.
We’d been ahead and then they’d wrested the lead from us, and then we’d gone ahead again. There was one out now—two more and we had the game without playing our half of the ninth.
The first one sizzled across the outside corner of the pan, but I reckon Davis was too shaky mad to see it, and he didn’t wake up until the umpire called it a strike and the crowd yelled with glee.
The next one was tempting bait—a fast one just a little more than shoulder high, but Davis had a good eye and let it pass. One strike and one ball.
The next was a spitter, also wide of the platter, and a second ball was called. The next one drifted over—
Davis’s bat cracked against it. There was something sinister in that crack of bat and ball.
The ball shot between center and left, and when it was returned Davis was on second!
The crowd was silent now, deathly silent. The spectators knew better than to rattle their own pitcher.
Scrappy Connor trotted down to the third base coaching box. Davis, perhaps the best base-runner on the league, on second. Things didn’t look any too bright for us.
I wondered what would happen if Davis got a fair chance to come home. I saw him squinting at Nelligan, and I knew that he was more anxious to get his spikes into Nellie’s shins than to score that run. As for Nellie, he was grim-visaged and cold—plain cold mad.
On the second ball pitched Davis streaked for third. Nellie slammed the ball to Masterson on a line—and Masterson fumbled it as Davis’s shiny spikes zipped past him. The crowd groaned again.
Brodie was at bat. He waited until two strikes and one ball had been called and leaned up against the next one. At the crack of bat and ball Davis pelted for home.
The sphere sizzled nastily along the ground between third and short. Freddy Lewis leaped wildly for it, and the ball stuck in his bare hand. Without waiting to straighten up he did what only Freddy Lewis can do—lined the ball like a bullet straight into Nelligan’s waiting mitt.
“Slide!”
It was a roar of command from the bench of the Reds. And you can bet your life that Davis needed no such