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The New Boys at Oakdale
The New Boys at Oakdale
CHAPTER I – AN ORDER DISOBEYED
Oakdale started the game by hammering Ollie Leach, the Wyndham pitcher, for three runs in the first inning. Indeed, it seemed that they would drive the schoolboy twirler from the slab in short order, and they might have done so only for a snappy, clean-cut double play which put an abrupt end to the fusillade of hits. When the Wyndham captain declined to make a change and sent Leach back to the mound in the second inning, the wondering Oakdalers told one another that they would finish the foolhardy southpaw then and there.
Leach, however, had steadied down a great deal, and the best the visitors could do was to squeeze in one more run, which they practically secured through a rank error by Pelty, the shortstop. At this point the successful batting of the visitors seemed to come to an abrupt end, for during the succeeding four innings Ben Stone was the only man who could hit the left-hander safely.
Meanwhile, Rodney Grant was doing some steady, clever pitching for Oakdale, which, with perfect support, would have prevented the locals from gathering a single tally. Ned Osgood committed the first costly blunder. Covering third for Oakdale, he attempted to make a fancy play on a grounder, and let it get through him, enabling a Wyndham runner to score from second after two were out.
In the fifth, with two Wyndhamites gone, Charley Shultz, in the middle garden, tried to pull down a fly with one hand when he could have easily reached it with both hands, and his muff gave the locals another valuable mark in the scorer’s book.
Jack Nelson, the Oakdale captain, reprimanded Shultz when, following a strike-out, the team trotted to the bench.
“You should have had that fly, Charley,” said Nelson sharply; “and you would have got it if you’d went after it with both hands instead of one. That’s the first time I’ve seen you drop a ball you could reach as easily as that one. Quit your grandstanding and play baseball.”
Shultz shot Nelson a sullen look. “Oh, what’s the use to holler?” he retorted. “I knew best whether I could reach it with both hands or one. I think I know how to play that field.”
Nelson’s teeth came together with a click, and for a moment, his cheeks burning hotly, it seemed that his annoyance and anger would master him, but he succeeded in holding himself in check.
“You can play the field all right, Shultz,” he said, “and it’s just because you can that I disapprove of that attempted fancy flourish. We’ve got to hold these chaps down somehow.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” laughed Osgood optimistically. “We’ve got them beaten now. We won the game in the first inning.”