The Baseball MEGAPACK ®. Zane Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ fielder running. When I rounded first base I got a good look at this fielder, and though I had seen the greatest outfielders the game ever produced, I never saw one that covered ground so swiftly as he.

      On the ball soared, and began to drop; on the fielder sped, and began to disappear over a little hill back of his position. Then he reached up with a long arm and marvelously caught the ball in one hand. He went out of sight as I touched second base, and the heterogeneous crowd knew about a great play to make more noise than a herd of charging buffalo.

      In the next half inning our opponents, by clean drives, scored two runs and we in our turn again went out ignominiously. When the first of the eighth came we were desperate and clamored for the “rabbit.”

      “I’ve sneaked it in,” said Merritt, with a low voice. “Got it to the umpire on the last passed ball. See, the pitcher’s got it now. Boys, it’s all off but the fireworks! Now, break loose!”

      A peculiarity about the “rabbit” was the fact that though it felt as light as the regulation league ball it could not be thrown with the same speed and to curve it was an impossibility.

      Bane hit the first delivery from our hoosier stumbling block. The ball struck the ground and began to bound toward short. With every bound it went swifter, longer and higher, and it bounced clear over the shortstop’s head. Lake chopped one in front of the plate, and it rebounded from the ground straight up so high that both runners were safe before it came down.

      Doran hit to the pitcher. The ball caromed his leg, scooted fiendishly at the second baseman, and tried to run up all over him like a tame squirrel. Bases full!

      Hathaway got a safe fly over the infield and two runs tallied. The pitcher, in spite of the help of the umpire, could not locate the plate for Balknap, and gave him a base on balls. Bases full again!

      Deerfoot slammed a hot liner straight at the second baseman, which, striking squarely in his hands, recoiled as sharply as if it had struck a wall. Doran scored, and still the bases were filled.

      The laboring pitcher began to get rattled; he could not find his usual speed; he knew it, but evidently could not account for it.

      When I came to bat, indications were not wanting that the Canadian team would soon be up in the air. The long pitcher delivered the “rabbit,” and got it low down by my knees, which was an unfortunate thing for him. I swung on that one, and trotted round the bases behind the runners while the center and left fielders chased the ball.

      Gillinger weighed nearly two hundred pounds, and he got all his weight under the “rabbit.” It went so high that we could scarcely see it. All the infielders rushed in, and after staggering around, with heads bent back, one of them, the shortstop, managed to get under it. The “rabbit” bounded forty feet out of his hands!

      When Snead’s grounder nearly tore the third baseman’s leg off; when Bane’s hit proved as elusive as a flitting shadow; when Lake’s liner knocked the pitcher flat, and Doran’s fly leaped high out of the center fielder’s glove—then those earnest, simple, country ballplayers realized something was wrong. But they imagined it was in themselves, and after a short spell of rattles, they steadied up and tried harder than ever. The motions they went through trying to stop that jumping jackrabbit of a ball were ludicrous in the extreme.

      Finally, through a foul, a short fly, and a scratch hit to first, they retired the side and we went into the field with the score 14 to 2 in our favor.

      But Merritt had not found it possible to get the “rabbit” out of play!

      We spent a fatefully anxious few moments squabbling with the umpire and captain over the “rabbit.” At the idea of letting those herculean railsplitters have a chance to hit the rubber ball we felt our blood run cold.

      “But this ball has a rip in it,” blustered Gillinger. He lied atrociously. A microscope could not have discovered as much as a scratch in that smooth leather.

      “Sure it has,” supplemented Merritt, in the suave tones of a stage villain. “We’re used to playing with good balls.”

      “Why did you ring this one in on us?” asked the captain. “We never threw out this ball. We want a chance to hit it.”

      That was just the one thing we did not want them to have. But fate played against us.

      “Get up on your toes, now and dust,” said Merritt. “Take your medicine, you lazy sit-in-front-of-the-hotel stiffs! Think of pay day!”

      Not improbably we all entertained the identical thought that old man Hathaway was the last pitcher under the sun calculated to be effective with the “rabbit.” He never relied on speed; in fact, Merritt often scornfully accused him of being unable to break a pane of glass; he used principally what we called floaters and a change of pace. Both styles were absolutely impractical with the “rabbit.”

      “It’s comin’ to us, all right, all right!” yelled Deerfoot to me, across the intervening grass. I was of the opinion that it did not take any genius to make Deerfoot’s ominous prophecy.

      Old man Hathaway gazed at Merritt on the bench as if he wished the manager could hear what he was calling him and then at his fellow-players as if both to warn and beseech them. Then he pitched the “rabbit.”

      Crack!

      The big lumbering Canadian rapped the ball at Crab Bane. I did not see it, because it went so fast, but I gathered from Crab’s actions that it must have been hit in his direction. At any rate, one of his legs flopped out sidewise as if it had been suddenly jerked, and he fell in a heap. The ball, a veritable “rabbit” in its wild jumps, headed on for Deerfoot, who contrived to stop it with his knees.

      The next batter resembled the first one, and the hit likewise, only it leaped wickedly at Doran and went through his hands as if they had been paper. The third man batted up a very high fly to Gillinger. He clutched at it with his huge shovel hands, but he could not hold it. The way he pounced upon the ball, dug it out of the grass, and hurled it at Hathaway, showed his anger.

      Obviously Hathaway had to stop the throw, for he could not get out of the road, and he spoke to his captain in what I knew were no complimentary terms.

      Thus began retribution. Those husky lads continued to hammer the “rabbit” at the infielders and as it bounced harder at every bounce so they batted harder at every bat.

      Another singular feature about the “rabbit” was the seeming impossibility for professionals to hold it. Their familiarity with it, their understanding of its vagaries and inconsistencies, their mortal dread made fielding it a much more difficult thing than for their opponents.

      By way of variety, the lambasting Canadians commenced to lambast a few over the hills and far away, which chased Deerfoot and me until our tongues lolled out.

      Every time a run crossed the plate the motley crowd howled, roared, danced and threw up their hats. The members of the batting team pranced up and down the side lines, giving a splendid imitation of cannibals celebrating the occasion of a feast.

      Once Snead stooped down to trap the “rabbit,” and it slipped through his legs, for which his comrades jeered him unmercifully. Then a brawny batter sent up a tremendously high fly between short and third.

      “You take it!” yelled Gillinger to Bane.

      “You take it!” replied the Crab, and actually СКАЧАТЬ