CHAPTER XXIX
A GLORIOUS VICTORY
It was the morning of the day of the big game—the final contest between Morningside and Excelsior for the possession of the Blue Banner. So far the two nines were tied as regards their percentage of victories, and the banner would go to whoever won the diamond battle on this occasion.
Dr. Fillmore, after hearing Luke's confession, had sent a messenger to Joe's room with instructions to see if our hero and Tom were asleep. The apartment was in darkness and quiet reigned when the messenger listened, so he reported that both lads were slumbering. But he was not altogether right, for Joe tossed restlessly on his pillow and thought bitterly of the morrow.
"Well, as long as he is asleep," remarked the good doctor to the coach whom 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 and the 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 to suspend him, of course, I didn't even ask him to inform on the guilty ones. I really couldn't, you know."
"No, I suppose not. But I'm glad Joe is going to play. I think we shall win."
"I hope so," murmured Dr. Fillmore.
The surprise and gratification of the students may easily be surmised when the next morning at chapel. Dr. Fillmore made his announcement, stating that Joe had been on probation under a misapprehension, and that now 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 the teachers took the trouble to stop it. Joe's face was burning red, his heart was thumping like a trip hammer, but he was the happiest lad in school.
"Oh, it's great! Glorious! I can't talk! Whoop!" yelled Teeter, once out of chapel, as he balanced himself on his toes.
"Say, old man, it's too good to be true!" cried Peaches, yelling and capering about until his usually fair complexion was like that of a beet.
"We'll make Morningside look like thirty cents!" declared Tom.
"Come on, you and Ward get in all the practice you can," ordered Peaches.
The game was to be played on the Morningside diamond, this having been decided by lot, the choice having fallen to the rivals of Excelsior.
"We'll, we'll beat 'em on their own grounds!" declared Peaches, when he and 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 and women, too; old graduates, students from both schools, many from other schools in the league, for this was the wind-up of the season.
Out on the diamond trotted the Morningside nine, to be greeted with a roar of cheers. They began practice at once, and it was noticed that Sam 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, and they, too, began batting and catching practice. Then, after a little delay 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 the Excelsior players to face Pitcher Clay. The two nines were the same as had 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 and Morningside. For three innings neither side got a run, goose eggs going up in regular succession until, as is generally the case "pitchers' fight" began to be heard spoken on the stands and side lines. And truly it 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 umpire called strikes on them.
But there had to be a break, and it came in the fourth inning. In their half of that Excelsior again had to retire without a run, and the four circles looked rather strange on the score board.
Then something happened. Joe was delivering a puzzling drop, but his hand slipped, the curve broke at the wrong moment and the batter hit it for three bases. That looked like the beginning of the end for a little while, as the Morningside lads seemed to have struck a winning streak and they had three runs to their credit when Joe, after having struck two men out, caught a hot liner himself and retired the third man.
"Three to nothing," murmured Captain Ward as his men came in to bat again. "It looks bad—looks bad."
"That will only give us an appetite," declared Joe. "You'll see," and it 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 field again; danced and shouted, even jumping over each other in the exuberance 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 the figures. Their rivals were two ahead in the fifth inning and Baseball Joe, 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 his enthusiastic lads. "Play hard—play hard!"
Morningside managed to get one run in their half of the fifth, but when Excelsior came up for her stick-work again she easily demonstrated her superiority over the other lads. Four runs went to her credit, and only one to the rival team, and then, as Peaches said, "it was all over but the 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 her opponent; four in the eighth, while Joe held the enemy hitless in their half of that inning, brought the score to the tally of fifteen to six in favor of our friends.
"Let's make it an even 20 fellows!" proposed Teeter when they came to have their last raps in the ninth. "We can do it!"
"Sure!" his mates assured him, and it did seem possible, for Morningside appeared to have gone to pieces. Ted Clay was being batted all over the field, his support was poor, while the Morningside lads could not seem to find the ball.
In desperation, that last inning, Sam Morton was sent in, and he faced Joe 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, when Morningside prepared to take her last chance to retrieve her falling fortunes.
And Joe did. Amid a riot of cheers he struck three men out in quick succession, and a final goose egg went up in the last frame, the score reading:
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 front of the Morningside stand, where it had flaunted in the breeze, and presented to Captain Ward Gerard, who proudly marched about the diamond with it at the head of his victorious lads.