ked the bleachers was greater
tribute to Crane's play than any applause.

Billie Sheldon then faced Steele. The fans roared hoarsely, for Billie
had hit safely three times out of four. Steele used his curve ball,
but he could not get the batter to go after it. When he had wasted
three balls, the never-despairing bleachers howled: "Now, Billie, in
your groove! Sting the next one!" But Billie waited. One strike! Two
strikes! Steele cut the plate. That was a test which proved Sheldon's
caliber.

With seven innings of exciting play passed, with both teams on edge,
with the bleachers wild and the grand stands keyed up to the breaking
point, with everything making deliberation almost impossible, Billie
Sheldon had remorselessly waited for three balls and two strikes.

"Now! ... Now! ... Now!" shrieked the bleachers.

Steele had not tired nor lost his cunning. With hands before him he
grimly studied Billie, then whirling hard to get more weight into his
motion, he threw the ball.

Billie swung perfectly and cut a curving liner between the first
baseman and the base. Like a shot it skipped over the grass out along
the foul-line into right field. Amid tremendous uproar Billie
stretched the hit into a triple, and when he got up out of the dust
after his slide into third the noise seemed to be the crashing down of
the bleachers. It died out with the choking gurgling yell of the most
leather-lunged fan.

"O-o-o-o-you-Billie-e!"

McReady marched up and promptly hit a long fly to the redoubtable
Crane. Billie crouched in a sprinter's position with his eye on the
graceful fielder, waiting confidently for the ball to drop. As if there
had not already been sufficient heart-rending moments, the chance that
governed baseball meted out this play; one of the keenest, most trying
known to the game. Players waited, spectators waited, and the instant
of that dropping ball was interminably long. Everybody knew Crane
would catch it; everybody thought of the wonderful throwing arm that
had made him famous. Was it possible for Billie Sheldon to beat the
throw to the plate?

Crane made the catch and got the ball away at the same instant Sheldon
leaped from the base and dashed for home. Then all eyes were on the
ball. It seemed incredible that a ball thrown by human strength could
speed plateward so low, so straight, so swift. But it lost its force
and slanted down to bound into the catcher's hands just as Billie slid