Page:Baseball Joe on the School Nine.djvu/253

Rh 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.