Sophomore Campaign by Frank; Nappi Page B

check swing dying quail that fell in between Arky Fries and Amos Ruffings. The crowd cursed the ill-fated knock but soon rose to their feet to salute the exemplary effort of their favorite pitcher. It was quite a run. Twenty-three straight hitters.
    Mickey smiled, and tipped his cap to the adoring masses only after Danvers and Pee Wee had run in from their positions to tell him that such a show of appreciation was in order. Then Mickey thanked them all again by disposing of the next hitter with three straight fastballs.
    Under a patch of late afternoon sky that had suddenly blanched, illuminating the silhouettes of the players in the field as though they were clay idols glued to a game board, Danvers walked to the plate to leadoff the home half of the eighth. Lefty, working on quite a gem of his own, readied himself for the next frame, vowing not to let Mickey and the Brewers get the best of him. He was thinking about a game last year, when he got too cute in the late innings trying to make the perfect pitch. He had been cruising along, just liketoday, destined for a win and all sorts of adulation and attention, when a walk to the leadoff man opened the flood gates and ultimately lead to a rousing Brewer comeback victory. His eyes grew dim remembering.
    Danvers was recalling the same thing. Lefty was not that hard to read. Even though Boxcar was slumping, and had looked awful at the plate all day long, Lefty would not want to put the go ahead run on base to start the inning. The idea of pitching around him to get to Boxcar was absurd. With this thought planted firmly in his mind, Danvers dug in and waited like a dispossessed child standing at a candy counter, about to sample a delicacy he had not tasted in quite some time.
First ball, fastball
, he told himself, licking his lips. Here it comes.
    Lefty did not disappoint. He reared back and grooved a fat, belt high heater that appeared to Danvers to be spinning in suspended animation. He could not recall the last time he had seen a ball so clearly. He laughed silently to himself as the laces spun closer and closer. How he had longed for this moment—when he could jam his bat up the ass of this pompous, self-absorbed jerk who had betrayed all of them.
God I can’t wait to see his face
, he mused. It was the last thought he had in his head before the bat struck the ball cleanly, a thunderous crash that launched the little white sphere into prodigious orbit. A collective jolt of rapturous expectation followed. All eyes in the ballpark traced the flight of the ball as it soared and scraped the sky with a majestic trajectory that sent the hoards of Brewer faithful into a breathless frenzy while leaving Lefty and the entire Ranger contingent crestfallen once it had landed safely some thirty-five feet beyond the leftfield wall.
    Danvers savored his trip around the bases, reveling in the shower of praise raining down from the fevered crowd. His gait was buoyant, his strides short and deliberate, celebratory steps thatfanned the crowd’s fire while drawing the ire of the humiliated pitcher.
    â€œDon’t dig in too far next time, pretty boy,” Lefty jawed as Danvers continued his victory jaunt. “Or there’s gonna be one less asshole to worry about.”
    With one run to his credit, Mickey seemed oddly taller, more powerful and looming as he stood on the mound with just three outs to go. The Rangers had scarcely touched the burly fireballer all afternoon. They had generated nothing at all offensively.
    All they had to show for a day’s work was a check swing dunker that had barely eluded the glove of Arky Fries. And now they had just three outs to work with—three shots to get the game tied and back into the hands of
their
ace.
    â€œLet’s wake up, boys!” McNally barked wildly. He was looking into the Brewer dugout and scowling at the look of confidence, affixed to Arthur Murphy’s face. “I will not—uh,
we
will not lose to