Had he not offered it would have been a "called ball." With two strikes called against him, and nothing moving, Hutchins felt the ooze coming out of his neck and forehead.

The Navy had been playing grand ball that spring.

It would never do to let the Army get too easy a start.
But Dick poised, twirled and let go.

It was a straight-away, honest and fair ball that he sent.

To be sure there was a trace of in-shoot about it that made Hutchins misjudge it so that, in the next instant, the passionless umpire sounded the monotonous solo: "Strike three---and out.