Baseball Heartbreak at Robbins' Park
A stellar pitching performance by Walton is undone by a disastrous seventh inning of errors in a local baseball clash.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Yes, we lost. But this time the fans had no license to go home and say, 'Aw, Walton pitched.' Mr. Walton pitched one of the best games seen on the local grounds this year. He had everything and with the right kind of support should have held the visitors to one run. In addition to pitching gilt-edge ball he cracked the sphere for a home run. It was the fatal seventh that turned the trick. Bank errors by the Victors in the seventh combined with two timely base hits had netted the Moose four runs and Walton's four-bagger with one on netted two more. Fine fielding by the locals up to the seventh had held the Victors tame as rabbits. However, the error microbe struck the Moose bunch, and before the boys got the errors out of their systems the Victors were in the lead. The Seattle Elks and the Everett Elks furnished the concert after the big show.
“When the error microbe strikes that Moose bunch there is no stopping it until it goes the rounds.”
Baseball coverage in small-town papers remains a cultural constant, capturing the same 'what could have been' spirit today that it did in 1911. While the specific league names have faded, the frustration of a game lost to unforced errors is universal.
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