Chapter 40: Final Game

Chapter 40: Final Game

The publicity was immense from the opening, and the local paper did a big piece on it obviously being the most important event in the community for the week. But that wasn’t all; the state paper also mentioned it in an entertainment news piece.

But the thing that really surprised everyone was the national exposure, it got into the national papers, the opening was mentioned, but the kiss Bailee gave me was the main news, a picture of us lip locked was shown. There was also coverage on the television, both in the news and entertainment sections, the event was mentioned again, but it seemed that the kiss was more exciting news to the nation than anything else.

I got a lot of attention at school the next week due to it, lots of the kids wanted the low down on what happened, and I of course didn’t give out any details, just saying that Bailee had become a friend. That got a lot of laughter, the guys all saying they would love to be friends with Bailee if she would kiss them too. Meanwhile the girls would just start giggling uncontrollably.

I just hoped the current popularity I had would continue, for making friends rather than for popularity sake. I had one I knew was talking to me purely for her own sake, Chloe was happy for me to be around her hoping some of my popularity would rub off on her. She had readily accepted me attending her friends gathering at the pizza place, it wouldn’t be a long stint, since I would probably be tired after the afternoon game of JV baseball on Saturday.

That was going to be interesting in itself, of the freshman team, Tim, Ben, Jerry and myself had been given permission to play in the JV team. Our reserves would take our positions for the final freshman game. It would be interesting to see if they could continue the teams winning ways without the top four performing players. Coach Stevens was just hoping the opposition team better players would also be trying out for their own JV squad.

The four players dropping out of the team had agreed to make the effort to travel Friday night to support our team. It was still our team, even if we didn’t play for them this weekend.

The game was not very good, Coach Stevens had been correct; the other team’s best players were not playing either. It was a game more of mistakes rather than good play, our pitchers did well, stopping them for being able to score easily, though a run or two was given up. It was more our batting just wasn’t up to our usual standard; we also got a run here and there. The game was tight going into the fifth innings, we were one run up, we were batting second, and if we could contain them for one more inning we would win. I think the four of us in the stands were making as much noise as the rest of the crowd combined, as we cheered our team mates on. Unfortunately a home run actually put us now a run down before we could close the inning out. Our team battered the best they did the whole game managing to retake the lead in the sudden death inning.

Our game on Saturday was a twelve o’clock start, I kinda of understand now why the JV had struggled all season, playing in the heat of the day, with the sun in your eyes, wasn’t the best conditions to play in to say the least.

Even though our last game of the season was away again, it was in Albany, so it was only a quick journey.

Coach Jamison was our new coach for the day, I wondered what he would do with me with our past history, when I saw the team sheet I knew, I was put in as the second baseman and batting number seven, not the best, but since we were freshman didn’t really expect much else, Jerry was batting at five, Ben at six. Tim wasn’t in the batting line up, he was pitcher number four, I was five if required.

The one sour note was another new name on the JV team. Somehow Jeff Nobel had also managed to be added to the JV squad. I was guessing his dad’s pressure on the principal and coaches had finally paid off. The only redeeming fact was he was in fielding as the leftfielder and batting number eight.

The crowd for the game was less than the game for the freshman the night before which was disappointing.

The game started with our team batting, we didn’t start well the guy’s only got one hit and a player on base before ring up three outs. Our players would open in the next inning with our little core of players starting.

I had a couple of plays in the first inning. The JV short stop had more plays, but didn’t make the most of the opportunities he was presented with. Still we managed to hold them to a single run before we got them out. From the looks of their scorecard, they had a number of freshman players like we did, the guys who had not played last night in the freshman game.

The second inning started off just like our freshman games, Jerry and Ben both got good hits, putting themselves onto bases, Ben had a better hit, so they were on second and third. I only needed a reasonable hit for Jerry to be able to get home for our first run. I had to lay off the first pitch, it was a lot better than what we had been used to, a curveball that came close to me, but turned enough to catch some of the home plate for a strike. His second pitch was a fastball with some good heat on it, but it was dead straight without any dip or swing on it, I saw it well at got a nice hit on it, you really knew when it came off the middle of the bat, the sound was just different, it zoomed into the outfield, still in the air but coming down before the outfielders, it bounced past the diving centerfielder, with his miss it was heading towards the fence.

Their leftfielder tracked it down and got a good throw back in to hold me on second, but both Jerry and Ben had made home for us to take a one run lead. We still had everyone in play if we could get some more good hits we could increase our lead. Jeff like his whole season was awful at the plate, with two strikes trying to swing that hard that if had caught it clean, he might have had a chance of a home run, as it was he did hit the third pitch, but grounded it to third, who with a quick throw to first got Jeff out. Jeff slammed his bat into the ground and trudged back to the bench bemoaning his bad luck. Me and Ben struggled to contain ourselves from bursting out in laughter, he had done the same thing every time he had got out in the games he played for us, it was always bad luck or foul throws in his mind that caused him to get out, not his pitiful batting.

The pitchers couldn’t buy a hit, but the number one batter in our rotation did get to first base before the number two batter grounded out to the pitcher for the last out of the inning.

Our second pitcher was actually able to stop them from scoring so we kept our slender lead, going back into bat.

Our first batter in the second inning, the third in our order, struck out, the fourth managed a weak hit which just split the pitcher and second baseman, allowing him to dash to first base, sliding in before the ball arrived. Jerry was unfortunate in that his good hit got caught by a diving centerfielder at full stretch. Ben also got on base, but only through poor pitching, he got a walk. I was back up with two outs, and I was kind of used to the pressure by now though. The pitching was pretty poor against me as well, I wasn’t actually sure if it wasn’t intentional, if I walked then the bases would be loaded, but the bottom of our order had done so badly in the first inning, that they probably thought that they wouldn’t be able to take the pressure and get out before we could get a runner home. His second pitch was meant to be a change up, but it was so poor it struggled to reach the plate at knee height, but since I had seen it slowing, I took a shuffle forward to maintain my balance and took a swing at it before it dipped to low. I got another great crack off the bat, due to the angle of my bat it went high but long enough to clear the centerfielder, that was good enough for another double, allowing Ben to run home for another two runs, our lead was now three.