Chapter 25

When we got to the field, Nick and my girls were already there (Natalie was watching the younger girls). J Squared, Monique and I immediately formed a four-way hug and chaste kisses were exchanged. Then I tipped my cap and headed for the dugout. I smiled at my coach and he grinned back. “Ready to play some outfield, Tom?”

I gave him my best eager grin, because it was an honest one. “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame. Let’s play two.”

“Now that’s funny!” Coach Daniels laughed. “Here I am telling you that you’re playing outfield instead of shortstop and you quote one of the greatest shortstops who ever played the game,” he said referencing my Ernie Banks quote.

“‘Say, Hey?’” I asked.

“That would be center, not left, Willie Mays,” he grinned, at my quote.

I shrugged. “Sorry, Coach. I got nothing for left field off the top of my head.”

“I’ll let it slide this time,” my coach laughed shaking his head.

I laughed and ran into the dugout to check out the lineup card.

It looked like Coach was rewarding our starting pitcher, hard throwing lefty, Terry Robinson for his good day at the plate in his last start by bumping him up to fifth. Likewise, my new employee Phyllis’ nephew, Jason Manning, was being bumped up to six after hitting the ball hard three times, finally breaking through with an RBI single, after two hard outs. The only two other notable things were that seventh grader, Dylan Moore, was taking my normal position at shortstop and batting eighth. Coach continued the experiment with batting Danny Johnson ninth in the order to create a ‘double lead off ‘situation. The strategy worked out really well with Danny and Paul Clinton executing a double steal in our previous game. In the field, Danny would be moving to right field, with me in left for this game. Rookie Marty Landers, would be out for this game.

I was shaken from my thoughts by Jason Manning.

“What’s up with you and my aunt?”

“Ms. Manning?” I asked.

“Yeah, she and my little cousin Susie came over for dinner last night and she was like ‘Tommy this and Tommy that.’ It’s like she thinks you walk on water or something.”

Well, crap! I didn’t see that coming. I mean once she warmed up to me we got along really nicely.

“My family took over her place of work and I was sounding her out about ideas to improve the company. She was really helpful. I also said some nice things about you, so I guess I made a positive impression,” I explained.

I had hoped Jason would drop the subject, but when I looked up in the stands I saw Phyllis between Jennifer and Monique. A little girl, who I presumed was Susie, was sitting partly on Phyllis’ lap and part way on Jennifer’s lap. I figured the little girl for about four or five. She was adorable and had beautiful auburn hair. All three ladies were laughing and looking out at the field as we practiced.

“Well, for some reason she and Susie are hanging out with your friends instead of my parents,” he said patting me on the shoulder, as he walked back into the infield.

Jennifer took that moment to point to the outfield to show the little girl where I was. She then waved at me and pointed to Phyllis and then she wrapped her arm possessively around the older woman.

My father looked at them and back at me with what I figured was a disapproving expression. I just shrugged and turned my attention to the other team. We were playing my bus-mate David Lincoln’s team, the Myers’ Chevrolet Cheetahs. We were the home team. David had started giving me a hard time about them beating us and I had given it back in spades. This included me running a parody of Lou Gehrig hitting two home runs for the sick little kid in the hospital from the movie Pride of the Yankees. Needless to say, David wasn’t happy with my antics. Needless to say, I didn’t care.

The scouting report from Coach Daniels about the Cheetahs was that they were anything but fast. They were a team built with aggressive sluggers and hard throwing pitchers. They led the league in home runs with eight, hit by four different players, in just three games. We had seven with me hitting four, and Billy homering in each of our three games so far. The only other player on our team who came close to hitting one out was Jason.

The Cheetahs did have two hard throwing pitchers. One Kyle Coburn, a lefty, was the starter we would be facing today. The scouting report was that he had a pretty good slider, but tended to fall in love with his fastball and could be ‘wild in the zone’. He could over-match weaker hitters, but if you were a good hitter and if you were patient, you could hit him. He threw about as hard as Terry Robinson, our pitcher, but not as hard as Sammy Stanford, the kid we faced in our second game. The only problem for Kyle was that he overestimated the speed of his fastball and his control was not as good as Terry’s. Unlike Sammy, Kyle was a lefty and that gave me the edge (although Billy, the lefty, would have had a tougher time).

The Umpire yelled “play ball” and their lead-off hitter, a short freshman walked to the plate. The kid was a lefty so Terry made him look silly on three pitches and the kid walked back to the dugout with his head down. I saw David Lincoln swinging in the on-deck circle as their number two hitter stepped up to the plate. The righty hitter hit Terry’s first pitch sharply to short. I automatically ran in to back up the play and held my breath as Dylan looked the ball into his glove and made a strong throw to Billy for out number two.

I yelled, “Nice play, One” (which was Dylan’s number). He turned and tipped his hat to me as our fans cheered.

I saw David heading to the plate and before he got there he used his bat to point to me out in left field, or maybe he was ‘calling his shot’ like Babe Ruth did against the Cubs in the ‘32 World Series. Either way, it was a jab at me for the Pride of the Yankees parody I pulled on him on the bus. From what I heard, David was no slouch as a hitter. He was a farm boy like me but he had a couple inches on me and maybe twenty pounds. So far, he had two homers this season and he was making no secret that he would be swinging for his third one on this at-bat.

It was not to be.

David swung at Terry’s first offering and skyed it to medium left field. It was what the old-timers liked to call ‘a can o’ corn’. There was more than enough time for Paul take it from his position in Center, but I called it and Paul knew I was better than the other guys who had manned left field so far this season. He also knew about my little rivalry with David. I camped out under it and put it away for out number three.

Terry had retired the side on five pitches and I grinned as I saw David scowl at me as I ran toward my bench.

Paul led off our half of the first inning with a strike out. He did battle Kyle by fouling off four pitches, before Kyle simply gunned his fast ball by him for the first out. After taking two balls and a strike, Mike hit a bounding ball the other way down the first baseline and legged it out for a double. I then walked to the plate.

“He’s no batter!” cried David like a pee-wee player. I just ignored him as I watched a heater on the inside corner go for strike one. I was going to take my coach’s advice and wait for a pitch I could handle. I took two straight balls, another fastball that brushed me back and slider that broke out of the strike zone. Coach said Kyle could be ‘wild in the zone’ and his next pitch proved it. I was sitting on a fastball having seen him only throw one slider for a strike so far (against Paul) and with him down in the count, I knew he didn’t want to go three and one against me. I got exactly what I wanted.

Crack!

I had been ‘timing’ Kyle’s fastball as he had thrown Paul four of them, Mike two and before this pitch, me two. I got all of it as it flew out to deep, left center and didn’t come down until it bounced just before the parking lot. As I headed for third, I grinned at David. “Hope that makes you feel a little better, sick, little Davy.”

‘Davy’ just growled as I rounded third.

I crossed the plate and Billy dropped his bat and we did our customary ‘high ten’. Then my friend stepped to the plate to get some hacks of his own. Poor Billy didn’t get a chance. He walked on four pitches. Then Terry did the same. Then Jason did something that nobody not named Tommy or Billy had done so far this season. Kyle had completely lost the plate with his fastball, so he tried his slider. The trouble was this slider didn’t slide. It was heading right over the heart of the plate. I’m sure Jason’s eyes lit up when he saw Kyle’s ‘nothing ball’ (because he had nothing on it) going right where Jason wanted.

Crack!

Jason almost screwed up. He swung a little early and hit a towering drive way out to left field. We all held our breath as it managed to stay just on the right side of the foul pole. We were now up six to nothing and the rout was underway.

We batted around in the inning. My replacement at shortstop, Dylan Moore, even figured on the scoring when he walked after Davy had. The next hitter, Danny Johnson, grounded out to first on a slow roller, to advance the runners, Paul Clinton then singled to right to score Davy Pederson and Dylan and then took second on the failed play at the plate. The inning ended when Mike Wolf fouled out to third, stranding Paul at second. We were now up eight to nothing, though.

The top of the second was kind of rough on Terry. Their cleanup hitter led off with a deep fly ball that Paul tracked down in deep right center. Their next hitter had been tied for second in the league (behind me) with Billy and a kid on the Dalton Ford Eagles with three homers. Now Caleb Danvers had blasted his fourth homer to move into sole possession of second place.

Terry settled down, getting the next hitter to pop up to short and then struck out their catcher to end the frame.

I was leading off and wanted to avoid getting yanked by my coach before I could bust on David. I was shocked when the Cheetahs’ coach pulled Kyle and replaced him with a seventh grader. I almost felt sorry for him (I really did). I determined he was a righty when I watched the kid warming up and he couldn’t get anything over the plate except his fastball. It wasn’t all that fast either.

When I got into the batter’s box, I ignored David’s childish chant and ripped the kid’s first offering over the Left-Center field fence. It actually just missed hitting the parking lot on the fly. As I rounded second I looked ahead of me and David was just staring at the ground. I had too much class to say anything. I had just hit two home runs and instead of making a kid feel better, I had made him sick. Billy high-tenned me and after taking two wild curve balls, he hammered his fourth home run of the season to tie Caleb’s total. It was the third time this season we had gone back-to-back. I saw David just shake his head as Billy ran by. He knew that the ‘Babe’ had just hit him a homer and I, Tommy ‘Gehrig’ had hit two for him, just like in the movie.

I know David was looking forward to getting his licks against us, but it never happened. By the time I got up again in the second, the Cheetahs had still failed to register an out. I walked and soon Billy and Jason joined me on the base paths. After the Cheetahs put in their fourth pitcher, Davy hit a ball out of the strike zone that went for a bases clearing double. Dylan put the final nail in the coffin when he singled Davy home. We were now up twenty-one to one and the umpire had seen enough. That was the final. Their coach tried to protest, but I could tell it was a halfhearted one.