Chapter 40

I awoke the next morning as I always did. The sound of the rooster alarm seemed a little louder than usual, but I didn’t care. It was game day! I quickly threw on my clothes and my coat and managed to get down the stairs before Willie. I know this because I heard him hot on my heels as I flung open the screen door and bolted to the hen house.

“I got Daisy,” I heard my foster brother yell, as I entered the hen house.

After gathering up the eggs, I ran into the kitchen to see Grandma already putting a pan on the cook stove.

“Thanks, Youngster,” she grinned at me as she took my decent sized offering.

“My pleasure, Grandma,” I grinned back and quickly avoided a potential swat on the bottom for my cheekiness.

When I got to the barn, I entered and saw Willie working on Daisy.

“Tommy, you playing Lionel Carter’s team today?” asked Willie.

“Yep,” I grinned.

My brother grinned back. “I heard he’s looking for payback.”

“He told me the same thing. Looking for payback and getting it are two different things,” I chuckled.

“His neighbor is in my grade and she said he was braggin’ about beating you.”

Generally speaking I couldn’t stand cocky people, but for some reason, Lionel didn’t bother me. I thought he was really funny. Also, he was a heck of a ball player, too. The fact that his dad seemed like a great guy made me like him even more.

“Lionel’s a great player, but baseball is a team game. His team is good, but mine is better.”

“But can’t he have a great game and help his team win?”

“Sure he can, Willie, but there is also only so much he can do to affect the game. I believe in my teammates and I believe we will win this rematch.”

We had the early afternoon game today, so after one of Grandma’s big breakfasts, Willie and I helped Grandpa with some chores. Then I hopped in the shower, had a quick lunch, got into my uniform and Dad, Mom, Willie and I headed for the park.

When we got there, I ran to the dugout and saw my coach.

“Hi Tom. What do you have for me today?”

Coach knew I had a historical understanding of the game. I had dropped quotes from Ernie Banks and Willie Mays, so I figured I had to come up with something good. I chose to recite the last two lines of a poem that my Great Granddad, who was a big baseball fan around the turn of the century, had taught my dad when he was a kid. Dad then taught it to me. I wondered if Coach Daniels knew it. Anyway, instead of mentioning the name of the poem by a New York sportswriter, Franklin Pierce Adams, “Tinkers to Evers to Chance” (named after the famous Cubs infield from the early Nineteen Hundreds), I would put a Lions’ spin on it.

I began to recite:

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble

Matthews to Wolf to Crenshaw.

Coach Daniels laughed as hard as I had ever heard anyone laugh.

He then turned to my father who was sitting with my mom, Willie and grandparents who were just arriving. “John, what are you teaching this boy?” he yelled.

Before my dad could reply, Mom answered for him. “Nothing good!”

Coach laughed again and I joined him. My mom was a pistol.

After I got the customary pat on the back, I looked at the lineup card and was relieved to see what I expected.

This was clearly our most productive lineup. As far as our starting pitchers were concerned, I really didn’t care who took the hill on any given day. Either Jeremy or Terry had pitched every inning our team had played, all season. While a few of us had been ready to relieve if needed, our starters had been, for the most part, unhittable. To make things even better, we had won five of our eight games by the ‘Mercy Rule’ (meaning that the game ended early from being too lopsided). This meant that both our starters had not pitched more innings than they were supposed to for the number of games they had pitched. Our opponent today, the Flyers, were one of the few teams that we had to play all seven innings against. To be fair, that was the first game of our season and I feel our team had improved a ton since then. Today, that feeling would possibly be put to the test.

We were the away team this week (since we were home against them last time), so we would get to hit first. Of course the whole ‘home/road’ thing didn’t count for much, as we were all from the same two towns (East Chilton and Walnut Grove) and our team always drew big crowds (especially my personal rooting section which was well represented today).

The Flyers’ ace, Jess Tompkins, a hard throwing righty, was on the mound. Both Paul and Mike battled hard with Tompkins, but he managed to get them out (Paul on a comebacker to the mound after eight pitches and Mike striking out after a seven pitch at-bat). I looked out at the mound. It was clear that Jess had his fastball and slow curve working. He also froze Mike on a change-up that he managed to get over the plate for a called third strike. That was the pitch that he had no command over in our first meeting with the Flyers (not to mention not being able to get his curve-ball over for a strike in that game).

Jess’s first pitch to me was the fastball, but it was high, so I took it for a ball. He then threw his curve and he managed to get it close enough that I had swung and fouled it back off the backstop. Jess then came back to the fastball and I was a little late on the swing, fouling it over the fence the opposite way. I was now down in the count. He tried to sneak his change-up by me and I managed to adjust my swing to foul it off. He really had me off balance. I then took another high fastball to even the count, before the righty tried to drop another curve over that I fouled back. He then threw another hard fastball that I just manage to get a piece of it of the end of my bat, as it went foul. I finally worked the count to full, just managing to lay-off a curve-ball that broke too far outside.

Jess was getting frustrated and I was hoping that he would make a mistake and give me a pitch to hit. He had already thrown twenty four pitches to just three hitters. Jess’s next pitch was another hard fastball that seemed a little inside, but was too close to take. I grounded weakly down the third baseline and it just went foul. This next pitch would be the tenth pitch in this at-bat. This time he went back to the change-up. I had been sitting on his fastball and just managed to foul it back. On the next pitch, I finally got the fastball I was sitting on.

Crack!!!

I knew I got all of it as the kinetic energy of the powerful pitch met the meat of my bat, as I took a healthy cut. As I ran to first, I saw my buddy Lionel running out to deep center field and just look up to see the ball nearly landing in the parking lot on the fly. I must have hit at least three-hundred-twenty-five feet on the fly. I took off around the bases at a healthy trot, not wanting to show up Jess. When you are facing a guy who throws that hard, you don’t want to get him mad.

Billy followed me after our customary ‘high ten’ at home plate and he continued to work Jess. Jess was well over thirty pitches when Billy got hold of a hanging curve ball and hit it a ton to center. Lionel, who was playing his typically shallow center field, got on his high horse and raced to the fence. As he got there, he leaped high in the air and extended his glove. We all watched as time seemed to slow down, until Lionel came crashing down to the ground. He got up hobbling and tossing the ball into the infield. I had just witnessed the greatest catch I had ever seen. I just shook my head. I grabbed my glove and ran onto the field.

“Great catch!” I called to my friend.

“Maybe, but it hurts like hell!” Lionel winced as he gingerly limped back to the dugout.

“Are you okay, Son?” I overheard his coach asking him.

“I’m okay, Coach, just a little sore,” I thought I heard him say as I walked past the mound.

I jogged out to my position and practiced some throws to Billy and turned two with Mike, as Billy rolled a grounder to me. Then after Jeremy’s last warm-up pitch, Davy threw down to second as I covered the bag. Then I rolled the ball into foul territory near our bench and we awaited the Flyers’ first batter.

Lionel limped to the plate and I was immediately worried for my friend. It was obvious that he had hurt himself on his amazing catch, but was playing through the pain. My dad told me that there was a difference between being hurt and actually being injured. Hurt from pain usually was minor muscular issues like bruises or mild strains, where real injuries usually involved broken bones, damaged ligaments or major muscle strains. Playing hurt was okay, but playing injured was never a good thing. I hoped for Lionel’s sake that he was just hurt and not really injured.

I feared the worse when I saw Jeremy make him look foolish on a curve-ball that got him all twisted around so much that he fell down and had trouble getting back to his feet. With a count of a ball and two strikes, he grounded the ball weakly, just past the pitcher’s mound on the third base side. A healthy Lionel would have easily beaten out that play, but I charged the ball and gunned it to Billy. Lionel was easily out by half-a-dozen steps.

When Lionel got back to the dugout, I could see he was in distress because his coach had just pulled him from the game. The next two Flyers hitters went down on strikes, as Jeremy looked to be in total command of his stuff. The first inning ended with us up one to nothing.

As I ran in from the field, I looked at my friend with his head down. “You’re a hell of a player, rook!” I yelled into the home dugout, tipping my cap to him.

Lionel lifted his head and smiled. “Just wait until the conference finals. I’ll show you who’s boss!”

I smiled. It looked like Lionel was back to his old self, injury or not.

The next two innings sailed along without anything happening. Jess settled down and he overmatched our next six hitters, racking up four strikeouts while pitching back-to-back one-two-three innings. The cost of this was that he had thrown a ton of pitches. Still, aside from a few foul balls, our hitters failed to make any significant contact. Jeremy was almost as good, just walking one hitter in the third on the payoff pitch. It was a questionable call, but Jeremy did not get down on himself, striking out the last hitter for the final out.

The top of the fourth, Jess got Mike to line out for the first out, but then walked me and Billy. Now, it was clear that Jess was struggling. Because of his rocky first inning, he had thrown way too many pitches. His fatigue was pretty clear. The Flyers coach went to his ace reliever, Donny Mason. I had hit a homer off of Donny the first time I faced him, but this kid was probably the hardest thrower in the league and my guess was that Jason would have his hands full with him. Sadly, I was right. Donny blew a fastball by Jason for strike three, before making Marty Landers look silly on three pitches. The threat was over and we were on to the bottom of the fourth, clinging to a one run lead.

The Flyers number two hitter, their shortstop, hit a clean single off of Jeremy’s first pitch, but we erased him on a sweet 4-6-3 double play, as Mike made a great diving stab, knocked the ball down, before flipping it to me. My relay to first just nipped the runner. Most importantly, we got two outs on just two pitches. Jeremy managed to escape trouble when Paul ran down a ball in the right center field gap, flashing both his speed and his leather, I breathed a sigh of relief, as I ran back to the dugout. Coach Daniels pulled me aside.

“Tommy, Jeremy has thrown a decent amount of pitches. I’ll send him out for the sixth, but if he looks tired, I’m going to you to finish the inning.”

I was shocked. “Coach, I’ve never pitched in my Babe Ruth career!”

“Neither has anyone else on the team, other than Terry, and he is starting our next game. So far, we’ve been both good and lucky with all of the shortened games this season, but our luck was bound to run out. Just get in there and throw strikes. If Jeremy can clear their number five hitter, it will leave you with most of the bottom of the order. Just throw strikes and let your defense pick you up, okay?”

“Okay, Coach,” I nodded.

Donny made short work of our first two hitters on strike outs, but Danny Jackson almost beat out an infield single, only to be nipped at first. I picked up my glove and walked to short, hoping that was where I would stay.

Their left fielder led off the sixth with a deep fly out to Danny in left. But their third basemen slammed a double off the wall. Coach Daniels then made the decision to go to me.

“Pick me up, Tommy!” nodded Jeremy, as I took the ball from Coach, Jeremy trotted into the dugout and Dylan Moore ran out to shortstop to take my place.

As I took my warm pitches, I concentrated mostly on my fastball. I was able to throw it almost as hard as Jeremy, but certainly not as fast as Jess or Donny.