Chapter 42

It was a typical early May morning in Western Pennsylvania. There was a cool breeze, but it was a far cry from the colder weather of several weeks ago. The weather report for today called for a nice day with a high close to eighty. The game time temperature would likely be several degrees cooler. I beat Willie to the backdoor as usual (rank amateur) and raided the eggs. Not a big yield, but more than enough to add to yesterday’s bigger production.

By the time I returned to the kitchen, I saw Willie parked on a stool, milking Daisy. We chatted, as I pulled up a stool next to Amber. We talked about the Pirates, who had lost a series against the Astros over the weekend. I was beginning to worry about the Pirates. After winning the World Series the season before last, the team seemed to be in flux. ‘Pops’ Stargell fell off last season. No doubt that age and injury was a factor. This year, the big newcomer was Jason Thompson. So far, I wasn’t impressed. Willie and I both agreed he looked inconsistent at the plate.

After are milking chores and clean up were done, I scarfed down breakfast and still managed to easily beat the bus. I was relieved when I saw that Jacob Turner was missing.

“He’s out sick,” grinned David.

“Best news yet,” I grinned at my friend and Tim agreed with our assessment. A day without Jacob was like a day with sunshine. I know that sounds mean, but for anyone who knew Jake, they knew how annoying he could be.

I was greeted at the school door by my girls.

“You ready for the game tonight?” asked Jen.

“Yup. I’m still on for early dinner at your house?”

“Yes,” grinned Jen.

“Monique is meeting us at the field after she gets out of work,” smiled Janie.

I was happy I would have all three of my girlfriends in one place tonight. We looked around to see that no teacher was watching and I impulsively gave both Janie and Jen a quick peck on the lips before I walked to homeroom. Thinking about Monique, made me think about how she and Phyllis might be doing with the new test computers. I hadn’t talked to Monique since Sunday so I would talk to her tonight to find out how things had gone yesterday and today.

I only had one friend in homeroom and that was Johnny Martin. Our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Eggars was really strict and did not allow talking, so Johnny and I smiled at each other and then went about looking at our school work (for me, it was just giving the poetry section a good once over before my English quiz next period. Having thoroughly studied, I got bored quickly).

When the bell rang, I left the typically mind-numbing homeroom and walked to first period English. Sarah was as good as her word and gave us a relatively tricky quiz on English nineteenth century poets. I said ‘relatively tricky’ because there were a lot of quotes from poems we had studied in class, but a couple that we hadn’t (but she had warned us to study our textbook). I had no problem identifying one as by Robert Browning and the other by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and was on my way to an easy ‘A+.’

As I left the classroom after the bell, I was flanked by Janie, Jen and Karl. Sarah Douglas grinned at me and I grinned back. She knew I had gotten a 100 on the quiz and that was her way of confirming it to me. Karl took off for his next class as Janie, Jen and I went to US History.

“What did you get for that last question, Tommy?” asked Janie.

“Robert Browning.”

“Good. I had that too,” she said.

“Me too. I think the one before that was Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” said Jen.

“That’s what I put,” said Janie

Both girls looked at me and I grinned back.

“Well?” asked Jen.

“Guess you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow,” I laughed.

Jennifer’s eyes blazed. “You’re such a stinker, Tommy.”

“Only when he plays baseball, Jenny,” laughed Janie.

“Hey!” I complained.

“Is for horses,” they both chimed in unison and giggled.

I just shook my head. I guess I asked for that one.

When we got to second period, Mr. Crane had a pop quiz on the 1869 attempt to corner the gold market. It was really easy and I could tell that my girls did well, because they were smiling. At the end of class, I stopped at Mr. Crane’s desk to check to see if he had any additional reading he wanted me to do for freshman history. He handed me a worksheet and said that so far, he was happy with my progress.

After that I split off from the girls and went to my locker, before heading to Mr. Harris for Math. Luckily there were no quizzes, but during a break in the lecture, Axel quietly quizzed me on how things were going with Principal Martin back.

“Outside of yesterday, he hasn’t said a word to me since,” I said

“Well, that’s good to hear. Hopefully everything has blown over,” replied Axel.

“As my grandma says...” I started.

“From your lips to God’s ears,” he grinned. “Mine says that too.”

I laughed, before realizing that Mr. Harris was going to start again.

Janie and I walked to the cafeteria from our fourth period Physical Science class and caught up with Jen and our other friends. As we ate, the topic turned to Babe Ruth league.

“We’re hoping to win our second in a row today.” smiled Johnny. His, Eva’s and Tim’s Elk’s (my last year’s team) had only managed three wins this year.

“Isn’t that what you say after every win?” I teased. The Elks had yet to win two games in a row all season.

“That’s what we say, but we actually back that up,” gloated Billy.

I grinned and high-fived him across the table almost knocking over Laura’s milk.

“Watch it!” she complained at me.

“Sorry, Laura,” I smiled.

Having helped her and her mom get out of a bad situation and gotten her together with Billy, I knew she couldn’t stay mad at me. She quickly smiled back. “It’s okay Tommy.”

“I don’t know what you girls think, but I think Tommy is getting a bit too big for his britches,” frowned Eva.

“Well, he was a midget last year,” agreed Johnny, who was now dead to me.

Everybody laughed.

“Done picking on me?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face, but failing when Jennifer began to tickle me.

We quickly broke things up when we saw a teacher start to walk over to our table.

After lunch, Spanish, Study Hall and Gym were the easiest part of my day and went by without incident. I couldn’t help but have negative feelings about my Spanish teacher, Miss Perez. Sarah had found out that her husband had cheated with Miss Perez a couple of weeks ago. I understood that not everything is always ‘cut and dried’, as my grandpa was fond of saying, but while being very attractive, Miss Perez had nothing on Sarah. Still, it was obvious why Mr. Douglas wanted to reconcile with his wife. The question was now whether Sarah would go for it.

In Gym we were playing softball. I didn’t really try too hard, because I had a baseball game today and I didn’t want to screw up my timing at the plate. I got up once and legged out a liner in the gap for a triple. In the field, I played in the outfield and caught a fly ball.

Once I changed, I ran out to meet Janie and Jen and we got on the bus. After spending about an hour on homework, Natalie made us an early, light dinner and then I tossed on my uniform and grabbed my glove from my knapsack. Then Nick drove me and the girls to the ball field. I don’t know who was more excited about my last regular season game.

“Going to put on another hitting clinic tonight, Tommy,” asked Nick with a grin, as he opened his door after parking.

“We’re playing the Wolves again, so I don’t know what kind of pitches I’ll see,” I replied.

“Not the team with all those pitchers who were throwing junk?” Nick groaned.

I nodded. “Yep.”

As we made our way to the bench, we were greeted by Coach Daniels.

“Ah, Tom. I’m going to need you to show some leadership tonight,” replied my coach.

“What do you need, Coach? A verse of ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ to rally the troops?” I grinned.

Coach Daniels laughed. “No, Tommy. I just need you to be aware of some things.”

“What?”

“I’m going to wait to tell everybody once every one gets here. Just understand that whatever you guys decide, I’m okay with it,” he said cryptically.

I just nodded. “Whatever you need, Coach.”

“Good man,” he said patting me on the back.

I continued to talk to Nick for a few minutes until Billy got there and then I practiced throwing over to him at first. That only lasted a few minutes until the Wolves showed up. Since we were the home team this game, the Wolves got to warm up first, so Billy and I relinquished the field. By this point most of our team was in the dugout and we saw the last of the stragglers, the Johnson twins walking over to the dugout. When they arrived, Coach Daniels explained what he had hinted to me about earlier.

“Okay, guys, this is our last regular season game. I’m not only proud of your amazing record, winning all nine games so far, but more importantly, by how you’ve played and represented the East Chilton Lions Club this season.”

Everybody cheered and then Coach continued. “If we win this game, we will become the fourth team in the twenty-six year history of the league to have an undefeated regular season and only one of those teams went on to win the championship.

“Really?” asked Dylan with wide eyes.

“Absolutely. You guys have a chance to make some history here and a chance to go even further,” Coach Daniels said before pausing. “That being said, there is a player on this team who has a chance to make some history of his own.”

At that point I knew exactly what Coach was talking about. It affected me and the number of home runs I had hit. I didn’t know what the league record was. I knew I had hit eight and Billy and a kid from the Cheetahs were tied with six.

Coach continued. “The league home run record is eleven and Tommy has eight. Counting playoffs we have four games left. The bad news is we may be facing the Wolves for two of those games.”

We were playing the Wolves today and with Lionel potentially out of action, the Wolves could be our second match up in the playoffs. Coach continued in the vein. “We have already clinched first place in our division. That means regardless of how this game finishes, we will be locked into a first round playoff game against the Dawson Lumber Beavers, so in theory, this game is meaningless in the standings and for our playoff fortunes.”

“I don’t see the point, Coach. We should play to win,” I said.

“Even if it means you have to walk three times, without ever seeing a strike” he challenged.

“Coach...” I started.

“Let me finish, Tom. This game against the Wolves does not have the same import as a potential second round playoff game against them. This would be your chance to get some hacks to go for the record,” explained Coach Daniels.

“Yeah, Tommy you should go for it. We’ve got this,” said Billy.

“That’s right, Tommy. Take your swings. You deserve it,” agreed Jeremy.

“We wouldn’t be where we are without you. You should try to add to your totals. This is a meaningless game,” added Terry.

I shook my head. “It’s not meaningless! I want to win this game! I don’t come here to play home run derby. I come here to play with the best darn team in East Chilton and to win games. We can do something special here. If the home runs are meant to be then they will happen, but I will not swing at bad pitches in the hope of somehow hitting a bad pitch out of the park. Let’s win!” I yelled.

Several kids yelled ‘yeah’ and Coach smiled at me and looked over at the team. “You heard him. On three ... one ... two ... three...”

“Lions Rule!” we all yelled and took the field to practice.

The result was never really in doubt, but the game didn’t happen the way any of us envisioned it would. Our number two pitcher, Terry, was just as good as our number one, Jeremy. He proved that point when he got the lead-off hitter to weakly ground back to him on the mound. Both of the next two Wolves were looking to walk, but Terry went right after them, striking out both hitters on just seven combined pitches (with neither batter taking the bat off of their shoulders). This was often the Wolves offensive strategy: Make opposing pitchers throw strikes and if they fail, get on the base paths. Terry looked sharp on the mound and stymied their plan.

The bottom of the inning started the same way it did last time. After throwing his warm-up pitches, Wolves starter, Ronnie Dill immediately jogged to first and handed the ball to first basemen, Dan Rogers. Rogers first pitch to our lead-off hitter, Paul was a slow high arcing pitch (and I mean slow) and it almost hit Paul.

I looked at Coach who just shook his head.

“Was that what I think that was?” I asked, remembering my grandpa telling me about the legendary Pirates pitcher, Rip Sewell from the 1940s.

“If you were thinking that was an ‘Eephus pitch,’ you would be right,” replied Coach Daniels.

The next pitch was the same pitch except it took a funny bounce in front of the plate and hit Paul on the shin. I doubt that it hurt Paul, because he just laughed.

“Take your base,” cried the Ump,

My teammate tossed his bat as he ran to first. I grabbed a bat and walked toward the on-deck circle.

“But it bounced!” complained the Wolves coach, as he yelled from the dugout.

The umpire walked towards the Wolves dugout and glared at their coach. “The pitch hit the batter. I don’t care if it rolled. It’s a legal pitch! A hit batsman means he takes his base.”