Chapter 44

While the next morning was cold, it was not as bad as yesterday. Willie and I got through our chores and I wolfed down a hot breakfast. Then it was off to the bus. I actually had to wait about ten minutes for the bus to arrive. As the temperature was easily below fifty degrees it was no fun.

When I got aboard, I did my best to ignore Jake continuing to speculate on which teacher was ‘in trouble’. Instead, I looked at my English notes, as we had a review on the poetry sections we had covered. About halfway to school, I gave up on studying. Between Jake’s ridiculous theories and Tim and David trash talking each other, I could get little done. I figured I’d get into the trash talk too.

“What’s the point of it all? The Lion’s will beat whoever comes out of your pitiful division,” I laughed.

“You guys are just lucky,” groaned David.

“I admit, you guys are tough, but we kept it close in our game, unlike some other teams,” grinned Tim evilly at David, while David shook his head, as that fact had no bearing on the outcome of their rubber match game on Saturday.

Despite finishing with the better record of the two teams (6-4, to the Elks 4-6), we had trashed the Cheetahs in the only game we played them. At least my old team, the Elks, kept it interesting for a while, before we wound up beating them by three runs (as opposed to beating the Cheetahs by the mercy rule). Unfortunately, both teams split in the regular season, so Tim was using my Lions as a measuring stick on which team was the team to beat on Saturday.

I grinned at my friends. “All I know is that I get to play the Beavers on Saturday, so I feel good about our chances.”

“They’re the second worst team in the league,” groaned David.

“Yeah, they’re not as bad as the Pirates, but that’s not saying much,” agreed Tim. Both teams had only won one game, but the Beavers had won the only head-to-head meeting between the teams, and done so handily. The Pirates’ only win came at the expense of the Wolves before they had perfected their ‘every man pitches’ strategy, so we figured that these Pirates (as opposed to the team in Pittsburgh that we all loved) were a bad team.

I had to admit, it was fun trash talking my friends and for the most part, they were good about it.

School went much better today than it had yesterday. It appeared that Mrs. Ransom did her impression of being seen but not heard and Mrs. Douglas got through the review for the test on Monday. I could tell that Mrs. Douglas was back on her game and covered what we would need to know and easily answered questions of worried students. In the end, I was happy to see that it seemed that Principal Martin had successfully ‘muzzled his watchdog’ (a tidbit of concern in last night’s conversation between my dad and Sarah Douglas). In the end, I think most people felt prepared for the test. Still, I think that most of us wished that we could have just taken the test now, instead of waiting until Monday. That was particularly true for me. I had several big assignments due next week and two playoff games coming up in the next few days. My English test was just one more thing I would have to do.

Next came History and Mr. Crane gave us the much anticipated pop quiz. It covered the end of the Grant administration, the contentious election of 1876, in which Rutherford B. Hayes won a disputed Electoral victory against his Democratic challenger, Samuel Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote, but Congress gave Hayes twenty disputed electoral votes. In a recent lecture, Mr. Crane was quick to remind the class that we did not live in a pure democracy, but a ‘democratic republic.’ This example proved that point. The quiz also covered President Hayes’ one term administration, which for the most part, ended reconstruction. In theory, the south was able to govern itself again, without northern oversight. Still, to this day, many southerners felt that this wasn’t really true (despite Hayes pulling federal troops from major southern cities). I had studied all of this thoroughly and believed that I aced the quiz. After class, I talked to Janie and Jen and they seemed confident too.

Next came Pre-Algebra and IPS (Introduction to Physical Sciences). I continued to make good progress with my advanced studies in Math, while IPS wasn’t much of a challenge. My teacher, Mr. Duffy, had told me how impressed he was with me last week and perhaps I should have talked to him about trying to do advanced work (like I was doing in English, History and Math). I decided to ask him about it after class.

Mr. Duffy shook his head. “Sorry, Tommy. Even if there were enough time left in the year, which there really isn’t, there is too much lab work that you don’t have access to for you to advance like you are doing in other subjects. You could try to place out of classes, but without actually doing the labs to prove the theoretical work, you would be at a big disadvantage,” he paused briefly. “You could take advantage of your advanced academic standing to take harder science courses like Physics if you can complete your History requirements by your sophomore year, as you will be a year ahead of your class-mates.”

I had planned to try to graduate a year early and realized that I still could while taking some advanced science classes my third and final year of high school. (Especially if I stopped Spanish after Spanish Three, instead of Spanish Four as I originally planned. I thanked Mr. Duffy, caught up to Janie and we made are way to lunch.

Lunch was another ‘trash talk’ extravaganza with Billy and me on the side of the angels, while Johnny, Eva and Tim were trying to explain how the playoffs were a ‘new season’.

“It doesn’t matter what you say. The Lions rule. Nothing’s gonna change,” crowed Billy.

“As The Who would say, ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,’” I explained and much laughter ensued from all the non-Elks at the table. Tim, Eva and Johnny didn’t find it as amusing.

After lunch, I slept my way through Spanish with the evil Miss Perez. I didn’t think much of Miss Perez before and then couldn’t respect her after she slept with Mrs. Douglas’ husband. Either way, I was well ahead of the class. I simply gave her a phony smile when I walked into the class and one after the class and she was none the wiser how I really felt. As much as I cared for Mrs. Douglas, I wasn’t going to jeopardize my standing in any class, regardless of what I thought of the teacher.

After study hall, I hit the locker-room and changed into my gym attire. We were still playing softball, so I didn’t want to mess up my swing for my game tomorrow. I bunted both times I was up and wound up scoring two runs. I don’t think Mr. Wentz was too happy with my performance until I explained why I did what I did.

“Understandable, Matthews. I can’t blame you for it, especially how you hustled on the base paths and in the field.”

“Thanks for understanding, sir.” I smiled.

“Any news on football?”

A few weeks ago, Mr. Wentz had suggested that I go out for the freshman team next year. I told him that I would have to run it by my family. I still hadn’t had the guts to ask my mom. To be honest, I didn’t really want to play football. It was too much of a time commitment so I was hoping that my mom would say ‘no’.

“To be honest sir, I haven’t asked my mom yet. I didn’t want to get her mad until after baseball season.”

Mr. Wentz laughed. He knew my mom and her reputation from high school. Nobody messed with the Johanssons and Frieda was just as tough as any of her siblings.

After class let out, I caught my normal bus home and put up with Jake’s absurd musings and the Tim/David rivalry. I tried to stay neutral, but they kept at me until I decided to tick both of them off.

“C’mon, Tommy! Who’s gonna win?” asked Tim.

“It doesn’t matter,” I grinned. “Neither of your teams are going to beat the Eagles,” referring to the Dalton Ford Eagles, who had won the regular season in the Elks and Cheetahs ‘Chilton Division’ (while we won the ‘East Division’). Of course we had clobbered the Eagles 9-1, but at least they had gone a full seven innings against us (unlike David’s Cheetahs). For the rest of the trip David and Tim had found a common foe to toss their barbs at and I didn’t mind a single bit. I just ignored them.

When I got home, I called the Parts store, to check with Monique. Phyllis got on the line too. They were thrilled with the progress they had made since I talked to them on Wednesday. I was happy too, as it looked like the project was on track for parallel testing in a few weeks. They both promised to see me at the game tomorrow.

When Willie got home from school, I helped him with the afternoon chores. With my baseball and business commitments, Willie had taken over the afternoon chores. They included feeding and watering the cows, the afternoon milking and cleaning out Amber and Daisy’s stalls. Like with most farms that keep animals, the dung is shoveled into a compost pile and then is used as manure for certain crops and our garden. While this is nasty work, Willie never complained and we were all really proud of him.

Considering Willie was new to farming, he was developing into a real farm kid. I could tell Grandpa was happy. While he and Granddad were diversifying the farm by moving part of it to a horse breeding/training facility, Grandpa was still planning to grow a number of crops, including corn, grass, and hops (for local breweries). He knew that Lars and I had other interests that might eventually take us away from farming. Willie, on the other hand seemed to take to farm life even better than I did. I’m sure Grandpa hoped that he had found someone to leave our family legacy to (especially if none of Uncle Bo’s kids would be available).

After we were done, we cleaned up and then got ready for supper. Apparently Gran had given Grandma a recipe for a veal dish that was quite tasty. “You need to thank Trudy for this one, John. Your mom is a heck of a good cook,” grinned Grandma.

My dad kind of blushed a little. There were still some unresolved issues concerning my dad and his parents, even though things were much better lately. I guess Grandma’s needling Dad was her way of letting him know that he should get over these feelings.

“Well, Ingrid, say what you want about my mother, but she can cook,” he smiled.

After supper, I practiced guitar and did some of my advanced History reading. Then it was all about getting ready for bed and sleeping for this tired boy.

Saturday Morning was all about chores and then more chores after breakfast. After chores and a hearty breakfast, Willie and I helped grandpa with some plowing. We had the late game today with a 3pm start, so I wasn’t due at the field until about 2:15. After I cleaned up, ate lunch and rested a bit, my dad drove all of us to the ballpark in Mom’s Coronet wagon.

I haven’t talked about the baseball fields in town yet, because for the most part, we played almost all of our games on the same field. Being in the ‘East Division’, all of our games were played at the main park (Morris Park). There are three baseball fields in the complex, but only one that is regulation (Babe Ruth League, Twilight League, High School baseball, etc.). The other two fields in the complex had smaller dimensions in the infield and outfield and were used for ‘Youth Baseball’ (Little League, ‘Farm League’, ‘Pee-Wee’, etc.). There are three regulation fields in town (Morris Park, Reid Park and at East Chilton High School). There are six Little League compatible fields (two at Morris, one at Reid and one at each of the three elementary schools in town). We played eight of our ten games so far at Morris. All our divisional games and two games again Chilton teams where we were considered the ‘home team.’ Today we were at Morris Park.

I saw my Coach and his dad sitting in the dugout. Usually the older Coach Daniels did not attend our games but occasionally scouted our opponents. He acted as our pitching coach at some practices too. He lived more than a half-an-hour away, so he couldn’t always be around to help his son.

“I see you brought in reinforcements,” I grinned.

“I’m around just in case we are stuck with you pitching,” he shot back, and Coach and I cracked up.

“Want to look at the lineup card?” asked Coach Daniels (the younger).

“Do I have a reason to worry?” I asked.

“Not really,” he grinned.

I looked.

“My kind of lineup, Coach,” I said.

Indeed, Coach had tinkered with our lineup and this was clearly the most productive one.

Coach’s dad smiled at me. “My son tells me that you are the font of baseball wisdom and quotes. What do you have for us today?”

I thought for a moment, I had given Coach Mays and Banks. I had even dug deep into the lore of Tinkers to Evers to Chance. I decided to give them something from one of my all-time favorite players.

“‘To me, baseball has always been a reflection of life. Like life, it adjusts. It survives everything.’”

Coach laughed. “I should have known you would have picked something by him.”

“I don’t think I know that one,” said his dad.

“If I recall right, it was said by one Wilver Dornell Stargell.”

I laughed. I had finally met my match on baseball quotations.

I’d like to say it was perfect and for the most part, it was really good, despite some unforced errors on our part. Did we take the Beavers seriously enough? No, but heck, they were the Beavers and we weren’t going to lose to them.

As we were the home team (and would be for the entire playoffs) we took the field to start the game. As good as our starting pitcher, Jeremy Richards was this season, he had some problems finding the strike zone. He walked the first two batters, but then managed to strike out the Beaver number three hitter. A rare “passed ball” by Davy, our catcher allowed the runners to advance. Coach gave us the ‘infield in’ sign. Most coaches would have probably intentionally walked the next hitter and kept Mike and me at double play depth or be willing to sacrifice the run for an out, but Coach had faith in Mike and my defensive abilities. He was willing to gamble, understanding that we were a good enough offensive team to make up any runs the Beavers would score. He also knew that if Jeremy could pitch himself out of a jam it would help his confidence.

I’ll give the Beavers credit for playing aggressively. They knew they were a long shot to beat us. Their lead-off hitter, while not fast, had a little speed and broke for the plate on contact when their cleanup hitter smashed a hard grounder slightly to my right. Still, I looked it into my glove, pulled it out and gunned it home. Davy blocked the plate, but he didn’t really need to. The runner was out by a couple of steps and Davy applied the tag and there were two outs. Jeremy got their number five hitter to fly out to Paul in center to end the inning.