Chapter 17

"BALL FOUR," the umpire called out, from behind home plate.

Julie simply grinned at the umpire's call. Trotting towards first base she handed me her bat, handle first as she had faced the pitcher holding the barrel, taunting the pitcher with only the handle. For the fourth time today, the opposing pitcher walked her.

This was new but not unexpected, because for the last three weeks Julie had been unstoppable at the plate. Playing center field before our agreement, she had been good and would have started varsity were it not for a senior ahead of her. Now, three weeks into the reconstituted team's season, balls that were written off as being uncatchable, she would catch, and base hits, she now fielded as if they were every day occurrences even managing to throw two different runners out at the plate from deep center field.

For the last three weeks, sports writers who had written our school off after the accident were writing how surprised they were at the resurgence of the team with only junior varsity players. The stories were about more than just Julie though, the writers wrote about the six players who had accepted the challenge of picking up the pieces of a team shattered by an accident and were now playing better than the team they replaced. The evidence they gave of course was Julie and her batting average that was over .600 with most of those being home runs or base hits with extra bases. The other five girls of my harem were also batting better but none of them was close to matching Julie's batting average.

Following Julie in the batting order, Mikayla was next up.

The pitcher of course did her best to keep the ball away from her but after the ball count went to three balls and one strike, it was like watching a cat, toying with a mouse, knowing that the cat could finish off the mouse at a moment's notice.

"Ball four," the umpire called out. For the third time today, the bases were loaded with no outs.

Returning to the dugout once I had collected Mikayla's bat, and a second air kiss, I passed the next batter but she was not part of my harem though she was cute. The one that did have my attention was the one in the warm up circle trying to convince me that I should help her, as I had helped the other girls. That was not going to happen today, Cindy was her name or should I say that her full name was Cindy Galvez, that's right, the girl I had the fight with back at the beginning of the year. Listening to her it was more like begging since she was zero for three today with two strikeouts and one hit into a double play.

"Come on, please, just this once," she pleaded with me.

"Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about." I said, ignoring her preferring instead to watch the action at the plate.

"STRIKE One," came the umpire's call.

"Look, I know that Julie and the rest of them had dinner with you and all of them made some sort of agreement because the day after that dinner they all started playing better."

"Well I have no idea to any of that, maybe it is because they are my girlfriends and we do things for each other," I answered back.

"I told you before that I don't do guys."

"Well then I guess we are at an impasse since you have nothing to offer me in exchange for whatever you think that I can do for you,"

"STRIKE two," we both heard.

"Look I know that you are doing something to them because I use to be just as good as them. Now I am nothing more than a place holder in the lineup," Cindy stated.

"Well I know for a fact that you have never been to the morning open weight room. Maybe if you showed up there more often maybe I could help you out and you will be ready for next year."

"But I need to get a hit today," she pleaded.

Looking at her, I did not see the batter get the hit though the sound was pure aluminum with the crowd yelling their approval. Looking up to follow the action, the hit ended up being a long fly ball that let the runners advance with one run scoring and the other two runners advancing to second and third.

Now in a panic, Cindy blurted out, "Look, I have a hundred dollars in my savings account. I can't get it today but I can tomorrow, please," the last was said with desperation in her voice and in her face.

Okay I am a sucker for a pretty girl, and Cindy was far from ugly. Looking at her, I said, "Give me your hand."

At first she paused, then extend her hand, asking, "Is this going to hurt?"

Taking her hand in mine, I gave her the one-hour boost, saying, "All done."

"You mean I just gave you a hundred bucks for that? What if it doesn't work?" she asked backing away from me heading for the batter's box.

"I did what you asked; you still need to hit the ball."

Taking her spot in the batter's box, she dug in waiting for the pitch. None of us had long to wait, especially me as the count quickly went to zero and two with her fouling ball after ball. Calling a time out after she had fouled off her sixth ball and making the count two and two, she walked over to me asking what was wrong.

To which I replied that she was trying too hard, she would do better just to hit like she would normally. Taking her position a second time she fouled off two more pitches before she finally got her base hit. For her it ended up being a long single that she could have stretched into a double since the play was at the plate trying to stop the second run from scoring. Not advancing was not a problem in the end as the girls ended up winning by twelve runs.