Chapter 14

"Ladies and Gentlemen – Thank you for being with us as the City of Branson welcomes the Branson Eagles. We are thrilled to have such a great organization affiliated with our city..." The Mayor droned on as a packed house awaited the first pitch of the first game in the new stadium.

Ushers moved everyone efficiently to their sections. Concessionaires kept everyone fed, and our community came out to launch the new team.

Jack's people hovered, filtered through the crowd, and generally obsessed on security. Winnie stuck beside Colleen, Rebecca and the kids. The team was psyched up for opening night, and I waited in the clubhouse for the fifth inning, when I would take my seat in the bullpen. Benjamin kept me company, along with two bodyguards, who would precede me out to the pen.

The first pitch was thrown out by our Governor, who pleaded state business and left shortly thereafter. Three congress members showed up with their entourages. Our country singer led the packed house in our National Anthem, and got a standing ovation from a standing crowd.

Cameras recorded everything for posterity. Our press box was partially filled with local and state sports reporters, as well as a writer from Baseball America. Mr. Bell sat with Millie in our box, and I sweated out the first four innings as the Eagles fell behind six to two.

During the middle of the fifth, I walked out to the bullpen and started to slowly warm up. Our starter threw eighty-five pitches, which was plenty for this early in the season. He was replaced by a former major league starter struggling through some injury problems, who needed another month to build arm strength before going back up to the big club.

Little Rock's starter flamed out in the bottom of the fifth, and we found ourselves all tied after six.

In the seventh, Little Rock touched our soon to be ex-Eagle for three unearned runs. He was running out of gas, anyway, and our manager pulled him before the game got completely out of hand. I was warm and ready when Ronnie Firth motioned for me to take over, with two outs, and two on.

Before exiting the bullpen I kissed Benjamin, grabbed my warm up jacket, and threw back the remaining water in my bottle. Sweat trickled down the back of my uniform shirt as I strode to the mound, intent on getting us out of the seventh and back into the game.

Little Rock seemed energized by beating up on our major league starter, but I thought I could use that to my advantage. When they're excited, make them wait...

It took me the prescribed eight pitches to acclimate myself to the new mound, and I was ready to carve my name into the Double A record books.

Their first batter was a Punch and Judy hitter. There was no way I was going to fool around, and I put him on the bench in four pitches, all hitting over ninety. Just like that, the Little Rock rally died. I thought the hard and fast approach would breathe a little life back onto our team, and it seemed to work, as our first two hitters got on base, with a walk and a bunt single.

Little Rock changed pitchers, going from a hard thrower to a finesse guy, who HAD to hit his spots to survive. If his pitches drifted out over the plate, our guys were going to light him up like a Fourth of July celebration.

The fans stayed in their seats when we tied it up and went to the top of the eighth all tied at six. Their bottom of the order hitters flailed at my high heat and we were out of the eighth almost before we started. Little Rock depended on contact and speed to win ballgames. If their first four hitters didn't get on base, nothing much happened for them.

With two on and one out, our catcher took Little Rock's fourth pitcher deep, and we had our first lead ever, nine to six. The pitcher's spot was due up next, and I expected our manager to pinch hit for me, but he decided to let me work another inning, which meant I had to hit.

Bad Idea.

Really Bad Idea.

As a hitter, I made a darn good pitcher. Grabbing my bat, I took my time getting to the plate. Hitting was a foreign language to me. To put it succinctly, I sucked like a Hoover.

Little Rock brought in a scrawny guy to pitch to me, who looked like he might pitch, or might simply fall over in a faint. He was so skinny, I wondered how he could keep his pants up, but he had a tremendous fastball, with no movement. If I could catch up to it, I could hurt them.

That was wishful thinking.

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good night. Three pitches and I didn't even make contact.

I looked so bad I was laughing at myself on my back to the dugout. Because I refused to take my lousy hitting seriously, the team rallied around me and made me feel so much better.

"Listen, sport. Try taking a bat out there next time..."

"Hey, did you even see the baseball? You know, it's that round white thing that flew by you so fast, you spun around like a top."

"Yo, White Guy. You understand this is a game where you throw AND hit, right???"

I let them have their fun and put them in their places when I retorted, "Oh, Yeah?"

That'll fix them.

Laugh all you like, but no one laughed when I shut them down in the ninth for my first, regular season, professional win. Two and a third innings, NO HITS, NO WALKS, and four strikeouts. They could laugh but I had a "W" after my name in the box score. No one could take that away from me.

As soon as I showered, gave a two second interview to the Springfield FOX affiliate, and dressed, I met my family in our reception center, in the field house, where we were hosting our special guests, visitors, friends, and the families of players for the after game celebration.