Second Chance at Bat, page 8
* * *
"What’s that?"
* * *
“We’re seven innings from going to a championship." Joe said. “Pinch me, I’m dreaming.”
* * *
“Yeah, we’ve done a good job of hiding our weaknesses." Johnson said as they started lobbing the ball back and forth increasing the distance by two paces on each throw.
* * *
When the game began the dream started to fade. Champy was not the same guy and struggled with deep counts. Then, a couple of fluke hits fell between His Honor and Doc Bates both hampered with injuries. Throw in a couple of rocket shots up the middle and the flood gates were straining. Thankfully, The other team started a guy that didn’t have his best stuff either. The Bay Sox jumped on him for a couple of runs on walks and timely hits regaining the lead.
* * *
Their starter got relieved in the third by a younger guy that threw smoke and had a decent curve. Joe guessed they were saving him for the championship game. Now, he had to stop the bleeding or there would be no big finale He nailed Joe with that curve right on the cup. It rang his bells. As Joe waddled to First, the other team’s feisty Legend, Mike Jeltz yelled out, “Aw, just rub a little dirt on it." Joe didn’t find it amusing and thanked Mizuno for making sliding pants with the cup in the cup insert.
* * *
It was a see-saw battle. Joe was running gap to gap now to keep singles from becoming doubles. Johnson had to come out deeper and deeper for the cut-offs. In the bottom of the Sixth, with a man on First and two outs, the Bay Sox were clinging to a two run lead.
Joe saw the ball off the bat. It was a hard line drive into Right-Center. He ran directly towards it but hadn’t mastered running on his toes yet. With the ball sinking and his head bobbing, Joe caught up to it and tried to basket catch it. It thudded against his chest and fell to his feet. He picked it up and angrily threw to Johnson who then threw to second to keep the runner from advancing.
* * *
A lip reader would have blushed at the words coming out of Joe’s mouth then. Tying runs were on base instead of the Sox being out of the inning. He teammates were using every ounce of the strength and courage and he couldn’t handle a line drive.
* * *
Joe got his head back in the game in time for Harmon to wave him back ten steps. Oh, great their clean up hitter was up to bat. Champy was nearly out of gas. Two pitches later, the longest hit of the game was arcing over Joe’s head. He immediately turned , put on the after burners and felt his left quad twinge. The ground was soft and the ball came to a quick stop. Joe picked it clean and fired the longest throw he had made this century, Johnson caught it on the line on his glove side and uncorked the throw Home. The runner from first was trying to score. Shorty was blocking the plate, Big D flagged at the one-hopper and let it through. The ball and base runner arrived at the same time. The ball went into mitt, followed by fists and forearms delivered at full speed. Off went Shorty’s mask, as he tumbled backwards from the G force collision. Everybody waited and waited. Finally, the Umpire spied the ball safely tucked in the Shorty’s mitt. Joe could hear the out call from 350 feet away.
* * *
Back in the dugout, Joe grabbed Shorty and Johnson and hugged them both, “Thank you for saving my sorry guinea ass.”
* * *
Champy saw this and said, “Are you kidding me D? You were the only guy that could have gotten to that ball in time and you made a hellava throw to Johnson. If I wasn’t throwing lollipops, they wouldn’t be hitting shots all over the place.”
* * *
Briggs butted in. “Champy, you have kept us in the game, in case you haven’t noticed. We are still winning."
* * *
Champy said ”Guys, I’m out of gas, who can give us three more outs?"
* * *
Doyle stepped up in more than one way and said,”If I don’t throw first pitch strikes, I’ll gladly hand it to the next guy, I’ve got to get this monkey off my back.” They all looked to Julio who joined the conversation on his way to third.
* * *
Julio waited and thought out his options and called over Benny, they talked privately. It was Bogues that said, “Winners always want the ball. Okay, Doyle, you’re in."
* * *
The Bay Sox went down in order and now the game was Doyle’s to close out.
* * *
Shorty encouraged each strike in warm ups and calmed down everyone’s fears of a repeat from the previous days. The first batter dug in and the pressure now shifted to the offense to produce.
* * *
The chatter came alive. “C’mon Lar reee!” “Do it Doyle!” “Bring it baby!” “We got your back, go after him Doyle”. Joe was using his glove like a shield in Center to yell over to Deron Money who moved to Left. “I’ll go for the gappers, but you’ve got to back me up. Got it?” Big D nodded and they got set for the next pitch.
* * *
The line drive was soft and easy. Big D didn’t have to move a step. His infield eyes made the adjustment and he closed his glove on the ball. “One out”, every Bay Sox yelled. Doyle took the ball with growing confidence as the number six hitter nervously waggled his bat.
* * *
“Strike one.” barked the Umpire on Doyle’s fastball that caught the outside corner or at least it was in the same zip code Joe observed from Centerfield.
* * *
Shorty stepped around the batter and tossed in back with the a little mustard and an attaboy,
* * *
Doyle dealt again and it was a little further outside, and a futile swing made it strike two.
* * *
Doyle had him, but rather that serve up an 0-2 waste pitch, he came right in on the batter who got jammed and dropped a dribbler to Doyle’s feet, He half jogged toward first and underhanded it to Champy for the second out.
* * *
The Bay Sox fans, all eight of them, were going crazy.
* * *
The chatter rose a couple hundred decibels around the diamond. Joe was hopping up and down with excitement.
* * *
Both Harmon and Champy were protecting the lines, Doc and Big D were stationed by Harmon in a no-doubles defense. Doyle threw strike one to a taking batter who looked like he praying for a walk. Nobody wants to make the last out, Joe thought.
* * *
Doyle took his time, then threw from the wind up. The number 7 hitter couldn’t catch up with it and fouled it off.
* * *
The encouragement poured across the field from the stands and fielders. Doyle took the ball, toed the rubber quickly and fired his best fastball in three days. Maybe the adrenaline had something to do with it. It was a big league fastball below the knees and it had completely surprised the frozen hitter.
* * *
Strike three. Doyle got a K, The Bay Sox survived to win. Fans and players mobbed Champy and Doyle sans monkey. Guys used to accepting plea bargains, signing contracts or diagnosing illnesses were now high-fiving each other and chest bumping on tender hamstrings. The over Fifty guys, some of them grandfathers no doubt, were giddy as schoolgirls. The Johnson family was hugging everybody including Benny and Julio. The opponents waited and watched silently on the third base line for their handshakes. They didn’t realized what made this celebration so special. The Bay Sox came together the day before and jelled as a team. Petty ego and vanity took a backseat after His Honor’s pep talk and it was teamwork and a gutty pitching performance this morning that catapulted them into the afternoon’s championship .
* * *
Lunch was an interesting mix of players making the trip back and forth from the trainer’s room. Joe saw his roomy whose face said it all. “We took them 8 innings and lost on a close play at the plate”.
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“Sorry to hear that, I would have liked to play against your team.”
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Joe’s roommate asked, “You mean you won?”
* * *
“Yeah, you make it sound like we climbed Mt. Everest or something.”
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“Sorry, it just that you were worried that the injuries would catch up with you.”
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“The older guys are warriors. Any one of them could roll out of bed and hit a double down the line. They may not bend real well, but they don’t break. I’d played ball with them anytime, if they’d let me.”
* * *
“So who’s pitching against the dream team?”
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Joe grinned and asked, “Whaddyamean, dream team?”
* * *
“Those guys that just squeaked by us are all veterans from the last couple of years, they all decided that they wanted to play together on Kiko Garcia’s team. They were exempted from the draft. He had his roster set before the try-outs on Thursday. This was their plan to win it all."
* * *
“No wonder they went undefeated.” Joe said.
* * *
It was then that the Legends from his roommate’s team and their player rep sat down across from Joe. Julio and Benny joined the table. Kiko’s team was the topic of conversation.
* * *
Benny said it first, “Yeah they stacked the deck with a couple Iron Men pitchers and guys that can really hit the ball.”
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The player reps read off the statistics, "In four games, they had only given up 8 runs, 2 earned and racked up a lot of strike outs. The middle of their lineup was batting over .400 with most of the RBIs."
* * *
Nobody liked playing against a stacked deck and the rookie teams were now chipping in advice. It was becoming a David vs. Goliath thing and they were looking at Joe’s knucke ball as the stone in his slingshot.
* * *
The back end of the line-up had Joe’s batting average and their defense was stacked on the left side, Shortstop, Third and Left. If you could hit to the opposite field and take the extra bases, you could score runs on these guys. This was the book on Kiko’s team.
* * *
The Bay Sox stayed in their now redeemed red Away jerseys as they made their way to Steve Carlton field. Joe couldn’t help think about the baseball version of “Band of Brothers” He was going to hold the hill with teammates holding down the flanks.
* * *
Doyle was still pumped from his closing effort and sent the first pitch over the Third baseman’s head for a single, then didn’t stop when nobody covered Second base. The left fielder threw to Shortstop who tried in vain to outrace Doyle to the bag.
* * *
The Bay Sox were putting Kiko’s team on notice that they weren’t going to ride quietly into the sunset. Joe was in the two hole. He slapped a first pitch fast ball hard that the second baseman smothered but couldn’t make a play on; getting his first hit in twenty years. Harmon drilled a shot to deep Center and Doyle tagged up and jogged home to draw first blood. Joe slid under the tag at second. Big Deron Money went the other way and inside-outed a ball into right. Joe saw it off the bat, knew it was it was,well, money. He flew into Third with Julio waving him home. The ball got cut off and Joe score standing up. Big D got into a rundown and was tagged out when he ran out of gas. Anderson drilled a shot back to the mound for the third out.
* * *
Staked to a two run lead, the Bay Sox settled in for a siege. Joe’s arm was loose but he didn’t throw with the same velocity as the day before. Here he found the sweet spot for his knuckle ball. By throwing it just below his full speed, he was getting maximum movement on it. Joe could feel his left quad as he pushed off on every throw, but it didn’t hamper his delivery. The umpire had tightened the strike zone on both teams, but his floater, at some point, was passing through. The affect was devastating. Joe had an agonizing slow pitch that danced before the batter’s eyes. Try as hard as they could, they couldn’t swat a ball that floated up there like a Monarch Butterfly riding the thermals on a late summer’s day. Weak pop-ups and grounders were handled easily. Joe struck out at least one batter each inning. The big bats were pressing harder and harder to get a hit. The weaker hitters were making contact but sending it right to his infielders.
* * *
Then in the Fifth, with one out, Joe couldn’t get the hitter out. With a 3-2 count, the best hitter in camp fouled off two more pitches until Joe bounced one in the dirt for ball four. Two pitches later Joe got a picture perfect double play grounder gobbled up by His Honor who threw to Johnson swiping the bag. He nearly took of the head of the charging runner on his throw to Champy. Still up by two, Joe thought as he ran off the field.
* * *
In the top of the next frame, Joe’s team added another run on Doubles by Deron Money and Harmon, with Money’s blast bouncing off the left field fence just short of clearing it.
* * *
Joe went into the Sixth with a 3-0 lead. Since this marquee game started an hour after all the consolation games, players, their Phans and Legends found seats behind the third base side. It was the Bay Sox against the Philistines. They were all rooting for the Bay Sox.
* * *
The number seven and eight batters both struck out swinging. The volume of applause and cheers from the spectators after each strike out increased. Joe got set and delivered his 72nd pitch of the game, only to see the right handed batter poke his bat out and send a soft pop up behind First. Champion turned and tried to make an over the shoulder catch. Joe ran to cover the bag and got the throw two steps too late. “Safe” Blue made the right call.
* * *
Joe waited for Champy to come back to First to tell him that he made a hell of an effort on that ball, but the noise of applause and cheers got louder. Joe asked Champy, “What’s all that about?”
* * *
Champy looked at Joe with surprise and said, “I’ll tell you in the dug out, just tip your cap to the crowd.”
* * *
Joe did as he was told and the applause and cheers increased. He settled in on the mound and got the lead off hitter to bounce out to Anderson who touched second for the last out of the inning. One more inning to go. More applause and cheers, this time Joe was getting pounded on the back by his teammates as he made his way to the dug out. Champy hugged him and said, “You still don’t know. Do you?”
* * *
Benny and Julio came up and offered congratulations now. Joe was really confused, they still had an inning to play. What was this all about?
* * *
Champy finally let him in on the secret. “D, that guy you walked was your perfect game,-that cheap hit that I should have caught was your no-hitter.”
* * *
“No kidding, really?” Joe’s mind was swirling. “The only numbers that I was counting were runs. As long as we held the lead, I just focused on throwing it over the plate."
* * *
Benny and Julio just nodded and smiled behind those damn sunglasses at what he said.
* * *
Joe sat down for a drink and more handshakes and congratulations. He realized that he did not pitch growing up. He had seen Hot Shot and Joey team up for two no-hitters and plenty of shut outs, but back then, he was always making sure the stats were right. The personal achievements were nice as long as the team got the “W”. No one counted hits for the thousands of batting practice throws he had tossed over the past twelve years. He threw the ball over the plate so the kids could hit it and he kept them humble with the knuckle ball. This was all new to him.
* * *
Joe was on deck when Doyle grounded out and the Bay Sox went out for the bottom of the Seventh.
* * *
Joe stood on the mound and waited for the batter to settle in. Joe wasn’t nervous. The loss of the perfect game and no hitter was really not important to him. they need four runs to beat us. just throw strikes.
* * *
And he did. Another hit, mixed in with a couple of ground outs and a game ending wiff started the celebration. The players were more subdued now than the morning game. They shook hands with the veterans and Kiko Garcia quickly while savoring the victory just the same. The tiredness of playing their second doubleheader in two days crept in immediately. They would get their moment in the spotlight at the awards banquet that evening. Even Joe made his way to the trainer’s room for ice on the shoulder and heat on the leg. They were the winners and wanted to look that way against the Legends for the first game in the morning.
