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At the afternoon practice, they parked me on the mound and had me practice my pickoff move to hold runners at first. About all Coach Mallei would say was I should concentrate on striking them out.
When I was done, Trent, Joe, and Mitch wanted to talk to me.
“We heard what you said to Dave. He seems to at least be trying,” Mitch said.
“He was starting to be really irritating. I take that back. He was a pain in the butt from day one. If he hadn’t been on our team, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him,” Joe admitted.
“We just wanted to thank you for talking to him. We also wanted to thank you for telling us what the coaches are looking for. I know they’ve made a few comments, but I personally didn’t realize it was such a big deal,” Trent said.
“We all like the idea of winning the tournament and all being picked for the top forty. Do you think it might happen?” Joe asked hopefully.
I could see they were all waiting for my answer. The truth was it would be hard to pull off something like that. Each team had standout players who probably could have displaced some of our players on talent alone. What set us apart was we had jelled as a team, not a group of all-stars.
“Coach Kingwood said they were looking for players who fit in. There might be better players on other teams, but we came together as a group quicker. If everyone gets with the program and focuses on winning, and not on personal glory, I think we have a shot.”
I could see them all thinking.
“I’m in,” Joe said with a look of determination.
“Yeah, I thought you were just grandstanding the first day to put Dave in his place for being self-centered. I believe you now,” Trent said.
I looked at Mitch, and he nodded.
“Okay. Now I want you all to go talk to the other guys. Tonight, we make a commitment to win and get everyone to the next level,” I said and sent them off with their marching orders.
I noticed Bob out of the corner of my eye.
“Come here,” I told him.
He looked like he thought he was in trouble. I smiled to reassure him.
“Do me a favor. If I tell you not to share something, it stays between us.”
“I can do that,” he said, relieved I wasn’t mad.
“Do you think the team could swim at your neighborhood pool this afternoon?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Let me go ask my mom,” he said and ran off to find out.
◊◊◊
Well, we were asked, politely and diffidently, to never come back to the pool. I’d invited thirteen baseball players, my family with Peggy and Pam, Dave’s sister and girlfriend, Bob’s friends, plus almost all the kids in the subdivision. Guess I should have known that it might create a little chaos.
No one was really a problem, and amazingly, no one got hurt. It was just that you could hear the noise ‘from several blocks away,’ or so we were told.
◊◊◊
Moose stopped by before our game with Pony to give us the report my coaches had gathered.
“On paper, Pony is the best team here. The problem is they have too many chiefs or wannabe chiefs and no Indians. It would be amusing to let David loose on their team. I can just imagine the fireworks,” Moose said with a chuckle.
“Hey, I’m not that bad,” I complained.
Moose just shook his head and continued. Even I knew what would happen. It wouldn’t be pretty.
“They’ve managed to win two games on talent alone, but in their last game, they were so busy sniping at each other that they got beaten badly. They’ve lost focus, and it’s starting to show up in their play. I’d be surprised if they win a game the rest of the way,” Moose said, then turned to me. “That doesn’t mean they’ll be an easy win.”
I understood what he was saying. One of the biggest mistakes you could make was to assume you would win. He didn’t have to worry about that. I wasn’t confident in my pitching. It would have been different if I’d pitched more during the season.
◊◊◊
Tonight’s game was going to be hot and muggy. It almost felt like I was back in Cuba. The only good thing about the heat was that it would help keep me loose.
It looked like we might also have our first sellout tonight. This stadium had a unique feature: outside the left field area, they’d built the ground up so it was even with the top of the fence. The berm sloped up slightly so fans could sit on blankets in the grass and watch the game, almost as if they were picnicking. They’d rated the berm for 250 fans, and it looked to be full. The stadium itself held 1,800 people. When we took the field at the top of the first, they made their presence known.
As I warmed up, I practiced my changeup to get the feel of the pitch. I’d planned on throwing all my pitches but wanted to get my off-speed pitch working for strikes or it would be a long night. I didn’t consider how that might look until the first batter came up with a big grin on his face. He apparently expected this was going to be like batting practice.
I figured, why not give him what he expected? But I would throw it high and out of the strike zone to see if he’d chase it. He did and hit the ball high and long. For a moment, I was worried that I’d made a big mistake, but Daz, who’d taken my spot in center field, didn’t even have to move. He just camped out and waited for it to fall to earth for the first out.
I did the same with their second batter, and so did he, but this time it flew to right field where Nick made the out.
I had a bad feeling when the next boy came to the plate. He was big and looked strong. I was afraid he might be able to power the ball out of the park, even if it flew as high as it did long. Fortunately, Trent was of the same mind and called for the fastball. I gave a little inner chuckle when he wanted it in the same location. Rearing back, I used my full six feet four inches of height to act as a whip to send a blistering rocket towards home.
I’ll give the batter credit. He began his swing but held up when the ball blew by him, and the umpire called a ball. But Trent asked for an appeal by the first base umpire who called it a strike because he had put the head of the bat over the plate.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” the batter screamed and slammed his bat onto the ground.
The home plate umpire didn’t hesitate.
“You’re done for the day, son.”
Even I was shocked at the quick hook. Their manager came out of the dugout, and I was even more surprised when he didn’t challenge the umpire, but grabbed his player and marched him to the dugout. Later, Bob told me he’d overheard that Team Pony had been warned yesterday that they had to stop their outbursts. This was a carryover from that.
The organizers had made our team rosters small for a reason. They wanted to see everyone play, and you couldn’t evaluate a player if he never made it onto the field. That meant that our pitchers had to fill in if someone was either injured or, in this case, kicked out of the game. On our team, that wasn’t really a problem because we had Daz and Austin, each of whom was an everyday player back home in addition to being a pitcher.
For Pony, this was more of a problem. They had to insert a pitcher who didn’t have a good bat, putting a hole right in the middle of the top of their order. Normally a team relies on its third batter to help move the first and second batters around the bases with his bat. I threw two fastballs outside, and the replacement swung at both of them for an easy out.
After the first inning, I was feeling good about getting out of it, having only thrown six pitches.
Joe was up first, and their pitcher walked him on five pitches. Their pitcher took a moment to calm himself and made quick work of Mitch, getting him to swing at three straight offerings. Dave hit a shot down the third base line, but their third baseman made a spectacular play across the infield to throw Dave out at first. Joe was at second when I came up with two outs.