V. Regional Playoffs: Ramblewood 5, Bon Homme 3

V.  Regional Playoffs:  Ramblewood 5, Bon Homme 3

First inning, first batter, first pitch.  Fastball right on the imaginary number seven!

“Ball!” the umpire called.  I looked at the catcher, Ryan Jefferies and shook my head because that pitch usually goes for a strike.  Yes, it was down low at the knees and yes of course it was right on the corner of the plate, but most of the time, the umpire, whoever it may be, calls it a strike.

Next pitch:  I tried a fastball on the opposite corner, and the umpire called it the same, ball two.  Jefferies could sense my frustration.  It wasn’t that I was a “nibbler”, one of those pitchers who threw right off the side of the plate all day, hoping to get the questionable calls.  Still, we needed those pitches to be called strikes.  Jefferies gave the sign for a curve, and we got lucky because the batter practically threw his bat at the ball.  It made the count two and one, but I had no idea what to throw next.  The catcher asked for another fastball.  I nodded and sent the pitch right back at the number seven spot.

“Strike two!”  Things were worse than I thought.  The umpire was going to call the game inconsistently.  What worked once, might not work again and vice versa.  For me, there was nothing more infuriating.  I liked knowing that my fastball was a strike, relished the fact that my curve was a ball, but highly likely to induce a swing.  Without those assurances, it could be a long afternoon.

Jefferies gave me the sign for a slider.  I didn’t get a good snap on the ball and compensated by coming around too far on the pitch.  It hung right over the middle of the plate, but the batter picked up on that too late and was only able to slap it foul.  Everybody was having trouble it seemed.

We tried another fastball, this time on the inside corner, only to have it called a ball.  Some coaches will preach to their hitters to sit and wait in a full count, that the odds are in the favor to get a called ball and a free ride to first base.  Others press their batters to “go down swinging”.  I think it depends on the guy’s philosophy in life, aggressive or passive, but I can usually tell by the way a player swings if he wants to swing or he’s afraid to do so. 

This guy was afraid.  He’d watched four fastballs sail by, all of which were strikes.  He’d missed on a good curve and pulled the trigger late on a hanging slider.  Not an aggressive hitter at all.  I was going to have to give him something that the umpire would ring him up on, because he wasn’t going to do it to himself.  Jefferies and I agreed on the slider.

I paused and took a deep breath, knowing that I needed one pitch to work for me.  The fastballs weren’t getting the calls and the curve was a risky proposition.  Put simply, I had to make the slider work for me.  As I moved into my wind-up, I revisited my time on the mower in the south pasture.  I’d been working fastballs and curves in my mind, ignoring the slider because it was a new pitch and I wasn’t yet comfortable with it.  For a minute, I closed my eyes and imagined what a perfect slider would have looked like, sitting in the tractor, going down the rows in the hay meadow, motor humming, sunset a burnt orange behind my back; and in an odd way, I could see it there, better than I could standing on the mound in a game situation, sweat on my upper lip, heart beating heavy with excitement.

Opening my eyes, I launched my body towards home plate, mimicking the motion I envisioned for myself on the tractor.  My arm came over and around, my wrist snapped, the ball whipped out of my fingertips and tumbled through the waiting air between me and home plate.

I saw the batter’s face.  At first, he thought it was a curve, but it didn’t break like one.  Next, he seemed to think it might be a fastball, but he didn’t recognize its trajectory, not with the lateral break that it had.  He was stymied by the pitch and still contemplating whether to swing or not when the ball hit the catcher’s mitt behind him.  Strike three! 

For the next three innings, Jefferies and I took our chances with the fastballs, getting the call sometimes and wishing we had it at others.  The curve was switched on and getting the swings, but the slider was the “out” pitch, and it carried it us through the line-up.  I looked up and saw “Charles” Mantle and “Henry” Gehrig sitting about four rows back on the first base side.  I assumed that was “Robert” Clemente and “Scott” Drysdale sitting in the row behind them.  There was a new guy with them and he looked an awful lot like the baseball card picture of Roy Campanella.  They were all smiling.

Still, the fourth inning is when things get interesting.  At that point, the pitcher is facing the batters for the second time, and what worked the first trip to the plate, most likely will not get the hitter back to the dugout the second time around.  These guys were well coached, and they were laying off the curve.  We still weren’t getting a consistent call on the fastballs; so an element of luck was introduced. If we get a good call on the fastball and use an off-speed pitch to induce a foul ball, then the slider would get them for strike three.  They weren’t swinging at much, owing to the favorable calls they were getting.  However, that also mean the infielders and outfielders were having trouble staying focused on the game.  The Bon Homme Bobcat second baseman made good contact with one of my low outside fastballs, driving it into right field for a single that ripped down the first base line.

I couldn’t get the umpire to call anything a strike during the next at bat and ended up issuing a walk on four straight pitches, three of which would have been strikes with any other guy calling the game.  Still, I didn’t complain.  A good pitcher takes what the ump is giving and works with it.  The next guy hit a grounder to short and the guys behind me turned a double play, but it let the man on second get to third.  Two outs and the next guy walks to put men on the corners.  Four innings, four walks.  Not one of my better days statistically.  Then their catcher hit a nice blooper over our second baseman’s head, scoring the first run.  I was so mad at myself, the umpire, everything, that I struck the next guy out on three straight fastballs, all four-seamers and all as hard as I could through them right at the guy’s hands.  Poor guy swung more as a defense mechanism than anything else, but it gave me a good idea.  If I wanted this game, and yes, I most certainly did, then I was going to have to earn it.

One good thing about an inconsistent umpire is that usually whatever way he’s calling the game, the other team is dealing with the same issues.  Our guys got to their pitcher in the fifth inning, grinding out two runs with good base-running and carefully placed singles.  It gave us the lead back 2-1, and made my job a lot easier.  Mantle gave me a knowing look and I went to work on the next few guys in the Bon Homme line-up.  However, after four more batters, I’d issued another walk, an infield single and pitched one in too far on a batter, giving him first base on a questionable “hit by pitcher” call.  That had the bases loaded with only one out.  Up in the stands, Drysdale motioned for me to hurry up and bring the pitch to the plate quicker.  It put the hitters off their game just a little, just enough to get the next guy out with two subsequent sliders. 

Typically, I don’t like throwing the same pitch twice, but sometimes the best move is to stick with what’s working.  Jefferies called for more of the slider, and I obliged.  The next guy saw four of them, managing to foul two off, but missing completely on the fourth for strike three.  At the end of the fifth inning, the game was tied 2-2.

“Let’s keep going with the slider,” Jefferies caught me in the dugout in between innings.  “It’s the only thing they can’t seem to figure out.”

He was right.  The Bon Homme coach had told his hitters to sit on the fastballs and curves, but the slider looked like something in between.  When they decided to swing at it, they usually missed.  When they didn’t swing, the umpire uncharacteristically gave it a consistent strike call.  In the bottom half of the sixth inning, I threw the pitch well and often.  In fact, it was my best inning of the day.  No walks, one hit and two strike-outs. 

In the top of the seventh, our guys took full advantage of a Bobcat pitching change.  The new kid never even got settled in, giving up three runs on two walks and three hits.  It ultimately cost the Bobcats the ball game, as my reliever only gave up one run after Mr. Peterson told me I was done for the day.  It was one of the most frustrating outings of my young career, but we won.  That was enough to prolong my baseball career for at least one more game.

That night, I sat in my room and watched the moon rise up over the oak tree and cast its silver light through the leaves and into the window.  The door was open and my mother stuck her head in as she walked by.

“Not one of your best, huh?”

“Nope,” I said, confirming what we both knew.

“You stuck it out though.”

I didn’t say it, but all I could think was that I didn’t have much choice.  With so few games left in my limited baseball career, I had to hang on to ever second as long as I could.

“I’m proud of you,” she added.

Mantle was proud of me for toughing it out.  Gehrig and Campanella were proud of me.  What I wanted was for my dad to see it.  I wanted him to be proud, not mom.  Not Mickey Mantle.  And not the ghost of Lou Gehrig.  It sounds ungrateful, like something a spoiled brat of a child would think or say, but all I wanted was for my dad to see me play.

My mom must have read some of the frustrated emotions in my expression, because she said the one thing that would console me in that moment.

“Your dad would have been proud of you too.”

I said thanks and she tousled my hair the way she did when I was little.  With a smile on my face, I rolled over and went to sleep, dreaming of what a career in the big leagues would have been like.  I could almost hear the roar of the crowd, smell the dewy scent of freshly hewn grass, marvel at the good solid thump of a fastball hitting the catcher’s mitt. 

My mind also drifted through the grind of a long humid afternoon, hurling pitch after pitch in the bright August sun.  I felt the boredom of an extended rain delay, knew the weariness and monotony of a late season road trip.  I saw all of these things in contrast to the feeling of a nice familiar tractor, running back and forth in the pasture next to an old farmhouse in Ramblewood, Texas.

CONTINUED…