In first case, he would be bouncy and loose; the other, he would be tense and single-minded. If you’re too focused, you might miss important stuff like the car that runs you over as you chase the worthless German shepherd across the street.
After warm-ups, they had some pregame hoopla where they announced the teams and sang the Star Spangled Banner. Then we took the field to go through our pregame ritual.
It gave me a chance to check out the crowd. The seats behind our dugout and in most of the outfield were filled with our fans. Marian Catholic had a good-sized following on their side of the field.
Behind home plate were some pro scouts, and I also spotted the coaches for both Oklahoma and Notre Dame’s baseball teams. It made sense Notre Dame would be recruiting Catholic kids for their baseball program. One person I was happy to see was Lucas Kite from the Cubs.
Finally, it was time for baseball.
In the top of the first, Marian Catholic went down in order. Moose was happy that Justin only had to throw five pitches.
Now it was our turn to bat. Ty came up and battled their starter. He was one of the best pitchers we’d faced, and if it weren’t for Ty’s good eye and quick hands, he would have struck out. Instead, Ty managed to foul several pitches off. On the last pitch, Marian Catholic’s pitcher threw one that Ty couldn’t get to. Fortunately, Ty held up, and the umpire called ball four to give him the walk.
Both Bryan and Wolf hit into groundouts that resulted in moving Ty to third. Now I was up with two outs.
I got into the batter’s box and followed my usual ritual to get ready. Once I settled in, I was more than a little surprised when the Marian Catholic pitcher took the bat out of my hand by drilling me in the left bicep. I hadn’t had to worry about opposing teams throwing at me since I’d come back from spring break. I guessed that in a big game, the opposition wanted to send a message that I wasn’t going to get a chance to win the game with my bat.
Their catcher jumped up and got between me and the mound.
“Slow your roll,” I warned him to stop a fight. “I plan to steal second base to get even.”
I said it loud enough that their infield could hear me. The pitcher tried to stare me down as I trotted to first. Moose was there to greet me.
“You had to announce what you plan to do?” he asked.
“Don’t worry, coach, they can’t touch this,” I said.
“We’ll see about that,” Marian Catholic’s first baseman butted in.
“Don’t be like that. We’re here to have some fun playing baseball,” I retorted while giving him my best ‘hurt innocence’ look.
“You’ll never steal second,” he predicted.
When their pitcher finally stepped back onto the mound and got ready to pitch to Brock, I purposely took a substantial lead. It was as if I had begged their pitcher to throw over to first, which was my plan. As soon as I saw him take his foot off the rubber and begin his turn to first to pick me off, I exploded to second.
The pitcher threw the ball into the dirt at first, where the first baseman made a remarkable pickup. He gunned the ball to second. Typically, the defense has the edge in a rundown. That’s because the runner has to stop on a dime and be at full speed going the opposite direction when the ball was in front of him. Defenders rotated out so they would be fresh, and you wore down the runner.
But there was a big difference here. I’d practiced changing direction with my speed drills, and Joey had worked my ass off to the point that stamina wasn’t going to be an issue for me.
I admit that they were doing an excellent job of making me run for my life. After I’d changed directions for the fourth time, I saw Coach Haskins give Ty the sign to steal home. Marian Catholic had their pitcher cover home as their catcher backed up first. While the drama unfolded with me darting back and forth on the base path, their pitcher had been focused on the action. Unwittingly, he slowly crept forward in front of home plate toward the mound.
This was what I meant by being too focused. While Marian Catholic watched me, Ty had made it two-thirds of the way down the base path when the crowd erupted even louder. One of their players got smart and looked home.
“He’s going to score!”
The second baseman panicked and threw home. I’d waited for one of two things to happen. Either they would make a bad throw, or Ty would distract them. Ty dove for home and beat the throw.
I didn’t hesitate as I ran to second. When I got there, I saw the third baseman had covered second. Marian Catholic had made a monumental error. When we had our infield do this drill, our left fielder would come in to cover third, just in case. Theirs hadn’t. I rounded second and took off for third.
Their pitcher was so incensed that he ran down the line to try to tag me. He had no chance, and he realized it when he was about two-thirds of the way down the line. He threw his hands up and stomped towards the mound in defeat. I rounded third and headed home.
The crowd erupted, and the pitcher twirled around. He made a dive to tag me, but I jumped over his tag and then walked home for the score to give us a 2–0 lead.
That was when things got interesting. Marian Catholic’s infield all huddled up at the mound. At first, it looked like the typical ‘let’s get our act together’ kind of talk. But then the first baseman apparently said something to the pitcher. It devolved into a shouting match, and the two of them had to be separated.
We watched from our bench in stunned silence. I hadn’t seen anything like this since Baseball USA, when two brothers on our team had gotten into a fistfight during a game.
“I wish I’d thought to buy a bag of popcorn. This is starting to get entertaining,” Wolf said to our amusement.
From there, it all went downhill for Marian Catholic. The next morning’s newspaper summed it up best.
Lincoln High scored in almost every way imaginable on Monday, capitalizing on 11 hits for a 15–5 decision.
We got a tad rowdy on the bus ride home because come Wednesday evening, we could be State Champs.
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Chapter 31 – Use Your Tears for Lube Wednesday May 10
Today, finals started. The teachers planned it that way because they knew we didn’t play Central until tonight. That meant they had the green light to give us our finals today and tomorrow. Friday would be a half-day as we got our grades and cleaned out our lockers.
Before school started, they had a big table by the front door with our yearbooks. That would just add to the craziness of the next couple of days as everyone got their friends to sign them. It was fun to write some goofy message and hope that they pulled their book out in twenty years, and it put a smile on their face.
I turned to the index in the back to see what pages I was on. Dear Lord, I was on a lot of them. As I flipped forward, I noticed they had an ad section where local businesses had bought space to help pay for the books. I shook my head because, along with the usual suspects—Booster Club members—I saw that Dawson Realty, Dawson Farms, Granny’s West, and Our House had all bought quarter-page ads. They were all put on the same page.
I was happy that we’d helped pay for the books until I read the bottom. Get David Dawson’s signature in your yearbook and receive a FREE cinnamon roll or potato skins on your next visit to Granny’s West.
While I thought that this was a good marketing plan, I wished I’d been told about it up front. I decided to let it slide for now because I’d chosen not to be involved in running the businesses. As much as this made me want to dive back in, I realized I was about to leave in a few days. I wouldn’t have the time or brain space to deal with that once I started filming.