Since I hadn’t thrown hard until just now, Coach Herndon signaled I should continue to throw the heat until someone touched it. On my next pitch, the scouts all had their guns up as I rocketed another pitch home. Johan had called for it on the inside half of the plate. The poor batter bailed when he saw it coming. I’d been hit by the pitching machine throwing smoke, and I might have done the same if I hadn’t seen a pitch like that before.
In the top of the seventh, the score was still 1–0. I’d had a good day at bat with a single, a double, and a home run with my three plate appearances. I’d also stolen second once. We’d threatened to add more in the last three innings, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. So here we were, with two outs in the final inning, and I was pitching to Lakeview’s best batter. He had, in fact, hit my fastball the last time I faced him, but he hit it right at Jim, or it would have gone for extra bases.
Even though I was in great shape, my arm was starting to feel tired. I motioned for Johan to come out to the mound, which brought out Moose.
“How are you feeling?” Moose asked.
“Fine, I’m just worried I don’t have enough for my fastball to work on this guy. I want to break out my slider and curveball.”
“Are you sure? You sucked in warm-ups,” Johan said.
“I just wasn’t loose enough.”
Even Moose didn’t believe that one.
“Trust me,” I said.
“I’d prefer to leave you in if you think you can do it, rather than have to bring in one of the freshmen in a close game,” Moose said.
“I’ve got this,” I said, and they both just nodded.
Lakeview’s cleanup hitter was a big first baseman who was garnering interest for the next level. Word was he wanted to get a minor league contract because he had little interest in playing college ball. He dug in, and I could guess he was focused on my fastball. He planned to get a pitch in his zone that he could drive and hopefully tie the score with one swing.
I set up and threw my curveball. It looked like I was trying to brush him back, but it broke and caught the center of the plate. If he hadn’t hit the dirt, thinking I was sending a message pitch, this game would have been tied. He was pissed that I’d made him look foolish.
I looked behind the plate and could see the scouts checking with each other to see if I really had just thrown a curveball for a strike. That made me wonder what they would think when I followed that up with a slider. I looked at the batter and could see the first little doubt creep into his eyes. Johan asked for my slider to be high and on the outside; he was trying to confuse the batter with location. I just nodded.
This time the ball looked to be outside until it broke for the plate. I’ll give the kid credit; he got the bat on it and fouled it off. If I had complete control over that pitch, I would have come back with it and thrown it low and outside and hoped he would chase it. Instead, I decided to throw the heat by him. I was sure I had at least one more in me.
The ball almost hissed as it flew towards home. The hitter made a mighty swing, and I heard it as it connected with the bat. I smiled when I realized he hadn’t gotten all of it. What he did do was hit a towering shot almost straight up.
“Mine!” I called.
Pitchers rarely field pop-ups in the infield, but I wasn’t a typical pitcher. I wondered if it would ever come down, and then gravity did its thing. I camped out under it, waved my arms, and called out again that it was mine. Everyone backed off and gave me room. I made sure to show the umpires I had it to end the game.
I was proud of my guys because they treated this like any other game and didn’t jump up and down. Lakeview had been a worthy opponent today. Mr. Hicks, our athletic director, came onto the field and talked to the Lakeview coach and Moose as we shook hands with the Lakeview players. The last guy was the one who had just popped up.
“I thought I had you,” he said.
“I was afraid you had. If we had any depth in pitching, I would have let them take over and pitch against you. I didn’t want to face you,” I admitted.
“What the hell was that at the end? You threw me a slider and curveball. I about shit my pants when you threw that curve.”
“If you’d seen how badly I threw it in warm-ups, you would have been right to bail. I just figured it would fool you,” I said.
“Good luck in the playoffs,” he said, and then continued down the line to shake hands.
Moose came over.
“They want to do a press conference. Go sign your autographs and then come into the interview room,” he told me.
Caryn had been busy. She’d realized that I shouldn’t be handing out Stryker photos at a baseball game, so she’d gotten my baseball picture. The whole team had gotten photographs taken for the yearbook. Caryn had had the printer make baseball cards out of mine. I got the batboys to help me hand the cards out. I smiled to see Lakeview’s batgirl help hand them out as well. They’d printed my signature on the cards, so I didn’t have to sign them.
