“He was with Bill Callaway at the dance.”
I’d forgotten the two of them had come to the Homecoming Dance before their game with Notre Dame.
“Ridge has a girlfriend he’s been seeing since high school.”
“I’m not looking to date him, I just want to have some arm candy for Prom. Plus, I know he can dance,” Pam said.
“How about Bill? He’s planning on coming home for a little while,” I offered.
“I’m starting to get Seaver Fever.”
“Okay, I give up. I’ll call Ridge.”
“David?”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
◊◊◊
Moose introduced new drills for the outfielders. The younger guys were having trouble with their drop step. They were doing a little intermediate step before they did it. It was kind of a nervous shuffle as they figured out which way to go.
“I realize that it’s going to take some time to break you of this habit. But you need to get working on it so you don’t start over learning how to do this next year,” Moose said.
He put a baseball bat on the ground.
“David, put your feet behind the bat. I’m going to say ‘go’ and then point left, right, or straight back, and then toss the ball as if it was hit,” Moose explained.
I nodded my understanding.
Moose said ‘go,’ pointed left, then lofted the ball in that direction. I did my drop step and chased it down.
Milo was up next. On ‘go,’ it became obvious what Moose was talking about. The bat was knocked sideways as Milo made his little dance move before his drop step.
“Now I want to show you the second drill I want you to start doing,” Moose said. “It’s called ‘concentration.’ You’ll pair up and toss balls to each other. Instead of just catching them, you’ll catch it between your legs or around your back. Obviously, if you try this in a game, I’ll bench you.”
For some reason, he looked right at me. Then he continued.
“To up the ante, I want you to catch the ball with the glove behind your back.”
Moose showed that the glove couldn’t be seen looking straight on because it was resting on his back just above his butt. He had me toss him the ball, and he bent at the waist and caught it. This was going to be a fun drill.
“The final drill is the ‘fence drill.’ Again, you’ll partner up, and one of you will toss the ball over the other’s head and hit the fence with the ball. I want the one playing defense to play the baseball off the fence and get into a throwing position. This will help you learn to play deep balls that reach the fence and bounce back into play.”
Moose had the three drills going, and I partnered up with Milo. Of course, I wanted to do the concentration drill. He tossed me the ball, and I caught it around my back. I threw it back to him, and he tried to catch it between his legs. I say ‘tried’ because it hit him in the nuts. This was suddenly my all-time favorite drill.
Moose jogged over to find out why Milo was rolling around on the ground.
“What happened?” he asked, concerned.
“He forgot to wear his cup.”
“Oh. I bet you’ll concentrate harder next time,” Moose said to Milo and left to work with the infield.
“If I weren’t a Mennonite and didn’t believe in nonviolence, I would kick your ass,” Milo said when he got up and caught his breath.
“You could always try to hit me in the nuts. We could make a game of it,” I suggested.
Milo was smart enough to go put his cup on and then came back to play the new drill we’d created. The kid had an arm. Even with a cup, if one got through, it took your breath away. We named our drill
Moose came back twenty minutes later and found us all in a circle about fifteen feet apart, throwing smoke at each other’s crotch. He was in time to see me get hit in the nuts when the ball skipped off the side of my glove. Of course, everyone else thought it was hilarious.
“You okay?” Moose asked.
“Yeah,” I said, gingerly getting up.
“What are you doing?”
“Team-building,” I suggested.
“Carry on,” Moose said, shocking us all, and he headed back to the infield.
It was my turn. Dan’s eyes got big because he’d been the one to hit me in the nuts. It was payback time!
◊◊◊
Tonight, Coach Hope had an older guy, Bud, for me to box against. Bud showed every fight on his face. I mean that literally. This man must have lost a lot. His nose looked like it had been broken repeatedly, he had scars over his eyes, and his ears were deformed. Bud was built like a bull.
When we began, he rushed in, and I stood him up with a right-left combination. He just shook it off and kept coming at me. He wanted to get in close and turn this into a street fight. I wrapped him up, and Fritz told us to break. As I stepped back, Bud threw a big hook to the side of my head that staggered me. Fritz stepped between us to see if I was okay.
I nodded, and Fritz stepped back to let us fight. In our next clash, Bud got in close and tried to punish me with body shots. I twisted and turned to negate most of them until Bud threw an uppercut into my nuts. As my knees gave out, he hit me square in the jaw. Fritz pulled him off before he could get in any more cheap shots.
