I dug in and made sure my stance was right. My first pitch was a ball so far outside I couldn’t have touched it with the end of the bat, but it was called a strike. I didn’t say anything, but even the catcher gave me a look. He knew it was a ball. The second pitch was a very low curveball. I looked at the umpire to dare him to call that a strike. The third pitch was a changeup that found itself right in my sweet spot. I was a little ahead of it, but I launched it down the third base line to tie the score at 3–3.
Waterloo’s relief pitcher loaded the bases but managed to get the last two batters to strike out to get them out of the inning.
In the top of the eighth, one of our freshman pitchers walked the first guy up. That was when Moose called for a pitching change. I was shocked when he called me in.
“David, I just want you to throw the heat. Get us to the bottom of the eighth so we can win this,” Moose encouraged.
I was grateful the umpire gave me a few extra pitches to warm up since I’d come in from the field. Johan trotted out to make sure we had our signals right.
“This guy is being a little loose with his strike zone both high and outside,” Johan said.
“Why don’t we try not to actually throw strikes then? No need to give them anything to hit.”
“Careful with the baserunner,” Johan reminded me.
“I’ll take care of him,” I said with a smile.
The Waterloo batter stepped into the box and made a big show of digging in with his back foot. He was excited to see me throwing fastballs as I warmed up. I got set in the stretch and glanced over my shoulder. The runner had taken a good lead. That seemed awfully brave, considering he’d never seen my move to first. Well, he was going to see it.
I stepped off the rubber and snapped a throw to first. I was sure I got him, but the first base umpire emphatically signaled safe. The runner had eaten dirt to get back in time. Jim made a motion as if he threw the ball back to me. The runner stood up and cleaned the dust off his face and uniform. To do that, he stepped off first base for just a second. Jim tagged him.
The umpire signaled ‘out,’ to the disgust of the runner and his coach. Saturday night, during the baseball game on TV, they’d had a rain delay. During it, they showed trick plays. Jim told me that if he got a chance, he was going to do the hidden-ball trick. They showed one base runner get caught twice in one game. The runner got caught up in the routine of the pitcher tossing the ball and the first baseman throwing it back. He assumed the arm motion meant the ball had been returned to the pitcher. It was a good lesson to always call time if you planned to step off the bag.
With the go-ahead runner off the base path, I could focus on pitching. It also meant I might only have to face two batters and not three. The first batter dug in again to make sure his back foot was planted. Apparently, he saw himself as a power hitter. I threw three straight fastballs outside where he couldn’t possibly hit it. I smiled when, on the last one, he exploded and yelled at the umpire. Everyone could see they were outside, but he was calling them that way against us, too. As a batter, you had to adjust.
Their next batter was a smaller kid. I threw my first pitch in the same spot as my last three, but the umpire called it a ball. I wondered if he adjusted his strike zone based on what he thought someone could hit. The next pitch I inched in a little, and it, too, was called a ball. Well, crud, I might actually have to throw a strike. I decided to throw the high fastball and see how the umpire called that.
The ball was just under the kid’s chin. The crafty little shit did what I would have: he stood up. Moose had been working with me to make adjustments in my swing with my legs. I usually had my knees bent and was on the balls of my feet when I was in my batter’s stance. Moose had shown me how to straighten my knees to move my swing up a few inches. The key was it kept my swing the same so I could hit with power. This was preferable to lifting my hands to reach the ball. When I raised my hands, I tended to change the motion of my swing so it wasn’t as level. That resulted in my swing angle to go upwards, causing pop flies.
With as hard as I was throwing, even a smaller boy, like the one I was facing, could hit a long fly ball. I shook my head in disgust as the ball sailed to center field. Dan Ball had taken my place in center. I watched as he turned and raced back. I thought he might have a chance. Milo Bauer called “fence” to warn Dan that he was close. Dan slowed and prepared to play the ball off the fence. The ball came down and hit him on the head. We all watched in horror as it bounced over the fence for a home run. My first thought was that if it were me, I would have caught it, but Dan did his best.
