“I’ll think about it,” he conceded.
◊◊◊
Dave and I talked for another ten minutes about everything Bob had shared with me. Some things we couldn’t fix in the short time we had, but others were more awareness and concentration issues. Those we felt we could help with. At the very least, we could tell the players what was thought of them. You couldn’t fix something if you didn’t know you had a problem.
Once we finished our conversation, Dave and I walked over to see Coach Kingwood.
“Would it be okay if we pulled the team together for a quick meeting?” I asked.
I’m sure he was surprised that it was the two of us asking.
“Just don’t take too long.”
I waved everyone in. Dave started us off.
“I want to apologize if I’ve come off sounding like a jerk, telling everyone that they can’t say certain things. It isn’t meant the way David says I sound when saying it.”
“We know, man. It just gets old after a while,” Daz said.
“I’ll try to do better. If I get to be irritating, just tell me,” Dave said.
Everyone looked at me, and I shrugged. Bob would fill them in.
We then talked about what had been overheard. Dave and I switched off when we talked about each player. They took it well and saw that Dave was trying. I expect that would go a long way toward repairing some of the hard feelings he’d started to cause.
“What about you two? What did the coaches say?” Allard asked.
“They thought I wasn’t being a team player, and that if I kept it up, I wouldn’t make the cut. David’s right. I want to see all of us make it, and I plan to follow his lead,” Dave said.
“What about you, big shot?” Trent asked.
“They said I suck at pitching and should leave it to you guys,” I said to get a laugh. “They also said that ice cream is for winners, and they expect us to be eating ice cream after this game.”
That was a cue to get back to work.
◊◊◊
Tonight’s game was against United. They were the only other team that had won all three of their games so far. Moose told us that their first four batters were all very good and that their right fielder was great at the plate, but a poor fielder. He also said their catcher didn’t have a great arm, so he thought we could steal on him.
Coach Kingwood decided to send in our closer, Kale, to start tonight. Of all the pitchers, he’d thrown the fewest number of innings, so he got the honor. The plan for tonight was to see how far Kale could go without tiring him out too much. Coach Kingwood warned the other pitchers that they might each have to come in for an inning or two. That was a problem all the teams would be having, with so many doubleheaders in back-to-back days.
We were the away team and came up to bat first. Joe, our second baseman and a California kid who went to a tech high school, led us off. Joe’s scouting report said he had a good on-base percentage. A lot of that came from him being patient and having a good eye for drawing walks. He waged an epic battle with United’s pitcher. It took fifteen pitches before he finally got ball four and could take first base. Many innings never saw that many pitches thrown in total.
Mitch, our shortstop and one of the two ballplayers from Texas, was up next. He also battled their pitcher and hacked off three pitches that would have been called strikes. The next two were balls intended to get him to chase a bad pitch. Then Mitch was thrown a strike that he swung at and missed, but Joe stole second base to put himself into scoring position.
Dave was up and hit a grounder to first. Their first baseman could only make the play at first, so Dave was out, and Joe found himself at third. I was up next.
Their catcher trotted out and talked to the pitcher. I looked over at third and got the green light to hit. I was shocked when they intentionally walked me to get to Nick, our right fielder. Nick had been hitting well, and if it hadn’t been for my gaudy numbers, he would have led the team in RBIs and power numbers.
I looked at third and got the sign that we would try to hit and run on the first pitch. I would have been running on contact anyway because there were two outs. Coach Kingwood wanted us to put pressure on their catcher by being aggressive.
When the pitcher raised his foot to go home, I broke for second. I didn’t hear the crack of the bat, so I slid. When I didn’t see the shortstop with the ball, I looked to third and Coach Way was waving to take another base. Their catcher had thrown the ball behind me, and it had skipped out to center field. We were now up 1–0.
Nick stepped into the batter’s box and got ready for the pitch. I acted as if I wanted to steal home, probably the hardest play to pull off in baseball. It shook up their pitcher because he called time and had both the catcher and third baseman come out to the mound. Coach Way leaned in so we could talk at third.
“You want to try to steal home?” he asked.
“Why not? It sounds like fun to me,” I said with a big grin.
