Our pitching staff needed the rest. If it hadn’t been for Kale stepping in yesterday, their arms would have been doubly tired. No pitcher is used to going on short notice, but that was what would happen for our next four games. Yes, it looked like we would be in the championship game, so we needed to plan accordingly.
To that end, Coach Kingwood wanted to talk to me.
“We’re going to have you start tonight. I want to save our arms for Thursday and Friday. Are you up for that?” he asked.
“Whatever you need, Coach. I might want to work a bit this morning and get my curve and slider working,” I admitted.
“You think that’ll be a problem?”
“Not really. I just haven’t pitched much, and my mechanics are off. I expect I just need to throw a few and it’ll come back,” I said, hoping it would happen.
Coach Kingwood sent me to work with Coach Mallei to fix my pitches.
“Let me see how you’re gripping the ball. The curve relies on two things: the grip and your wrist motion,” Coach Mallei reminded me.
I showed him my middle finger was on the laces, or seam, of the ball with my index finger next to it.
“Have you ever tried to throw a spiked curveball?”
“I’ve never even heard of that type of curve. What makes it different?” I asked.
“The middle finger is straight along the outer seam of the ball and the index finger is tucked underneath. It’s similar to a knuckleball grip,” he said, then demonstrated.
I tried it, and it felt a little weird.
“When I was pitching, I had better success by sticking my fingernail directly into the seam. It helped hold my index finger in place and accelerate the spin of the ball. This creates a hard, biting pitch that ‘spikes’ downward,” Coach Mallei explained, and then threw one so I could see it.
It actually bounced off the plate. I guess that’s where they got the ‘spike’ name. It looked like a volleyball player was smashing it down. This had much more movement than my curve ever had. I liked what I saw.
“The other difference from a regular curveball is hand position at release,” Coach explained. “Instead of snapping your wrist clockwise at the release, your hand stays up and behind the baseball. Without the hand turn, the pitch is even more difficult to pick up. Most hitters are unable to tell the difference between this pitch and a fastball. It takes them longer to recognize the difference, which makes it almost impossible to adjust to hit the ball.”
I fell in love with the spiked curveball. It broke much harder than my split-finger fastball. The only person not happy was Trent because no catcher wants to field pitches that bounce off the plate.
I never got a chance to work on my slider, but figured with a fastball, changeup, and my new spike curveball, I had enough variety for tonight’s game.
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When we finally stopped for lunch, we found my mom and Melissa putting out food on our tables. A man from USA Baseball was checking out the lunch their caterer had provided and comparing it to what we had. Both lunches had salad, but ours didn’t have half the lettuce with brown spots. Their caterer had also provided a make-your-own-sandwich setup with a variety of lunch meats and cheeses that didn’t look bad.
Melissa told us the menu for today.
“We’ve made two salads, one with grilled chicken and the other a tomato and mozzarella. We also have a variety of sandwich wraps. I personally like the roast beef with horseradish. There’s also pasta with turkey meatballs, and finally a fresh fruit salad.”
The man from USA Baseball asked to take a little of each from what the moms made and then got a plate of the catered food. He took it with him to show the other USA Baseball staff.
Everyone on Team Pride was happy with what we were eating.
◊◊◊
At the afternoon practice, they parked me on the mound and had me practice my pickoff move to hold runners at first. About all Coach Mallei would say was I should concentrate on striking them out.
When I was done, Trent, Joe, and Mitch wanted to talk to me.
“We heard what you said to Dave. He seems to at least be trying,” Mitch said.
“He was starting to be really irritating. I take that back. He was a pain in the butt from day one. If he hadn’t been on our team, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him,” Joe admitted.
“We just wanted to thank you for talking to him. We also wanted to thank you for telling us what the coaches are looking for. I know they’ve made a few comments, but I personally didn’t realize it was such a big deal,” Trent said.
“We all like the idea of winning the tournament and all being picked for the top forty. Do you think it might happen?” Joe asked hopefully.
I could see they were all waiting for my answer. The truth was it would be hard to pull off something like that. Each team had standout players who probably could have displaced some of our players on talent alone. What set us apart was we had jelled as a team, not a group of all-stars.
