81 – The Second Inning
By Aramis Thorn
Here is the second installment of the short story as promised, Enjoy
Warm Up
Jack walks the short walk to the plate. He ponders how many times he has walked this
walk from dugout to plate. Quick crude
math says that he has made the trip to the catcher’s position over twenty five
thousand times in a twenty year career.
He can see that Aaron Sparks, the powerful Center Fielder is met by the
bat boy who takes his glove and hands him his bat. Aaron picks up the heavy warm up bat as well
and begins to swing hard and true with both bats. Zander indicates that he is ready to toss his
eight.
Morris lets the pitcher choose his pitches. He wants to get into the kids head and see
how the young pitcher ponders the long game.
To his credit Joe Zander tosses eight medium speed strikes. He does what a pitcher should do with those
eight tosses; he gets back his range.
Pitch 10
Garner Patch cleans the plate and signals Aaron
Sparks to the batter’s box. Sparks
enters the left one. He can be equally
effective in both. Jack knows Joe can
control his curve. Jack signals curve,
inside, and low. Sparks swings and
misses as the ball tails down and under the bat. Jack does not even need to move his glove to
catch it.
“Steeerike one,”
barks Patch.
The red clock glares 92 mph.
Pitch 11
Sparks looks back at the catcher. “Your kid can throw a speedy curve. Can he toss the heat to someone who can hit
it?”
Jack knows that this is part of the required dance
between batter and catcher. For over a
century this duet has played out in major league stadiums and sand lots all
over the country. The two try to bait
each other, out brag each other, and create the right tension for an advantage
over each other. This dance is vital to
the romance that is baseball.
Crackerjack grins under his catcher’s mask, “He can
throw the heat to anyone if he is in the mood.
The problem is that he does not want you to hit it so he is very picky
about it.”
The catcher signals slider. He knows the kids’ speed will make it look
like a fastball and the slight movement will fool Sparks.
Zander nods, winds, and delivers.
Jack ponders his still sore left hand.
Aaron Sparks pulls the trigger on a power
swing. The sounds are very close; swoosh
slap.
“Steeerike two,” quips Patch.
The red lights wink as if taunting catcher and
batter. 97 mph. Jack feels it in the heel of his hand. He is still smiling but he is also wincing
just a little.
Pitch 12
Sparks looks back at Jack to continue the dance as
the catcher tosses the ball back to the mound.
“I thought the slider was supposed to be slower than the fastball. Maybe that was just bad heat.”
Jack smiles up at the savvy cleanup hitter. “Maybe your knowledge of pitching is better
than you think.”
Morris signals fastball, away, and full heat. The catchers hand reminds him that this is
going to hurt. Zander nods and deals.
Sparks chases the ball a full third of a second
late. Jack catches the ball right in the
sweet spot of the glove. Very grateful
for this his smile is dual purpose when hears the call.
“Steeerike three batter.
You’re out,” barks Garner Patch.
Sparks makes his way back to the dugout shaking his
head.
Each infielder smiles as the ball travels around
the horn.
The red clock seems to be smiling too: 103 mph.
Pitch 13
There is both respect and rivalry between opposing
catchers. Willy Span today’s opposing
catcher has been in the majors just three years shy of Jack. The two have shared four All Star hotel
rooms. They know and respect each other.
“Your boy is doing OK so far,” observes Willy.
“So far,” offers Jack, “but the game is young and
so is he.”
Both men smile.
Jack knows that the game is young and he knows how quickly things can
change no matter what inning it is. In
baseball there is no such thing as an insurmountable lead. He decides to start out slow after the last heat. Jack signals changeup.
Zander barely nods.
Jack can tell he wants to throw heat and heat only. Once again the aging catcher ponders the
conflict that is created when talent collides with youth. Still the kid is listening even if he is
thinking differently.
Joe stretches, cocks, and fires. To Jack’s eye the release is in exactly the
same place as the fastball that finished Sparks. The pitch looks fast. Even Jack considers that the kid threw heat
instead. The ball is headed right down
Main Street.
Swoosh and then a heartbeat and then slap. Jack is sorry he doubted his young protégé. Willy is sorry he swung so soon.
“Steeerike one,” calls Patch.
The red clock winks out its report: 71 mph.
Pitch 14
Jack tosses the ball back to Joe. “That one even fooled me Willy.”
Willy shakes his head, “I could say it did not fool
me but there exists a preponderance of glaring evidence to the contrary.”
Morris chuckles at his friend’s honesty and signals
curve, slow, and outside.
Zander stretches and deals. The ball leaves his hand as if it is a replay
of the previous pitch. There is not time
to see that Joe releases off of the middle finger instead of the index
finger. Span is too busy judging
speed. He will not swing late
again. Were one to overlay the two
images one would see that his bat crosses exactly the plane where the ball
passed the plate on the previous pitch.
Had there been a second changeup it would have been
launched into the stands in center field.
Instead a photo of this swing would reveal that the ball passes under
the bat by a full inch and a half. The
ball lied to
Span from the moment it left Zander’s grip.
“Steeerike two, batter,” calls Garner Patch.
The clock does not change: 71 mph.
Pitch 15
Jack Morris respects this batter. At the moment, however, all he wants is
another out. Two pitches at the same
speed means that a good hitter like Span has the timing down. Slow again would be dangerous. The wise catcher signals curve, inside, and
quick.
Joe gets it and nods. They both have seen the fast curve work for
them. The opposition has not seen enough
of them to know what will happen. Joe
winds and releases.
Crackerjack watches his friend step back in the box
to take the obviously inside pitch. Span
has assumed inside fastball. The ball
obeys the physics of deception and sails left to right across the plate. Span realizes his error just before the
resounding slap of the ball against Jack’s well-worn leather.
“Steeerike three, you’re out,” calls Patch
“You got me good Jack. I’ll pay you back in an
inning or two,” says Span.
“We’ll see,” replies Jack.
The clock says the curve ball passed at 94 mph.
Pitch 16
Bob Cranes, the left fielder is an ass. He rarely gets along with his own team. He has been in the majors for six years and each
year has been fined for poor conduct, bad behavior, and starting fights. He has been ejected from seventeen regular
season games and two post season outings.
He stomps into the batter’s box and directs his attention to the young
pitcher.
“OK grunt, I seen what you done to my team
mates. You won’t be getting nothing by
me.” He pounds the plate with his bat
and sets his stance.
Jack ponders that in this player is the sum of all
that is wrong with education and culture in America. He also ponders Cranes’ use of the double
negative. “You won’t be getting nothing
by me” means that Joe will be getting something by him. Heat first may be a good idea. He signals one and full. He sets up for the pain.
Zander grins, winds, and deals.
Cranes swings so late that there was time for
another pitch.
Garner Patch, ever impartial signals his approval
the only way an umpire can.
“Steeerike
one, batter,” calls Patch.
It takes another full second for the burning pain
to erupt in Jack’s hand. Morris thinks that
the pitch clock winks at him as it registers the pitch: 104 mph.
Pitch 17
Cranes swears under his breath. It is a catcher’s job to get inside the head
of the batter. Jack ponders that there
is ample room in Bob Cranes’ as he goads him.
“You were right that was not ‘nothing’ that went by you. That was pure southern heat. Should I slow the kid down and give you a
better chance?”
Cranes swears and spits. He steps back into the box. “Sure send the heat again. I’ll crush it and your grunt pitcher in one
swing.”
Crackerjack knows the batter has danced right into
his arms. He signals the heat and
outside. Joe grins and delivers. The batters attitude hinders his judgment. Cranes had decided to swing before the pitch
was thrown. He chases the outside pitch
and misses by a full inch and by half a second.
“Steeerike two,” calls Patch.
The red lights record 103 mph.
Pitch 18
“What’s wrong catch? Is your boy afraid to put it over the plate,”
asks Cranes?
“I see no fear in the boy. I do see that he got more ‘nothing’ by you”
responds Jack. “You like heat and easy
targets is what I’m hearing from you.
How about a peach so you don’t walk back to the dugout feeling like you
were treated unfairly.”
Bob Cranes just swears at Jack and squares his
stance. Garner Patch warns Cranes about
his language. Jack signals changeup and
inside. He likes the idea of Bob being
called out after backing away. The
result is better than he could wish for in his deepest fantasies.
Zander cocks and fires. The release of the changeup is exactly in
place where the last two fastballs were.
Jack sees that it is on target to crease the inside of the plate just
below Cranes’ letters. From Cranes’ perspective
that ball is headed straight at him.
The batter backs and sits thinking he is ducking a
brush back. The ball flies true and
Cranes is on the ground before it reaches Jack’s mitt.
“Steeerike three, batter. You’re out,” yells Garner Patch.
Cranes is on his feet as fast as he went down. He steps into Patch’s masked face and begins
his useless rant. “Strike? That ball
almost took my head off. That little
newbie tried to bean me.”
Jack steps back to watch the umpire deal with Crane. He leaves on his mask in case someone should
spot the grin on his face.
Garner Patch is a veteran umpire and a
Baptist. He detests swearing and will
launch any player who makes it personal.
He considers himself an expert on human nature. He always becomes the quiet gentleman when
players get hot with him. “You sir are
free to question the call and appeal to first base. Other than that you may wish to move along
before I end the day for you early.”
Cranes is about to escalate things when Willy Span
rescues him. Span trots over to his team
mate and hands him a glove. “We need
your bat later when the kid is tired.
I’ll talk to the ump while these bums try to get a hit.”
Cranes swears again but under his breath. He takes
the glove. Jack removes his mask and
smiles at Span. The two understand each
other and for now that is enough. They
both know that this was the first rumble of a storm that will blow later in the
day.
If the bottom of the first was boring then the
bottom of the second is boring.
McCracken, Jones, and Brewer all get wood on the ball but each of them
hits into easy grounders resulting in outs.
Andy Vine, the opposing pitcher is keeping the ball down. It is zero to zero at the end of two.
One person sent me a link that included instructions for
buttering toast so that as it browns it creates the desired icon. The individual had obviously not looked at
the link as it was instructions for creating icons for a software called Toast. I do suppose that one could draw on toast
with butter and create the desired iconic effect.
There is much science to support that we are prone to see anthropomorphic
images in things. That research also
points out that we are much more likely to see religious images if that is what
we seek. 
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