Читать книгу 100 Miles of Baseball - Dale Jacobs - Страница 18

Riverside Secondary School Rebels vs W F Herman Academy Griffins

Riverside Baseball Park, Windsor ON

Game Time Temperature: 23°C

It’s odd to be alone at Riverside Park awaiting the game between the Riverside Secondary Rebels and the Herman Academy Griffins, but Heidi couldn’t get away from the office and I didn’t want to miss the chance to see a high school game. As I sit, thinking about how long it’s been since I was at a ballpark by myself, I listen to the Riverside coaches telling the players their positions for the day and where they’ll hit in the batting order. Clad in short-sleeved black tops and grey pants, the players sit in a circle around the coach in front of their squat, chain-link dugout, listening. His final words are, “And take turns getting the foul balls.” A dozen spectators, almost all parents, sit on lawn chairs or on the low metal stands that flank either side of home. The perfect circle of the reddish-brown dirt infield and the vibrant green of the spring grass, the beneficiary of the last few weeks of rain, contrast the blue of the cloudless sky. Herman takes the field for the first inning and, coach’s instructions over, the first Riverside batter steps to the plate. I’m surprised to see that he carries a wood bat.

The Herman pitcher, a left-hander wearing #25, sits the first two hitters down with a strikeout and a ground ball to second. There’s no PA system, no lineup cards. Only the numbers to identify this swirl of young men. The pitcher throws hard, mostly for strikes, and it’s clear already that the Riverside hitters are going to have trouble with him. After a two-out single, the Herman coach yells, “Worry about the batter. Don’t worry about the runner.” Don’t get rattled. Do what you know you can do. With only the scantest glance to first, the pitcher looks in to the catcher and fires home. Weak ground ball to second base. Inning over. He’s big for his age, an intimidating presence on the mound. The green of his sleeveless top must make him look like the Hulk to the Riverside players.

In the bottom of the third, the Riverside hitters are faring no better against the Herman starter and Herman is already up 2-0. Good players, even at this level, can hit a fastball that doesn’t have some kind of movement. His doesn’t move and they still can’t hit it. I wonder how better players his age—say the Tecumseh or Sarnia players we saw on Sunday—would do against him.

#59, now up for Riverside, swings late, mutters, “That was bad.”

One of the parents behind home replies, “Why’d you swing then?”

“The pitch wasn’t bad. My swing was bad.” Like every one of his teammates.

The next batter bails out of the box on two inside pitches that are both expressively called strikes by the home plate umpire. He swings his body towards third base, stabs out his right hand, and emphatically yells, “Strike three! You’re out!!” As if the day wasn’t bad enough already for the hitters.

Herman is up in the third with another two runs in when I hear one of the Herman players yell to one of the women in the crowd, “Your kid broke another bat.”

“He broke all of his. Whose bat?”

Instead of a reply, the batter’s teammate turns to her, laughing, says, “He needs to get a job.”

Through the fourth, the Riverside hitters continue to bail out on pitches that end up called as inside strikes. Fear—and the Herman pitcher—are inside their heads. As he walks off the mound at the end of the inning, the third baseman waits for him by the foul line. As his teammate mimes legs shaking and laughs uproariously, the pitcher smiles and shakes his head as he walks toward the dugout, accepting pats on the back and the coach’s handshake. His day is done. Four innings, one hit, no walks, and no runs allowed. Between innings, I hear one of the mothers explaining to her neighbour that the Herman pitcher is going to Northern Kentucky University on a baseball scholarship to play outfield and occasionally pitch. This summer he’s playing first base for the Windsor Selects. His name is Noah Richardson.

Riverside can’t score in the fifth, but with another new pitcher into the game in the sixth, Riverside manage to put two on the board. The first two outs come quickly, on a ground ball to the shortstop and a strikeout looking. But an error by the third baseman, he of the shaking legs, keeps the inning alive, setting up an RBI triple by the next batter. Then, on a ball that barely gets away from the catcher, the pitcher fails to cover the plate and the second run scores, prompting the Herman coach to yell, “You guys gotta talk out there!” The final out is a strikeout, the batter grousing loudly at the home plate umpire about not only that call, but his strike zone all game. Borderline inside pitches were called strikes, but they were the entire game, and for both sides. You have to adjust to the way the strike zone is being called.

4-2 Herman going into the bottom of the seventh inning, the final inning in high school games and the last chance for Riverside. Unfortunately for Herman, it’s then that their pitcher loses the strike zone, walking both of the first two batters, while the catcher allows ball four to get away from him both times. As I watch the Herman pitcher struggle, a voice from the past surfaces, reminding me exactly what is happening. In my mind, I hear Charlie Chapman yelling, “You’re posing, not throwing!,” and under my breath I find myself muttering that same phrase. First and third with no one out. The Herman coach has seen the same thing and is out to make a pitching change.

The new pitcher comes in and throws strikes. A strikeout for the first out, but the ball again eludes the catcher. The runner on first runs to second and then never stops, forcing the lead runner to come home instead of retreating to third. Caught in a rundown, he’s eventually tagged for the third out. Instead of runners at second and third with one out, the baserunning error means that there is now a runner at third with two outs. A strikeout ends the game.

Final Score: 4-2 Herman