Johnny Bench?
I’m back on the pitcher’s mound talking to my catcher, Johnny Bench.
“Nice to have you back,” he says sarcastically. “Did you enjoy your trip?”
“Uh…well…I,” I stammer. Apparently hallucinations are one of the side effects of eating too much blue food.
Bench begins reviewing the pitching signals; one for a fast ball, two for a curve, and three for a screwball. Nothing too difficult to remember. I listen and try to mentally get my bearings. I wonder if an English woman like Alice knows how to play baseball–let alone shortstop.
“Okay, that shouldn’t be too mind-bending,” says Bench who is now walking back to his position behind home plate. “Just don’t think you can pitch and trip at the same time. You’re not Doc Ellis.”
I hear the players’ names announced on the loudspeaker. “Playing first base: John Olerud.” My mind wanders to the subject of Alice’s ability to play baseball. When I hear her name announced, I turn and see she’s doing Ozzie Smith-style backflips for the appreciative crowd watching from the first and second floor balconies.
“So she can do backflips,” I think to myself. “That doesn’t prove she knows how to play baseball.”
The first hitter gets in the batter’s box (which is located by a grandfather clock and a large bookcase). He’s a left-handed hitter who’s freakishly tall–well over seven feet. Bench signals for a fast ball. After feeling panicked for an endless second, I buckle down and throw a high fast one down the middle.
The very tall man hits a sharp stinger into a wide empty space between second and third base. It looks as though it’s going to be at least a double. “Oh no,” I fret to myself. “The first pitch of the game and I let a guy get into scoring position.” However, just as think they get Olivia up in the bullpen (which is located in an adjoining laundry room), Alice leaps out of nowhere and naps the ball just before it touches the ground. Out!
Alice casually lobs the ball back to me. I’m stunned. She treats it like she’s sing a nerf ball with a three-year old.
That episode ended all qualms I had about her as a ballplayer. However, if I was so stubborn and thick-headed as to still have my doubts, her play during the rest of the game would’ve further proved me wrong. In her first at bat, Alice beat out a ground ball for a base hit, stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error, and the scored our first run on a dangerously shallow fly ball. She continued to spear every hard hit ball between second and third. She effortlessly turned double plays with our second baseman, Ryne Sandberg. She also knocked in two runs with a double.
As for my performance, by the ninth inning, I allowed four hits and three walks but was leading 4 to 0.
However, in the ninth, my problems began. The arc of my first pitch, a curve, started low to the ground then, when it got to home plate, it shot up so that the batter could easily hit it into left field (by the pool table) for a triple. For the second batter of the inning, my pitch (a fastball) went low down the center before suddenly veering over to the guy’s bat and hitting it. Without having to swing, the batter got a double and scored a run. The next pitch, a screwball, got halfway to home plate before it started flitting about like a drunken gnat. Left, right, back, forth, left again, etc. (but never crossing over home plate). The pitch buzzed around in front the batter before he got annoyed and blasted it into the third story balcony (where it bounced into an open dorm room and shattered someone’s computer monitor) for a two-run homer. It was now 4 to 3.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about what happened next. Suffice to say, each subsequent pitch ended up going five feet less than the pitch before it. My last pitch of the game is a fastball that I throw with all the weight and force of my body. It travels about one inch from my hand and drops down at my feet. Since the two-run homer, I’ve loaded the bases and walked in two runs. We are now behind 5 to 4. There’s still nobody out. The crowd boos and goes into a chant of “_____ sucks!”
I’m done.
Time to bring in Olivia.
Olivia doesn’t bother with her warm-up pitches. She tosses three curves that are weakly popped up by the next three batters and caught by Bench.
It’s now the bottom of the ninth.
Vera is up first. She bunts the ball down the third base line. The other team’s catcher and third baseman wait for to roll foul but the grooves of the lobby’s wooden floor keep it fair. Vera easily makes it to first base.
Normally, the pitcher–Olivia–would be up now. But our manager–who, by now, I recognize as Lou Piniella–says he’s going to bring in a pinch hitter.
“Who?” I ask. “There’s nobody left on the bench.”
“I’ve got someone who couldn’t start due to a family emergency,” he says.
I hear the front door open and look to see who’s walked in. It’s Lorna.
“Now hitting for Olivia,” the announcer over the loudspeaker declares. “Lorna McManus.”
Lorna takes a bat and casually strolls to the batter’s box. She gets into position and waits for the pitch. It’s a low fast ball. She doesn’t swing.
“Ball one,” says the umpire who sounds like Placido Domingo.
Lorna adjusts her batting position and waits for the next pitch. It’s another fast ball but this one is a gift right down the middle. You definitely swing at this one.
Crack! The sound of the bat hitting the ball reverberates through the entire dormintory like thunder. With the force of a rocket, the ball flies over the third story balcony and crashes through the window for a game-winning home run.
After a moment’s elation, the girls and I run outside to see where the ball goes. It continues upward into the sky, over the surrounding buildings, over the glaciers, over the horizon, until it seems to land in a distant mountain range.
For a few seconds, there is total silence.
Then, a rumble can be heard in the distance. Gradually, it gets louder. We all start to wonder what this rumbling is. Soon, it grows to earth-shattering levels. We look and see that the rumbling is…
