Welcome back. First chapter disclaimers apply. Be safe. And please, donate to Nifty.
In this chapter the Falcons learn what it means to play in a championship game at a higher level. Rodney learns more about himself as a player and a pitcher.
Write Douglas at thehakaanen@hotmail.com
CHAPTER 31 STEPPING IT UP
<Saturday, June 27, Salinas>
Because the start of Saturday evening's game had been earlier than they had been on the previous two nights, the Falcon players were able to get a late dinner. They'd only had time to eat sandwiches and chips from a local deli between their first and second games. Very hungry and anticipating food, they noisily took their seats in the motel restaurant.
"I am getting very tired of the place," Rodney said. "The food at the Mayfield Café is better than this dump."
"It could be worse," Noah pointed out. "We could have lost all of our games and ended up spending tomorrow waiting until Monday to catch our train. Personally, I think winning enhances the flavor of the food significantly."
"I never have a clue what Noah says," Connor said. "but I always agree with him. So, whatever the F you said, Noah, it's totally right."
"What he said, doofus," Rodney told him, "is the food is better when you win. Right, isn't that what you said, Noah?"
"Your translation skills are laudable, Rodney."
"Um, okay. Thanks, Noah...I think."
The boys talked about their win over Fresno and about the tournament in general. Only the coming of their meals could slow down their chatter. The team was clearly excited, and, without a doubt, surprised by the fact they would be playing for the tournament championship the next afternoon.
That night the boys talked, showered, and preened. Some boys showered together: Eric and Noah, Kevin and Lars, and Marty and Rich. Because of the sleeping arrangements, all of the boys slept in pairs, whether they were partners or not.
One pair was Rodney and Jerome. "We've been sleeping together so many nights we might as well be married," Rodney said before they turned the lights out. Connor and Vince were in the other queen-sized bed.
"Trust me, if I was married to your sorry ass, the divorce would come really quick." Jerome said.
"I wonder if the gay boys are doing more in their bed than sleeping," Rodney said.
"Why, do you need somebody to get you off?" Connor asked.
"Damn, Connor, you got such a gutter mind it ain't funny."
"I was just asking. You're the one who said the shit about the gay boys."
"Well, I admit to being horny," Rodney said. "Last I looked that wasn't a crime."
"I took care of that problem in the bathroom a while ago," Vince said.
"You had to have been pretty fucking fast," Connor observed.
"I was pretty fucking horny."
"Let's get the lights off," Rodney said. "We got a big game to be ready for tomorrow."
"Admit it, you want the lights off so you can whack your pud," Connor said.
"If he messes up this bed, he won't have to worry about his pitch count tomorrow, cuz I'll bust his arm," Jerome said.
"It'll just mix with yours is all, so don't worry about it," Rodney said.
The lights went out, and Rodney did end up messing his shorts as he woke up later from a vivid wet dream about him having sex with Lisa and Sara in a three-way.
There was sex that night by two pairs of teens. One was a quiet rubbing off by Eric and Noah. The two were sleeping naked, and after the lights went out, they silently turned to face each other and rubbed their dicks together slowly and gently as they covered each other's faces with light, loving kisses. When their rock hard thirteen year old cocks fired their teen cum, it covered their bellies and groins and dribbled onto the sheets. They had tissues ready to clean themselves, something they wouldn't have done in their own beds. They loved having the mixed cum of their partners and themselves on them for as long as possible. They didn't mind having wet cum on the sheets, either.
The other pair to have sex was Kevin and Lars. They had theirs in the shower. The two fourteen year olds were very horny as they entered the bathroom. Lars opened the toilet seat to pee, but Kevin stopped him. "Do it on me," he whispered. Lars wasn't that keen on the pee fetish that Kevin had, but he usually gave in when Kevin got into one of his moods. On the other hand, Kevin was careful not to demand Lars's participation too often. Usually Kraig or Korey did piss play with him at home. Both of his brothers enjoyed the raunchiness of pissing on him, or of being pissed on.
Kevin lay on his back on the floor of the tub, jerking his boner as Lars stood over him and peed on his supine body from crotch to head. Kevin held his mouth open to drink what he could as the stream of urine reached his head. As Lars pissed on his friend, Kevin started a flow of his own piss, the stream mixing with that of Lars. Kevin was in his own form of ecstasy.
When the two teens finished peeing, Kevin rubbed the piss over his belly and chest, moaning with pleasure as he did so. Lars was happy his friend was happy, and even happier that Kevin didn't want to piss over him this time. While he would have let him do it, he preferred that Kevin take care of his fetish on his own, or with his brothers.
Finally, Kevin had Lars turn on the shower, which made Lars even happier. Kevin stood up and rinsed himself off, then wrapped his arms around Lars, his hard five inches rubbing up against the thin, hairless boner of his boyfriend. The boys humped under the flow of the shower, quickly squirting their hot teen semen over each other's smooth bellies. They dried off, climbed into the bed, and fell asleep instantly after the lights went out. They never heard Eric and Noah having sex.
Of course Chandler and Korey were all energy. The two naked twelve year olds were busy in their room as Korey licked Chandler's rock hard preteen four inch cock, causing him to squirm on the bed.
"You're getting some hairs," Korey told Chandler as he licked his friend's balls and perineum.
"Ohhhhhhh," was all Chandler could think of saying.
"Shh," was Korey's reply, reminding Chandler that his parents were on the other side of the wall. The bad news was their noise woke up Chandler's father. The good news was it didn't wake up his mother. The even better news was Chandler's father turned over and went back to sleep, and the best news was a most satisfying cum as they shot their sweet boy nectar into each other's mouths.
Rodney wasn't the only teen who had to dispel some pent-up boy juice in his sleep. Marty, Hunter, and Danny also woke up with either their underpants damp with cum or their sheets, depending on how little they were wearing.
<Sunday, June 28, Salinas>
After breakfast, the boys piled into the vans and were driven to the baseball complex. The Fresno Sky Hawks were playing the Salinas Kings and the Falcons would play the winner for the tournament championship. They arrived at the field about an hour into the game. Fresno was leading 6-0 in the fourth inning.
"Well, fuck," Connor said. "If I'd known this was going to be an ass kicking, I would have slept in."
"Yeah, and missed breakfast," Marty said.
"No reason we couldn't have had a late breakfast."
"Speaking of food, how come we had to all share beds?" Rodney asked Marty.
"What do beds have to do with food?" Marty asked.
"It's all being paid for out of our tournament fund, so it has to do with the same money."
"Why are you asking me?" Marty asked, "I'm not paying for it."
"You're the boss man of this whole Go to State shit."
"Well, if you really wanted to know what happens to the money, you'd be attending the meetings instead of missing a bunch of them and getting voted off the board."
"Oh, so me sleeping with Jerome on this trip is my fault?"
"What's wrong with sleeping with Jerome?" Kevin asked. "Does he fart in bed or something?"
"No, I just would rather share a bed with somebody of the opposite sex."
"Like the coaches are going to let that happen," Kevin said.
"Well, it could have been worse," Marty said. "We talked about five or six to a room, but me, Eric, Noah, and Mr. McCall got some businesses to donate some extra money. Now we have to pay them back."
"If it's a donation, we shouldn't have to pay it back," Rodney said. "That sounds more like a loan to me."
"We don't have to pay it back in money. We pay it back by being the cleanup crew at the Fourth of July picnic."
"Not me, I'm going to the fireworks in Centralia. Nobody told me I was on the cleanup crew."
"If you read your email, you would've known."
"I only read emails from girls."
"I guess Marty will have to go by Martina in his emails from now on," Noah said. "Rodney, if all of us pitch in, we'll be done in plenty of time to all go see the fireworks. We have it all worked out, and it will be explained at tomorrow's meeting."
"Aha, you're having a meeting while I'm a prisoner here in this funky farm town which means I have to attend it."
"That's the idea."
Rodney shook his head and stood up. "I need to get ready for the game. I don't want any of you fuckers bothering me." He walked over to the adjoining field and found a place up at the top of the bleachers.
"First time he's done that," Marty said.
"Oh, he listens to his I-Pod and shit before games, but we all knew that. Never seen him just go sit by himself," Connor said.
But Rodney was sitting by himself, a baseball in his hand. He'd been doing some serious thinking regarding the way everybody was talking about how good a pitcher he was. He knew he'd been falling a little short at times this summer. And even though he seemed to have reacted negatively to Marty's tirade in the dining car, he had actually been listening.
Despite his sometimes foppish ways, Rodney was actually a fierce competitor on the athletic field. Lately, he kept feeling he'd been letting his teammates and his friends down. He felt badly about the whole affair with Sarah and Coach Gardner. He knew he had shoved Marty and the Go to State Team right under the bus. He felt badly about how he hadn't always pitched his best. Even though he had a 4-0 record for the Falcons, he knew that, except for one game, he'd let up for an inning or two, instead of dominating all the way. He decided this game was going to be different, but to get his mind straight he needed to be away from everybody.
Rodney knew that Noah and Eric sometimes talked about meditating. He didn't think that what he was going to do was meditating, but he understood that he needed to find a better way to get his head ready to pitch. He decided there was no better place to start doing something new than 1000 miles away from home. Marty had talked about going from a-happy-to-be-a-good kind of team to turning into a championship team. For that to happen he would have to learn to quit being a pretty good pitcher and become a championship pitcher. What better place than a championship game to do that? he thought.
The Sky Hawks ended up winning their game 12-2 in a game that was called after six innings because of the 10-run rule. Their coach, Rod Guthrie, talked to his players about the upcoming game against the Falcons, which would start at one. He noted that it was just before noon and told everybody to be back in a half hour.
He sat in the bleachers with his assistant coach and Fred Marshall, the tournament director. "I still can't believe we lost to that team yesterday," he said, referring to the Falcons.
"Your kids played hard," Marshall said.
"Fuck that playing hard shit. We totally outplayed them. I never saw so many hard hit balls land in somebody's glove in a single game. It was like a game of `Look what I found!' almost every time we hit the ball."
"They made some good plays, too," his assistant said.
But the head coach wasn't listening. "And what did they beat us with? Bloopers. Fucking little worm killing singles and pop-ups that barely fell in." He looked over at Fred Marshall. "And then the fucking ball hits a base not once, but twice, and they get a break both times. You know what I told my kids after we finished kicking ass this morning?"
"I have no clue, Rod," Marshall said. Even though they lived in different cities, the two men knew each other from years of working in the youth baseball community.
"I told them they won that game yesterday, just like they're going to really win the two games today. The Mayfield team is out of pitching. We saw that yesterday when they marched out a bunch of pitchers who were happy to get the ball over the plate. They were lucky yesterday and no way are they going to be that lucky today. They threw a couple of good arms out in their first games and surprised some teams. Those arms are gone and there is nothing left but a bunch of pitching wannabes. I told my kids there is no reason why we can't do to them what we just did to the Kings, only just take five innings to put them out of their misery instead of six. And after the Falcons throw a bunch of losers to the slaughter in game one, they've got absolutely nobody left to pitch but the fucking batboys, who look like little kids to me. I said this championship is ours for the taking."
The assistant coach had heard the entire chat. While he agreed with the head coach about the Falcons being out of pitching, he disagreed with how that was presented to the team. Creating big headed ball players was not the way to prepare for a game. He knew the head coach understood that, but he'd been around him long enough to also know that the coach sometimes had a bigger opinion of himself and his team than was warranted. It was obvious to him that the Fresno team was more talented, athletic, and experienced than the team from Washington, but, as they found out the day before, that didn't always translate to a win on the field.
Fred Marshall admitted he let the Falcons into this tournament because they not only had the money, they looked like a program some of the local teams could defeat handily. But neither man would admit aloud that it was the Washington team who had prevailed in the only opinion that counted--final score.
The assistant coach decided to express his opinion on one issue. "You used up our ace in this morning's game, so we're going with pitching by committee as well, right?"
He knew the answer since the Sky Hawks had no pitchers left who could go more than two or three innings. His pitchers were better than the pitchers the Falcons had thrown the day before, but, just like the Falcons, they would be juggling pitchers for both games if it went that far. In his opinion the head coach should have pulled his ace after three innings when the score was already 6-0. The ace would then have had four innings available for this game. But once he pitched the fourth inning in the morning game, he was ineligible to pitch again. While the head coach knew baseball pretty well, the subtleties of strategy often eluded him.
"You are right about that. But our pitchers are bigger, better, and more experienced. And we are deep enough, so we should be fine. We needed to win the morning game and throwing our best insured that we did that. The Kings are a good team and could have come back, which is why I didn't change pitchers. That ragtag group from Washington shouldn't present a challenge. You know as well as I do that they can't be that lucky two games in a row."
When it was time for the team to start their warm-ups, Rodney came down out of the stands. He remembered Eric talking about how he felt disconnected and in another world when he had pitched in the first game of the tournament. Rodney wondered if he had the same kind of feeling—the only thing on his mind was the baseball he held in his hand. Rodney didn't consciously realize it, but just like his teammates had spent the weekend turning their game up a notch, Rodney was about to do the same.
Eric, Noah, and Kraig headed to the men's room and crossed paths with a couple of players from the Sky Hawks, who were also taking care of business before the game started. They were both big kids, bigger than Kraig, who at 5'8, 120 pounds was a good sized boy, and certainly bigger than 4'11 Noah and 5'2 Eric.
"You guys got lucky yesterday," one of the boys said. "We should have kicked your asses."
"You might be right, but you didn't kick our asses, at least that is what the scoreboard indicated," Noah said.
"Well, our coach told us you guys suck and we really are going to kick your sorry asses today," the other boy said.
"I guess we'll see," Eric said, "talk's cheap."
"Not when you got the better team."
There were only four urinals. Noah went into one of the stalls while the other four boys peed in the urinals. One of the Fresno boys shook what was obviously a big piece of meat a few times.
Kraig pulled his jock and pants up and looked over at him. "You know what they say when you shake it more than twice."
"Fuck you, at least I got one worth shaking."
"It looked really tasty," Kraig said.
The Fresno boy yanked down his uniform pants and jock, exposing five hanging inches of teen cock, topped by a thick bush of pubic hair. "Have at it faggot."
"Oh, damn, I thought there was more too it than that."
The player pulled his pants back up. "Have fun now, because it will end with the first pitch."
"They are a wee bit arrogant," Noah said as the three Mayfield boys walked back to the ball field.
"Just a wee bit?" Eric asked. "How about big time arrogant?"
"Works for me," Kraig said. "I'd hate to see what they would be like if they had beat us."
"Let's hope we don't have to find out," Noah said.
Kraig looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "But damn, he did have a fine looking piece of meat hanging between his legs."
Marty once again called tails at the home plate meeting, but this time it failed and the Falcons would be the visiting team, which meant they would bat first. The Falcons went down quietly in the first inning, with Jerome hitting a lazy fly ball to center, Eric grounding out to short, and Rich striking out.
As Rodney started tossing his warm-up pitches, Coach Guthrie turned to his assistant. "I don't remember seeing him yesterday. He must be worse than the rest of those sorry arms they tossed at us. This could be a very short day indeed." The assistant coach wasn't so sure. The pop of the ball hitting the glove during the warm-up tosses had an ominous sound to it.
Rodney had an easy throwing motion and the ball seemed to explode from his hand as he released his fast ball. He had a sharp breaking curve, and, while he occasionally telegraphed his change-up, it was usually an effective pitch. The assistant coach smelled trouble when Rodney threw a strike past the Sky Hawk lead-off hitter. Rodney looked like he was expending little effort, but the ball zipped past the hitter on the outside corner. He ended up striking out the batter on a high 1-2 fastball, the batter swinging late at a pitch a little out of the strike zone.
"Damn, he lucked out on that the one," Coach Guthrie said, "Chris doesn't strike out much." The assistant coach was worried; the kid on the mound for the Falcons looked like a pretty damned good pitcher. Rodney struck out the next batter swinging, and then froze the third batter on a sharply breaking curveball for a called strike three.
"Kid looks pretty good out there," the assistant coach said.
"Oh, bullshit. Are you telling me that the coach of some puny team from some backwater town in the wilderness is smart enough to save his best pitcher for a championship game he wasn't even supposed to be playing in?"
"Either that or he was dumb enough to do it." But in the case of Coach Miller, the word smart was the proper description. He had originally slated Rodney to be his third starter if the Falcons won their first game. He would be the second starter if they lost, to help insure they wouldn't be knocked out of the main tournament in two games. But when the Falcons won their second game, he decided to gamble and save him for a shot at pitching in a potential championship game.
When the Falcons won their third game, as tempting as it was to start Rodney in game four, he went all-in and pitched his committee of pitchers. That would leave Rodney to either pitch the play-in game or to pitch the championship game itself. On the other hand, he knew that if he were going to compete against one of the most talented teams in the tournament, Rodney would have to be much more consistent than the sometimes disinterested pitcher he'd been so far that summer.
The Falcons wasted a leadoff single by Marty in the top of the second. Rodney put the Sky Hawks down in order again in the bottom of the inning. The Falcons got a two-out single from Jerome in the top of the third. Jerome stole second on the second pitch to Eric and then promptly stole third on the next pitch. The count was now 2- 1. Jerome busily wiped the dust off of his uniform as he stood at third base.
"He ain't superman out there," Coach Guthrie yelled at his pitcher and catcher as he went out to the mound for visit. "Get your heads out and play ball."
The 2-1 pitch to Eric was a fastball right down the heart of the plate, and Eric knew exactly what to do with it, lining a hard single to left, scoring Jerome. There was nothing cheap about Eric's hit. Two pitches later he was on second with a stolen base and one pitch later he was scoring on Rich's solid double into the gap. Marty struck out on a borderline called third strike, but the damage had been done. The Falcons had a 2-0 lead.
Rodney started the bottom of the third by striking out the leadoff hitter. He then ran the count up to 3-1 on the next hitter.
"Good eye," Coach Guthrie yelled out from the third base coach's box. "Looks like he's getting nervous."
The next pitch from Rodney was high and the batter trotted to first with a walk. He was the first baserunner for the Sky Hawks. When Rodney went 3-1 on the next hitter, Kevin trotted out to have a quick chat with Rodney and settle him down.
"It's okay, Kevin, I'm cool."
"You can come back and get him," Kevin said. "You're better than he is. Put this next pitch down and on the outside corner and he can't touch you."
Rodney nodded, his momentary lapse of concentration gone. There was no doubt in Rodney's mind that he was better than the hitter. He went right back at him, getting him to swing and miss at the 3-1 fastball on the outside corner at the knees. Kevin called for a breaking ball inside. Rodney didn't disappoint him as his ball came right at the batter's hips. The batter jumped back, but the ball broke in, crossing the inside corner right at the knees. The umpire didn't hesitate, calling the batter out on strikes.
"That pitch was low," a frustrated Coach Guthrie yelled at the umpire. "That kid doesn't need your help."
The umpire called time and glared at the coach. "That's all I'm going to listen to, coach," he yelled back.
"I just wanted to know where you're coming from," Coach Guthrie said. "Just call a fair game."
There was no controversy on the next pitch as the batter hit it to Eric's right at second. Eric dove for the ball and caught it in the webbing of his glove on the second hop. He was sitting on his ass as he quickly flipped the ball to Rich, who was covering second base, barely nipping the sliding runner. While the Falcons were running off the field, Coach Guthrie ran out to argue with the second base umpire. The umpire told the coach the ball got there first and warned the coach to head for the dugout. Coach Guthrie grumbled, but left the field.
"That is the luckiest fucking team in all of baseball, and we have to be the ones playing them," the coach groused to his assistant. The assistant didn't tell the coach what he was thinking—the Sky Hawks were playing like a team that was overconfident, a team that thought they just had to show up on the field to win this game. In his opinion the runner going from first to second was capable of running harder and would have been safe if he had.
The Falcons went down in order in the fourth, as did the Sky Hawks. Kevin opened the fifth with a double and Hunter singled him in, making the score 3-0. A walk to Jerome and a two out single by Marty extended the lead to 4-0. Scott ended the inning by striking out for the third time in the game.
Rodney retired the first two batters in the bottom of the fifth. The second out symbolized the mindset of the Sky Hawks. The batter hit a two-hopper to Marty at third, an easy out without a doubt. The batter slammed his bat to the ground in frustration and trotted to first. But there are always doubts in baseball, no matter how easy things look. As Marty prepared to field the ball, it hit an uneven spot and took a bad hop. The ball hit Marty in the chest and plopped to the ground, bounding away from the third baseman. Marty chased after it and picked it up, knowing he wouldn't have a play. But he quickly saw that the batter-runner was loafing to first. He fired a rocket to Scott and nipped the Sky Hawk player by a step.
This had Coach Guthrie running out to argue again. "I don't know why you guys think that sorry team needs your help," the coach yelled.
The first base umpire chewed on his Jolly Rancher and looked at the coach with a bemused smile. "You know coach, if your player had been hustling, I would've had time to hand him a piece of candy before the ball ever got to the base." Coach Guthrie, knowing the ump was right, turned and went to the dugout, furious with his players for playing like their shit didn't stink, furious with the umpires for not giving his team any breaks, and furious with Rodney for being a fucking good pitcher. The only person he wasn't furious with was himself for being a bleeping moron. After five innings, the Sky Hawks still hadn't gotten a hit.
The Falcons went out in order in the top of the sixth as they faced their third pitcher of the afternoon. All of the players were aware of the zero hits on the scoreboard for the Sky Hawks, but none of them said a word about it. Kevin remembered how he had jinxed Eric's no- hitter by talking about it and he certainly wasn't going to say anything. All of the boys had learned the etiquette of a no hitter—DON'T TALK ABOUT IT--especially to the pitcher.
Kevin wanted to catch a no-hitter in the worst way. He kept coming close, but it still hadn't happened. The Mayfield group had been no-hit by Ben. Now it was their time to shine, right here in California, the mother lode of baseball players.
Rodney struck out the first batter, but the second hitter got hold of the second pitch thrown to him and lofted a hard hit ball to right center. Jerome turned and ran back and towards right. Kraig, who was now playing right, ran after the ball from his position, but there was no way he was going to get close. Jerome kept running, and running, and running, his feet getting to the warning track right where the ball was coming down. He stretched his glove, let the ball fall into the pocket, squeezed it, and ran into the fence, holding on to the ball.
He crashed to the ground, but didn't drop the ball. The team had seen Jerome make some good plays out in center, and this was one of his best. Jerome got up looking a little dazed. Coach Miller ran out as did Coach Dawson, Coach Miller's assistant. Coach Dawson had to fly to Salinas instead of taking the train because of work issues. Coach Sanders, who was in the stands, looked to see if he was needed. But once he saw Jerome get up and walk under his own power, he knew he could stay where he was.
Coach Miller took Jerome out of the game as a precaution and had Lars, who had not yet played, take his place in center. Coach Guthrie could not believe what he had seen from Jerome. But as Jerome walked by, he yelled out, "Nice play kid. Heck of a play."
The no-hitter was still intact, but not for long. The next hitter belted Rodney's first pitch off to left center. Kevin watched it and knew nobody was going to get to this one as it hit high up the fence and bounced back on the field. The Sky Hawk player, one of the two the Falcon boys had talked to in the bathroom, was on second with a hard hit, stand-up double. Everybody, except the Sky Hawks and their fans, was sorry to see the no-hitter broken up, but at least it wasn't a cheap hit that did it.
The next hitter rapped a hard grounder up the middle for a single, scoring the run, making the score 4-1. Rodney walked the next hitter and was obviously running out of steam. He had thrown almost 80 pitches. Coach Miller decided to leave him in for one more batter rather than bring Rich in cold. He came out of the dugout and strolled to the mound, telling Rodney the batter belonged to him and to take care of business.
After the coach walked back to the dugout, Rodney took a deep breath, rubbed the ball with his hands, and engaged the rubber. For the entire game none of the Sky Hawk batters had looked big or imposing to Rodney. His concentration was such that he hardly noticed anything but Kevin's glove and the target he set. But this batter looked like he was 6'6 and 250 pounds of solid muscle, even if he was actually 5'10 and 140 pounds of wiry teen boy. He also represented the tying run.
Rodney knew he would have to shut the batter out of his mind and go back to thinking only about Kevin's glove. He saw Kevin's sign, nodded, and let go his pitch. He knew he was tired, and knew he no longer had the zip he'd had the first five innings. He knew the pitch was right in the batter's hitting zone and ripe to be hit hard. The batter did exactly that as he hit the ball on the screws sending a scorching line drive to left. Marty was playing behind third and a few steps off of the foul line. He saw he would have to jump for the ball, and leaped high into the air feeling the ball lodge in his glove. The Sky Hawk threat was over.
"Son of a rat's ass bitch," Coach Guthrie muttered. "That is the luckiest bleeping team on the planet."
But what he told his players was that the Falcon pitcher was obviously out of gas. "We're either going to see him or some other pitcher, and we know how good those other pitchers are. Hold them here and we come back and own the seventh inning."
But things did not go as Coach Guthrie planned as he sent out his fourth pitcher of the game. Noah pinch hit for Hunter and could tell right away that this pitcher was on par with the pitchers he saw in their local leagues. Noah greeted the new pitcher with a single to left on his first pitch. The Falcons had done well running on the Sky Hawk catcher, which convinced Coach Sanders to keep engaging the team's running game. Noah was soon on second with a stolen base. Lars was up next and walked. Eric then bunted them both over, putting runners on second and third with one out. Rich hit a long fly to left that the left fielder ran down, but Noah tagged and scored easily. The score was now 5-1.
Marty had heard Eric tell about the conversation in the bathroom before the game. That whole incident pissed him off, and he got even more pissed off when he overheard Coach Guthrie whine about how lucky the Falcons were after he'd jumped to snag the line drive. I'll show them how lucky we are, he thought.
He watched ball one go by, then watched ball two go by. If the 2-0 pitch was a fat one in his zone, he was going to go after it with his hardest swing. It wasn't where he wanted it, however, and let it go by for strike one. A week ago he would have swung at it, but he knew he wanted a specific pitch in that situation and showed a great deal of patience letting the ball go by.
Marty slowed the game down, meaning he was letting things happen at his pace rather than at somebody else's. When he saw the 2-1 pitch, his mind knew within a millisecond that this was the pitch he wanted. He hit it hard into the gap in left-center, leaving no doubt he had an extra base hit. When the dust settled, he was sliding into third with a 2-run triple. The score was now 7-1 and the game was all but decided.
Except during his time on deck and his at-bat, Rich had warmed up with Vince during the half inning. He was ready to come in to pitch. He'd had to come in cold before, but it was better not to if it could be helped. Rich fell behind 2-0 to the first batter, but when the batter swung at a pitch in the dirt, all doubt about the outcome of the game ended. It was obvious that the Sky Hawks had thrown in the towel. Rich threw an easy 1-2-3 inning and the Falcons were the champions of the 24th Annual Salinas Tournament. It was the first time a non- California team had won it.
This time the Falcons didn't hold back from celebrating. When the two teams lined up for the obligatory handshakes, fist bumps, and high fives, the Falcons noted that the Sky Hawks, for all of their cockiness, were classy as they congratulated the Falcons.
Coach Guthrie shook Coach Miller's hand and shook his head. "I don't see how you guys did it. I thought we were better than you all the way."
"My kids came down here ready to play. They've had their problems with that this summer."
"I hear you. We obviously had that problem the last couple of days. Your kids played hard and they played well." He gave Coach Miller a look and said, "The kid you started was your ace wasn't he?"
"Yeah, he was." He didn't add that Rodney hadn't always looked like an ace during the summer.
"It took a lot of balls for you to save him for today."
"It wasn't an easy choice, but it worked out."
"Pitching was your key this weekend. You got some good ones. Did you bring a pickup pitcher?"
"I did. He started the second game. He's a kid we've used before and one we all know well."
"Good luck to you guys when you get back home."
"Same to you."
Coach Guthrie saw Rodney carrying his stuff out of the dugout. He stopped the player. "You're a good one, better than I expected. Nice work. I was afraid you were going to no-hit us. Believe me, we're a good hitting team, but you flat out dominated us."
"Thanks, coach," was all Rodney could think to say.
Coach Guthrie had his flaws as a coach, as do all coaches. But when it came down to the final line, he was a good coach and a good person, and in the end he knew he had lost to a team that was not only talented, but had been more motivated to win. The Falcons had not only defeated his team for the championship, they had done it convincingly. There was really nothing he could say.
He watched Rodney walk away, marveling at not only his talent but at what a good looking kid he was. Rodney, for his part, learned that he could step his game up to a championship level and discovered what he was going to have to do before and during every game to maintain that level.
As for the Falcons, like Rodney, they'd found out they could step up their game as a team. The question now was, would they be able to maintain that level of play?
Next: Back on Track