Greetings. All the usual stuff about disclaimers, being safe, and donating to Nifty still apply.
The Falcons of Mayfield just finished winning a big tournament. When the team returns home some can't help but wonder if the Falcons are actually that good or was their tournament championship a fluke? The players believe they are that good, but is that belief going to be enough?
Please write to me, Douglas, at thehakaanen@hotmail.com
CHAPTER 32 BACK ON TRACK
<Sunday, June 28, Salinas>
The postgame dinner was a celebration. The evening in the motel pool was a celebration. Life was a celebration. The Mayfield Falcons were all but dancing in the streets of Salinas from the giddiness of winning the Salinas tournament.
They had won tournaments before. They had won their league before. But somehow this seemed different. Their team and their organization had gone through almost a year of rough times, their confidence had been crushed, their bonds as a team had come close to being shredded, their mettle had been tested, and their doubts had become dominant. But they had overcome all of that and defeated some of the toughest competition they had every played. For the first time ever they truly believed that Eric's dream was more than a dream. They proved to themselves that they had what it took to step their game up to the highest level and make that dream a reality.
"And we did it ourselves," Connor said at poolside. "Marty yelled at us, and we yelled at each other, while the fucking coaches talked about us having a fucking learning experience."
The players agreed that they had inspired each other and stepped their game up beyond what the coaches had talked about. They had taken charge of their own destiny once again. What they did not realize until they were older was that they had done exactly what the coaches had hoped they would do. Coach Miller and Coach Sanders knew the makeup of the team well enough to understand that they needed to step back and see if the players on the Falcons could motivate themselves on the field and off the field. It was something the players hadn't done for the past year. The coaches saw the isolated environment of the tournament as just the way to let players step up, and their gamble had paid off bigger than they had imagined.
That night a lot of built up hormones needed to be released. But despite their history, it did not happen as a gigantic orgy. The night ended up being boys doing what boys usually do when the urge to release sexual tension becomes unbearable.
Eric, Noah, Kevin, and Lars all knew what they had to do. They were all gay and had no sexual hang-ups around each other. They'd engaged in sexual activity together many times before. Their tension wasn't as great as some because they'd had sex the night before. They decided to simply jerk off, but with a twist; they made the jerk off session competitive.
Points would be awarded for farthest shot in relation to the boys' bodies. A wad of cum landing on a chin would be the same for Lars, who was the tallest of the four, as it would for Noah, who was the shortest. Points would be awarded for fastest cums, most wads of cum shot out, and most total cum. The two boys with the fewest points would have to run naked around Kevin's block (it was the smallest block of the four boys' houses) after they returned to Mayfield.
In the end it was Kevin who shot first, Lars who came last. Eric blasted his first shot of cum to his forehead. It was agreed that Kevin shot the most wads of cum, although they did have a friendly debate on how to count the final dribbles of semen. When all of the points were counted, it was decided that Lars and Noah would have to do the streaking.
One room was occupied by straight sophomores. Being straight didn't stop them from being horny sophomores, however. Like the four gay freshmen, they knew what they had to do, and that was to jerk off. Unlike the four gay freshmen, their having a circle jerk was a bit daring instead of being something almost normal. The four freshmen all got naked and jerked off on the same bed. They actually had to talk themselves into doing less sex. The sophomores, on the other hand, paired up on the two beds and had to tell each other it was cool to jerk off together.
"Look, none of us are virgins, so it's not like we're going to turn gay or something just because we're jerking off together," Vince said.
"We could just do it under the sheets or in the bathroom alone," Rodney said.
"That is so lame," Connor said. "If you came to more parties you wouldn't get your panties in a bunch about having a circle jerk."
"Hell, I jerk off with my brothers all the time," Vince said. "It doesn't stop me from getting laid by some chick. It's just getting off and it's more fun with somebody." Vince's older brother, Brad, was twenty and attending Centralia Community College. His younger brother, Blake, was eleven and would be an incoming sixth grader at Mayfield Middle School. "Brad taught me how to whack my pecker when I was nine and I taught Blake when he was, like, eight. It's what older brothers do for younger brothers."
"Do you guys do more than jerk off together?" Rodney asked.
"No way, that's gay stuff."
Connor and Vince had jerked off together quite a few times since seventh grade, both drunk and sober, talking about girls as they pleasured themselves. They didn't think that was something the other two boys needed to know. Although Jerome and Rodney weren't partiers, they did hear the talk about the goings on at some of the beer parties dating back to seventh grade. They knew Vince and Connor weren't innocents when it came to fooling around.
The boys agreed that jerking off together was the way to go and agreed there would be no touching. Connor and Vince were comfortable enough with their sexuality to jerk each other off, but Jerome and Rodney had no desire to go beyond the act of self- masturbation. Conner and Vince agreed they'd go solo.
Connor and Vince lay on one bed, Jerome and Rodney on the other. All four of the fifteen year olds started out together, watching each other, while trying to pretend they weren't watching each other. Rodney was fascinated by Jerome's thick boner, over six inches of dark meat.
Connor was fascinated by everybody's boners. As much as he said he was a straight boy, other boy's cocks had always held a certain fascination, especially Marty's. Connor didn't understand why, but he'd had a boy crush on Marty since the first month of sixth grade. That was when he saw Marty pull his boner out of his pants in English class. The crush was something he wouldn't admit to Marty until their high school graduation party.
Vince fired his volley first, with Jerome following soon after. Connor was next by a couple of minutes, but it took Rodney quite a bit longer. He started feeling self-conscious after everybody else had finished and just sat looking at him. But he managed to slog through with a less than satisfactory cum, soaking his smooth belly with his teen juices.
The room with Kraig, Hunter, Danny, and Carl was the site of another four way jerk off. Surprisingly, there was mutual masturbation involved. Even more surprising is that it involved Carl and Hunter jerking each other off while Danny and Kraig were partners. Carl and Hunter did not like participating in sex with anyone other than their best friends, but the good feelings of the day had them doing something they normally wouldn't have done. Hunter found that he actually enjoyed himself.
Marty, Rich, and Austin were in the only three person room. Rich and Marty shared the king size bed while Austin slept on a pullout bed. But that night all three shared the king sized bed, and were the only boys on the team to do more than jerk off.
Rich and Marty licked and sucked Austin to a cum. They then sucked each other off while Austin masturbated to a second orgasm, shooting his hot fourteen year old jism over the two sophomores as they sixty-nined. Austin loved sleeping in the same bed with the two older teens. He wished they had slept that way for the entire tournament. Austin woke up during the night with Marty dry humping his cock along Austin's ass. Austin turned around and soon the two were French kissing and rubbing their cocks off to a near mutual orgasm.
One other room had sex beyond jerking off as well. Jeffrey and Nicky had some time to themselves as their fathers went a couple of rooms away to visit with the coaches. Their fathers had rented a suite. The suite connected two rooms and with two beds in each.
As soon as their fathers left, Jeffrey and Nicky stripped down to their briefs. The two boys had gotten to know each other quite well during the past few days. They found they enjoyed sleeping together, and quickly slept snuggled to each other. The first night they wore pajamas, the second night pajama bottoms only, and on the third night, using the excuse that the bed was too hot, they slept in only their briefs. They took their showers together each morning and enjoyed looking at each others' naked body. Nicky was used to showering with his brothers and had no problem washing Jeffrey in his most intimate places. Jeffrey loved what Nicky did to him in the shower and returned the favor, both boys boning up quickly. It was the first time anybody other than Marty and Sammy had touched Jeffrey's genitals, and he found the sexual play with another boy especially pleasing.
Nicky was ten and would be entering fifth grade, while nine year old Jeffrey would be a fourth grader. The two attended the same elementary school.
"I have a secret," Jeffrey said as the two boys lay on the bed, close together and looking at each other.
"What?" Nicky asked.
"Take off your undies and I'll show you."
Nicky shrugged and pulled off his underpants, revealing a hairless groin area sporting a thin three inch boner. Nicky had been hard since their fathers had left, although he wasn't sure why. Jeffrey smiled and slid down, placing Nicky's boner in his mouth. He started sucking on it, his first bit of serious cock sucking. He had licked Marty's cock, and even sucked on it a few times, and he'd put Sammy's little cocklet in his mouth a couple of times, but this was the first time he'd gone down on a boy with the object of sucking him to the good feeling he knew was an orgasm.
"Oh, wow, that is so cool," Nicky said. "Where did you learn that?"
"I promised not to tell," Jeffrey said.
"I've done it before."
"For real? With who?"
"I promised not to tell."
Within a few weeks they would know and trust each other enough to tell everything, but this was a feeling out session. Nicky lay back and let Jeffrey suck him to a body shaking dry cum. He then had Jeffrey remove his briefs and returned the favor. Nicky knew all about doing a sixty-nine, but like the sharing of their secrets, that would come later. Jeffrey's little dry orgasm was perfectly timed as they heard the key being inserted into the door lock within a minute of their pulling their underpants back on.
Their fathers opened the door between the rooms and noticed the boys on the bed, wearing only white briefs and innocent smiles. "What did you boys do while we were gone?" Seth McCall asked, somewhat fearful of the answer.
"We were going to watch television," Jeffrey said.
"I see," George Bednarzyck, "but you couldn't figure out what to watch."
"Right," Nicky said. Since the TV was off, and there was no schedule anywhere to be seen, with the boys on the same bed wearing just their underpants, both fathers knew their two young sons had done more than simply discuss television. But they didn't care as long as nobody complained.
That night, after the lights were turned out, Jeffrey placed a quick kiss on Nicky's lips. He shook with pleasure when Nicky returned it. That night was the beginning of a long and wild friendship that would evolve into the two being boyfriends.
Chandler and Korey would have added even more sex to the mix, but they had flown out on a five o'clock flight. They were happy that an "if" game was not needed, since they wouldn't have been able to stay to watch it.
<Monday, June 29, Salinas>
The Go to State Team held a meeting that morning in one of the conference rooms of the motel. It was not only a time for business; it was a time for further healing. The biggest moment of healing happened when Rodney apologized for being a "dickhead" and turning against his friends and teammates when things got tough during the spring. Other apologies followed, with a lot of hugs and laughs sealing the deal.
As for the business, the commitment made for the Fourth of July was discussed. Every team member agreed to be at the picnic to help with the cleanup. Seth McCall, George Bednarzyck, Coach Sanders, and Coach Miller assured the boys there would be enough transportation to get the boys to Centralia for the fireworks. "But it will be up to you to get the work done on time," Coach Sanders reminded them. The boys left the meeting feeling even better about themselves, their team, and their dream.
After the meeting, the coaches checked the team out, but had one room held for them. The boys were told to get into their swimwear before leaving their rooms. While they were changing a van driven by one of the Salinas coaches drove up. He had three of his ballplayers in the van, who were dressed for a day at the beach.
A day at the beach is exactly what the Falcons experienced. The Salinas coach led a convoy of vehicles to a beach outside of Monterey, which was a short drive over the hills from Salinas. A brief drive on Ocean Boulevard got them to the beaches.
The Falcons enjoyed sun and salt water, along with food and drink that was carted in for a late lunch. The Falcon boys quickly made friends with the Salinas boys and everyone enjoyed a fantastic afternoon. They returned to the motel in time for everyone to run through the showers, usually in pairs, before leaving for the train station.
The boys got to the Salinas Amtrak station a half hour before their train was due to arrive. As they waited, Connor got a big question off of his chest. "Who the fuck is this John Steinbeck dude? Everywhere you look there's all kinds of shit about Steinbeck. What did he do, set a record for most lettuce picked in a day or what?" Salinas had signs and references to John Steinbeck throughout the town.
"Hell if I know who he is," Jerome said. "But he sure seems famous here.'
"John Steinbeck is one of America's great authors," Noah said. "He was born in Salinas. Read the `Grapes of Wrath', which is one of the top five American novels ever written. Don't you guys pay attention in English class?"
"Fuck, no," Connor said. "That's nap time."
Before leaving the motel the team had dinner at the motel restaurant. They were unhappy they couldn't eat dinner on the train. They loved the dining car, but they knew Seth wouldn't have the time he needed to arrange seating with the dining car steward for their big group. They would have breakfast and lunch in the dining car the next day, however.
The Mayfield Falcons boarded the "Coast Starlight" after it came to a stop at the station. Over the weekend they had grown up in ways they could not comprehend, but would learn to understand more and more as they seriously pursued the dream initiated by Eric over two years ago. It was the first time the dream had taken on a tinge of reality. Two straight high school state championships; in their heady optimism, they felt it was something realistically within their grasp. Even the sophomores were totally committed, because they now saw themselves as the torch bearers, the players who were the key to the all-important first title.
<Tuesday, June 30 to Sunday, July 5>
Most of the boys were met by their parents at the Centralia train station after the "Coast Starlight" rolled in just after six on Tuesday evening, ten minutes late. The boys were glad to be home. They were not only tired, they were hungry. Most of them hadn't eaten since having had lunch in the dining car around noon. Snacks from the lounge car didn't count as far as they were concerned. They were all hungry for a big meal and expected their parents to provide them with one. Nobody was surprised when it was suggested they call ahead to The Bear and reserve space for a pizza feed. As hungry as they were, the boys knew they could wait the 45 minutes it took to get to Mayfield.
The team understood they were not going to be able to rest on their laurels; they would continue to be busy with baseball for the next two weeks. They had a week's worth of league games to make up on top of what still needed to be played. They were thankful that Seth McCall had the foresight not to schedule any more non-league games. On top of having games to play, they would be missing Rodney for a start the weekend after the Fourth of July, since he was going to be the pickup pitcher in a weekend tournament by the Longview team.
Their first game would be against that same Longview team on Thursday. The good news was the Falcons beat them 11-3 at home the first time they played. The bad news was Austin didn't pitch that game, but he would be pitching this one. It was ironic that Austin would be starting against the team he had helped so much the previous weekend. Eric would be starting for the Falcons.
As the Falcons knew, Austin was an excellent pitcher, probably better than Ben at Kentburg. They were happy they didn't have to face him in high school since his high school was in a higher classification than Mayfield. But this wasn't high school, this was summer ball, and Austin would soon be taking the mound against them.
"Skyler said if I beat you guys, he's gonna fuck me on the school football field at night," Austin told Eric before the game. Skyler was Austin's current boyfriend.
"Like you needed a lot of incentive," Eric said.
"Oh, that kind of incentive never hurts. But it won't be tonight. There's a huge party tonight—lots of our friends and some guys off this team. Should be plenty of beer and weed, which means lots of sex. Too bad you can't hang around and go with me."
"You know me and parties," Eric said.
"Yeah, and like I've told you, I think you're missing out."
Whether Austin had his mind on the party or on Skyler, he had one of those days every pitcher has. Austin was not at his sharpest. He was good, but the Falcons were better and took advantage of his mistakes. Eric pitched another solid game, going all seven innings as the Falcons picked up a 4-2 win. Austin gave up all 4 runs in 5 innings of pitching. The Falcons had now won six games in a row. Their next game would be after the July 4th weekend.
The July 4th weekend was a busy one. The only time Eric saw his teammates was on July 4th itself, when the Falcons assembled at the end of the big Mayfield picnic and barbeque to take charge of the cleanup. They finished their work in plenty of time to take advantage of the rides to Centralia to see the fireworks. Eric and Marty were both pleased that every player who was active with the Go to State Team was at the cleanup. Things were continuing to come together for their group.
The team sat together at the Centralia fireworks show, finding a high point to sit on just outside of the County Fairgrounds. The four gay couples held hands, like they had the year before, and none of the others minded a bit. Having gay teammates and gay friends was a perfectly normal thing to them, something they'd started dealing with as far back as sixth grade. In sixth grade it was more about them experimenting and messing around sexually. While that attitude of experimentation still existed, there was also the fact that a lot of that messing around had matured into teen love affairs.
<Monday, July 6 to Saturday, July 11>
The Falcons had a game at Lacey on Monday. They had defeated Lacy 5-2 the first time around behind Rodney's pitching. This time Scott was the pitcher. His fastball was in top form that game, and his breaking ball was effective. He tossed a four-hit shutout and the Falcons picked up a 5-0 win. They improved their league record to 8- 5 and their overall record to 17-10.
The next day they played Harborview at home. This would have been a good game to give Gavin some experience, but he was still out with his broken arm. Coach Miller started Kraig, who was going to be the first of a long line of pitchers. While the Falcons got their bats going, the Tugs seemed to get the key hits when they needed them. The result was an 8-6 loss for the Falcons, ending their seven game winning streak.
Friday against Monte, the Falcons came back from their loss behind the pitching of Lars. Marty and Carl gave everybody a thrill by hitting back-to-back home runs in the first inning, as the Falcons scored five runs that inning. Lars and Rich took care of the pitching and the Falcons had an easy 14-3 win that only went six innings.
<Sunday, July 12 to Saturday, Wednesday, July 15>
The Falcons had two relatively easy wins on Sunday and Monday. Eric pitched five innings at home in a 9-4 win over Winston. The win clinched a berth in the league tournament for the Falcons. The next day they traveled to Lakeshore, and, with Scott starting, they picked up a 6-2 win. Connor hit a two run homer in the fourth to key the Falcon offense.
The Falcons were now 20-11 on the season and 11-6 in league. They were 15-4 since their low point of the season, and 10-1 since the meeting in the dining car of the "Coast Starlight". They had one league game left and that was on Wednesday against Kentburg. The Royals were 13-2 in league and Ben would once again be their starting pitcher. Rodney, who had enough rest since pitching for Austin's team, would be the starter for the Falcons. They were two of the best pitchers in the area and a large crowd of interested fans was expected to watch the game at the Kentburg field. There had been talk of moving the game to the Mayfield ballpark, which had a larger seating capacity, but Kentburg was not about to give up its home field advantage.
Eric, Noah, Connor, Vince, Marty, and Rich got to the ballpark early and saw Ben, along with Royce and Lance, who were friends of Marty.
"You guys were smart to decide not to play with us," Ben told the Mayfield boys.
"Why?" Connor asked. "You fuckers are in first place."
"Yeah, in this league. In the other one, what they call the competitive league, we're next to last and getting our asses kicked by the big boys," Ben told him. "Plus, we seem to play every day, and that starts to get old after awhile. And as for all those things they offered us to sign up..."
"What about them?" Marty asked even though he already knew what the answer was. He still communicated with Lance and Royce a lot.
"We're still waiting for them."
"It doesn't help that the coaches are assholes," Royce said. "They're always ragging on us for bullshit stuff. And when they're not yelling at us, they're yelling at the umps. They've both had their asses kicked out of games."
"And they don't pay much attention to pitch counts," Ben said. "Hell, one game I told them my arm hurt even though it didn't, just because they kept sending me out. I was over 100 fucking pitches and my arm felt like it was going to drop off anyway, so I might as well lie. And they were still going to leave me in, even after I lied and said my arm hurt. Bastards."
"Too bad you don't party no more," Lance said to Marty. "We got a good one planned after the league tournament. Beer, hard stuff, weed...,"
"...girls," Ben said. "Not that those two care for that." He pointed over at Lance and Royce, who, while they weren't out as gay, didn't make any secret of their being bed buddies. Being a bed buddy was acceptable to their peers, while being gay was not. Nobody was ever able to explain the difference, but the system seemed to work in Kentburg.
"You never had a problem with one of us sucking your cock," Royce told Ben.
Ben blushed deeply, but recovered quickly. "Only because you guys are so fucking good at it." He changed the subject, asking where Rodney was.
"He is somewhere listening to his I-Pod and contemplating his navel. That's what he's been doing before each of his pitching starts," Noah said.
"Maybe that's what I should start doing. I just show up and throw."
The boys shared a few more words and then headed for their respective dugouts as their teammates started showing up. "Ben's a pretty cool dude for somebody who keeps kicking our asses," Noah said.
"I wouldn't mind doing to him what Royce and Lance did," Eric said, referring to their performing oral sex on the Kentburg pitcher.
"I don't know why, but I think he has a big one," Kevin said.
The game ended up being a good one as Rodney and Ben locked up in a great pitcher's duel. Rodney had prepared for this game by following the same pregame focusing routine he used in Salinas. He started right out matching Ben zero for zero.
After five innings the game was scoreless. It was Ben who blinked first. He started the sixth inning by striking out Kraig. Jerome was up next and tripled. Noah had subbed for Eric at second in the fifth and stayed in the game to bat. He smiled inside when he got the squeeze sign from Coach Miller on a 2-1 pitch. He squared to bunt as Ben released the ball; at the same time Jerome broke for home. Noah laid down a perfect bunt to the right of the pitcher. Ben fielded it, but had no play at home, so he threw Noah out at first. It was a perfect suicide squeeze, giving the Falcons a 1-0 lead.
The Falcons scored more conventionally in the seventh. Ben had started to run out of gas. He had been overused during the summer and he often tired at the end of a game. Carl was the second batter up and hit a line-drive single over the shortstop. Lars came in to run for Carl and scored when Danny doubled down the right field line. The Falcons went into the bottom of the seventh ahead 2-0.
Mike Carter, who was 6-1, 180 and hit cleanup for the Royals homered off of Rodney with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Rodney struck the next batter out and the Falcons had a hard earned 2-1 win over their arch-rivals.
They would be going into the league tournament that weekend as the number three seed.
<Friday, July 17 to Sunday, July 19, Centralia Baseball Complex>
[ERIC]
As the third seed in the tournament, we were pitted against the number two seed, the Shelton Hawks. They had defeated us twice in league. I was the starting pitcher for this game. I decided to follow Rodney's lead and take some alone time away from the rest of the team before the game. I don't know if it helped, but I pitched pretty well against a good hitting team, giving up five hits and three runs over six innings. I was restricted to no more than six innings because I'd pitched last Sunday. We finished with a 7-3 win, hitting the ball as well as we've hit all year against a good team with good pitching.
The tournament was double elimination like the Salinas tournament was, but with fewer teams. Also, there were no pickup pitchers. We were scheduled to play the winner of the second game, which was between Kentburg and Harborview. Kentburg won that game 9-7, so we would play Kentburg at one in the afternoon.
Scott started that game and had an inning restriction, too. He ended up going five innings, with Vince pitching the sixth, and Lars the seventh. The game was a tight one, but with Kentburg coming out on top 6-5. Lance knocked in the winning run in the top of the seventh.
"He should remember he has friends on this team and not do stuff like that when he plays us," Marty said, only half in jest.
Because we lost, we had to play the winner of the morning game, which was between Harborview and Shelton. The loser of that game would be out of the tournament. Harborview won the morning game 10-5.
We played them at one. The winner of our game would play Kentburg on Sunday afternoon for the tournament championship, the loser would be out. Since the top two teams would go to the Washington State League tournament, it really wasn't a huge deal who won on Sunday and no "if" game was scheduled. The winner of the game would win the tournament.
The winner of the tournament championship game wasn't us—in fact we weren't even the loser of that game. Harborview took care of that with a 5-2 win. Rodney started, but he was a little tired and a little off his game, while the Harborview pitcher shut us down. Our season was over.
We finished with a 22-13 record. We were 12-3 after the meeting in the dining car. In the past, we had talked about how good we thought we would be with more experience, or whatever else we needed to do to be good. But this time, we knew we were good. We didn't care about the rest of the crap. We had that cockiness that we had back when we went undefeated during the middle school season. We knew next year would hold challenges for us, but we were completely confident we would meet them.
All of us Falcons would be in high school in a few weeks. There were some younger players we knew were really good and would still be in middle school this coming school year. Justin, who was a flashy shortstop and a good hitter, would be in eighth grade. Korey and Chandler, who were mega-talented, would be in seventh. I had a feeling they would be helping us in a year or two. They would be especially important when Marty and Rodney and those guys graduated from high school.
The Falcons were running smoothly, the Go to State Team was running smoothly, and things looked good. I was sure all of the drama was over and we could concentrate on baseball. And, if shit happened, which my dad said can happen at any time, I knew we were all much better equipped to handle it. There was no way things could get worse than they had been the past year. Absolutely no way.
Next: Summertime Romps