Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 23:09:03 -0700
From: Douglas DD DD <thehakaanen@hotmail.com>
Subject: Diamond Dreams  Chapter 54

Welcome back for another episode in the baseball players of
Mayfield. Please give to the Nifty Archive. Please be safe. Please
remember, none of this is true.

Eric organizes a meeting of the Mayfield Mustang varsity, hoping to
light a fire under the team in his own understated way. But while the
meeting was put together by Eric, the fire comes from an unexpected
source.

Douglas
thehakaanen@hotmail.com



CHAPTER 54
...AND FOUND

<Wednesday, March 20>

Eric was stopped in the hall by Coach Sanders. He had just pulled
some books out of his locker and was on his way to home room.

"Good morning, Coach," Eric said, flashing his trademark smile.

"Good morning, Eric. Are you ready for your big meeting?"

"I am. Thanks for letting us use your room to meet. It will be more
comfortable than sitting on benches in the locker room."

"There are classrooms in the gym which you could have used. I
thought a completely different atmosphere would help. I have
something else to add to the meeting."

"Oh?" Eric asked skeptically. He didn't want any interference from the
coaches—this meeting had to be players only.

"I talked to Coach Fitz." Coach Sanders was referring to Coach
Fitzsimmons, the head football coach and the school's athletic
director. "It seems we have the money to order pizza for lunch. I am
excusing you from home room so you can pass the word and take
orders."

"Thanks coach. That's great." Coach Sanders gave Eric a note,
excusing him from home room and allowing him to talk to the
baseball players in the various classrooms. Mayfield High wasn't a
big school. Eric knew if he hustled he should be able to talk to all of
the varsity players.

When the lunch period finally arrived, Eric was very nervous. He and
Kevin had talked about what they wanted to say in the meeting. He
understood that what he wanted to say and what he would end up
saying would not necessarily be the same thing. He knew that the
Mustang players were a strong-minded bunch. He also knew that this
meeting was going to be much different than the one in the dining car
of the "Coast Starlight." That one was impromptu, this one was
planned.

Coach Sanders gave Kevin and Eric one more break, excusing them
early from their third period classes to prepare the classroom for the
meeting. The students in the coach's third period class were
surprised when the pizza arrived, and very disappointed when they
found out it wasn't for them.

"I guess being a jock has its perks that those of us with brains will
never know," one of the freshmen nerds in the class said a bit bitterly
as he left the class.

"I guess he never met Noah," Eric told Kevin with a laugh.

The fifteen players filled the classroom quickly and dug right into the
pizza and soda. Eric brought the meeting to order, something he was
experienced at doing. The theme for the meeting was set when Eric
wrote "diamond dream/pipe dream" on the white board.

"This is something we need to decide," Eric said. "Is the dream we
have had since sixth grade real, or has all the work meant nothing?"

That kicked off a long discussion, with a lot of opinions heard. At first
only the seniors spoke, but, when Blaine kicked in his thoughts about
the togetherness of the team, the other underclassmen spoke, too.
Ironically it was a sophomore who set the challenge and opened up
the gates for the Blaine's bonding idea.

"Back when Korey and I were batboys, I looked up to you guys,
especially when you started putting all your work into starting up the
Falcons," Chandler said in a confident voice. "I couldn't wait to be a
part of it. You guys were nice to us, you were funny, you were sexy
(he had to pause for a laugh there), but you were good players who
played hard and as a team. And you had your dream, and I really
wanted that dream, too. Now, all I do is hear complaining instead of
hearing about dreaming."

He took a long pause, as if he was waiting for somebody to contradict
him. When nobody spoke up, he continued. "We did that sex bonding
last summer to get us together, and now we've forgotten we ever did
it. All everybody does is complain about Marty and Rodney and those
guys being gone, like it was them who had this dream. Now hardly
anybody is up at the dugout screen cheering and yelling. It's like a
couple of guys are there for their buddies, but hardly anybody is there
for the whole team.

"Well, I might just be a sophomore, but I know this much. You guys
had this dream. Yeah, those seniors were there to win that
championship last year, but you guys had the dream. Every time
you're on your own, though, you forget all about it and think you only
won because they were on the team and that you're not good
enough."

Chandler paused again. The room was still quiet. "If you never
thought you were good enough, why did you put all that work into
everything? Guys, I've been around you since I was fucking nine
years old and all I saw was guys who had a dream to win and I was
dreaming right along with you. Now the time is here to make the
dream real and all you can say is, `fuck, we're not good enough...we
can't win.' Dudes, you're better than this in every way there is to be
better. We need to be a team...all of us."

The sophomore kept waiting for the seniors to tell him to shut up, but
still nothing was said. Perhaps it spoke to the fact that Chandler had
been around them since he was a fourth grader and they had grown
to respect him, even if he was an underclassman. Not many
sophomores on any senior laden team could have gotten away with
getting on the case of the seniors like Chandler was doing.

"I guess that's all I have to say. I think I talked too much."

Eric chimed right in. "Chandler is right. It's time for us to quit crying
about things we can do nothing about. It's time for us to quit just
being dreamers. It's time for us to start doing what we kept dreaming
of doing. Our next two games are against what the papers say are
the top two teams in the league. We are as good as they are, and
now we either prove it or we'll be making other plans when the
postseason tournaments start up.

"I had a chat with Blaine a couple of days ago." That brought a
murmur from the team, since nobody ever saw Blaine as the type to
have a chat with anybody. "Blaine said looking at us as a junior he
could see we weren't together as a team. Even us seniors weren't
together." Eric elected not to get into the entire clique thing. "Chandler
just said the same thing. These are guys who weren't part of the start
of our dream looking at us and saying we don't have our shit
together." Eric's use of the word "shit" produced a light chuckle from
the team.

That was when Eric brought up Blaine's idea, and he made sure to
give Blaine credit for it. He talked about how he and Blaine spent time
together and got to know each other better. He didn't tell how Blaine
gave his first ever blow job. Without using the word clique, Eric talked
about who hung out with whom. He said maybe it was time for each
of them to spend some time with a couple of guys outside of their little
group, just to get to know their teammate. They'd been very close to
the seniors on last year's team, yet somehow they hadn't connected
with the classes below them.

"Is there going to be a list like with last summer's sex thing?" Hunter
asked.

"First, let's make sure everybody understands that this isn't about
sex. Just go have some fries and a milkshake with somebody after
practice. There will be no list, nobody keeping track. Just do it. Like
everything else we've been talking about. No more dreaming or
thinking about doing stuff. We are good enough to just do it. Yeah, we
have two of our toughest games coming up and this might not be
enough. After we win them and get back in the race, we need to be
totally together to be an elite team right down to the end. It's not too
late to do it. We've gone back to the `I' instead of `We", and that's
what everybody has been saying. Good teams, confident teams, are
all about `We'."

There was some more discussion, along with the usual rah rah stuff.
The meeting broke up at the bell. Eric asked Noah if he thought the
meeting had accomplished anything.

"I think it did," Noah said. "Chandler was the man. The sophomore
stepped up. He's going to be one hell of an athlete in this school. No,
more than that, he's one hell of a person—a born leader."

Maybe the best answer to Eric's question to the accomplishments of
the meeting happened at the practice that afternoon. While he
practiced what he preached by asking Toby, one of the juniors and a
boy he realized he hardly knew, to be his warm-up partner, he was
pleased to see that every player on the team had a new warm-up
partner.

When he had lunch with Toby the next day, he found out what a
bright and humorous kid he was. It wasn't going to happen in a week,
but the cliquish walls that had been erected on the Mustang baseball
team were slowly starting to come down. Next week they would find
out how that carried over to their play on the baseball diamond.

<Friday, March 22>

Coach Sanders had changed some of his ways of doing things since
taking over the Mustang baseball program. He could see that things
that worked at the middle school level didn't necessarily work at the
high school level. He also realized that just because something
worked with a younger, inexperience high school team didn't mean it
would work with a veteran, senior laden team.

He used to wait until the day before the game to name the starting
pitcher and the day of the game to announce the starters. Now he
announced the pitchers the week before. He used to always bat his
starting pitcher low in the order, no matter how good a hitter he was.
This season he decided to go with the best lineup he could construct
from the players he was starting. As the JV coach at the middle
school, he was all about development. With a team consisting of
veteran seniors, he was now about winning. Having Eric bat second,
even when he was pitching, made the Mustangs a better team than
batting him seventh or eighth.

Because the weather was still chilly, Coach Sanders held his usual
post-practice meeting in a gym classroom rather than on the baseball
field bleachers. He talked about how he'd noticed some real
improvement in the overall attitude in practice. Since both the JV and
varsity sat in on the meeting, he didn't mention that his comments
were mostly directed at the varsity, but then he didn't have to.

The last thing Coach Sanders did before dismissing the team was
name the starting pitchers for the two games coming up the next
week. Eric crossed his fingers, feeling almost like a middle school
student. He knew Ben would be pitching for Kentburg since the
Royals had their bye next week. He wanted badly to pitch against his
friend and rival. Eric and Ben had become good friends since the
tournament in Reno. They were not friends in a sexual way. They
hadn't had any kind of sexual contact since that tournament. Rather,
they were friends because they found that they had a lot in common
and because they genuinely liked each other.

But when they faced each other on the baseball diamond, they were
all business. Neither one gave any quarter nor were they expected to.
Their rivalry was friendly, but intense, and the two seniors loved it
when they were matched up.

"Eric, you'll be facing Kentburg at home on Tuesday," Coach Sanders
said. Eric said a silent "yes!" to himself and Noah flashed him a
knowing smile. "Scott, you've got Lakeshore at their place on
Thursday."

Coach Sanders understood that there was a friendly rivalry between
Eric and Ben, but that wasn't the reason for the way he made the
matchups. He knew that Scott generally gave up more runs than Eric.
While the Mustang offense had shown some life against Winston, the
coach could see there was more work to be done. Hitting against Ben
would be difficult even if their offense was playing with confidence.
He was expecting a low scoring game. He felt Eric gave the
Mustangs the better chance of winning that kind of game.

Lakeshore, on the other hand, had maybe the toughest offense in the
league, but their pitching was average at best. Coach Sanders felt
Scott was good enough to keep the Sentinel's offense in check. He
was also confident that the Mustangs would score more runs against
Lakeshore than they would against Kentburg.

His matchups pleased both Eric and Scott. The next week would be
an interesting as well as a crucial week.

Eric and Noah showered and left the gym together. As they walked
out into the street, he got a text message chime. He saw it was from
Ben.

"r u pitching tues?" it asked.

"yes," Eric texted back.

"me 2. gonna b fun. cant wait."

Eric showed Noah the text as they waited on Noah's mother to pick
them up. Eric was going to spend the weekend at Noah's house. He
knew Jeff would be spending Friday night with Nicky and was certain
it would be a very interesting weekend.

<Sunday, March 24>

[COACH SANDERS]

Although it's been hard for me to put my finger on the reason, I have
noticed a definite improvement in the attitude of the varsity. The big
change I'd seen was the cliquishness I'd noticed was less obvious.
Players were warming up and pairing up with somebody other than
their boyfriend, their best friend, or somebody in the same grade.

I had been thinking for quite a few days that I needed to address
some obvious problems, and the little cliques that were forming was
one of them. Phil kept telling me to be patient, that this group of boys
had a way of policing themselves. I knew he was right, but I also
couldn't watch what should be a great season go down the toilet.
Then Eric and Kevin came to me with the idea of a players only
meeting at school, one that had to do with the team, not with their Go
to State organization.

I also heard about Scott, Danny, and Carl spending a lot of time at
the cages. Since they were with Phil, how could I not hear about it?
Phil told me they put some serious work in and I was seeing those
results in our own batting practices.

This might sound strange after having coached a team to the State
Championship last year, but I felt the two games coming up this week
were the most important pair of games of my still brief coaching
career.

[NOAH]

What a great weekend we had. Friday night was the expected wild
night, what with Jeffrey spending the night with Nicky and Eric with
me. Nicky and Jeffrey were all over the place. Even at thirteen and
twelve, they were a hyper pair. Eric and I agreed we were much more
sedate at that age and managed to not drive our parents nuts. I think
my mom and dad were happy to see Eric and me lead Jeffrey and
Nicky upstairs. I'm sure they knew we were going to be naughty with
the younger pair, but they didn't care. We could have tied the two
tweens naked to a tree outside, and my parents would have been just
as happy.

Instead Eric did to Jeffrey what that little seventh grader had been
wanting for a year now—he fucked him. Nicky and I watched. I have
to say that Jeffrey really gets into sex when he does it. Eric fucked
him pretty hard seeing as what a skinny little runt he was, but Jeffrey
claimed it wasn't nearly as deep and hard as what Marty did. I guess
that makes Jeffrey a tough little runt, too. Eric ended up filling
Jeffrey's butt and Jeffrey ended up squirting his clear cum over his
own belly and chest and rubbing it in.

I then went up Nicky's ass. We didn't last long since watching Eric
and Jeff had gotten us pretty worked up. Jeffrey wanted us to both
cum on him, which is what we did. He rubbed his cum, my cum, and
Nicky's all over his torso and on his face. He said he wished he'd told
Eric to cum on him, too. I knew that having cum all over him was a
fetish of his and it was kind of sexy to watch him rub it around
himself. He told us he was going to be sleeping that way.

Jeffrey didn't stay on Saturday. His parents wanted him home for at
least one night each weekend. It was quite a bit quieter on Saturday
with Eric and me enjoying some high quality lovemaking as opposed
to the wild and crazy sex of the night before.

On Sunday, dad took me, Eric, Blaine, Toby, and Justin to Centralia
where we did some work in the batting cages. It was not only fun to
work on our hitting; it was fun to get to know the three juniors better.
Even Blaine acknowledged that Toby and Justin made a cute couple.

Eric and I spent Sunday night in our own beds, which we did Sunday,
unless we had a Monday baseball game that Eric was starting. Even
big time seniors like us like the idea of Sunday being family night,
especially with us going away to college in the fall. I know Eric and I
are both smart enough to appreciate how lucky we are to have such
great parents. In my case we can add my siblings, even if Nicky and I
are the only ones living at home now.

Monday, I slept with Eric, as per his pregame ritual on the nights
before he was the scheduled starting pitcher. Before turning in we got
naked, meditated in his room, talked a bit about baseball, and
crashed. There was no sex. Eric's pregame ritual did not include sex.

<Tuesday, March 26>

[ERIC]

When I woke up I wasn't nervous. In fact, I felt relaxed and confident.
Noah's presence helped, of course, but for the first time since we
started turning out, I had the sense that the Mustangs were moving in
the right direction. That didn't mean we'd automatically beat the
Kentburg Royals—after all Ben was probably the best pitcher in the
league. I do have to admit that some think I might be just as good a
pitcher, or maybe even better, even if I don't have his raw skills.

I had lunch in Coach Sanders's room. I got him to agree to allow
Noah and me to eat in his classroom on the days I was pitching. I told
him it was all part of me getting myself mentally prepared. He nodded
and said he was okay with it. He added that he probably would often
be eating with us in his room as well. I told him it was his room and
that I didn't plan on chatting with him anyway.

After fifth period I saw I'd received a text from Ben. "n e other game id
say good luck. ur team isnt winning but I no there good." I couldn't
help but smile.  I sent back some similar sentiments.

The weather was gray and cool; usual March weather. But it was dry,
which is usually not the case in March. When I warmed up in the
bullpen before the game, Kevin said he could tell I was ready. He
said I had really good stuff. I thought the same thing.

We had a really good crowd turn out for the game. The game was all
it was advertised to be. The writers from the Kentburg and Mayfield
weekly papers were there, and so was the writer from the Centralia
Daily. They all wrote later that there was no way they could miss the
matchup between the two top pitchers in the league.

As expected we didn't hit much. After all, Ben was good. However,
we got hits at key times and had a 2-0 lead after five innings.
Kentburg's offense didn't seem to be much better than ours, and not
because I held them in check. They appeared to be only four deep
when it came to good hitters. We were much deeper than that.

The Royals scored a run in the top of the sixth. They got a one out
single. The runner stole second when the next batter struck out. My
strikeout pitch was in the dirt and got by Kevin. Not much got by
Kevin, but this pitch did. He managed to throw the batter out at first
for the second out, while the runner on second made it to third. He
scored on a weak little hit to second which Noah couldn't make a play
on. The next batter popped up and the inning was over.

Coach Sanders had Korey warm up Lars in the bullpen. He told me
I'd be starting the seventh, but he wanted Lars to be ready. We got
an insurance run when Scott led off the inning with a triple. Carl, who
hit the ball hard in his first two at bats with nothing to show for it,
belted a long fly ball to deep center. Their center fielder caught it, but
it was so deep there was no way he'd be able to make a play on
Scott, who tagged up and scored standing. I pitched a 1-2-3 seventh
and we ended up with a huge 3-1 win over our arch rivals.

Ben talked to me after our teams shook hands. "You guys are way
better than your record says," he told me. "That Justin kid is a fucking
vacuum cleaner at short. You guys still play great D. And you pitching
a four-hitter, wow, great game dude. I hope we both pitch the next
time we play each other."

"You did okay yourself."

"You were a little bit better, plus you guys got the big hits to score.
We got hardly any hits at all. That's now new. We're not as good as
people think. The bats just aren't there, and when somebody else
other than me pitches, our pitching isn't that great either."

After showering a bunch of us ended up having pizza at The Bear.
And by a bunch, I don't mean just seniors. There were ten of us there
and once again we didn't bother sitting with just our best friends. We
were becoming more of a team, and beating the Royals today didn't
hurt when it came to showing how a "team" felt.

<Thursday, March 27>

[KEVIN]

The bus ride to Lakeshore was a quiet one. Even the girls' softball
team kept their usual chatter down. The Sentinels were undefeated.
We were 3-3 and 2-3 in league. Even though we beat Kentburg, who
everybody says is one of the best teams in the league, I had a feeling
Lakeshore wasn't going to take us serious.

I don't know if they took us serious or not. All I know is Scott pitched
his ass off. Yeah, he gave up some hits and some runs, but damn,
these dudes could hit and overall he kept them in check. They'd
scored 55 runs in their first five games, and only Harborview kept
them under five runs in a game. Lakeshore won that one 4-3.

Our scouting report said their pitching was decent, but not great. It
also said that they weren't very good on defense. Everything the
scouts said was true. Okay, I know scouts sounds a bit big time. We
really have just one scout, and that is Coach Miller, who gets off work
early to scout the good teams.

Mark was our umpire for the first time this season. He worked home
plate and it was good to talk to him some between innings. But this
was a big game, and we kept the chit chat down during the game,
although the two of us could never stop all of our talking.

The game was exciting. Like I said, Scott pitched good, but they were
a tough lineup to pitch to. The lead bounced back and forth. After five
innings the score was tied at 5-5. It was nice to see us hitting,
especially Carl, who struck out on a pitch in the dirt his first at bat.
But, in his second at bat, he knocked a long shot off of the left field
fence with runners on first and third. Eric was on first, and the dude
might not be big, but he can motor. He came home safe by a whisker.
That gave us a 4-3 lead. As you can tell, we didn't hold it.

Because Scott had thrown a lot of pitches, Coach Sanders brought
Blaine in to pitch in the sixth, which I thought was a smart move.
Scott was running on fumes. The Sentinels got three hits that inning,
but none of them were hit hard, which pissed us off. But it happens.
It's not like we haven't blooped teams to death. Blaine did a good job
of damage control, though, and Lakeshore only got one run. That
made the score 6-5 in favor of the Sentinels, and we had to score to
stay alive.

No problemo. I singled to start the inning. Toby was my designated
runner and he came in to run. Noah hit for Kraig. Some of us thought
Coach would signal bunt, but he didn't. He wanted more than one run
if he could get it. Instead he gave the hit-and-run. Noah executed it
perfectly, slapping the ball through the hole between second and first
as Toby took off for second base and the second baseman moved to
cover the base. By the time the right fielder got to the ball, Toby was
chugging for third. He slid in and Mark made a good call when he
signaled safe.

Hunter hit next and scored Toby on a single up the middle. But that
was all we got. The score was 6-6 going into the bottom of the
seventh. The Sentinels went down in order. We were going into extra
innings.

We had our two-three-four hitters up to lead off the eighth and were
feeling pretty good. What might have been didn't happen as Eric lined
out to short, Scott flied to right, and Carl struck out again. Blaine
pitched another inning, giving up a two out double. But he got out of
that little jam and we were off to the ninth.

We saw the same pitcher in the ninth that we saw in the eighth. This
time the results were different though. Danny started us off with a
double. I was up next and grounded out to second. The second
baseman made a good play and nailed me at first, as Danny moved
up to third. It's what they call a productive out. If you ask me, I'd
rather get a productive base hit any day.

Kraig, who had re-entered the game, hit for himself this time and
singled in Danny. That gave us the lead. Hunter hit a line drive that
rolled to the fence. He ended up with a triple and Kraig scored. We
were up by two runs. Trust me, everybody in the dugout had been up
and cheering the whole game. This was way different from how quiet
we had been the first few games. Everybody had his head in the
game.

Korey hit for Blaine and struck out, but Justin singled to score Hunter.
Eric hit a hard line drive to third and got robbed of a hit for the second
straight at bat. We had a 9-6 lead. Lars, who was our closer, got his
first chance to close this spring. He got the first two batters out,
walked the next batter, and then got a big strikeout. The Lakeshore
Sentinels weren't undefeated any more, and we had our third straight
win.

Coach Sanders got some big news on the bus ride home. Chinook
upset Harborview 5-2. That meant only Lakeshore had fewer than
two losses.

"That makes two upsets today," Lars said.

I asked him who had the other upset.

"We did. We beat Lakeshore, remember?"

"Um...Lars, I love you a lot. But that doesn't mean you don't have
things to learn," I told him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that our win over Lakeshore was no upset."

<Monday, April 1>

[CARL]

I admit it. I stunk to start the season. I stunk and I blamed it on
everybody else. I was back to being my old fat self, even if my body
was no longer fat. The good news is I've got good friends and good
teammates. Danny is the best friend a guy could ever have, and Scott
has become a great friend in the last year.

Scott's always seemed a little standoffish. He was best friends with
Danny back in elementary school. Then he became best friends with
Eric in sixth grade. They were almost like boyfriends. The thing that
interested him the most was chasing girls. But it became one girl real
fast, and that was Tama.

Tama had been a real bitch and treated him like crap. Then she got
nice for a long time. Over the last year, though, her inner bitch, as
Danny likes to call it, has come back. That's when Scott started
hanging with Danny and me. And by hanging, I mean us not only
hanging around together, but being bed buddies too. The three of us
love girls and none of us are virgins, but there is something special
about sex with a buddy.

Eric is the other guy I need to mention. He had a lot of quiet talks with
me when my attitude sucked. He's not a loud type leader and team
captain like Marty was. He's just mega-organized, and he's got no
problem quietly calling you on your shit. With him, Scott, and Danny
showing me what a dickhead I'd been, I think I've been turning things
around. At least I'm not blaming everybody else for my own
problems, and I guess that's a good start. Eric told me my attitude
needed adjusting and I listened.

Today is the first day of spring break. I know, we had Saturday and
Sunday off, but this is the first official day—those two days are
weekend days. We have practice at ten the next two days; otherwise,
the days are free. Me, Danny, and Scott plan on hanging out a lot,
which is good. I got this itch in my butt that both of them know how to
take care of.

The Mustangs are turning things around since our meeting. I'm
turning things around since our day at the batting cages and my
attitude adjustment. We all thought we had a great team and just had
to show up and kick ass. That's not how it works. We had a team
attitude adjustment at the lunch meeting. I really think that last part of
the season is going to be amazing for both me and the team. I really,
honestly do.

<Wednesday, April 3>

Wednesday of spring break was the day of the traditional Nooner for
the Mayfield Mustangs. For the first time ever, their opponent would
be from out of state. They would be playing against the team from
Multnomah High School in Oregon. The Sockeyes were undefeated
and would be a tough opponent for the resurgent Mustangs.

As usual, the stands were full for the annual Nooner. Those who
could get off work did so. Many took an extended lunch. The
cheerleaders did their cheers and the pep band played loudly to add
to the atmosphere.

Eric started the game, pitching two scoreless innings. Blaine pitched
the next two, giving up two runs in the third. A two-run double by
Hunter in the fourth had Blaine leaving with the score tied at two.

Scott came in next and was shaky. His control was off and when he
did throw strikes he was hit hard. His pitches were up in the strike
zone, which was always dangerous for a pitcher. He gave up two
runs in the fifth and one more in the sixth. The Mustangs went into
the seventh down 5-2.

[COACH SANDERS]

Phil and I talked long and hard about the state of the Mustangs the
night before the Nooner. Phil is my partner and is the summer coach
of the upperclassmen, so knew the players well. We both felt that the
lunch meeting the boys had called for themselves had been
productive, at least judging by the result. The caliber of play had
improved, and the negative attitude seemed to be dissipating. While
we don't know exactly what went on behind the closed doors of my
classroom, we do know that it had been a much more low key
meeting than the one a few years ago in the dining car.

I've learned that improved attitude and level of play don't always
translate to wins, and the Nooner against an excellent team from
Oregon looked to be that kind of game. We had played well and
played hard, but it was a game where we always seemed to be a step
behind.

A shaky two innings by Scott, along with our usual problems on
offense, saw us going into the seventh down 5-2. As was the plan, I
had Lars pitch the seventh inning, no matter what the score was. He
did an excellent job, putting their 4-5-6 hitters down in order. Now, we
had to make up a three run deficit against a good team in the bottom
of the inning.

I couldn't help but notice the entire team standing at the screen that
protected the dugout. The team was animated and noisy, even with
us being down by three runs. This was not the quiet, laid back, almost
indifferent group that had started the season. They might be three
runs down, but they acted like they were three runs up.

I'd had Toby in the game playing third in place of Danny. I reentered
Danny, which had him leading off the inning. He got the inning off to a
good start with a bouncing single up the middle. Lars struck out
swinging, which brought us to the top of the order.

Justin was our leadoff man. He made good contact, had good speed
on the bases, and was a smart hitter. He wasn't as polished as
Jerome had been, but he was an above average hitter for our level of
ball. Justin worked a walk, which brought the tying run to the plate in
Noah.

Noah was smart, fundamentally sound, and competitive. Although
he's not the most talented player on the team, nobody was going to
out work, outthink, or out play him. He did the right things at the right
time. But, baseball is so often a game of failure and he couldn't come
through this time. His groundout to first managed to move the runners
up a base, which gave him a productive out.

Scott had started in the three-hole, but I'd substituted Gavin for him in
the fourth inning. I could have reentered Scott, but this was a
nonleague game and I wanted to see what Gavin could do. My
feeling here was that it could only help us to put him into a clutch
situation. It was not a good idea to send the message to a senior that
you didn't trust him. Gavin didn't have much of a chance to show
what he could do as he got plunked in the ass by the second pitch,
loading the bases for Carl. There was a pause in the action as the
Multnomah coach changed pitchers.

Carl is a bit of an enigma. We all know how hard he worked to go
from the fat kid in his class to an excellent athlete who had signed a
letter of intent with Montana. He and Scott are our two best hitting
threats. A lot of people like to compare him to Marty, since they both
could hit the ball a long way. Marty was an incredible talent, and once
he got his mental act together his talent blossomed. He was a
disciplined, patient hitter, as well as an intelligent player overall. He
not only could hit the ball a long way, he also hit it often, as
evidenced by his .540 batting average.

Carl, on the other hand, could generate a lot of ooohs and aaahs with
his power, but he often lacked discipline at the plate, chasing pitches
that were out of the strike zone. The result was a .240 average so far,
and he was still looking for his first home run.

Carl got overeager and swung at a pitch up in his eyes.

"Patience, Carl. Make him pitch to you," I called out in baseball cliché
fashion. I knew he knew what to do; he just needed to do it.

The pitcher decided to pitch to the same spot on his second pitch, but
Carl didn't bite. He took the next pitch, which might have been a little
outside, for a strike, and found himself in the hole at one and two. He
showed some discipline on the following pitch, holding up his swing
on a pitch in the dirt. The count was now even at two and two.

The pitcher decided to come in high again, only he didn't go high
enough. Carl put all of his energy into his swing and the ping of the
ball off his aluminum bat sounded sweet. As soon as the ball left his
bat, there was no doubt that we had just picked up a come from
behind, walk-off win. The Multnomah left fielder only moved a few
steps and then stopped to watch the ball soar over the fence.

Carl's grand slam gave us a 6-5 win. As I watched the kids celebrate,
I couldn't help but think that this team was starting to play to its
potential for the first time. Maybe they were finally coming out from
under the shadow of the graduated seniors. I don't know about them,
but I was more than ready to watch them play the game at their best.

Next: Playing the Game