Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 07:52:27 -0700
From: Douglas DD DD <thehakaanen@hotmail.com>
Subject: Diamond Dreams  Chapter 8

The first chapter disclaimers still apply. Please donate to Nifty, and
please be safe always.

This chapter has a lot of baseball. It also has some of the non-
baseball fun on the summer team's only overnight trip.

Feedback is always appreciated. Douglas.
thehakaanen@hotmail.com



CHAPTER 8
TOURNAMENTS

<Friday, June 27, Olympia Baseball Complex>

[ERIC]

While playing in our league was important, playing in tournaments
was the most fun part of being on a summer baseball team. I mean a
travel team should be traveling, right? We managed to raise enough
money for two tournaments. The first one was in Olympia and was
close to home, so all we needed to pay was the entry fee. The
complex where it was being held was about an hour-and-a-half away
by car.

The other tournament is the one that will cost us the big bucks. That
was why we had carwashes, garage sales, recycling, the fence
advertising money, concession money, and extra money from
sponsors. It was in Eugene, Oregon. We were going to rent two vans,
which Coach Miller and Coach Sanders would be driving, to take us
down to Oregon. Plus, we would be staying in a hotel and our meals
would be paid for. We had a budget for how much we each spend to
eat. The last expense was the entry fee.

We had enough money for this tournament with some left over in
case we got into a postseason tournament. A team had to earn its
way into those tournaments, and, after the league season we'd had,
we thought we were good enough to be invited. The league paid a lot
of the expenses for the postseason, and we had a special budget for
the rest.

The Olympia tournament started Friday and we drew a Friday
afternoon game. We were playing a team from Puyallup. They played
good baseball there and their high school teams were always going
to District and State tournaments. By State Tournaments, I mean the
big Four-A schools, not the little A schools like us. We figured that
meant their teams in our age group would be good, too.

We discussed what to call for the coin flip. We had elected Rich our
captain, although Marty had become our leader as the season
progressed.

"Tails never fails," Scott said.

Since we couldn't find a reason to disagree, Rich called tails at the
home plate meeting. We were the team that was from the farthest
away, so we got to call the flip. Tails didn't fail and Rich picked home
team, giving us the hammer. Turns out we got so hammered we
really didn't need the hammer.

We sure weren't wrong about them being good. They were bigger,
older, more talented, and more experienced than we were. I was the
starting pitcher for that game and it was a good experience for me.
Which means it was supposedly proof that we learn and grow from
our failures.

We did okay for the first four innings. I gave up a run off of a couple of
hits and a walk in the top of the second inning. In the bottom of the
inning, Rich singled and, after Marty struck out, Carl went yard. I
thought Marty could hit the ball hard, but when Carl made solid
contact he could hit the ball for what seemed like a mile or two. His
home run gave us a 2-1 lead.

That lasted until the top of the fourth when I gave up a solo home run
to their cleanup hitter. He was a big kid who I bet was six foot two or
three. The only player we had over six foot was Marty, although Carl
was creeping up on that magic number.

"Six feet tall and six inches long, that's what I'm going to be when
school starts," Carl bragged a few days ago. He made it to six feet,
but didn't hit six inches until after he started high school. Nobody said
dicks and feet and bodies grew at the same rate.

Anyway, the score was tied at 2-2 going into the top of the fifth and
we were feeling pretty good about how we were playing. That's when
the lessons were taught. I was still throwing strikes, but suddenly they
were hitting everything I threw up there. It took them awhile, but when
they got me figured out they went right after me. And by hitting
everything, I mean they were hitting everything hard.

By the time Coach Miller got me out and they finished beating up on
me and Kraig, they'd scored ten runs in the inning. I think the term for
how we felt is shell-shocked. The score was 12-2 and if we didn't
score a run in the bottom of the fifth the game was over.

The good news is we scored a run to make it twelve-3 and forced the
sixth inning to be played. The bad news is the Puyallup team scored
two more runs in the sixth and held us in the bottom of the sixth and
we still got 10 runned. We lost 14-3 in six innings.

Coach Miller said we didn't play bad baseball. We just ended up
playing a team that was bigger, stronger, faster, and more
experienced. He told us to learn from it, because next year that could
be us. They gave us a good lesson on how a good team handles
itself on and off the field.

Because we had been dumped into the losers' bracket we had to
come back to play the next morning. That wouldn't be so bad, except
for the fact that game time was 9 am. This is even worse than it
sounds when you consider that we were told to meet at the middle
school at 6:30. We found out we would be playing a team from
Canada.

So, the bad news was the early morning meeting time plus the fact
the Canadians were staying at a hotel in Olympia and would be able
to sleep in later than us. The good news was that as sleepy as we all
were, we actually played a decent game and came up with a win.
Vince started and pitched five innings, giving up two runs and leaving
with a 5-2 lead. Lars pitched two scoreless innings, giving up a
harmless two out single in the sixth inning as we ended up with a 6-2
win.

That meant that we would be playing again at 1:00 in another loser
out game. Marty was excited about this matchup. We would be
playing a team from Bremerton and his friend Frank would be on that
team. I was one of the few kids on our team who knew that Marty met
Frank when he was in rehab back in January. They had kept in
contact, but this was the first time they had met face-to-face since
then.

Frank's team played on another field in the complex at 9:00, so we
didn't know right away that we would be playing them. They won their
game 9-7. It took twenty minutes longer than our game. As soon as
they could, Marty and Frank got together and chatted. Later, I talked
to Marty just before we started our warm-ups.

"Did you guys have a good talk?" I asked him.

"Yeah. He's a really cool guy. He's still sober like me. He wishes he
had a boyfriend like me."

"You and Rich are boyfriends?"

"Not officially. Rich is still kinda going out with his girlfriend. Actually,
we really haven't talked about it much. When we do talk about it,
sometimes he says he is, then he isn't sure. Sometimes he says he'll
break up with Trish, then he isn't sure. I guess him being my
boyfriend is what is called wishful thinking. "

"Maybe you should just talk about it with the idea of deciding it."

"We will when the time is right. It isn't right yet. We get told not to get
into any relationships in our first year of sobriety, but, well, it's a rule I
wouldn't mind breaking. I just don't push it."

I wanted to say that at least he had somebody to think about having
as a boyfriend. With Scott now going out with Tama, I was finding out
that being a gay boy really wasn't all I thought it was a year ago.
Unfortunately gay is what I was. I was beginning to think that when
school started I should fake it and find a girl to ask out like Scott
suggested. Then at least I would have somebody.

Marty and Frank both had good games. It was as if there was a
competition between the two of them. Marty had two doubles and a
single in four at bats and Frank ended up with three singles and a
walk. But when it came down to the competition between our two
teams, Frank's team won, beating us 7-5.

 Hunter started and went the first three innings, followed by Lars and
Jerome. Since we weren't allowed a pickup pitcher for this
tournament, getting knocked into the losers' bracket had us quickly
running out of pitchers. We had two league games coming up
Tuesday and Wednesday and Coach was hoping to save Rodney
and Scott for those games.  We were now out of the tournament after
suffering our second loss.

I was invited to Noah's house on Sunday. The twins came as well,
and of course Bobby was there.  We had a great time. The day was
cool and cloudy, but that didn't stop us from spending most of the
afternoon in the pool. We were joined by Shane and Nicky. Since the
twins weren't on the list of boys who could skinny dip when Lisa was
home, we had to wear swimsuits, which sucked. I was on the list,
however, which was all part of a compromise with Noah's mom to
allow at least some skinny dipping. Nobody could figure out why
some of us were on the list and some weren't. We just lived with it.
It's not like wearing swimming shorts was the end of the world.

Six of us spent the night in the cabana. Shane wasn't interested in
hanging around with a bunch of naked boys, but Nicky was. The nine
year old was getting a real taste for sexy stuff.

I hope we didn't disappoint him. I mean it's not like the six of us had a
big orgy, but we did do some stuff. We were used to sexing with each
other, which often meant just jerking ourselves off.

Kraig suggested truth or dare, but we didn't have many secrets from
each other, and it was hard to dare each other to do stuff we hadn't
already done. That didn't include Nicky, who hadn't done any anal
sex, even though Noah had told him for almost a year he'd show him
the ropes.

What we did was pair off by drawing slips of paper out of a hat. Each
pair could do whatever they wanted with each other, and would sleep
together. There were no restrictions, so it was possible the twins
could be a pair and so could Bobby and Noah. We didn't care, we
were just a bunch of horny twelve and thirteen year olds, plus a nine
year old.

I ended up getting paired with Kraig, Kevin got Noah, and Bobby got
Nicky. It was a pretty cool result since none of us was usually a pair.
The idea wasn't to put on a show for each other, it was simply to get
off together. Noah turned off the light even though it didn't really get
dark until almost ten at this time of the year.

It turned out nobody fucked; we all ended up dry humping. That was
probably the disappointing part for Nicky, since he was eager to find
out more about the world of cornholing.

For me, it was nice to just make out with somebody. My sex had been
my left hand since Scott and I broke up. Rubbing my hairless cock
against Kraig's bigger teen cock felt just so totally good. I ended up
shooting twice. Cuddling up with Kraig in our sleeping bags added a
nice finishing touch to the evening.

On Monday we rode around on our bikes, shot some hoops at the
park with Hunter, Lars, and Scott, and showed up on time for a four
o'clock practice. It had been a good two days with my friends.

Rodney was the starter for our Tuesday game. It was the first of July
and we were all getting pretty excited for the Fourth and all the stuff
that went with it. However, when the game started we had our minds
on baseball. Coach Miller had told us in practice that we needed to
keep our minds on baseball until after our Wednesday game. We
certainly did that on Tuesday as we beat Tumwater on their field with
our first shutout. Rodney gave up only three hits, walked two, and
struck out eight. We only made one error and picked up a 5-0 win.

Wednesday's game was a rematch with Shelton. Scott started and
pitched his best game of the summer.  He threw all seven innings and
we won 8-2 on our field. Marty and Scott both hit home runs. We
went into the long Fourth of July weekend with an 11-8 record and
were 8-4 in league.

The Fourth ended up being a lot of fun, even if we did have to work
some. The Falcons had volunteered to help with the setup for the
town barbeque, so we had to be at the recreation center at nine. All of
the players on the team were there except for Bobby, who went to
Seattle with his brother, Tyler, and Mr. Robinson for the second
straight year, and Lars, who had left right after the tournament last
weekend for a week long trip with his family.

Noah and I chatted some about Bobby and his trip to Seattle.

"I bet Bobby will do some stuff with Tyler and Mr. Robinson in the
hotel after the fireworks tonight," Noah said as we were setting out
folding chairs.

"But Mr. Robinson is a teacher," I said. I know that sounded naïve,
but I really couldn't imagine a teacher doing sex with a student—at
least not then.

"His brother Tyler spends a lot of nights at Mr. Robinson's house.
Don't tell me they don't do stuff. I am sure beyond sure that they do.
Bobby went with them to Seattle last year, and he's spent a couple of
night's at Mr. Robinson's house."

"So, did he say that they did stuff?" I asked.

"No. That's about the only thing Bobby won't talk about. And since he
won't talk about it, I know they do stuff. If Bobby promised them he
wouldn't tell anybody, then he won't tell anybody, not even me. That's
the way he is."

"Yeah, I know Bobby. Nobody keeps a promise like he does."

"But I did tell him to ask them on this trip if he could tell me stuff."

I had to laugh at that. I mean here Bobby won't say anything about if
he is having sex with his brother and his brother's teacher, but Noah
is asking him to find out if he can tell about the stuff that isn't
supposed to be happening. I guess what it all means is that Noah is
telling Bobby to drop the hint that Noah knows what is going on
between the two, so they might as well make it official.

Anyway, enough confusing stuff. Noah's family and mine ended up
eating at the same table that afternoon. I went with Noah's family to
Centralia to see that town's fireworks show. It wasn't as big as
Seattle's or Tacoma's, but it was still pretty good.

We hung with the twins when we got to Centralia. They came with
their parents, along with Korey and Chandler, who were off on their
own somewhere.

"I think they were trying to find a place to get naked," Kevin said.
"They got dared to take their clothes off by Mikey."

"Figures," I said. "I know I sure wasn't a horn dog like those two when
I was ten. But they aren't going to find anything. The Fairgrounds is
packed." The Fairgrounds is where the fireworks show and other
things took place on the Fourth.

"That won't stop them," Kevin said. "I kinda wish I'd gone with them,
just to see what kind of place they find."

The fireworks show was not a disappointment and we met with Korey
and Chandler at the prearranged meeting spot after it was over.

"Did you do it?" Kraig asked.

"No. There wasn't any place to get naked. Now we both gotta suck
Mikey off tomorrow."

"Aw, you poor, poor boys," Noah said. "That's going to be such a
hardship."

"It is since we're going to have to do it outside. But it will be easier
doing that than it was getting naked here."

The two of them and the twins took off to meet the twins' parents
while Noah and I left to meet his. Finding everybody in the dark
wouldn't be easy, but we had prearranged meeting places and it
didn't take us long. I spent the night at Noah's house. We didn't fuck
because Noah forgot to ask Bobby if it was okay.

"But won't he be doing it tonight?" I asked.

"I don't think they do that. Besides, we both know what Bobby is like.
He's never asked me if he could fuck because he only fucks me.
Although, doing his brother doesn't count, just like me doing Shane
doesn't count."

But we did do a sixty-nine and enjoyed each other's cum, even if it
wasn't all gooey and thick like with the older boys. We cuddled up
naked in his bed and slept wrapped around each other like we were
born to sleep that way.

I pitched our league game on Monday. I went five innings, Lars
pitched one inning, and Rich pitched the last inning as we beat Kelso
6-4, making up for an earlier 4-3 loss. The Falcons were on a roll;
we'd won four straight league games and were 8-4.

<Friday, July 11, Eugene Tournament>

Coach Miller and Mr. McCall had made out the schedule so that the
Eugene tournament didn't have any league games close to it, either
before or after. They couldn't do the same thing for the Olympia
tournament, but we knew that working to win a trophy when we went
to Oregon was an important goal. We would have all of our pitching
available, plus we added Austin. Austin would be a bit of a question
mark since in his league he pitched from 54 feet instead of the
standard 60 feet 6 inches.

The team would be traveling as a group. Mr. McCall rented two large
vans, which Coach Miller and Coach Sanders would be driving.
Coach Ecklund also had his SUV, so we had plenty of room for
everybody plus our equipment. We left Mayfield at nine in the
morning on Friday. The trip would be a long one, taking about five
hours.

We all stayed amused by talking, napping, playing video games,
texting, and just looking out of the window. We stopped at a
McDonald's in Portland for lunch, which made most of us want to take
a nap.

We got to Eugene around two and checked into our motel. There
would be four of us to a room, except for one room that would have a
fifth boy sleeping on a pullout bed.  We got to pick our own
roommates, which we did at practice on Wednesday. Trust me when I
say that was not an easy process. In fact, it was so hard to do that we
decided we would change some of the roommates on Saturday night.
We would be staying Saturday night even if we got eliminated from
the tournament before then.

For the first night, I was going to be rooming with, Connor, Vince, and
Rodney, who were all freshmen. When I objected at first, Connor
pointed out that I was the chair for the Go to State team and so I
shouldn't have a problem being with the older boys on the team. After
all, everybody kept making a big deal about how mature I was.

"Yeah, but I'm littler than you guys are," I protested.

"It's not like we plan on beating you up, or anything like that," Connor
said.

"Well, I was thinking of doing something where my being little counts,"
I pointing to my crotch.

Connor broke out laughing. "Um, we're not your eighth grade
buddies. We're the freshman group, remember? It's not like we plan
on having sex with you either."

"Although jerking off is not out of the question," Vince piped up.

"Speak for yourself," Rodney said. "What we need to do is find some
hot chicks and invite them to the room. Now, THAT would be sex."
Rodney was a total heterosexual horndog, and claimed to have
fucked around twenty different girls of different ages since he was
eleven.

But before we could worry about what we were going to do in the
motel bedroom, we had to worry about our upcoming game. We were
scheduled to play one of the Eugene teams at five-thirty. Scott was
assigned to be our opening game pitcher. The Eugene team was very
good, but we were finding out that we were a very good team, too.
Scott pitched one of his best games of the summer as we won 3-2.
He went all seven innings. He gave up five hits, walked only one, and
struck out six. Believe me, Scott walking only one batter over a full
game is almost headline news.

It was a tense game all the way. Carl started at catcher in place of
Kevin. The tournament was a good place for him to gain some
experience. He wasn't as good as Kevin, of course, but he didn't do
badly. Scott obviously didn't have any problems throwing to him.
Winning that first game was huge, because, as we found out in
Olympia, there was nothing worse than being in the losers' bracket
right from the start. A loss would put a team out of the tournament
from that point on, and winning meant using up a lot of pitchers.

After the game we stopped for some late night snacks and then
headed to the motel. We wouldn't be playing until one tomorrow, but
were told that our wakeup call would be at eight to give us time to
shower and to meet for breakfast at the IHOP next to the motel.

When we got back to our room, my three roommates and I got out of
our uniforms and were quickly down to our underpants. "We have a
choice here," Connor said. "We can turn on the TV and chill out, or
we can jerk off and then chill out. I don't know about you guys, but I
am pretty horny and I don't think nerf nuts (he pointed over to me)
would appreciate my creaming up the sheets with a wet dream."
Connor had volunteered to sleep with me, which left Vince and
Rodney in the other bed. "You know what a wet dream is, right Eric?"

"I might still be in middle school, but I'm not clueless."

"Sounds good to me," Vince said, responding to Connor's suggestion.
"I sleep better after a good jerk off."

"Ditto," Rodney chimed in. I couldn't help but be amazed about how
horny fourteen year olds were. When I turned fourteen, I totally
understood where they were coming from. My twelve year old
horniness wasn't even in the same ballpark with those guys.

The three of them looked at me. "I'm good with it," I said.

"And no touching anybody else," Connor said. "This is about getting
off, not about sex." I knew Connor was talking to me. He and the
other two knew which way I leaned, and I hadn't even come out yet.
My earlier relationship with Scott hadn't been a big secret. After Scott
started going out with Tama, a casual observer might see that
relationship as two horny boys with crushes on each other. That was
the case with Scott, but it did not describe me.

The four of us quickly stripped off our underpants and were now
naked, and hard. "Well, will you look at that," Vince said, pointing at
me. I seemed to be the center of everyone's attention. "The boy ain't
got no pubes." That wasn't a problem for Vince, who had a thick bush
as well as ball hairs, not to mention a chunky, six inch boner that still
had more growing to do. Vince was the only one in the room who was
uncut. For me, it was sexy looking to see him working his skin around
his red pecker head.

"Damn," Connor said. "you're starting eighth grade in a couple of
months and you're still bald? Are you thirteen yet?"

"I will be in three weeks."

Connor violated his own no touch rule by reaching over and rubbing
my pubic area. "Smooth as a baby's ass, so he don't shave it."

"How would you know how smooth a baby's ass is?" Vince asked
mockingly. "Are you perving on little babies, now? Going weird on us
now?"

"Stick it up your ass, Vince." Connor's hand stayed on my pubic area
during the exchange, his knuckles rubbing my boner as he lightly
massaged my smooth skin, giving me a couple of shivers. All of my
sexual experience had been with boys my age or younger, except for
Marty. The ninth grade group saw itself as straight and never got
involved in our sexual hijinks, so I was surprised by Connor's
lingering hand. I think he was , too, as he suddenly seemed to realize
what he was doing and pulled his hand back.

We then quietly went to work on our own cocks. Rodney's looked to
be a little over five inches, with a narrow row of pubic hair above it.
The rest of his body was smooth. I didn't see any hair in his underarm
region.

Connor's cock was not quite six inches. He had a decent nest of
pubes, but no ball hairs. His pubic hair was thicker than Rodney's. All
three of the ninth graders had precum leaking out of their cocks,
which they enjoyed rubbing into their dicks as lube while they jerked
off.

The three ninth graders pretended not to be paying attention to
anybody else. Vince and Rodney sat up on one bed, their backs
against the headboard, while Connor and I were in the same position
on our bed. Our circle jerk quickly turned into an everybody-jack-off-
quickly-and-see-who-could-cum-first-and-shoot-the-most session.

The freshmen started out talking about their latest female conquests,
with Rodney having the most to say, of course. I got interested when
Noah's sister's name, came up.

"I want to fuck Lisa so bad," Rodney said. "She is so fine." Connor
and Vince admitted to a similar fantasy.

"You know that Jerome is pounding her pussy with his big cock,"
Vince said.

"He's been doing her for a long time," Rodney said, "the lucky
asshole."

"Him and Shane both," Connor added. That comment surprised me.
Not the part about Shane fucking his twin sister, that part I knew.
What surprised me is that Connor knew it.

"That's what everybody says because they're all jealous," Rodney
said. "No way Shane is porking his twin sister. None. Nada. Zero.
Zilch."

"Maybe yes, maybe no." Connor said. The conversation died there as
we concentrated on our own boners, and, at least for me, looking to
see everybody else's jerk off technique, especially Vince with his
uncut cock. Connor changed things a little by putting his hand back
on my pubic area, barely grazing my cock.

"I like how smooth if feels," he whispered to me. He rubbed his hand
lightly back and forth along my pubic area for maybe a minute,
sending some shivers through me. As ge kept petting my smooth
pubic area, the top of his hand kept rubbing lightly against my little
boner while he took care of his own business at the same time.
Connor was a person who kept being full of surprises.

Connor ended up shooting first with Vince maybe a minute behind
him. I was impressed with Connor's distance; his first shot blasting
straight up and landing in his hair. Vince shot a lot more than Connor,
but it didn't go very far. It all puddled between his bellybutton and his
cock. Connor pulled his hand away from me as soon as he started
shooting.

I was next. My stuff wasn't very thick, but I shot it a decent distance,
and I was proud of the five wads I spurted out.

"Hey, the little boy ain't firing blanks," Connor said. He once again
surprised me by scooping up a wad that had landed on my belly and
tasting it. "It's the real deal," he announced.

"Connor you're so gross. You should be hanging out with Marty,"
Vince said.

"If I can lick pussy I don't see no reason why I can't taste cum. I think
it tastes better than pussy juice. One good reason to be gay, I guess."

Rodney let out a loud moan, lifted his butt slightly off the bed, and
fired off five rounds of his own cum. "Jerking off is the second best
feeling in the world," he said as he came down. "Only getting pussy
can beat it."

"Even better than getting your dick sucked?" Connor asked.

"Like any girl knows how to suck a dick properly."

"I hear ya," Vince said. "But we all know how good some guys can
be." Once again everybody looked at me.

"Don't look at me," I said. "I'm not gonna suck everybody off."

"Nobody asked you to," Connor said. He then gave me an evil grin.
"But...maybe some day."

We all cleaned ourselves, with Rodney going the full shower route,
and fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night with Connor
wrapped around me. I liked it, and didn't bother to pull him off. I
couldn't help but think that Connor had some feelings in him that
weren't entirely straight.

<Saturday, July 12, Eugene tournament>

I pitched our Saturday game. We played a team from The Dalles,
which was up the Columbia River. They were a good team, but once
again we were on our game. I know I was on mine. It was my best
game of the summer. Kevin and I thought almost like one throughout
the game, and when it was over we had a 4-0 win. I went all the way
and gave up only three hits and one walk. We made no errors, so our
opponent only had four base runners the whole game and two of
those were in the fifth inning when they got a double and walk. That
was the only time they got a runner as far as second.

We would be playing the other undefeated team in the tournament at
eight that evening in a game under the lights. Austin would be
pitching for us and he was stoked. We all loved Austin, but we
couldn't help but be worried about the fact he'd been pitching from a
shorter distance all summer.

Turned out we had nothing to worry about.  Austin had practiced from
the longer distance as soon as he found out he would be pitching for
us. He was a little shaky at the start, walking two of the first three
batters he faced and giving up a run-scoring single, but after that he
settled down and gave up only one more run, and that was in the fifth
when he started getting tired.

Coach Miller brought Rich, our closer, in to pitch the last two innings.
Rich gave up a single in the sixth and walked a batter in the seventh.
He allowed no runs and we earned a fairly easy 7-2 win. We would
be playing our next game at noon Sunday.

By the time we got to our rooms that night it was almost eleven. We
decided not to play musical rooms like we'd planned. We were all
tired and knew we'd have to be up by eight the next morning.

I knew that something sexual had happened in all four of our rooms
last night. There was some jerking off and a little bit of cock sucking,
with everybody participating in something.

But that was last night. After our evening game we were all too tired
for doing sex and were happy to crash and be rested for Sunday's
game.

<Sunday, July 13, Eugene tournament>

The tournament was a true double elimination, meaning everybody
played until all the teams but one had two losses. The team that was
left would be the tournament champion.

We ended up playing the second Eugene team, which beat The
Dalles team in a morning game by an 8-6 score. The Eugene team
and us were the only teams left that didn't have two losses. Eugene
had one and we had none.

Lars started the noon game. The way it worked is if we won, then the
Eugene team would have two losses and we would be the
champions. If the Eugene team won, then we would have to play
another game. We were hoping not to have to play the second game;
we had a long ride back to Mayfield. The second game was called the
"if" game, and would only be played "if" the Eugene team won.

Eugene pitched the pitcher everybody said was their best. Coach
Miller didn't go with our best, which was Rodney. Instead he went
with Lars, who was a decent pitcher, but far from our best. The
Eugene pitcher was a big fifteen year old. He was about as old as a
player could be in our program. He dominated us, while Lars, Hunter,
and Rich pitched okay. In this case okay wasn't good enough and we
ended up with a 6-1 loss. Now we each had one loss, and the winner
of the second game, the "if" game, would be the champion.

Some of us had griped a bit about Coach Miller not pitching our best
pitcher against their best pitcher in the first game. But we could now
see why he did it. If Rodney goes against their ace, the game would
have probably been a very close one and who knows who would
have come out on top. Then the "if" game would have had two okay
pitchers at the end of a tournament, so it probably would have ended
up a close high scoring game, and again, who knew who would come
out on top.

While there were no guarantees, Coach Miller decided Rodney had a
better chance of winning if he didn't have to pitch against the Eugene
ace. He took a gamble and it paid off. This time it was Rodney's turn
to dominate, although the pitcher for Eugene ended up being a pretty
decent junk ball pitcher whose slow stuff gave us fits.

Still, we managed to score four runs against him, while Rodney shook
off a bad third inning, and we won the tournament by the score of 4-2.
We had become a very good team as the summer progressed and
this tournament was proof of that.

The play of the tournament was made by Bobby. He was playing right
field and had a slicing line drive hit his way. He misread the drive and
took a couple of steps in when he should have held his ground. But
he quickly realized his mistake, and turned and started running back.
I can remember when Bobby would have back-peddled on that kind
of play, which is a big no-no for an outfielder. But this time, he turned
and ran, diving for the ball, which landed in his glove while he was
airborne. He crashed to the ground, holding on to the ball. He held his
glove up in the air to show the ump he'd made the catch.

Jerome was playing center. He helped Bobby stand up, giving him a
pat on the ass. Bobby tried hard not to grin, but he knew he'd made a
fantastic catch. His uniform was grass stained, which made him
happy. As far as Bobby was concerned, he hadn't been in the game
unless his uniform was dirty.

After eating, we all piled into the vehicles and left Eugene a little after
seven o'clock. We had a five hour trip home. In my van we talked
excitedly about how great the tournament was, about how much we'd
improved.

Back home we had all but clinched a place in our league tournament,
and we were thinking, even as young as we were, that we had a good
chance of finishing in the top two and maybe going on to the Area
Tournament for our program. We were all really feeling good about
ourselves.

What we didn't know as we sped up Interstate 5 for home was that
this was as good as we were going to feel in a long time. We were all
about to learn that life has a way of grabbing you by the balls and
squeezing. It would be a long time before we recaptured the mood of
that weekend in Eugene.

Next: Bobby