CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Spikes On
It didn’t take Dan long to realize maybe David was not quite the old fart he had made him out to be. In fact, after a couple of weeks of spring ball, it was Dan who felt like a geezer.
By the middle of April, Dan and David had put together the HBM Blue Crew, a collection of 12 guys ranging in age from 18 to 55 and in fitness level from high school athletics reject to “have an ambulance ready in case I have to run to first base.”
Even though he still thought of himself as an athlete, Dan had to admit after their first “practice” that he was sadly out of shape. All those months in bed, dead to the world, had left his muscles flaccid and his heart and lungs a far cry from the racehorse blast furnaces they had been a year earlier.
As Dan lay on the outfield grass gasping for air and trying desperately to keep his McDonald’s hamburger — whose idea had that been? — in his stomach, David plopped down next to his son.
The two Hodges had decided to stay later than the rest of their teammates and run some laps around the diamond. For David, it was a good opportunity to spend more time with his son and get in some exercise. For Dan, it was a chance to see just how far out of prime condition he was, and it was much further than he would have admitted beforehand.
“How you doing, kiddo?” David asked, and Dan could hear the amusement in his father’s voice.
“Ugh,” Dan replied, followed by, “I suppose you think this is pretty funny, huh?”
David shrugged. “Well, it is sort of ironic you’re having problems keeping up with your old man on the ball diamond. Who woulda thunk it, huh?”
Dan replied with a quiet, “Yeah, I guess so.”
A wave of self-consciousness washed over David, and he felt guilty for teasing his son about the physical weakness brought on by his lengthy illness. The older man blushed and tried to reassure his boy.
“Look, Dan,” David said. “You know you’re just having trouble today because you’ve been out of the game awhile, right? I mean, you were in a bed for nine months, son, and yet you still managed to come out here and run around the field. That’s darn near a miracle in my book.”
Dan frowned and looked at David. “Hmmm, I guess you’re right, Dad. I never really thought about it that way. It’s just so frustrating!”
“I know it is, boy, but you know what?”
“What, Dad?”
“You’re going to get stronger every day, and I’ll help you do it. We’ll stay late every night after practice to run laps and throw the ball around, and we can get up early for extra work,” David said.
“I’m not sure I can get up early tomorrow, Dad,” Dan said. “Or at all, for that matter.”
“Well, then, the next day, or the day after that. The point is, we’ll get through this together and, before you know it, you’ll be running circles around me again.”
At this, Dan propped up on one elbow and managed a grin. “Maybe you should give me a more challenging goal, Dad,” he said.
“I’ll give you a challenging goal, alright!” David replied with false anger.
He smacked his son over the head, gently, with the baseball glove he still wore on his left hand. Finally, he gave Dan a sly sideways look.
“How about joining me for a jar of raw oysters and some cold peas?”
“Awww, Dad!” Dan exclaimed as he clutched his belly and rolled away from his father.
—
On May 1, the Blue Crew took the field for their first game of the season, against the Coca-Cola Red Rage. Most of the Coke guys had jobs that were physical in one way or another, so they had a definite advantage over the HBM’ers when it came to svelte physiques and cardiovascular conditioning.
The Blue Crew, led by crafty David Hodges, though, felt like they had a decided edge in the area of strategy and tactical maneuvers.
Sometimes, sheer force and youthful exuberance can trounce any sort of plan that more seasoned competitors might devise, and that turned out to be the case in Coke v. HBM.
By the bottom of the seventh inning, with the Blue Crew coming to bat for the last time, they trailed 10-1. They had managed just a couple of hits and a walk, and they scored their only run when the Rage left fielder bobbled a ball Jack Rady popped into the outfield with a runner on first.
The good news, at least for Dan, was that he had played center field the whole game and managed to NOT have his legs start shaking during the long innings when the Cokesters were batting.
The Crew’s pitcher, an accountant named Teddy Teagarden, had been hammered all afternoon long, but he stayed in the game and had one last chance for redemption as the first hitter in the ninth.
Teddy struck out on three pitches.
That brought up leadoff man Ed Hacker, who worked the count to 2-2 before popping out in foul territory.
And THAT left Dan as the Crew’s only hope for any kind of fireworks. He had managed a bunt single in the fifth inning but had not seen the ball well all game. Part of the reason for his struggles, Dan knew, was that Jamie Gordon was on the mound.
Gordon was 20 and had played for Rosedale in high school. He and Dan had faced off maybe 15 times before, and Dan had collected only a couple of hits that he could remember. The problem was in Gordon’s windup, during which he cocked his hands behind his right hip as he reached his full coil, before springing forward to deliver the pitch.
This had the effect of hiding the ball almost until his release point, and that gave Dan fits in terms of trying to figure out what type of pitch was coming his way, and how fast it was coming.
But as he stepped into the box with two outs, the spring sun was already falling behind the line of trees at the far side of the field. Dan’s eyes, accustomed to the blinding light that had kissed the diamond for most of the afternoon, focused easily on Gordon in the relative darkness.
As the big right-hander went through his motions, Dan never completely lost sight of the ball, and he instantly recognized Gordon’s powerful overhand pitch as a fastball. Dan waited as the fat white sphere spun toward him, red seams whirring in the cooling evening air.
His stomach fluttered as his mind flashed back to his last meaningful at-bat when a Jim Jackson curveball ended his life for nine months. He shook his head hard without taking his eyes off the ball and came back to the moment.
With a powerful foot-plant and a fierce, compact swing, Dan made contact with the pitch, generating a report that echoed off the buildings on the school ground. Dan trotted toward first base and watched as Gordon whipped around to follow the trajectory of the ball, which arced high into the air toward dead center field.
By the time Dan rounded second base the ball was bounding beyond the outfield fence, maybe 350 feet away.
His teammates whooped and hollered as Dan finished his home run trot, and David hugged him as he stepped on home plate.
“Way to go, son,” David whispered in his ear. “I’m proud of you.”
Dan returned his father’s hug, but waved off the praise with just a nod, and a pat on the shoulder for Frank Buis, who was waiting on deck.
“Go get ‘em, Frank,” Dan said as he headed back to the dugout.
It was no big deal, really. Just a lucky hit off a former high school pitcher.
But Dan had to admit it felt pretty good to get hold of one. Just to know he still could get hold of one.
Yep, things were looking up, even if Frank Buis did strike out to end the game.
—
While David kibitzed with his co-workers and a few of the Coca-Cola guys, Dan patrolled the field, retrieving forgotten equipment and any debris that the game generated.
It was a habit he had picked up as a Little Leaguer, and he considered it his duty to leave each green baseball cathedral in at least as good shape as he found it in.
He finished looping through the outfield and cut back over second base, trotting toward home. As he neared the backstop, a voice growled out from the dim home dugout.
“Is t
hat all the hustle you got, son?”
Dan stepped on home plate and squinted into to the growing darkness. The bill of a ball cap flashed from under the dugout roof, followed by a blue-satin-jacket-clad belly. Dan looked from the paunch to the attached face and broke into a wide grin.
“Coach Croft!” he called, running forward to greet his high school coach.
“Dan Hodges!” Croft bellowed.
The big man pumped Dan’s arm and pulled him in close for a rough one-armed hug. Then he pushed the younger man back to arm’s length and looked him up and down.
“Well, now,” Croft said. “You don’t look anywhere near as bad off as your Daddy told me!”
Just then, David joined the other two, having finished his post-game socializing.
“Now, don’t listen to him, Dan,” David said. “You know how pretty I’ve always thought you are.”
Dan looked from David to Croft, mouth hanging open and not sure what to make of the scene unfolding before him.
The two older men exchanged glances, then burst into laughter.
“Oh, come on, Dan,” Croft said. “Is it too early in the season for you to take a little ribbing?”
Dan allowed himself a timid smile and said, “Ha, ha. You guys are a riot. But really, coach, what are you doing here?”
“Well, your old dad here told me that you’d be back on the diamond tonight, and I wanted to see for myself. You looked pretty good, kid. Of course, I suppose you have to consider the competition!”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Dan said.
“Dan, he’s kidding,” David said.
Dan chuckled sheepishly. “Oh, well. I guess maybe my sense of humor is still warming up.”
“That’s all right, kid,” Croft said. “We’ve got all summer. I gotta head out now, but I’ll see you around, OK?”
“You betcha, Coach!” Dan said.