Shane's Game

By James Hennessy

James Kelly is a natural athlete who lives to play Little League baseball. His new friend Shane loves animals and the ocean, but is not a "cool" kid, and doesn't fit into James' social group. Together, the two boys learn about the importance of character, the difficulties of peer acceptance and confronting their innermost fears.

When tragedy strikes, James makes a promise to his friend Shane - a promise that takes all of his skills as a player and strength he never knew he possessed. Along the way, James finds the lessons he learned from his friend help in his efforts to deliver on his promise, and to get on with his life in the face of a tragic loss. Inspired by actual events, the story captures a young boy's love of the national pastime and the enduring power of friendship in an unforgettable championship game with an electrifying outcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 11, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462082643

James Hennessy

James Hennessy is a Senior Vice President in the Supervision Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Since 2014, he has led the New York Fed’s Governance and Culture Reform Initiative.

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Shane’s Game

James Hennessy

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Lincoln Shanghai

Shane’s Game

All Rights Reserved © 2003 by James L. Hennessy, Jr.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

ISBN: 0-595-28112-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 0-595-74739-6 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-8264-3 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

For my son James, to the memory of his friend Shane, and for everyone who loves America’s game.

Contents

Chapter 1

The Natural

Chapter 2

A New Friend

Chapter 3

The Weird Kid

Chapter 4

Discovering The Show

Chapter 5

Practice Makes Perfect

Chapter 6

A Dive in the Dirt

Chapter 7

Jumping Out of the Box

Chapter 8

Switching Roles

Chapter 9

A Painful Lesson

Chapter 10

Standing Fast

Chapter 11

Shock and Disbelief

Chapter 12

Why Him?

Chapter 13

The Promise

Chapter 14

Hard Practice

Chapter 15

Game Day

Chapter 16

Shane’s Game.

Chapter 17

Swinging Away

Chapter 18

A Big Out

Chapter 19

Extra Innings

Chapter 20

Friends Forever

Chapter 21

Epilogue

Chapter 1

The Natural

Spring, 1999.

The ball sped toward the plate in a white blur of backspin, streaked with red from its stitched seams. As it neared the plate, it changed direction slightly, its seams biting the air and altering the speed of the airflow on the opposing sides of the ball. The batter’s senses were humanly slow to react to the subtle change of direction, his swing committed and impossible to stop. The ball struck the catcher’s glove with a loud pop, audible for fifty feet in every direction.

Strike one! yelled the umpire. Voices from the crowd shouted out approval and encouragement. Familiar, comforting voices to James Kelly, the boy on the mound for the Carmel Valley Triple-A Padres. At ten, James had been hearing those voices for years: his father, John, his mother, Claire, his sister, Sarah, and the newer voices of the parents of his teammates. James had been playing ball since he could remember, and in the last year or two, had become a leading pitcher.

James liked playing ball more than just about anything. He played in summer league, winter league, and fall ball. He played every position, except catcher—he didn’t like playing catcher—and excelled at all of them. He was not especially fast, but he had studied the art of base running, and could make up in canniness what he lacked in speed.

And he could hit. Aside from the simple joys of throwing and catching a baseball, James loved to hit best. From the time he was old enough to hold a big, hollow, plastic bat, and swing it at a big, hollow, plastic ball, he had loved to hit. A natural righty, he could swing the bat from either side, and found he had more power from the left side. To many who watched him play, he was a natural.

At the Triple-A level, pitchers were allowed only three innings a game, with a maximum of six innings in a single week. For James, it was not enough. It was not enough not only because he wanted to pitch more; it was not enough because he wasn’t allowed to throw enough pitches. He was very accurate, where most of the boys threw hard and wildly. They walked a lot of batters and threw a lot of pitches, which was where the rules on limits came from in the first place. James was not as fast as most of them, but he had a lot of control for a boy his age, and so threw strikes. His outings were fast-moving affairs, with lots of strikes and lots of balls put in play. Most of the boys could throw thirty-five pitches in an inning, while James could throw that many in an entire three-inning appearance. And so he wished he were allowed more innings.

He thought about his pitch count as he stood on the mound, peering in at the catcher. The catcher, Max, flashed a sign, a single forefinger pointing down, then toward the outside part of the plate. There weren’t that many signs, since the repertoire of pitches at this level was limited. Fastballs were the norm, typically thrown cross-seam. This gave a maximum amount of traction to the fingers, resulting in the maximum revolutions-per-minute in spin. The faster the spin, the more the ball would move, despite the velocity at which it was thrown. And movement, more than speed, was the key to being an effective pitcher.

Max wanted the pitch on the outside part of the plate. James nodded, agreeing that with this hitter, a big kid named Kyle, throw-

ing the pitch out over the plate was living dangerously. A little bit inside, and Kyle would turn on it, rotating his hips to bring all his power to bear, and the ball would travel a long way. The Padres were down by one, with two outs in the top of the sixth inning, the last inning of play at this level of Little League. It was up to James to make sure Kyle didn’t give his team, the Cardinals, an insurance run.

James rocked back, turned, kicked and threw, taking a long stride forward, his foot pointing toward the batter. It was a four-seamer, starting right at the heart of the plate, and then moving outside, away from the batter. But not quite enough, James saw with alarm. Kyle swung, but to James’ relief, undercut it and sent it foul, for strike two. The umpire threw James a new ball. He turned and rubbed at it, settling his back foot against the pitching rubber. James really wanted to strike out Kyle on three pitches, since they were classmates, and Kyle had pitched well against James earlier. Suddenly, he realized what he wanted to do.

Max sent in the identical signal, but James shook it off. Max sent another one, this time pointing the finger toward the inside of the plate, but James shook that one off, too. Max paused for a moment, at last sensing what James had in mind. He pointed a finger straight down, and then made a fist and tapped it on the plate. James nodded. He wound and threw, a two-seamer this time, for a little less movement. The ball headed right toward the center of the plate, exactly the wrong place for a no-balls, two-strike pitch.

With this count, the batter’sjob is to protect the plate. Anything close to the plate must be swung at, for to do otherwise is to risk a called third strike. So a pitcher with an 0-2 count is expected to throw the ball anywhere but down the middle, since everyone from the left fielder to the mom working the hot dog counter knows that the batter is swinging at anything close. And if you served one up right down the pipe to a power hitter like Kyle, you usually got what you deserved—a big fly ball to the next zip code.

So James was living dangerously—sort of. Though down the middle, he had no intention of the ball’s ever making contact with Kyle’s bat, unless he traded it in on a nine iron. As James and Max had planned, the ball hit the dirt in front of the plate, well below Kyle’s swing, which he had to make, since the ball started off looking like it was going to be a sure home run.

Strike three! the umpire yelled, and the inning was over. As he walked away, Kyle looked at James. They shared a smile and Kyle shook his head for falling for that one.

It was the bottom of the sixth, the Padres’ last chance. Gratefully, the top of the order was up. James batted fourth, the cleanup position. Though he was moved around in the order by his coach, he often batted cleanup because it frequently meant he came up with runners on. He could hit for power, increasing the chances of scoring runners from second base.

Scooter usually batted in the leadoff position, since he was a good contact hitter and had lots of speed. An aggressive baserun-ner, he often stole bases successfully, and was known as an effective table setter. He routinely put himself in positions to score, as a result of the success, or even the failure of the two, three and four hitters to hit safely.

Setting the batting order is a key strategy in baseball. With a player who gets on base a lot, like Scooter, the following hitters can ground out, and the leadoff man will still advance. Throw in a stolen base or two, and a team can manufacture a run, instead of waiting for everyone to hit safely in order to advance runners around the bases. If Scooter got on, then stole second, the next batters could ground out, fly out, or lay down a sacrifice bunt, where they know they’ll be thrown out at first, and still get Scooter all the way around to score.

True to form, Scooter took a pitch, to see how the pitcher was throwing in this, his third inning of work. Scooter swung at the next one, making solid contact, just past the second baseman for a single. He rounded first and looked to make sure the ball did not get past the outfielder, then scampered back to first.

Michael, Coach Dan’s son, came up next. Also a fast runner and a good contact hitter, Michael was a little more impetuous than Scooter. In the last inning, with the game on the line, he swung at the first pitch, earning a bark from his father, coaching at third. He looked down the third base line, realizing he had missed the sign. His father made it clear this time: bunt. The infield was expecting it, the third and first basemen playing in. It was an obvious sacrifice situation. The batter lays down a bunt, the runner at first moving as soon as the pitch reaches the plate. The sacrifice bunt typically leaves only one option for a sure out, a throw to first. Even though the batter sacrifices himself, his goal is to advance the runner to second, putting him in scoring position. Executed poorly, by not deadening the bat, the ball travels far enough into the infield to enable a fielder to field the ball and throw it to second in advance of the runner. The batter will probably make it to first base, but the lead runner will be out, and no one is in scoring position.

Michael laid down a beauty. It rolled on the third base side of the diamond, a foot or two away from being foul. The third baseman scooped it up, saw he had no chance to get Scooter at second, and threw Michael out at first. One out, man in scoring position.

Max batted third, since he hit for power and was also a terrific baserunner. Where Scooter was fast and smart on the basepaths, Max was daring. He’d scored time and again from third on unsuspecting pitchers who walked back to the mound, thinking about their next pitch instead of watching him. Once Max broke for home, the startled pitcher often hesitated before throwing home, too late to get him out. He was one of the key reasons the Padres had lost only one game in the first half of the season.

Come on, Max, move Scooter along! came the shouts from the bench. James was on deck with his favorite bat, waiting his turn. Max waited for the first pitch, and took a called strike. The next two pitches were low, for balls. This pitcher seems to be tiring, James noticed. His control is not what it was last inning. When it was his turn, if he could take the pitcher deep in the count, that is, get two or three balls against none or maybe one strike, the pitcher might lose confidence and throw something he could really hit hard. If Max got on, that would give him maybe two runners to move. They needed one to tie and two to win.

The Cardinals pitcher delivered the two-one pitch and Max connected, but right to the shortstop. He looked Scooter back to second base, and threw Max out at first. Two outs, and down to the last Padres batter. James came to the plate with the game on the line.

In the stands, John and Claire gave each other a look that said, Here we go again, James up in a pressure situation. Sarah, sitting next to them, felt the tension building. "I hate it when this happens! she said. I hate it when he makes the last out."

The game isn’t over yet, Sarah, John said. James is two for three already today. I’ll bet you he gets a hit.

Sarah thought about it as she watched James take a practice swing at the plate. He looked very confident. No bet, she said at last, prompting a smile from her parents. He’s waving that bat like he means business.

James was batting from the left side, his power side. He looked at the pitcher, then concentrated on the ball in the pitcher’s hand. He saw it arc in, moving away from him. The umpire called it ball one. The next pitch started in straight, but James could tell it was going to hit in front of the plate. He held up his swing, for a called ball two. With the pitcher behind, two balls and no strikes, he glanced at Coach Dan. No sign, so use your own judgment. The next pitch was high, 3-0. He looked down the third base line at his coach once more. This time, the sign would probably be to take a pitch, in case it was ball four. Sure enough, Coach Dan signaled him the take sign.

The pitch whistled in, right over the plate. The pitcher knew that James would be taking this pitch, and so was not too worried about giving up a hit in this situation. At 3-1, it was a similar situation, but James would probably be more aggressive. At the plate, James wasn’t expecting something as fat as the previous pitch, but he knew it would have to be something close the strike zone. The coach gave him the take sign again. He took, and it caught the outside corner of the plate for strike two.

The Cardinal bench came alive, as they smelled a strikeout, and a victory. James’ parents clutched each other’s hand to share the tension, and Sarah clung to her dad’s arm. I can’twatch, she said, covering her eyes with her free hand. John looked at her, and laughed when he saw her peeking through her fingers.

Come on, James, give it a ride! came from the Padres bench. James stepped back into the batter’s box, feeling calm. He always felt calm in these situations, rarely feeling the pressure of the game on the line. He had an ability to concentrate in a game that he didn’t fully comprehend, but possessed nonetheless. It was just like playing in the front yard, as he did with the neighborhood boys, hitting balls by the hour, three hundred days a year in the constant spring-summer weather of San Diego. Just more people around at the moment, but he wasn’t paying attention to them. He was watching the pitcher, who was collecting himself to deliver the biggest pitch of the game. Clearly, he was not concentrating as effectively, James saw, and having the swift Scooter at second representing the tying run would not make it any easier for him. James glanced at the outfield, and saw an opening on the right side. Triple-A used four outfielders, and the right centerfielder was shaded more toward center, while the rightfielder was more toward the foul line. James opened his stance just a little, his lead foot opened a little to the right of the pitcher.

The pitcher’s lack of concentration was translated into the pitch he threw, a fat one over the inside half of the plate. James knew he would hit it from the split-second it left the pitcher’s hand. He swung not to kill it, but just to meet