Rounding the Bases

By Jamison P. Stevens

A few weeks earlier when baseball loving Joey planned an outing with his longtime friend Casey, he expected the game to be just a fun time at a meaningless finale-the last game of yet another largely forgettable season. He never counted on a walk-off grand slam to be the impetus to an incredible hot streak full of comebacks and late inning heroics. Now his team has a chance to make the postseason with just one more win making the game with his friend the most important one in years. But what Joey doesn’t realize is the game is also an important one to the unhappily married Casey, maybe the most important one yet- with the number of runs, hits, or errors ultimately not mattering in the least.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728320373

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 Jamison P. Stevens. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/21/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2038-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2039-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2037-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910340

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To those who helped me with this project…Thank you!

This book is a work of fiction. Enjoy the game!

Other works by the author:

The Things We Did (2013)

CONTENTS

The Pregame

The Call of the Crane

Top of the 1st Inning

Bottom of the 1st Inning

Top of the 2nd Inning

Bottom of the 2nd Inning

Top of the 3rd Inning

Bottom of the 3rd Inning

Top of the 4th Inning

Bottom of the 4th Inning

Top of the 5th Inning

Bottom of the 5th Inning

Top of the 6th Inning

Bottom of the 6th Inning

Top of the 7th Inning

Bottom of the 7th Inning

Top of the 8th Inning

Bottom of the 8th Inning

Top of the 9th Inning

Bottom of the 9th Inning

The Postgame

THE PREGAME

He wasn’t down the road very far before the memories came at him like waves rolling in on a beach of a boat-filled lake. Come as they usually would during this special trip-more prominent today and pointless to ignore. His whole body and mind knew this game was a big one…the biggest one in years.

Space Invaders on the Atari…what a game…so wonderfully simple and enjoyable. Point the gun and blow ships to bits to a pounding musical beat. Nine-year old, dark-haired Joey Leibold was quite proficient as he worked the joystick with blue eyes glancing back occasionally wanting his grandfather to take notice of his budding skills. His parents had escaped to a tropical paradise plenty thankful that Grandpa and Grandma had agreed to babysit him along with his older sister Sheila. But the old man whose vibrancy of life was fading more and more with each passing day, stood up quickly, breathed in frustration with a sound reminiscent of recent constipation, and turned off the game without the slightest ounce of delicacy. Dropping the cord to the floor, he yelled at the boy, Enough of this! It’s time for a real game! Mother? I’m taking him out of here!

A few minutes later young Joey was sitting lemon-faced in his grandfather’s red Grand Prix not having the faintest idea of what his dad’s father meant by a real game. Ten minutes of a painfully silent car ride elapsed. Time his grandfather either needed to prepare himself or felt was enough solitude for Joey’s annoyance to subside so his ears would be open to hear before he propelled into his history lesson that he told with such obvious love and compassion. For this moment, Grandpa was back in the classroom from which he had long since retired- a junior high history teacher- thankful for some new blood to share this story.

He told Joey of a time in Indiana long before settlers appeared that the Miami Indians used the sand hill crane, a tall, gawky, yet elegant bird, as a symbol for their tribe. He said the legend went that the early Miami Indians were in a major spat with the Cherokee. The feuding between the tribes had gotten so intense that the Cherokee had decided to launch a surprise attack to put an end to the conflict. The Cherokee, always slick and decisive in their war efforts, tracked the Miami to an open prairie where they noticed two sand hill cranes foraging for food. After gazing at the birds for a while, they whooped and hollered scaring the large birds ahead. The two cranes took to the air in a whoosh making their strange Twau! Twau! sound as they rose. These birds flew over the Miami, who looking up and watching their speed and elegance became empowered with fighting spirit, then turned and attacked their enemy forcing a surprising retreat. As the legend went, only one member of the Cherokee war party lived to tell the tale.

Joey, do you know what he said? his grandfather asked then eagerly answered his own question. He said, ‘We just got beat by the Twau Twaus! They can fly and are impossible to defeat!’

The boy said nothing.

It makes me think of the Israelites about to enter the Promised Land. Screeching like a whining wimp, ‘Oh, we’re like grasshoppers to those people. We can’t defeat them!’ Yet God helped them the whole way there, and they didn’t think He could help them a little more? There’s a lesson in there for all of us."

He paused and drove a little longer as they both listened to the wind and the hum of the tires on the highway.

Of course, cranes are pretty birds but can be real aggressive when they have to be. They hiss, stab with their beaks, and even kick with their feet. Anyway, the name Miami means ‘people of the crane’, which is why the baseball team in Sommetville has that nickname. It used to be the Miami Indian capital.

Suddenly it all hit Joey like a conk on the head from his older sister. Baseball? That was the real game? He touched the handle of the locked car with wild thoughts of a dramatic, action-movie-style escape.

The ball team though, they sure haven’t been impossible to beat, admitted Grandpa shaking his head in respect of the painful truth of a team that was born in Sommetville in the year 1965. A team that used to go by the moniker of Sand Hill Cranes before their owner, who had a deep fondness for history, particularly Native American history, decided to officially change the name in 1972 for marketing reasons when it became clear that the vast majority, whether out loud or in print, would refer to his team by the shorter name- Cranes.

This team almost won the championship in 1971. A few months before you were born in fact. The team lost to Peoria needing only one more out to win. Just one more out! They didn’t get it and then blew the rest of the series. I’m telling you… they shoulda had ‘em.

The boy said nothing.

His grandfather unbowed by the silence, switched his tack, and went for the radio dial in search of the pregame. Once he found the desired station, the radio got louder seemingly in direct proportion the closer they got to the ballpark.

After buying tickets, the duo made their way to the third base side of the half empty stadium. Joey glanced up at the hats he saw on many of the fans they passed- a black bill with a crown that was white in the front and red in the back. He noticed the logo on them was the same one he had seen on a pennant in his grandfather’s workroom and on a shirt his dad would wear occasionally- a friendly sand hill crane with a long dark beak, yellow eyes, a red forehead and white cheeks popping up out of the giant red S for Sommetville.

Once in their seats, Grandpa sat with his hands on his knees and with a quick look at Joey to his right, let out his air in supreme satisfaction. Now this is what I’m talkin’ about.

When the Cranes took the field, wearing mostly white uniforms with red and black stripes, red socks, and CRANES in big red letters on the front of the jersey outlined in black with the player number below, he looked at the boy. The scowl was gone like a whoosh of two sand hill cranes flying in the air- taken prisoner by the roar of the crowd and the greenness of the ball field known then as Sommet Park.

I know you know a little about baseball, but I’m here to answer any questions you might have.

The boy smiled but still said nothing.

After swinging and missing at the first pitch, the leadoff batter for Lansing, uniformed in gray and royal blue, hammered the next pitch foul, sending it hurling right toward the pair. The white spinning sphere was coming down, and before the boy’s grandfather could shield his grandson, a man in front put out a hand but only got a piece of it causing the ball to clip the first-time fan on the shoulder before it plopped momentarily into his lap. Arms and hands worked furiously to try and trap the prize before it escaped, but it was gone. Yet moments before disappointment could take hold and shake out some tears, he looked up and noticed the ball was resting comfortably in the left hand of his smiling grandfather.

Here you go, he said becoming a hero to the young boy the instant the transaction took place. Can’t wait to tell your grandmother how you caught it.

The boy grinned. Then he spoke. This is great! he exclaimed holding up the ball.

The Cranes didn’t win that day, but the 4-3 loss in ten innings was the flick of a finger needed to cause the baseball dominoes to fall. Soon the boy’s dad started to take him, and after four or five games, little league baseball entered the picture when summer started. And for one glorious season, the boy’s dad and his grandfather were his coaches- one at first and the other at third. They were both good to all the boys and showed him no favoritism other than the occasional hug as he learned the game.

After a successful first season, they were on the verge of coaching him for a second one when on the eve of the first game, Joey’s grandfather died suddenly from a heart attack late in the night. Although distraught, his dad bravely albeit robotically coached the rest of that season despite the fact that his own interest in baseball and in the Sommetville Cranes had vanished- seemingly sealed up in the casket along with his dear father.

But not the boy’s. His interest only grew, watered with the thought that he was honoring his grandfather by devoting much of his time and money in his adult years to the special team Grandpa had introduced to him. Seeing them in 1993 win the championship on the home field when they defeated the heavily favored team from Columbus three games to none was an unforgettable thrill with the only regret being that his father wouldn’t come even after he begged.

Then a few years later in the 2001 championship came the bitter, stinging defeat at the hands of Peoria three games to two in a series similar, possibly even worse, than the one his grandfather had shared with him that first game. With the Cranes leading by two runs heading into the ninth inning with a boisterous home crowd poised for a celebration, all was lost when three runs crossed in the top of the 9th courtesy of a long three run homer that Joey felt must have landed long after the Vipers were done spraying champagne. And Sommetville hadn’t been back to the playoffs since.

But as the 2011 season moved closer to its conclusion, and Joey, the now diehard Cranes’ fan grew day by day closer to his fortieth birthday, knew they were but one win away from ending the ten-year drought. He was ready to see it end like a kid trapped mercilessly in a dentist’s chair getting a third cavity filled, or a man in a hurry to get to work waiting and waiting for the seemingly unending graffiti-covered train to finish going by. And of course, the team in their way were the Vipers from Peoria who had nothing to play for but to spoil the Cranes’ party, something they knew all too well how to do. And even though he knew the guys on the team probably weren’t all that aware of the history of heartbreak caused by Peoria because of the usual yearly turnover, he knew, and that was all that mattered.

He gazed out at the rolling hills of green- waves frozen in place-as he drove through the country roads edging ever closer to the highway. He thought again of that courageous second season of little league his dad had gutted his way through. A neighborhood man, who had moved in a few years earlier with his son and two daughters, saw the need and was nice enough to help his dad get through that season.

The neighbor’s son-a decent ball player- had joined the team the previous year. His name was Casey Loran, and the two had been friends since that season and was meeting him at the Cranes’ game tonight. The friend who anchored third base while Joey was the mayor of Shot City- the nickname Casey had given to the shortstop position because so many line drives were hit that way when they played together in little league, then junior high and finally high school.

A few weeks ago, when they set up their now all too infrequent get-togethers, the game was to be just a meaningless finale-the last game of another largely forgettable season- which had become the norm over the past decade and seemed to be a sure bet to happen again. That was until something magical happened. Something that can make sports so enjoyable. The Cranes got hot- red hot- and incredibly won 8 of 9, many in exciting, couldn’t-make-this-stuff-up fashion. The game that seemed to ignite the team was against Springfield that saw them actually down three to nothing going into the ninth inning with only one hit the entire game, only to load the bases and end the game on a walk-off grand slam homerun courtesy of likely league MVP Justin Barry.

The Cranes went on to win three of the next four prompting Joey to venture to Indianapolis to witness a classic, titanic struggle that finally concluded after 13 innings. A game in which Sommetville actually took the lead three times in the extra frames before finally sealing the deal in the Hoosier state capital. And as the glowing morning newspaper article had aptly described, the 7-2-win last night in this short two game series with the Vipers had allowed the Cranes to miraculously soar into position to get to the post season making the game tonight with Casey the biggest game of the year and the most important game since that 2001 playoff defeat in game 5.

He saw green, grinned, hit the