Wins and Losses

As the sun set lower in the sky he adjusted the brim of his ballcap against it. The brim already soaked through with sweat, even though the game was barely half over. The day had been hot, and tiring, and the lasting heat was magnified by the sea of asphalt that surrounded the ballfield. The parks and diamonds and courts at the north end of town wouldn't have this issue. There are tall elms, oaks and pines, and expanses of grass, in lieu of the heat reservoirs of the pavement. There would be a working water fountain as well and the dugout was probably nicer in all likelihood. And who knows, maybe even some grass in the outfield? Not here though, no room in the budget, barely enough in there to chalk the foul lines.

The early evening glare from the slowly sinking ball of fire hampered Bobby greatly as he peered in towards home. Whomever built the field had the diamond facing East-ish so that the batter doesn’t have to face into the sun at setting time. That, however, lines up the Right Fielder directly facing into the sun. No wonder the pros have those ridiculous flip down shades. 

“They look silly, doncha think?” Bobby had once been asked.

Oh sure, the other team supposed he wasn’t all that great because he’s out in right, it IS where they put the weak links after all. Little did they know that he used to play college ball for a serious DII program. None of his new teammates knew that either though, in a cruel twist of irony. And so they planned on just lofting it into the sun and then start runnin’ like hell. Usually, the plan resulted in a surefire hit every time. So all in all, not a great place to be. Not terrible mind you, it was a game he was playing after all, it’s just he preferred to play Left Field, is all.

Bobby was the new guy on the team, they had been a man down and his coworker reached out to see how he was occupying his evenings. He had demurred at first, white-lying about all the hobbies, house projects, and friends he had to deal with. But, the truth of the matter was, it was a nice way to preclude the thoughts of Beth from entering his brain. Or so he had hoped. It had been 19 days since she moved out. June the 12th was the day she split. For good this time, he knew in his heart of hearts.  

And it had felt like a punch in his gut of guts. He hadn’t meant to stray, and hadn’t actually done anything. It was just that waitress slipped that little scrap of torn receipt paper with her number, AND a number of hearts, into his pocket and gave him a peck on the cheek. Surely that wasn’t enough to justify Beth’s running off with her boss, maybe she was just looking for an out? The smudge of the cocktail server’s makeup on his work shirt collar, and perhaps a whiff of her perfume was all Beth needed pack her bags and allow her twelve-years-senior boss to put her up in his condo across town. 

“At least, with that zip code there would be no danger of running into her accidentally.” Bobby had remembered thinking at the time.

Clang! And the sound of the other team whooping and his teammates yelling direction filled the air.

He was snapped back to reality by the sound of the aluminum bat striking the neon green orb that flew past him in the dusty outfield. As the lighting at some of these fields were suspect, the makers of the recreational product on display made the softballs HiVis Green. And Bobby now watched that ball streak past him, reminding him of tracer munitions cutting through Afghani twilight. That brightly colored ball, bouncing now all the way to the fence. One run had scored from his inattention. And now runners on second and third. He got the ball back to the cutoff man and resolved to keep his head in the game. 

“Focus dammit!” He scolded himself.

This all was further proof that he had let Beth too close. She was the first he had let into his heart. And it felt as if she would be the last, as well. She had always held unnatural sway over him.

Bobby watched the next hitter loft a popout to the right side of the infield. Pleased that he didn’t have to battle the sun for that one, Bobby scoffed to himself. “Ball diamonds should point East Northeast, huh? Obviously nobody asked the Right Fielder!” One man down.

Another Clang! rang out in the early summer evening. And again the sound of cheers from the other team. A slugger, left-handed this time, had just knocked in the two runs that Bobby had allowed into scoring position with a drive that bounced once and cleared the fence. The now-runner had mishit it slightly but the low fences around the outfield made the line drive’s hop an easy double. That is a danger of Fast Pitch Softball; the speed of the incoming pitch can make it even harder to keep it in the park. Especially with these new CAD designed aluminum bats…

Those bats could really “wallop.” That’s how Willy would’ve put it, not that he had approved of computer aided anything. “Poor ol’ Willy…” And just like that, Bobby found himself wandering through his thoughts again.

Clang!

And the hapless Right Fielder was again caught dreaming. This time though, his nearest outfield compatriot had been noticing his inattention and had come to his aid. The team’s aid in all reality. As the ball was lofted into the sun’s glare the Right-Center Fielder got on his horse, and took off on a beeline to the shallow part of the outfield that had been left unguarded by Bobby’s daydream. With a dive, a catch, and a roll, he tossed the ball to the second basemen and dusted himself off with a chuckle. Two men out.

“You ain’t in the Beer Leagues there buddy. Get your head in the game!” Said the athletic young man, as he jogged back to his position, shaded slightly his way now. Bobby remembered being that brave once. Before he was sent to “The Sandbox”. The remnants of that sordid experience still clung to him during those hot, sleepless nights. Without her now. Those restless humid nights where she would come to his aid in the moonlight, awakened by his frightened tossing and turning. Holding him tight once he released himself from the nightmare. Comforting him as the faintest of breezes gently rustled the drapes. Now comforting somebody else, leaving him to face his demons alone.

“Yes Sir. Cap’n, Sir.” Said Bobby, just a tad too quickly. It couldn’t be helped, it was the training, in there too deep. His subordinate tongue was in there deep too, a remnant from a childhood of questioning authority. Quit with that sass, boy! Bobby had let the self discipline of his tongue slip also, in addition to the long jogs that had been his daily habit. But then, she had been responsible for that too, hadn’t she? 

From all he could recollect, the early runs had gotten less and less frequent at her behest. Not that she wanted him out of shape, but knowing that a comfortable man is less likely to stray she worked on him subtlety. And in the mornings when he used to run laps of his neighborhood to try to escape the demons of his deployment, she would instead curl her nude body around his as he made to rise and pull him into a supine position for exercise of a different nature.

All that was gone now. Just the memory of her to haunt his night-tortured soul, drenched in the sweat of his terrors. Nobody to hear the groans… No one to hear his sobs.

Clang! Again the sudden noise brought Bobby back to the present. It was fortunate that the ball was hit towards him with a good amount of loft. Looking up, he could see that all he had to do to end the inning was to sprint to the spot that the wall would land. This, he knew how to do. 

That spot happened to be just at the base of the fence in deep Right Center, well over his neighboring outfielder’s head. He had practiced this very action so frequently in his youth the muscle memory just took over. He felt the familiar burn of his muscles exerting their power and relished the hint of strength hiding just beneath the surface of rust and inattention. Before the nightmares robbed him of his sleep, sanity, and motivation to do anything at all. He made the catch and flipped the ball to the umpire as he jogged past him in to the first base dugout. Always act as if you’ve been there before, son.

Slightly winded from his busy half-inning he paused for a sip of something blue from the water jug before sitting at the end of the bench for a minute. He nodded slightly as his team said “Nice catch” and “Good work,” their enthusiasm slightly dampened by his previous gaffes. In his estimation, it was just a routine catch. Ever since he started playing ball, he had always been good at tracking the ball’s flight path off of the bat. He had spent so many hours as a youth chasing popups at Willy’s farm. There was a cobbled together baseball launcher that would simulate a specific flight dynamic, that the older man would deploy often. That machine, along with his meticulous positioning of Bobby in the dooryard during their drills, earned Bobby all that youthful notoriety. 

That fielding machine was Barnyard Mechanics at its finest. To start with he had just raided his parts pile, around the corner of the barn tucked under the eaves where it wouldn’t get rained on or covered in ice during the winter. In that pile he found an old bedframe that probably belonged to his wife’s mother or aunt or somebody. He utilized it for the tripod legs the contraption sat upon. Then he fashioned a cup from a coffee can and tack-welded it to a plate mounted on a swingarm attached to a pulley from a closeline. Next, Willy had taken the spring off the milkhouse door and used it to actuate the arm, his rationale being that anybody with good sense knew enough to close ANY door you walk through. A rope and a pin would work to trigger the whole situation. Yessir, the years of living in that old farmhouse had certainly taught unconventional engineering, among countless other skills, some pertinent, some not.

Willy was his uncle’s neighbor, and by that designation he was either an Uncle or a Neighbor to Bobby, and with the title, all rights and obligations transferred in kind. As was natural for those parts in that bygone era, he took the matter seriously. Either role was of the greatest import to the raising of a boy in to a young man. Of course your neighbor would look out for you like an uncle, and of course your uncle lived out back, or around the corner. It was just the nature of things out in the sticks.

All that was before Willy’s moods changed. Not sure what is was exactly, maybe it was pain finding purchase, maybe it was Reaganomics, or maybe it was NAFTA. But whatever it was, it hit Willy hard. Harder than most, and that was sayin’ somethin’!

Suddenly cheers erupted around him, and he glanced up from his thoughts. The commotion allowed for the briefest of respites to gather himself for the moment at hand. As the 6th and 7th hitters in the lineup had done their work and became ducks on the pond, Bobby was up next. First though, he needed to find a bat that would fit his short torso and long arms. His legs were long as well, but that just made for a slow first step and nothing more.

It wasn’t like it was the ninth inning or anything, but Bobby felt the pressure anyway. The pressure to perform. It was a strangely familiar feeling for one he hadn't felt in years. He remembered it clearly of course, but that was in college, the early part of it as well! But in this new town, this new team, these strangers, on this shabby field, he felt like he was trying out all over again. And in a sense he was, even in this little podunk league on the poor side of town. He felt he had to perform. He must succeed, for the team, for himself, for the memories of Beth… He just had to…

And so he waited for his pitch. And when it came he made sure he did not miss. With a flash he leveled his club and made use of his naturally gifted quick wrists. It was funny that even now, even with the rust, all that natural talent was revealed in his bat speed. And with the pitcher smug at the point of release, he felt everything slow down. The large neon greeny-yellow ball now looked like the size of a beach ball. Luckily the flight characteristic of the softball remained as he met the path of the ball with the path of the bat and made the one leap out of the park.

It was a rocket, from the crypt. From the vault of his past. He felt his spirits soar with the flight of that ball. All the turbulence of the past 7 months flew along with the otherworldly colored sphere rapidly shrinking into the distance.

As he rounded third and headed back to the bench by way of Home Plate, he remembered that day when the State Championship was won by his bat, legs and glove. And as a sophomore no less! He remembered his teammates hoisting him and mobbing him in the field after “That Catch”, really just another of his routine flies to end the game. And he remembered seeing Willy in the stands grinnin’ like a fool. Reveling in HIS victory, and by his participation making it all that much sweeter. That memory along with the ice cream with the team afterwards. And then, his first sip of beer. Allowed as the season was over and the summer was just beginning and both needed saluting.

Sitting with Willy under the eaves of his garage in a couple of shabby lawn chairs, hiding from the sun, finally feeling like a peer instead of a ward. Sipping milk from the teat of life.

But all that was before the hospital. Before the Ol’ Man withered away to nothing. The now-ward, the former guardian, wore a weary look. This man a pallorous fraction of his past sum, once virile and strong, now just a frail echo of his younger self. Bobby had only seen him the once after he was admitted. Once was all he was allowed.

It had broken Bobby when he got the letter, early into his stint, that Willy had passed. When the time had come, he had just given a squeeze to Beth’s comforting hand and closed his eyes and left. She relayed that his breath had gotten fainter and fainter until it had just stopped altogether. He had always resented her for that, even though he would have hated seeing Willy fade away into his grave. He would rather remember shaggin’ flies with his old friend, their ages four decades separated. He thought of that man now as he settled back into the dugout, in this moment of mediocrity, the bottom of the order in the bottom of the fifth. Willy’s words spoken in his mind as though the man were still live.

“Well kid,” Willy would have doubtless said, “ya win some, ya lose some.” 

Bobby wiped a tear from his eye surreptitiously and glanced around to see if anybody had noticed. Nobody had. The game had moved on and again Bobby was just left at the end of the bench with his thoughts and a tie game. As if it didn’t even matter if he was here or not today. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed?

"Ain't that the truth Pops!"