August 2008

Lakeland, Florida

The walks and runs pile up like stacks of cordwood. Gord looks in desperation to the bullpen, longing for relief and an end to the nightmare, but no one is there. He is completely and utterly alone …

Gord woke with a start. Sweating profusely, his hair was matted to his forehead. The dream had once again taken hold of his night in its jaws and refused to let go. The cold dampness of his pillow was a tactile reminder of the anxiety the dream caused his body. Gord rolled over to check his nightstand.

Seven o’clock. Gord had to meet the team at the stadium at noon for the bus ride to Orlando for that night’s game against the Buccaneers. Conrad had told Gord that he was first out of the bullpen.

Now that he was awake, Gord wasn’t going to fall back asleep now. He saw the blinking red light of his cell phone illuminate the darkness on his dresser. The light indicated that he had received a text message while he slept.

He shuffled groggily to his feet and pushed his wet hair back off his forehead. He felt his way across the bedroom. Shaking the cobwebs from his head, his vision cleared, and he peered at the LED display on his phone.

One unread message. It was from Kim.

Thanks for the update re: tonight. Where do I pick up my ticket? Looking forward to it!

Gord was grateful for Kim’s enthusiasm. He had been worried that she might have made other plans or forgotten about the game entirely. Gord hastily typed a reply.

Your ticket is at Will Call under your name. Our team has a block of tix. See you tonight!

Gord sat beside Chris Seaboard on the Wildcats’ chartered coach bus to Orlando. Seaboard knew Gord liked to keep to himself on days he pitched, so conversation was kept to a minimum. Gord decided to break protocol and removed his headphone ear buds.

“Remember when we were at dinner at Davidson’s a couple weeks back? I saw that girl I knew from college?”

“The blonde in the white dress?” Seaboard asked rhetorically. “Fuck, how could I forget?”

“Yeah. She’s going to be at the game tonight. I invited her.”

“Really? Nice. Are you nervous?”

“A little bit. I mean she came to watch me pitch at Michigan, but this is a little different. I think this could be my second chance with her.”

“Go for it, buddy. But she is way too hot for you,” Seaboard teased. “You need to hang onto that Cliffhanger style. Don’t let go.”

Gord laughed and chopped his fellow reliever in the chest. “Thanks for the pep talk, Chris. You’re a good friend.”

“Hey, if you don’t make a move, I might have to.” Seaboard looked directly at Gord to emphasize his point. “She’s a goddess, man.”

With a runner on, Dave Rockwood crushed a sinking liner down the right field line. The Buccaneers’ fielder got a great jump on the ball and sprinted toward the foul line in front of Lakeland’s bullpen. The relievers had a great view of the action as Orlando’s right fielder laid flat out to snare the ball. He caught it just before it bounded off the wide strip of dirt encircling the playing field.

The fielder’s large frame slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and chalk, but he somehow managed to hang onto the ball. Lakeland’s pitchers had no choice but to grudgingly applaud their opponent for such a spectacular play.

The catch held the game scoreless as the action moved to the home half of the fourth.

In the bullpen, Gord worked through a bag of dill pickle-flavoured sunflower seeds. Steve Anderson plopped down beside him on the bench. Anderson stuck his hand out expectantly.

“Hook me up with a few of those,” he demanded.

Gord obliged, and Anderson tossed a few seeds into his mouth.

“Has that blonde shown up yet?” he continued.

“Not sure,” Gord answered truthfully. “I can’t remember where our block of seats is in this park.”

“I think they’re behind our dugout,” Anderson offered. “Toward home plate?”

Giving their backsides a reprieve from the uncomfortable aluminum bench, they stood up and craned their necks up the foul line toward their dugout. There were just small pockets of people in attendance, but Gord and Anderson were too far away to be able to differentiate individual fans.

The bullpen phone rang, and Tim Reid grabbed it off the receiver. The Badger peered down the length of the dugout until he spotted Gord and Anderson leering into the stands.

“Mattis,” Lakeland’s gruff second-in-command barked, “Cole’s shoulder’s a little wonky.” He nodded toward the mound and Wildcats starter Chad Cole. “Warm up. You’re going in next inning.”

For the moment, Gord immediately forgot about Kim. He got his glove, and Aaron Carmack, and headed to the bullpen mound to start throwing.

“Time!” the home plate umpire roared.

At Dave Rockwood’s request, the game was momentarily halted. Removing his mask, Rockwood trudged toward the mound.

Gord stepped off the rubber and ran his left hand through his hair. This was not the way he had planned on starting his outing. Gord hit the first batter of the fifth inning and had just walked the second hitter on five pitches. Two on, none out.

Gord was overthrowing, trying to throw the perfect pitch. He was trying too hard because he knew Kim was watching. He had to get his shit together soon, or Orlando was going to turn a scoreless pitchers’ duel into a blowout.

“Gordo, what’s going on, man?” Rockwood inquired.

“Fuck. I’m trying to strike guys out on one pitch.”

“Just relax. Throw like you’ve been throwing the last two weeks.”

Gord exhaled slowly. “You’re right. Nice and loose. Pitch to contact.”

“Exactly. Hit your spots.”

Gord looked at the runners occupying first and second. “Well, I’m not making it easy on myself.”

Rockwood lightly punched Gord in the abdomen. “Just get me a ground ball. You’ve got good ‘D’ behind you.”

Rockwood jogged back behind the plate and signalled for a changeup. He wanted Gord to slow down his delivery and not overthrow.

Okay, Gord, focus, he told himself. Worry about Kim after the game. Focus on pitching right now. He took the sign and delivered a strike to the lower half of the zone. The batter, taking all the way, watched it go by.

Sticking with the slow stuff, Rockwood called for a curveball. Gord unfurled a beauty, and the hitter chopped a hard hit grounder right at the shortstop. He flipped it to second, who relayed it to first. The runner was out by three steps. Double play.

Emboldened, Gord attacked the next batter and retired him on three pitches. Inning over. Disaster averted, Gord jogged self-assuredly off the mound. His eyes searched the faces in the crowd as he neared the foul line.

Gord squinted through the bright lights illuminating the field. He noticed a figure waving in his direction about twelve rows up the stands. He spied the blonde hair first and then saw Kim’s broad smile. He returned the gesture and acknowledged her with a slight tip of the cap before he disappeared into the dugout with his teammates.

The Wildcats were able to scratch a lone run across in the top of the sixth to take the lead, 1–0. Gord skipped out of the dugout for the bottom half of the inning with renewed confidence.

If Gord’s first inning was defined by wildness and timidity around the strike zone, then his second inning was defined by a blitzkrieg attack of the plate. He poured in strikes. Inner half; outer half; at the belt; at the knee; slow stuff; hard stuff. Everything clicked. He didn’t give the Buccaneers a chance to be selective at the dish. Gord turned them all into free-swingers. He sandwiched three routine ground ball outs between a hard-hit single that buzzed the top of his head.

Tyson Dante, fresh off his eight-game suspension for his crazed tirade in Tampa, smashed a long home run in the top of the seventh to provide Lakeland with a two-run cushion.

In an attempt to disrupt Gord’s rhythm, the first batter in the Orlando seventh tried to bunt his way aboard. The Buccaneer pushed a drag bunt toward no man’s land on the left side of the mound. Gord bounced off the rubber with cat-like reflexes.

He speared the ball with one hand, whirled around, and delivered a chest-high strike to Drew Allen, the Wildcats’ husky first baseman. One out. The infielders rifled the ball around the horn.

Gord felt great on the hill. After a shaky first inning, he had buckled down and returned to recent form. He marvelled at how well he had pitched over his past few appearances. The confluence of command, velocity, mechanics, and confidence was something he hadn’t experienced since his summer in Joliet.

The second batter of the inning lofted a lazy fly ball to medium depth in centrefield. Tristan Beem easily camped underneath the can of corn.

Suddenly, Beem thrust his arms into the air. The glare from the bank of lights behind home plate marred his vision. Beem lost the flight path of the ball and stumbled blindly to where he hoped it would land. He miscalculated by twenty-five feet. The ball dropped innocently to the outfield grass.

The Buccaneers’ hitter, in an impressive display of hustle, ran hard on contact and managed to make it all the way to third base before Beem heaved the ball back to the infield.

Now, with a runner in scoring position and less than two out, Gord really had to get nasty to keep Orlando off the score sheet. He also wanted to pick up his normally sure-handed centrefielder. To do so, Gord would have to get through the meat of the Buccaneers’ lineup.

The number three hitter took two close pitches for balls to start his at-bat. Rockwood shot Gord a look. Do you want to just put the guy on with an intentional walk? Gord shook his head emphatically from side to side. He didn’t want to put the tying run on base. He wanted to go right after the hitter.

The batter, eager to put his team on the board, was looking dead red. He expected a fastball. The Wildcats’ battery decided to use this aggressiveness to their advantage and throw a 2–0 changeup. It was a risky move, but Gord was confident enough in his stuff to try it.

He unleashed a beauty that dove away from the right-handed hitter’s wheelhouse. The batter meekly tapped a grounder to Drew Allen, who played even with the bag. Allen corralled the ball, looked the runner back to third, and stepped on first base for the inning’s second out.

Next up was the Central Florida League’s home run king and Orlando’s cleanup hitter, Bill Bickford. Bickford cut an imposing figure in the batter’s box. At six feet six inches tall and a lithe 240 pounds, he didn’t have the biggest musculature in the league, but he made up for it with tremendous bat speed.

The velocity at which Bickford’s bat travelled through the hitting zone caused the ball to ricochet off his lumber at a different sound frequency than most guys. The majority of hitters made contact with a sharp crack akin to a pistol being fired in the air. Bickford’s bat sounded like a stick of TNT exploding in a jail cell.

Gord had first-hand knowledge of that sound. He had also learned that any pitch left down in the zone to Bickford would promptly be deposited into the next county. In two previous at-bats versus Gord, Bickford had a home run and a ground rule double. It didn’t matter if the pitch was inside or outside; Bickford’s massive reach covered the entire plate.

However, he did seem susceptible to pitches above the belt. Bickford’s swing was a little bit too long to handle anything upstairs. Of course, only fastballs could be thrown to that location. No pitcher was dumb enough to hang a curveball to Bickford, unless they wanted to see a batted ball break the sound barrier.

Without a fastball that could touch ninety, Gord’s only hope was to bust the behemoth in on his hands. Gord looked out toward the bullpen and saw both Steve Anderson and JR Coltrane warming up. This was Gord’s last inning and probably his last batter. He figured he might as well empty what was left in the tank.

He ripped a fastball right above Bickford’s hands. Sure enough, the giant swung underneath it and Gord was ahead in the count, 0–1. Two more fastballs and the count was still in Gord’s favour, 1–2.

This was a perfect spot for an off-speed pitch well off the plate. It would change Bickford’s eye level and hopefully get him to chase something in the dirt. Unfortunately, with a runner on third, neither Gord nor Dave Rockwood was willing to take that chance. Instead, Rockwood extended his index finger to signal a fastball, but he added two other signs to differentiate this pitch from a normal offering.

First, he turned his thumb skyward, like a Roman emperor saving a gladiator from the slaughter, to indicate that he wanted this fastball at the letters. Then, Rockwood curled his fingers into a fist and shook it twice, wanting Gord to reach back for a little something extra.

Gord nodded. With the ball still in his glove, he shook his left arm slightly, like he was cocking the chamber on a handgun. He started his delivery and pulled the trigger. The ball shot toward the plate in a blur of white. Bickford’s face lit up as he recognized another fastball. The pitch came in at eye level, which made it all the more enticing for Orlando’s cleanup hitter.

But Bickford had no chance. His bat whipped through the zone, missing the pitch completely. The ball smacked into Rockwood’s mitt, a full foot above his catcher’s mask. Inning over.

Gord pumped his fist as he jumped off the mound. Not only did he preserve the lead and leave a runner stranded at third, but that shutout inning was his fifteenth in a row.

Descending the dugout steps into the warm embrace of his teammates, Gord noticed Kim standing and cheering wildly. This time, he ignored professional decorum and waved at her as he disappeared into the dugout.