Who Am I Kidding?

My two fastball teams were in the playoffs. Both teams were in the semi-finals. One night both teams played on the same night and at the same time. However, one team was facing elimination and the other team was playing their first game of the series.

I went to play in the elimination game. Our best pitcher wasn't there. So we were in trouble. We had three pitchers try to get the other team out.  None of them were any good. We lost the game 19-13. I thought that when you score 13 runs in a game you shouldn't lose. But we did. And we were eliminated.

The next day I had off. I checked my email when I got up.  There was an email from the captain of the team that was still playing. He said that they won the first game but our pitcher hurt himself in the rundown play. He asked me if I would be at the game. He said I would have to pitch. 

I replied that he must be kidding. He said no it was true.

We had won the first game of the best of three series. So the game was not an elimination game. The captain thought that the pitcher might be better by the next game.

When I told Barb that I would have to pitch. She was furious. She said that I was going to get the ball hit back at me. I wouldn't be able to get out the way.  I would be killed. She said it wasn't worth it. We were going to lose anyway. We should just forfeit the game.

Later in the day, I got a phone call from the pitcher. He told me about his injury. He tried to talk it up. He said that if we can score enough runs, we could win the game. I might be okay.

As I was leaving for the game, She asked me if I was really going to pitch. Barb said it was nice knowing me.

 

As I was driving to the game, I thought to myself. Who am I kidding? I am going to get killed. It was stupid to be pitching. These guys were good hitters. Barb was right.

When I got to the game, the teams who had played earlier cheered me on. They called me Ivan "The Terminator" Taylor.

We scored a run in the top of the first inning.

I got the first batter out. Then the second batter hit a triple. The third batter hit a line drive to the second baseman. The second baseman threw to third base to catch the runner off base. But he threw wild. The runner tried to go home. The third baseman fired a strike to the catcher.  The catcher got the runner at home for a double play.  We got out the inning with no runs scored against us.

From then on we never looked back. We scored at least one run in every inning. I walked a lot of batters but we almost always got out of the inning without them scoring. Just one time they hit a based loaded triple and scored three runs.

We won the game 9-3 and were headed to the finals. The guys thought this was the greatest thing they had ever seen.

When I got home Barb said she was surprised to see me.  She was even more surprised when I told her I had won the game.

The president of the league who was watching the game said the next day in an email to the executive that he kept saying to himself that I might get through the batting order once but eventually they would adjust and then poor old Ivan would get hammered. But it never happened.

Our pitcher was back for the finals and we won easily.  We were the league champs.