Senior Year Box Set

We were up first, and our hot hitting from the weekend continued. When I came up, the bases were loaded with no outs. You can imagine my surprise when the pitcher uncorked a fastball that skipped behind me. If it hadn’t been for the valiant effort of their catcher, a run would have scored.

It made me happy when the umpire warned the pitcher and both benches. Moose had been in his ear about people throwing at me to try to intimidate me. I’d been hit so many times that I was starting to lose count.

His second pitch came straight at my head. Even with my quickness and being ready for something like this, he drilled me. One second, I was taking one in the ear hole, and the next, I awoke to pandemonium.

I must have lost consciousness for only a moment, just long enough for my team to jump out of the dugout and lay into St. Joe. This wasn’t one of those typical baseball fights either, where everyone rushed out and milled around, not really doing anything. My guys weren’t messing around. I saw Yuri throw a haymaker that started at his toes and clocked their catcher, who had been trying to pull Wolf and Tim off of their pitcher.

“Stop! Stop! Please … Coach made me do it!” their pitcher cried.

“Enough!” I barked as I stood up and tossed my helmet on the ground.

My guys all hesitated as they saw how pissed I was. They knew that if I went into Hulk mode, there would be hell to pay. They’d also seen me and Cassidy go at each other. The guys didn’t want to be in the way if I decided to lay waste to the whole St. Joe team.

I marched out to the mound, and the players parted as I walked right up to the pitcher. I’m not sure, but the kid might have peed himself.

“He made me do it,” he said, pointing at his coach.

I turned and looked the St. Joe coach in the eye. Two things happened at once. The first was their coach made a run for it. He recognized that I was pissed enough to beat someone my dad’s age for trying to hurt me like that.

The second was I suddenly found myself on my knees and in pain. Cassidy had jumped the fence and stopped me before I did something I would probably regret for the rest of my life.

“Let me go,” I said in a controlled voice.

“You promise not to kill anyone?” Cassidy asked.

“No.”

She ratcheted up the pain level of her hold.

“You sure?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll be good,” I promised.

On cue, it began to rain. A few seconds later, it sounded like lightning hit a tree about a block away. That was enough to get everyone to forget paying St. Joe back and run for the gym.

◊◊◊

Once we got inside the school, Moose made us all go to the visitors locker room. He gave us all a look that dared us to act up and then stormed out. We heard raised voices in the hall as I was sure he had a few things to say. Coach Haskins came in ten minutes later.

“Take your showers and get dressed,” he said and then left us.

Before everyone did, I stopped them.

“What did we all agree would happen if there was going to be a fight?” I asked.

“You are the designated fighter,” Tim said.

“So, what the heck happened?” I asked.

“They took you out,” Yuri said as he glared at me.

I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t laugh. Apparently, my going down had pissed off my not-so-little Russian tough guy. The rest of the guys were united on this. I knew right then that I didn’t want to do anything to disrupt them from coming together as a team.

“Well, okay then,” I said and started to get undressed.

“That’s it? You’re not going to yell at us?” Phil asked.

“If Coach asks, I tore you a new one, and we took care of it. Agreed?” I asked.

They began to smile. You could tell they’d gone into battle and felt good about themselves. If I’d known all I had to do was get knocked silly to get them to do that, I might have done it sooner.

◊◊◊

When I came out of the shower, Ty was at my locker with my helmet in his hand.

“You’re lucky,” he said and showed it to me.

There was a massive dent on the outer shell, and when I pushed in on it, it was clear the plastic shell underneath had cracked. I didn’t believe it was supposed to do that. I would have to call Devin and see.

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a helmet do that,” I admitted.

“Me neither,” Ty agreed.

“Let’s keep this between us for now,” I suggested.

He nodded and left to get dressed.

◊◊◊

Coaches Hope and Haskins came back in with a couple of men I hadn’t met before.

“Before I talk to you, Mr. Brandt and Mr. Prevost wanted to address you,” Moose said.

I assumed they were some kind of administrators for St. Joe.

“I wanted to apologize to you all as a team, and specifically to Mr. Dawson. It seems our coaching staff targeted you to cause injury. I can assure you there will be changes in the leadership of our baseball program. Anyone involved will no longer be a part of what we do moving forward,” Mr. Brandt said.