Whenever Louie leaned into the ball, all his 240# transmitted to his bat. But he never learned to get “under” the ball, to get some lift on it. Had he done so, he would not only hit a home run, it would have been tracked by NORAD until it landed in Sri Lanka. When Louie connected with the baseball – assuming it survived the impact- it would fly 18-36 inches off the ground all the way to the outfield fence. Why it never imbedded itself in the fence like a cannon ball says a lot about the quality of the plywood of the day.
Some time back, Louie lined out to deep right field. The ball left his bat at 18 inches off the ground, arrived at the glove of the fielder at the same height, and the fielder caught it… and held on long enough for Louie to be called out. We thought this was quite a feat until we realized the fielder was unable to release the ball due to multiple broken bones in his hand.
So Louie was now at the plate. Coach always taught us to think ahead before each play. “If the ball comes to you, what will you do?” Let’s see, Louie is a left-handed batter. If he gets his bat around quickly, he will hit a line drive at the first baseman. And who’s playing first base today?
Louie disdainfully let the first pitch go by. As the pitcher went into his wind-up for his second delivery, Louie tensed. He coiled like a 240# rat-trap as if sensing this next pitch was tailor-made for him. It was. CRACK! He loaded that ball with Hell’s own fury and sent a line-drive, three feet off the ground. Guess where? Yeah.
From this point forward, there was no time to think. The ball hit my opened glove on the palm. Good news: no permanent injuries. Bad news: I dropped the ball. More bad news, Louie was running, not towards first base; he had left the baseline and was stampeding directly at me. He was frothing and his eyes were white-wild. Getting out of the way seemed prudent.
I grabbed the ball and side-stepped across first base. Louie was out. But there was this other problem: ‘Streak’ was doing just that… for home plate. My catcher was blocking the baseline, his glove out and down for a ‘low-tag.’ The rest was up to me. I leaned into the hardest pitch I ever threw in my life. As it turned out, the ball didn’t go flying wildly over the refreshment stand. [Thank you, Heavenly Father.] My catcher caught the ball, threw back his hand in pain, in so doing accidentally hit ‘Streak’ on the ankle and J. Worthington Galowatty was O-U-T out.
The trip home was, as per tradition, conducted in silence. Then Dad turned the radio down and in a spontaneous out-pouring of conversation without precedent, he stared straight ahead, “Not a bad game today.” I said, “Yessir.” He then turned the radio up and I thought, ‘I’m glad that’s over. He near talked my ear off.’ [You’d have to have known my father to understand my response.]
I showered and had started down the stairs. I heard Dad was yelling to Mom, “That oldest boy of ours… Bucky?”
“Lucky.”
“That’s him!” He described the scene, then with his arms flailing wildly yelled, “You should have seen that throw! The catcher never moved his mitt!! It was a perfect strike! It was a one-man double play!!”
I walked into the kitchen. Mom embraced me. “Your father told me about your performance!” I looked over at Dad whose nose was now buried the newspaper; the Sports Section. Like I said, you’d have to have known Dad.
By Lucky Garvin [email protected]