Losing Light

The metal was hot on the boys’ backs as they sat against the old, dilapidated silo, but neither of them complained; neither of them said much of anything as they watched the orange summer sun gradually slip into the cornfields to the West. It was curious that they would even be together at all, silently watching the evening sun set like old chums, because they were the two biggest adversaries in the state of Indiana when it came to baseball. The fact that they lived in the same town was even more extraordinary.

The truth was, they got along fine – not friends exactly, but they respected each other in that true, classic rivalry sense. Only people who don’t follow sports might find it difficult to understand the bond shared between two fierce rivals, yet it is only the two rivals who can fully appreciate the bond they share.

It was the fans who really fed the fires of competition between the two boys, who couldn’t care in the least. For the boys, each game was no more – or less – important than the one before it, but because they were both so very good, and they both came from the same town (one pitched for the high school while the other pitched for the tech school.), the proud supporters of both boys came out in droves to cheer them on.

Billy was a chiseled rock of a 17 year-old farmhand: slim, but with the shoulders of a linebacker. He had short, dark hair that shone in the setting sun. A long nose rested above pursed lips that gave him the appearance of one who is always about to say something, even when there was nothing on his mind to express. His face was oily, and a few red pimples adorned his cheeks and forehead.

Tommy was an inch taller than Billy, but weighed 15 pounds less. His hair was undecided as to whether it was blond or brown, as well as whether it should be combed or unruly. Tommy ran his hand through it and figured his hair had chosen the latter that day. He looked over at his arch-adversary, “Hey Billy, you gonna pitch tomorrow?”

Billy smiled, then frowned and shook his head, “Nah. I’ve already been drafted, and have to report to Single A ball in two weeks. I was thinking I have to rest up.”

“Yeah,” Tommy nodded, “that’s sound thinking.”

The boys were simply sharing in a joke; they were scheduled to pitch against each other the following day in the Legion Championship game, and they both knew in their hearts that it would take an act of God to keep them from participating in what might become one of the biggest games of their lives.

The boys had almost single-handedly carried their respective teams to the finals: Billy and his fireballing right arm racked up a record 124 strikeouts during the season, won every game, and had an ERA of 1.07. His fastball was once clocked at 102 MPH. Tommy was quite the opposite in terms of style, only getting 54 Ks and throwing much more off speed pitches to get the job done. His stats were nowhere near as impressive as Billy’s, and the scouts were fastidious disciples of the Almighty Stat Sheet, so he had been overlooked not only by the professional scouts, but by college recruiters as well.

Being slighted like that would have driven Billy mad; baseball was his ticket out of the rural farmlands he despised so much.

Even more infuriating was Tommy’s lack of concern; he was going to college on an academic grant and didn’t need baseball to improve himself. His entire personality was one of laid-back confidence anyway, and rarely did he seem worried about much of anything.

There was one statistical incongruity that bound them: Tommy’s ERA was marginally lower than Billy’s, at 0.99, and was the main topic of debate between the supporters of each boy.

Tommy’s phenomenal Earned Run Average was primarily due to his mastery of a single pitch, the knuckle-curve. A regular knuckle ball uses the total absence of rotation of the ball to produce an awkward fluttering pitch for the hitter to track, whereas the curveball uses a tight spin to induce the ball to break sharply away from a batter. Hypothetically, these two pitches would seem incompatible, but Tommy had proven repeatedly during the year that the knuckle-curve could be thrown, and could be thrown effectively; it was widely surmised throughout the league that Tommy’s knuckle-curve was unhittable.

Billy looked over at Tommy, “You gonna use the knuckle-curve tomorrow?”

Tommy looked far away and grimaced, “Probably not; I was thinking of switching to the splitter exclusively.”

Tommy’s delivery was much more dead-pan than Billy’s, but Billy knew the boy was still joking, so he nodded his agreement, “Yeah, that would certainly keep us off-balance. It might be pretty effective.”

Tommy smiled and looked over at Billy, “Which means I’ve got to learn how to throw a split-finger fastball pretty quickly.”

“Like tonight.”

“Yeah.”

Billy let that idea hang in the air for a few quiet moments, then suggested, “I have a ball.”

A look of surprise crossed Tommy’s face. He raised his eyebrows and asked if Billy brought a baseball with him everywhere.

“Of course.” Billy’s face was nothing but serious.

Tommy argued that they didn’t have any gloves, but Billy told him they were only going to pitch against the side of the silo.

They estimated a distance of 60 feet from the silo and Tommy took the ball from Billy, “There’s no mound.”

Billy shrugged, “Aw, what do you want for nothin’? It’s close enough. Pitch the ball.”

“No warm-ups?”

Billy laughed, “Come on, man. We’re losin’ light.”

Billy showed Tommy how to grip a splitter, then stepped back to allow the guy some room to pitch.

Tommy went into his windup and hurled the ball toward the silo. The pitch fell well short of the structure and skipped off the ground and against the metal with a loud WANG!

“Dude, that sucked,” Billy snickered and went to retrieve the ball. Upon his return, he asked Tommy to teach him how to throw the knuckle-curve.

“For real?”

“Yeah, I need another weapon,” Billy joked.

“Yeah, you really could use another pitch for your arsenal against us tomorrow.”

Billy kept his gaze unwaveringly on Tommy.

Tommy asked for the second time, “For real?”

“Yeah, for real.”

Tommy was only too happy to oblige, a chance to share his considerable skill with someone else; and also, perchance, to show off a little bit. He placed the ball in Billy’s hand and maneuvered Billy’s fingertips into the proper positions along the red stitching. “Okay,” he instructed, “I know you naturally throw pretty hard…”

“Very hard,” Billy amended.

“Okay, Very hard,” Tommy gave a quick smile, “but the thing with a knuckler is, you can’t throw it hard.”

“What?” That last bit of information was contrary to everything Billy had ever believed concerning pitching. His entire life on the mound, starting in Little League, was spent in search of blowing the batters away. Most power pitchers simply have no grasp of the off-speed touch needed to be effective around the plate. It has long been said that power pitchers don’t “pitch,” they just throw hard.

“If you throw a knuckler hard, it won’t work,” Tommy said matter-of-factly, “it has to just kind of float on the air currents and flutter over the plate.”

With the lesson over with, Tommy stepped back to give Billy room to pitch.

Billy began his windup with a step back. Tommy gave him a little encouragement, “Just push it up there.”

Billy tried as hard as he could to take a little off, but the ball still struck the corrugated metal with a loud WANG!

“Slower, dude,” Tommy said with a sly smile, and jogged over to recover the ball.

Again. WANG!

Again, WANG!

Again, again, again: WANG!

Tommy jogged back to give the ball back to Billy, and told him he was getting sick of going back and forth to get the ball.

“Well, stay by the wall. That way you can just toss it back to me.”

“Ha,” Tommy guffawed, “I don’t trust your aim, man.”

With the ball firmly in Billy’s hand, Tommy decided to try another tact. He changed Billy’s grip on the ball, told him to throw it harder, and also from another angle.

“All right,” Billy nodded, “but you know what? I think part of the problem is, I don’t have a target.”

“You want me to go back there and catch for you?”

“No, but if you could go down there and scratch a strike zone on the metal, it might help a lot.”

“Billy, the way you’ve been throwing those knucklers up there, you don’t need a strike zone, you need a Lacrosse goalie.”

Billy gave a derisive laugh and produced a hunk of red chalk from his pocket. He tossed it to Tommy, “Use this.”

Tommy caught the chalk with a wry smirk played across the corners of his lips, “Baseballs and chalk? What else do you regularly keep in your pockets, Billy?”

“Ha-ha, Tommy. Just hurry up and draw the damn strike zone; we’re losing light.”

Tommy walked over and squatted in front of the wall to draw a box on the metal in roughly the appropriate place. He stopped drawing momentarily and called out to Billy without turning around, “You make sure you got that grip right, okay Billy?”

Billy had the fingers of his right hand across the stitching in the classic 4-seam fastball grip, “Yeah. I got it Tommy.” He reared back and threw the hardest fastball he would ever pitch in his life; had it been clocked, it would have surpassed the 106MPH mark.

The ball traveled the 60 feet in 3/4 of a second and struck Tommy at the base of the skull, at the second cervical vertebra. The impact snapped his spine and killed him instantly.

Tommy did not drop to the ground like Billy thought he would; he still squatted against the hot metal of the silo, and Billy thought in horror that he had succeeded in only stunning the other boy, which was odd because the pitch felt good upon release; how would he explain what he did to Tommy if Tommy was only dazed? He couldn’t have missed, could he have? What the hell was he supposed to do if he had? He would have to finish the job; only he didn’t think he had the courage to kill anyone with his bare hands.

He walked over to check on Tommy, fearing a vicious retaliation, but on closer inspection discovered that Tommy was in fact dead, and was only propped up by the silo. His head was at an odd angle in proportion to his shoulders, and his eyes were open. Billy physically recoiled at the sight of Tommy’s still, blue eyes looking straight up at him, but they were so serene and calm that Billy managed to find his own measure of peace and strength from them. He went inside the silo and brought out a shovel just as the sun slipped behind the corn stalks.


***


Everyone at the game was concerned about Tommy’s disappearance; it wasn’t like him to miss a game, but the story of the day was the phenomenal pitching performance of Billy, who gave up one hit and struck out 17 during his complete game shutout bid. He had been mowing down opposing batters all day with both regularity and ease. His pitches were clocked at an average of 4 MPH above his usual 96; it was as if he was pitching with a little extra fire on that day.

He opened up the bottom of the final inning, the 7th, with a strikeout of a very intimidated pinch-hitter. Billy was feeling very comfortable on the hill, his arm was strong and his attitude was cocky; he struck out the next pinch-hitter on three pitches.

The potential last batter of the ball game was a good contact hitter, and kept fouling off pitches to stay alive in the box. Billy was ready to go home, and was beginning to get frustrated. He took off his cap and wiped his forehead against his left shoulder when it occurred to him that it would only be fitting to strike out the last batter on Tommy’s team with a knuckle-curve. It couldn’t hurt; Billy was assured the victory even if he gave up a home run.

The barest hint of a smile crossed his lips as he fumbled with his finger placement along the stitches of the ball that rested inside his glove in front of his face.

What were Tommy’s last words? “You make sure you got that grip right, okay Billy?”

Billy made sure; he vividly remembered how Tommy had changed Billy’s grip on the ball and had instructed him to change his arm angle, but Billy never had the chance to try it. He was kind of hoping he wasn’t going to make an ass of himself, but he was walking on air; he was invincible.

Billy rocked back, kicked his left knee up to his chest, and thought, This will be the last thing anyone will expect from me.

He pushed off the rubber with his right leg and strode powerfully toward home plate with his left.

His arm was only halfway through its motion when the stress from the change in delivery was too much for his elbow to endure. The sound of bone snapping was sickeningly audible for every patron in the stands and his screams were too much to take; most of the crowd left for the cover of their vehicles before the ambulance got there.

The EMTs did everything they could for Billy, but the truth was that no amount of reconstructive surgery could ever fully repair the extensive damage done to his elbow. He would never pitch again, and that was a life sentence for him; he would never get away from his small town life.

A week after the first of many operations to reconnect most of the cartilage and ligaments back to his Humerus, Radius and Ulna bones he took a belt and hung himself in the shower stall of his private hospital room.

A note was found on the tiled floor below him. Written with his left hand, it read:



Tommy cheated. At least I didn’t let him suffer like this.
Billy