Cranky at the Bat

        I dreamed that I was playing baseball. Our side had just run in from the field and the top of our order rolled around. Three hits, no runs up to this point. The first batter gets on board, as does the second. The third batter, me, flies out. I take the place of the third base coach. Our fourth batter grounds out, but we have runners on second and third.

        The fifth batter comes up to the plate, griping about how “sure they’re in scoring position, but there’s two outs. What am I supposed to do about that?” There’s a lot more grousing from the batter. He’s taking a lot of abuse from the infielders, who’ve all moved in to knock down any grounder. There’s a big gap in the midfield now, but the pitcher keeps the ball high in the strike zone. High enough to be balls, in my opinion, but not the umpire’s and that’s what counts.

        The pitcher stumbles on the mound at 2-2 count.

        I can tell it’s going to be a wild pitch, and the catcher has no hope of getting the ball. “Swing!” I shout, and “Run,” to our man on third.

        No, in my head, I’m thinking, third strike, loose ball, player can run for first with a good chance of getting the man home for our first run. But no, our batter steps across the plate to tap the ball into a dribbler back to the pitcher. We score, the runner beats the throw home, but the batter is thrown out at first, because the cranky batter refused to run.

Ad astra per technica,

FF