Alive on Opening Day (13 page)

Croft took in Dan’s
confused look and slapped his young charge on the shoulder, letting
out a guffaw that shook his belly.

“
Relax, son,” Croft said,
letting Dan off the hook. “You’re not going crazy. I DID tell you
to be here at eight, but not because that’s when practice
starts.”

Dan’s brow furrowed, and
Croft stepped back waving a hand toward his companion, who had been
silent to that point.

“
Dan Hodges,” Croft said,
“I’d like to introduce you to Harry Foster. Harry, this is
Dan.”

Harry was a large man,
taller than Croft by three or four inches and outweighing the coach
by a good 30 pounds. He looked to be about 60 but, unlike Croft,
packed a solid, muscular physique under his large wind breaker. An
unfiltered Kool cigarette hung from his right hand, and he
transferred it to his left.

“
Pleased to meet you,”
Harry said, extending the now-empty right hand. “I’ve heard a lot
about you.”

“
You have?” Dan gulped,
body shaking as Harry pumped his arm.

Harry gave Croft a dry
look and said, “He’s the nervous sort, huh?”

Croft shook his head.
“Nah, that’s my fault. He’s had a rough spring, and I didn’t tell
him you would be here.”

Dan cleared his throat.
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Croft smiled again. “Son,
don’t you recognize Harry’s name?”

Dan gave a sheepish shake
of his head, “No … should I?”

“
Aw, leave the kid alone,”
Harry said. He turned to Dan: “Dan, I’m a scout for the Cincinnati
Reds. Your coach and I went to high school together back when
Mickey Mantle was just a twinkle in his daddy’s eye.”

“
Really? Gee, I’m sorry,
Mr. Foster,” Dan said. “I’m a big Reds fan, and I follow the
Indianapolis Indians, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about
Cincinnati’s scouting department.”

“
Well, here it is!” Croft
bellowed, waving toward Foster again.

“
There’s a lot more to us
than just me, Carl,” Foster said. “Anyway, kid, I spend a lot of
time in the upper Midwest region — Minnesota, Wisconsin, the
Dakotas — but I live in northern Kentucky. I pass through this area
a few times each season, and old Croft and I try to hook up when we
can to relive old times or whatever.”

Dan was mesmerized and
didn’t realize his mouth was hanging open until Harry stopped for a
beat to stare at Dan’s lower face. He was having a conversation —
sort of — with a real Big League scout!

“
Anyway, I came through
just before Opening Day this year, and Carl filled me in on your
story. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he called me up and told me
you’d been ripping the cover off the ball in a local
league.”

Dan blushed. He wondered
if Croft had told Harry his “competition” had consisted of a
hundred or so pudgy dads, most of whom had never played any kind of
organized ball before.

“
So,” Foster went on. “He
said I should stop in and check you out the next time I got up this
way. I’m heading up for a high school sweep along the western edge
of Lake Michigan, so here I am. You ready?”

Dan gulped again and
looked from Croft to Foster. “Ready?” he asked. “Ready for
what?”

“
For your tryout, Dan!”
Croft exclaimed.

“
Whoa, whoa,” Foster broke
in. “Hold it there, partner. Let’s be careful with what we call
things, OK? For now, I’d just like to see what kind of skills you
got. Sound OK?”

Dan stammered. “S-sure,
but how can I show you anything if I’m the only one here? Who’s
going to pitch and hit to me.”

The two older men looked
at each other, and Foster said, “Well, I suppose us geezers have a
little life left in us. I think we can muster enough energy to get
the ball over the plate and into the outfield … unless you got
something against playing with old men.“

Dan’s face flushed. “Gee,
I’m sorry, Mr. Foster. I didn’t mean anything by that. I, well, I
don’t know what I thought.” He hesitated before finishing with, “Of
course, you and Coach can work me out.”

“
Great,” Foster said.
“Let’s get to it, then.”

—

And did they ever get to
it.

First, Croft hauled a
duffel bag full of baseballs out of the dugout, and Foster carried
them to the mound, instructing Dan to pick out a bat from the
rack.

For the next 20 minutes,
Harry offered up the most varied array of pitches Dan had ever seen
from the batter’s box: fastballs that must have touched 85 mph,
curveballs, changeups, screwballs, and one pitch that seemed to not
spin at all but fluttered all over and around the strike zone, and
which caused Dan to lunge wildly but miss completely.

“
What was that?” Dan
called out.

“
That
,” Foster yelled back,
“was a knuckleball.”

All in all, Dan thought he
handled himself well. He made contact with about 75% of Foster’s
pitches and hit most of them hard. He connected enough, in fact,
that Croft decided to leave his post behind the plate and make his
way to the outfield to retrieve the balls as Dan hit
them.

When Foster reached the
bottom of the bag, he shouted, “Switch!”.

Croft jogged in from the
outfield, his flipped-up shirt tail filled with baseballs, and
jerked a thumb toward the outfield.

“
Get on out there, kid,”
he called to Dan.

Dan replaced his bat in
the rack and ran to the outfield. He had been exhausted for days,
sleeping at least 12 hours each night, but working out with Foster
and Croft energized him. He felt like he could go all day
long.

By that time, the sun had
burned off any fog remaining from the late spring night, and Dan
felt a thin layer of sweat forming over his brow as he sprinted to
the outfield.

“
Whoo—eee!” Foster yelled
as Dan whizzed past him. “Your butt’s on fire, son!”

Dan didn’t mind the
teasing, and he couldn’t have slowed down anyway. He was too amped
up. Besides, how many 19-year-old kids got to hang out with a Reds’
coach early on a Tuesday morning?

He took his spot in center
field and flipped back toward the diamond, where Foster was still
sauntering toward home plate.

“
Well, at least my butt’s
not dragging on the infield dirt like yours!” Dan
called.

It had been a
spur-of-the-moment impulse, and he cringed at his own
insubordination. He was relieved to hear Croft’s loud laugh erupt
from the coach as he took the mound to pitch to Foster.

“
Ha!” Croft yelled. “He
got you, there, Harry!”

“
Yeah, yeah,” Foster said.
“Let’s just see if you can keep up with my bat, Hodges.”

Dan had clamped his mitt
over his mouth to try and head off any more untoward comments, and
now he pulled it away in relief. He shrugged off his embarrassment
and called back to the scout.

“
Give me your best shot,
Harry!”

For the next 20 minutes,
Harry did give Dan his best shot, and Dan reciprocated. Spraying
balls from side to side, driving some deep, blooping some shallow,
and even smashing a few on the infield grass to roll or hop into
the outfield, Harry did his best to simulate just about every type
of play that a center fielder might encounter in a real game. And,
even though Dan knew the middle-aged scout couldn’t generate the
type of power a Major Leaguer could, Dan was still impressed by
Harry’s command of the bat. He was even more impressed by his own
ability to keep up with the barrage of would-be hits Foster
peppered his direction — and not in his direction.

Dan ran down balls that
would have belonged to the left and right fielders in a normal game
situation, and he dove forward and backward to keep balls from
hitting the grass. Once, he even leaped against the outfield fence
to save a “home run.” The only balls Dan didn’t catch were two
no-doubt homers Harry deposited 50 feet beyond the fence and onto
the adjacent practice field. In those instances, Dan just stood and
clapped, to which Harry tipped his cap.

Even though Dan considered
himself a third baseman, he had to admit it would have been
difficult for Harry to work him out so thoroughly at the hot
corner. Center field was a place for athletes, and Dan was proud he
was doing well there, even if the situation
were
contrived.

On the mound, Croft held
up a ball for Dan and Foster to see. “This is the last one,
fellas,” he called. “Almost time for practice to start … for real
this time.”

Croft turned back to the
plate and uncorked a looping fastball that Foster swung under,
lifting it high to straightaway center field. Dan drifted
backwards, reaching behind him with his left hand to find the fence
but never taking his eyes off the ball. When he felt the wall, he
camped under the falling spheroid and watched it drop all the way
into the webbing of his outstretched glove. He clamped both hands
around the wrapped ball and trotted back toward the
infield.

Croft waited on the mound
for Dan and gave him a slap on the behind. “Nice job, Dan,” the
coach said.

Foster was already in the
dugout racking his back and gathering his belongings, including the
empty duffel bag. If he had any thoughts about Dan’s performance,
he was keeping it to himself.

“
Well,” Foster said as he
climbed out of the hole. “It’s about time for me to hit the road,
so why don’t you take this bag and gather up those balls before
your teammates get here and snatch them up?” This was directed to
Dan.

“
They’re not my
teammates,” Dan corrected, “although they used to be. But, sure, I
can pick up the balls.”

Dan took duffel from
Foster and headed back to the outfield at a walking
pace.

“
Hey, better hustle up
now,” Foster called after him. “I need to get a move on. And don’t
forget — there should be 100 balls, including the ones I hit over
the fence!”

“
Got it,” Dan said, and he
rolled his eyes without fear of Foster seeing him since he was
heading away from the old scout.

What Dan didn’t see, as he
ran toward the practice field, was the wink Foster gave
Croft.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tryout?

Dan was still floating
when he jogged off the field after morning practice around 10 am,
but he didn’t really know why. Sure, he thought the session with
Harry and Croft had gone well, but he realized there was nothing
that could come from it. After all, Dan had not played “real” ball
in over a year, and had not played
any
form of college ball.

There were plenty of other
prospects in the world, in the area even, who would vie for scouts’
attention, and Dan knew it. In the grand scheme of things, he was
just a spec in the ocean of young baseball players, and Foster
dropped by as a favor to Croft, his old friend.

Dan knew all this and
recognized neither the Reds nor any other professional team were
going to come calling any time soon. Yet, he felt more upbeat than
he had in months, for sure, and probably better than he had in
years, despite the gnawing fatigue that yipped just beyond the
edges of his consciousness. For that one day, he intended to ride
the wave of positivity and enjoy a lunch date with Gabbie and then
get to HBM in time to turn in a full afternoon of work.

As he crossed the asphalt
strip between the ball diamond and the school building on his way
to the locker room, Dan spied someone coming at him from his right,
closing the gap quickly.

“
Yo, Dan!” the figure
called, and Dan turned to find coach Croft running full bore toward
him. He had no idea the lumbering older man could move so
quickly.

“
Coach,” Dan said. “Don’t
hurt yourself there, buddy!”

Croft was huffing, and his
face was red, but he brushed off Dan’s dig. “Ah, you’re just
defensive because you know I could still take you — in anything.
Anyway, what did you think of Harry Foster?”

“
He reminded me a lot of
another grumpy old bear I know,” Dan teased Then he dropped his
smirk and said earnestly, “Seriously, though, Coach, that was
incredible. I never thought I’d have the chance to workout with a
guy with so much experience and insight into the Major Leagues.
Thanks so much for setting it up for me … I’ll never forget the
experience.”