Alive on Opening Day (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Family Time

David pulled into the west
parking lot of Bush Stadium in Indianapolis about 20 minutes after
one in the afternoon. The game wasn’t scheduled to start until six
o’clock, but Dan wanted to be there plenty early to soak in the
atmosphere of the championship game. As it turned out, they were SO
early there was only one other car in the lot and the stadium was
locked up tight.

They walked around the
block a few times, pointing out local landmarks to each other, and
then ventured down a couple of side streets before returning to
their car for a quick snack from the cooler Clara had packed.
Finally, a few minutes before three, Dan heard a rumble from a
couple of streets away. He hopped out of the car and stood with his
hand shielding his eyes, looking to the West.

“
Here they come!” he
called out, and David and Clara followed their son’s
gaze.

There, coming up 16th
Street were two yellow school buses, grinding through their gears
as they navigated the sleepy Saturday traffic. The city may have
been called “Naptown,” but Dan was not feeling the least bit groggy
as he waited for the game to get underway.

“
Nope,” David said when
the buses were a block away. “Those are Evansville
buses.”

“
How can you read that?”
Clara asked.

“
Dad has eagle eyes, Mom,”
Dan said. “You know that.”

David nodded. “That’s
right,” he said. “How else do you think I picked you out from the
crowd of girls vying for my affections in high school,
dear?”

Clara rolled her eyes and
said, “Oh, brother!”

“
You two are cute,” Dan
said, and he meant it.

Just then, they heard the
asphalt pop behind them, and the three Hodges turned to see another
two buses pulling into the lot from the East.

“
That’s definitely them!”
Dan exclaimed.

He took off running across
the lot and sprinted right in front of a car turning in off Harding
Street. The driver slammed on his breaks and laid on his horn,
yelling out to Dan to “watch where you’re going, you stupid
kid!”.

Dan didn’t break stride
but turned back as he ran, waving to the driver and calling out,
“Sorry!”.

David and Clara both
flinched when they saw the scene unfold in front of them but smiled
to each other once the danger had passed.

“
That boy always did love
to run,” Clara said to her husband, smiling softly.

“
Sure did,” David said.
“Let’s get this buggy closed up. Looks like we might get to go
inside soon.”

When they caught up to
Dan, he was standing between the two South Pickens buses slapping
hands with the players as they stepped down onto the pavement. He
was also huffing and puffing, the effort of his short run having
sapped his already waning energy reserves.

“
Dan!” they called out
one-by-one, and Dan greeted each player by name.

“
Way to go guys! You gonna
win today?” he asked when the buses were unloaded.

“
Yeah!” the high-schoolers
called out in unison.

That’s when Coach Croft
ambled out of the lead bus, shaking his head.

“
Well,” he said. “If this
isn’t a fine howdya do! My guys see some young buck waiting for
them and don’t even pay me any mind. Guess I can just head on back
home!”

“
Coach!” Dan bellowed, and
stepped around the mass of players to extend his hand to
Croft.

Croft, in turn, took Dan’s
hand and pulled him into a big bear hug.

“
You’re not getting away
that easy, Dan,” Croft said. “Now that you’re part of the coaching
staff, it’s big, burly man hugs for you whenever we haven’t seen
each other for a while. Sorry ‘bout your luck!”

Dan and the coach laughed,
and so did the team. Behind them, David and Clara smiled again,
both of them trying not to think about what might happen after the
game.

—

After a few more minutes
of parking lot tomfoolery and motivational quips, Croft broke up
the party and led his team through the players’ entrance into Bush
Stadium, instructing the Hodges to meet him at the side gate. While
they waited for him to spring them in, Dan, David, and Clara
watched the St. Lydia players file into the stadium through the
same doors the Eagles had used moments earlier.

“
They sure do look big,”
Dan said with a gulp.

“
Yep, they’re big,
alright,” David said. “But big isn’t everything in baseball. Who
would have ever thought Hank Aaron would break the home run record,
after all? He was just a skinny kid for a good part of his
career.”

“
You’re right, Dad,” Dan
said. “I never really thought of it that way.”

When the Wildcats had
passed, Coach Croft re-emerged from the side of the stadium with a
security guard in tow. He motioned the Hodges toward
him.

“
I explained to this nice
officer that you’re a VIP family and vital to our team,” Croft
said. “He’ll take you in and get you seated.”

“
Wow, thanks!” Dan said to
Croft and the guard.

The guard just nodded, but
Croft said, “No problem. But Dan … don’t get in trouble, because
this guy will be watching you like a hawk.”

“
Like
an
eagle
,”
the guard deadpanned, and the group broke up laughing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Big Game

The players from
Evansville not only looked bigger than the Eagles, but they also
seemed more blasé about the grandeur of the game they were about to
play. That was understandable since they’d been in the same
situation two years before, when they won the title, and fell in
the semi-state round the year before. They also had Andy Belton
heading to the mound, and the consensus around the country was that
he was poised to become a first-round draft choice in just a few
days.

The Eagle players, in
contrast, walked through batting practice with huge eyes and
craning necks, trying to take in every detail of the event. Croft
pitched a steady diet of fastballs from the mound, but most of the
players struggled to get the ball out of the infield, if they
connected at all. Ted Waterman did manage to hit one into center
field, but it would have been an easy out in a real game
situation.

“
What’s wrong with our
hitters, Dad?” Dan asked. “They look dazed.”

“
Ah, don’t worry, son,”
David assured. “I’m sure they’re just getting used to their
surroundings. It’s probably just now sinking in that they’re
actually playing in the state title game.”

“
I sure hope so,” Dan
said. “I’m missing a good nap for this, after all.”

David groaned, and Clara
elbowed her son in the ribs. “That’s not funny, Danny!”

—

For most of its history,
baseball has been as much about relationships and stories as it has
been about the play on the field any particular day. Fathers and
sons go to games not primarily to support the local nine — though a
true fan’s blood runs deep — but to talk and discover each other,
and to luxuriate in the literally endless potential duration of
each contest as a way to acknowledge their own time together is
very limited in comparison.

Sometimes, the game on the
field matters in a more acute sense, such as when a record is about
to fall or when a championship is on the line. In those cases,
men’s attentions may turn toward the action and the hoopla
surrounding the event, but the undercurrent of connecting with his
companion, whether father or son or other, is never far from the
surface.

And so it was for Dan
Hodges and his family as the 1974 Indiana State baseball
championship finally got underway. All were engrossed in the game,
but each could also feel the urgency of their own
situation.

The South Pickens Eagles
were designated as the home team on that early summer evening, and
they took the field first. Frank McDonald, the Eagles’ star
pitcher, was on the mound to face the Wildcats, who were no
strangers to high-level competition. Like a rookie making his first
start in the Big Leagues, McDonald’s nerves were obvious even as he
warmed up. He breathed heavily and huffed onto his hands despite
the fact it was nearly 90 degrees as the 6-o’clock first pitch
approached.

Those nerves frayed even
further when McDonald bounced the first pitch in the dirt against
St. Lydia leadoff hitter David Holmgren. The ball skittered to the
backstop, and the umpire tossed a new one out to the
mound.

“
It’s alright!” Croft
called from the dugout. “Keep it nice and easy.”

There wasn’t much about
the first inning that was nice and easy for South Pickens, as
McDonald was all over the place with his pitches, hitting two
batters, walking two more, and giving up five hits. Two of those
were home runs, and, by the time Eagles leadoff hitter Eric Jasmine
came to bat in the bottom of the first, South was behind
5-0.

The Eagles went down in
order their first time at-bat, then McDonald was back on the mound
for more abuse in the second.

Only, there was no more
abuse for the Wildcats to dish out — not in the second or third or
fourth. And not in the fifth, either.

In fact, when St. Lydia
came to bat in the top of the sixth, their lead had been reduced to
5-3 thanks to some pesky base running and a few lucky breaks for
the Eagles. Dan had seen Croft jawing at McDonald in the dugout
after that disastrous first inning, and he had been sure there
would be a new pitcher for the second, but there hadn’t been.
Whatever wisdom Croft had imparted had evidently calmed the young
hurler and allowed him to zip through the mighty Evansville lineup.
It all seemed to be smooth sailing from there, but, when Waterman
struck out to end the fifth inning, Dan recognized Croft had a
decision to make as the final two frames loomed.

Leave McDonald in for the
sixth and push off the pinch-hitting decision, or bring in a
reliever and then decide whether to pinch hit for HIM when the
pitcher’s slot came up?

Coach Croft decided on the
latter and sent in Jake Simmons to pitch against the top of the
Evansville lineup. When the crowd realized McDonald was done, they
began cheering and calling his name. In the dugout, McDonald’s
teammates nudged him out onto the field, and the reddening boy
doffed his cap and waved to his admirers. He had put the team in a
big hole, but he hadn’t given up.

“
That was amazing,” Dan
said of his former teammate’s performance.

Simmons allowed a couple
of baserunners before getting out of the inning unscathed. On the
flipside, Sam Wolfe finagled a walk out of Travis Leach, who was
relieving for the Wildcats. Unfortunately for the Eagles, that was
all there was to the sixth inning, and then Croft brought in Alan
Hemphill to pitch the seventh, and final, inning. Hemphill was a
tall, chubby right-hander who had the best fastball on the team and
could also confuse batters with a sharp change-up. Had his
conditioning been better, he might have made a really good starter,
but his heft relegated him to bit appearances.

This would undoubtedly be
the biggest moment of the senior’s baseball career.

“
Hemp,” as his teammates
called him, was more than up to the challenge, as he struck out the
side on 12 pitches. When the Wildcats jogged past him to take their
spots on the field for the bottom half of the ninth, they shook
their heads and smiled ruefully. Dan heard a couple of them say,
“Good pitch!” to their foe as they passed each other.

Dan looked to his left
where his mother and father stood cheering, and to his right, where
Gabbie stood holding baby Troy, and tears welled in his eyes. He
realized in that moment that the game, the season, and likely his
entire year, had come down to one half-inning of baseball. He
leaned into Gabbie and plucked Troy from her hip, holding his son
high above him, smiling as the child shrieked in
delight.

Would Dan ever have the
chance to take his
own
son to a Reds game, the way David had done for him so many
times over the years?

He hadn’t taken a greenie
since early that morning, and when he cuddled Troy into his cheek,
the baby’s warmth and sweet smell made Dan sleepy. He yawned and
rubbed his eyes before turning his attention to the
field.