by Joe Jackson
On Monday evening, they played the Diamond Divas, the team that had beaten Melissa Williams’ team a few days before. Coach Wilson had Madelyn Taylor back in the pitcher’s circle. For three innings, Madelyn was superb, not allowing a hit and striking out four batters.
The Purple Panthers broke the game wide open in the third inning when Sarah, hitting the way coach had taught her, punched a single to right field. Emilee dropped down a nice sacrifice bunt to advance Sarah to second and then Jasmine hit a ball over the left-field fence for her first fastpitch softball home run.
Most of the Purple Panther players whooped it up in the dugout, but Emilee noticed Hannah standing out at home plate, watching Jasmine round the bases, hearing the crowd applaud. Hannah was not smiling. When Jasmine crossed the plate, Hannah was swinging two bats, looking the other way. She said nothing.
Hannah swung at a bad pitch and lifted a weak foul to third base that the Diamond Diva third baseman caught easily. Hannah came back to the dugout, scowling, shaking her head in disgust.
Coach Wilson said to her cheerfully, “Don’t let them get you on those bad pitches, Hannah. Make ‘em put the ball in your zone, then hit it hard.”
“Okay,” Hannah said stiffly. “Okay.”
It was 2 to 0 for the Purple Panthers going into the fourth with Madelyn still pitching smoothly, so far a no-hitter. There was another big crowd watching the game. Emilee saw Madelyn’s parents in their usual spot, away from the rest of the spectators. Obviously, Madelyn’s father was very pleased with his daughter’s pitching. There was a broad smile on his bulldog face as he puffed a big round cigar. He was really enjoying himself.
A new spectator was in the stands this evening, sitting a few rows below the Taylors. A squat, round-faced, dark-eyed man with a clay pipe in his mouth, he was Isabella Lopez’s father, watching his first softball game. He looked a little puzzled by it all, particularly the garish equipment his daughter wore behind the plate.
The Purple Panthers picked up another run when Sofia Hernandez got on base. She promptly stole second, sliding into the bag beautifully, drawing a big cheer from the crowd. Sofia scored on Isabella’s ringing double to right center field. When the crowd yelled, Emilee noticed Isabella’s father standing up, staring, the pipe in his hand, watching his daughter sprint around first. She slid into second with another beautiful hook slide, exactly the way Coach Wilson had taught her.
Mr. Lopez started to grin when he realized the crowd was cheering his daughter and he stood there proudly, very much pleased, but not quite certain about what had just happened.
In the fifth inning, the Diamond Divas came to life. Madelyn could not find the plate and the first two Diamond Divas walked to get on base. The third batter hit a ground ball down to third and Madison Moore fumbled it. Now the bases were loaded. It was the redhead’s first error and it made her mad.
The Diamond Divas first baseman then slammed a ball against the fence in left field and three runners scored as Ashley Jones frantically chased the ball after it bounced from the fence. The score was tied 3 to 3 and the Diamond Divas were screaming happily in their dugout with a runner on third base. There were no outs.
Coach Wilson went out to talk with Madelyn. As she did so, Emilee, glancing towards the stands, saw Madelyn’s father stand up with his jaw thrust out, hands on his hips, as if he were defying coach to take his daughter out of the game. Emilee wondered vaguely what he would do if coach did relieve Madelyn.
Madelyn continued pitching, however, and the Diamond Divas scored another run when one of Madelyn’s curves got away from Isabella. The passed ball let the runner in and it made Isabella mad. She fired the ball back at Madelyn when she recovered it and young Taylor stared back at her, her jaw tight.
“Keep it up,” Isabella snapped. “Keep it up with a runner on third.”
The pitch had been low, bouncing in front of Isabella’s mitt and spinning away from her. However, Isabella should have put her body in front of it, especially with a runner on base. That was a catcher’s biggest responsibility with runners on base.
In the dugout, after the Diamond Divas were retired, the pitcher and the catcher had a few words about the pitch, and Emilee heard Madelyn say angrily,
“I can’t put every one over the plate. What do you want?”
“Take it easy, gang,” Coach Wilson called. “Everybody in here, we’ll get that run back.” It was 4 to 3 for the Diamond Divas now and it was still 4 to 3 in the bottom of the sixth when the Purple Panthers came to bat for the last time.
Jasmine Brown was to lead off and Emilee prayed she would duplicate her early home run and tie up the game. The tall Jasmine did not hit a home run, but she did hit a single right up the middle, the ball bouncing over second base and into center field.
With Hannah up next, then Madison and Isabella, the three big hitters in the Purple Panther batting order, the crowd started to yell again. Emilee wondered what coach would do now. With no one out the logical call was to bunt and advance the runner to second, giving Moore and Lopez the opportunity to bring her home and tie up the game. However, Hannah was the Purple Panther’s slugger and you did not often call upon the number four hitter in a batting lineup, the clean up batter, for a bunt.
Sitting on the edge of the bench Emilee glanced down toward Coach Wilson. Coach was touching her hip, her chin, her right shoulder, her ear, back to her chin. The bunt was on because Hannah batted fourth and her spot was the right shoulder. Coach had definitely touched her right shoulder.
Emilee glanced at Hannah quickly, knowing that Hannah would not like that signal from coach. Hannah had not hit a home run this evening and she was anxious to get one. A home run would break up the ball game and give the Purple Panthers three straight wins.
Hannah had caught the signal because she touched her cap automatically in acknowledgment. Madison was out in the batter on-deck circle, kneeling on one knee and Isabella was picking her bat out of the bat rack. Things looked very good for the Purple Panthers and Emilee felt very good about that.
Hannah was to bunt on the second pitch and Jasmine Brown watched from first base, ready to break for second. The first pitch was in over the plate and Hannah took it for a called strike. It was the kind of pitch Hannah liked, a waist high fastball.
There was a little smile on Hannah’s face as she stood up at the plate, waiting for the Diamond Diva pitcher. The pitcher put the ball in again, another waist high fastball, and Hannah, instead of squaring around to bunt, took a free, full swing.
With a solid “tunk” sound, the ball rocketed off the bat as if shot out of a cannon. It headed for the distant center field fence. The crowd stood up yelling. Purple Panther players tumbled out of the dugout, screaming as the ball passed out of sight over the fence, a home run and another Purple Panther win.
They gathered around Hannah as she came in after her home run trot around the bases. Everybody pounded her back. Even Emilee came up to slap her on the shoulder, but she felt a little queasy inside. Hannah’s homer, her third, won the game for the Purple Panthers, but she had deliberately ignored the bunt signal given by the coach.
Emilee looked toward the dugout. The crowd was coming out on the field. Friends and relatives were swarming around the victorious Purple Panther players. Hannah’s family was there, her father and two older brothers, grinning and laughing together. Mr. Taylor was speaking with his daughter, rubbing her shoulder, looking very pleased.
Coach Wilson stood alone in the dugout, smiling also, with her hands in her pockets. She had the hottest team in the Lake Forbing Little League with three straight wins, but Emilee Davis saw the troubled look in the tall woman’s pale blue eyes.
When Hannah finally broke away from her family and came to the dugout to pick up her glove coach called to her. Emilee was standing close enough to hear the conversation.
The Purple Panther coach scratched her chin, looked across the field, and said slowly, “Did you see my signal Hannah, the signal to bunt?”
Hannah was
unabashed. “Sure,” she replied glibly. “But the ball was right over the plate. I thought I could drive it right up the middle and I did.”
“You didn’t miss the signal, then?” Coach asked softly.
“No, I didn’t,” Hannah said stiffly. “But the homer won the game, didn’t it?”
Coach Wilson nodded. “We play the Pink Sox on Thursday night, Hannah. Do not wear your uniform to that game.”
Hannah’s green eyes bulged. “What?” she sputtered.
“You’re suspended for one game,” coach told her calmly, “for disobeying a signal.”
She walked away leaving Hannah staring after her, open-mouthed.
“I hit a homer,” Hannah sputtered, looking at Emilee. “I won the game!”
Emilee did not say anything.
“What a lousy coach,” Hannah squealed. “What a lousy, rotten coach!”
“Everybody has to obey the signals,” Emilee tried to tell her. “Coach is working for the good of the team.”
“I’ll quit the team,” Hannah snarled. “I won’t play anymore or I’ll play for another team. That’s what I’ll do.”
“You can’t do that,” Emilee said. “You can if coach decides to trade you.”
“Then she’d better trade me,” Hannah snapped, so angry there were tears in her eyes. “I hit a home run. I won the game!”
She could not get over that. She kept repeating it every time she spoke to one of the other players about the suspension, but Thursday evening when the Purple Panthers took the field against Melissa Williams’ Pink Sox, Hannah Miller sat in the stands with one of her brothers, watching grimly. She was not in uniform and Maria Rodriguez was in right field taking her place.
Some of the Purple Panther players did not like it very much, either. Madison Moore said tersely,
“What’s the matter with coach, anyway? Hannah’s our best hitter and she won the game against the Diamond Divas.”
“That’s not the point,” Emilee tried to tell her. “Suppose everybody on the club didn’t obey the signals? We’d have complete chaos on the field and suppose Hannah hadn’t hit a home run and we’d lost that Diamond Diva game?”
“But, she did hit a home run,” Madison Moore said. “That’s what counts. Maybe coach shouldn’t have given her the bunt signal to begin with.”
Emilee shook her head in exasperation. “We can’t look at it that way, Madison. You cannot have nine players on the field doing whatever they want, whenever they want. That would be total chaos.”
“I would like to see a coach like Melissa Williams handling this team,” Moore told her.
Emilee’s lip tightened. “All right,” she snapped. “The Pink Sox are in last place and we’re in first. What does that look like?”
“It looks to me,” Madison told her evenly, “that we’re just good, regardless of who is coaching us.”
Emilee looked at her hopelessly. In addition to all the other troubles they were having, the Purple Panthers were now letting their egos get in the way. Their heads were swelling!
She noticed that Sarah and Madison still did not talk to one another at all. Since the fight at the water cooler, each played as if the other did not exist. There was also a definite tension existing between Madison and Isabella. That, Emilee realized, might some day break out into a real nasty mess.
Destiny Johnson was on the pitching rubber for the Purple Panthers when they took the field against the Pink Sox. Sarah Anderson, leading off for the Purple Panthers, promptly slapped a single into left field on the first pitched ball and Emilee could see that Coach’s time spent with the little shortstop was paying off. Sarah was coming around quickly.
Coach Wilson flashed the bunt signal from the dugout steps, touching her left hip as she went through a series of touching different locations on her body. Emilee acknowledged her and then bunted the second pitch down the third base line, nearly beating the throw to first.
Jasmine Brown flied out to right field. Then Isabella, hitting in Hannah’s clean-up spot, slammed a hard single to center field. Sarah scored on a nice slide, beating the throw to the plate and the crowed yelled.
Again, Emilee saw Isabella’ father in the stands, this time seated with two of his friends. The three of them grinned broadly when they realized that the cheers were for Isabella.
Then Madison scored Isabella with a long double to right-center field, bringing in the second Purple Panther run and Hannah, sitting in the bleacher seats, looked a little forlorn, realizing that the Purple Panthers could play and win without her.
The Purple Panthers scored three runs in the first inning, getting off to a nice lead. Destiny Johnson pitched good fastpitch softball for four innings, allowing three hits and one run. In the fifth inning, however, the roof fell in on Destiny and the Pink Sox kicked her around for four runs.
Coach had Samantha Smith warmed up in the bullpen and was able to relieve Destiny to stop the slaughter. Samantha got them out of the inning with no more pain, but there was plenty of damage. It was 5 to 3 for the Pink Sox now and the Purple Panther dugout was very quiet. The Pink Sox pitcher, after her bad start, had settled down and was moving along steadily.
Emilee nicked her for a sharp signal in the fifth inning, but could not get beyond second base. In the last inning, while it was still 5 to 3 for the Pink Sox, the grumbling started on the Purple Panther bench.
Madison Moore said, “We’d be ahead if Hannah was in the line-up.”
Emilee realized the sense in her statement because Maria Rodriguez, who was filling in for Hannah, had no hits in three at bats, failing twice with runners in scoring position.
Coach Wilson was out talking with Hernandez before Sofia went up to bat at the start of the sixth and last inning.
Emilee said, “We’re not whipped, yet. We pulled the Diamond Diva game out of the bag in the last inning and we will do the same with this one too.”
“With Hannah in the lineup,” Moore commented.
Isabella Lopez said from the other end of the bench, “How many coaches do we have on this team anyway?”
The redhead stood up and looked down at her. It was the first time Isabella had addressed her since the trouble at the park field. Moore said slowly, distinctly,
“Somebody ask you, Lopez?”
“I’m telling you,” Isabella snapped, “Hannah got in trouble because she wanted to do her own thing. She got lucky and hit a home run. It was her own fault she disobeyed coach by not bunting. This team is not about what Hannah wants.”
Emilee felt elated that someone besides herself was now supporting Coach Wilson, but the elation was short lived because she realized how close Moore and Lopez were to getting sassy.
Coach Wilson came back and neither player said another word on the subject, but something was purring and this purring could erupt into a vicious roar at anytime.
Sofia Hernandez dropped down a beautiful bunt and beat it out for a hit, giving the Purple Panthers a life in the last inning. It brought up the weak hitting Maria Rodriguez. Coach Wilson called time to substitute Madelyn in to pinch hit. With no bunt signal, Madelyn was clearly hitting away.
When Madison Moore saw that, Emilee heard her say tersely,
“She lets this girl hit away, but poor Hannah had to bunt. Why is that, because Taylor’s rich?”
“That’s silly,” Emilee scowled. “We need two runs tonight. Against the Diamond Divas we only needed one.”
Madelyn hit into a double play and then Sarah flied out to right field. The game was over and the Purple Panthers, for the very first time, felt what it was like to lose a Little League Softball game.
They walked off the field glumly with the cheers this time for the Pink Sox, who had played good softball and deserved the win.
Emilee walked with Madison Moore and Destiny Johnson, who was upset because the Pink Sox had knocked her out of the pitching circle. Up ahead of her she saw Isabella walking with Jasmine Brown and they were discussing the game.
Hannah
had come over to join the team after the last out and she was walking with Madison Moore. From the expression on Hannah’s face, Emilee could see she was selfishly pleased that the Purple Panthers had been unable to win without her. Emilee heard her say smugly to Moore as the two players walked by,
“What did you expect? You can’t win games with a coach like that.”
Isabella overheard the remark, also, and she turned around, her mouth hard. She said grimly, “You still crabbing, Hannah, because you were told to bunt and didn’t?”
“Never mind,” Hannah snapped.
“Maybe,” Madison Moore said, “she has a right to crab. Maybe you would too, Lopez, if you had to sit on the bench.”
“It was her own fault,” Isabella snapped. “If we lost the game tonight because she wasn’t playing, that was her fault too.”
“No, it was Coach’s fault,” Hannah told her with a raised voice. “Don’t you think I wanted to play ball?”
“Don’t listen to her, Hannah,” Madison Moore advised. “She’s a dumb…”
The redhead never finished the sentence. Isabella leaped at her, throwing both hands and Moore fought back with relish. They were swinging and slapping at each other, grunting, with Emilee trying to get in between them when Coach Wilson walked up.
The tall coach stepped in between them and pulled them off each other. She was not smiling now and Emilee noticed that her mouth was tight. Coach said quietly,
“That’s the last fight on this club, girls. The next time I catch anyone fighting, she will be suspended for five games. Remember that. Am I clear?”
The other Purple Panther players stood in a small circle, looking down, looking away. Isabella was rubbing her hands. Madison’s nose was bleeding a little, but her green eyes were hard and cold.
They were outside the ball field and not many people had witnessed the quick exchange of blows, but a few had and had paused curiously. Coach Wilson went on slowly,
“Little League was organized to help kids your age learn about the great games of baseball and softball in an organized fashion. It is a fantastic organization and it is very important we keep it that way. It has a great reputation for good sportsmanship and clean play, with girls behaving like young women, boys behaving like young men, and all of us behaving like big leaguers. You girls didn’t look like young women, let alone, big leaguers tonight.”
They were all listening to her now and Emilee saw Madison look down at her shoes.
“Just like most teams, we’ve had our little troubles,” coach went on slowly, “but this team of ours, I really believe, is special. We can go places if we stick together. I am doing the best I can. I know I may not be the best coach in the league and that most of you girls would have rather played with Melissa Williams’ Pink Sox, but I cannot help that. All I can do is teach you what I know about this great game. Maybe Melissa knows a lot more. But, you girls will have to learn someday that when you commit to something, you have to commit completely, give it everything you’ve got and then give it some more, regardless of who you are playing or working for.” She turned away and she said gruffly over her shoulder, “You girls better go home now.”
She walked towards her old jalopy alone and then Emilee ran after her.
“Coach,” Emilee called. “Coach!”
Coach Wilson turned around as she was opening the door of her car. “What’s the matter, kid?” she asked.
“I’ll play ball for you,” Emilee choked, “and uh, and I’m glad I’m playing for you rather than Melissa Williams.”
Coach Wilson looked down at her and then she looked away. It was getting dark now outside the ball field and Emilee could not see her face clearly.
“Emilee, I only got as high as what you might call a semi-pro ballclub. I was a catcher and I wish I could have gotten up to the big leagues like Melissa and starred in it, but it did not work out that way for me. I do not know why, maybe I just did not have it. I gave it everything I had, but it was not good enough. That is how it worked out for me, but I still love this game, Emilee. I would love to manage a club, a big club in organized softball, but if this is the best I can do, kid, then so be it. I am not going to regret it. However, I will promise you one thing. I will work just as hard with this Little League club as I would if I were managing a pro league club. You can count on it, Emilee.”
“I know,” Emilee nodded. “I know you will, coach.”
Coach Wilson put a hand on her shoulder. She said softly, “Glad I got one little buddy on this club. Thanks a lot, Emilee. Maybe we will lick ‘em anyway. They might try to keep one good woman down, but they can not ever keep two of us down.”
“That’s right,” Emilee grinned. She was feeling better, already, even though she knew the Purple Panthers were troubled and a team in that condition seldom got anywhere.
TOO MUCH FUN
