The Opening Chase

by Cap Daniels

  THE OPENING CHASE

  CHASE FULTON NOVEL #1

  CAP DANIELS

  ** USA **

  The Opening Chase, Chase Fulton Novel #1

  Copyright © 2018 Cap Daniels

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, historical events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or have been use fictitiously. Although many locations such as marinas, airports, hotels, restaurants, and buildings used in this work actually exist, they are used fictitiously and may have been relocated, exaggerated, or otherwise modified by creative license for the purpose of this work. Although many characters are based on character traits, physical attributes, skills, or intellect of actual individuals, all of the characters in this work are fictitious.

  13 Digit ISBN: 978-1-7323024-1-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942866

  Cover Design: German Creative

  Printed in the United States of America

  ** USA **

  This book is dedicated to . . .

  My lovely wife, Melissa,

  without whose patience, support, tolerance of my writing addiction, and her writer’s block resolution program, this book would have never been possible.

  Special thanks to . . .

  My Amazing Editor:

  Sarah Flores, Write Down the Line, LLC

  www.WriteDowntheLine.com

  She is not only a talented editor, but also a wonderfully inspirational teacher, without whose touch my story would have been unreadable.

  Medical Editor:

  Judson Moore, MD, orthopedic surgeon extraordinaire

  Inspiration:

  Everyone who crossed my path in my five decades on Earth and provided the inspiration for countless characters who have been set free on the pages of this and other works of fiction.

  1

  MVP

  I’ll never forget that day. It was damned hot. Especially underneath ten pounds of catcher’s gear designed to protect me from any ninety-mile-per-hour fastball that found its way past my mitt. I wasn’t particularly afraid of that happening since I’d been catching for almost a decade and I rarely let anything get past my mitt. My somewhat obstructed view through my sweaty, filthy face mask revealed runners on second and third, with a beast of a man digging into the batter’s box in front of my right knee. I couldn’t see the scoreboard through the sweat cascading into my eyes, but I didn’t need to see it to know that we were winning four to three with one out in the bottom of the ninth. If I could keep Bryan Payne from falling apart on the mound sixty feet and six inches away from me for a few more pitches, we would win the 1996 College World Series and solidify our place in collegiate baseball history.

  All I could think about was coming up with some plan to keep Goliath from crushing a hanging curveball into the parking lot and sending us back home as the second-place finishers . . . the runners up . . . the first losers. I reached back with my right hand, patted the umpire’s foot, and demanded, “Time!”

  I sprung from my crouch, trotted toward the mound, and pulled off my mask. I didn’t have anything meaningful to tell Bryan. I just wanted a reason to stand up, wipe the sweat and tobacco juice from my face, and let the puddles of sweat drain from behind my knees.

  My God, it’s hot.

  I patted Bryan’s hip before leaning in and whispering something about how every cheerleader on Earth would be lining up at his door if he struck out just two more batters.

  “Let’s have a little fun with Mongo up there at the plate,” I said. “Let’s see if we can get him to dance a little.” I patted Bryan on the hip once more and trotted back to my battle station.

  Goliath dug in again, kicking red clay and sand into the air behind him as his cleats sank into the box, and I called for a slider down and in—way down and way in. I knew it was a dangerous call. If it got past me, the runner from third would score easily and the game would be tied. If it actually hit Goliath, it would load the bases, but playing it safe is not what winners do. Bryan licked his lips and nodded, accepting the pitch I had called, as I crept toward the enormous left-handed batter.

  “How are those knees, Mongo? Man, this is really going to hurt.”

  The batter looked down at the top of my helmet as I edged ever closer to his feet. I saw him first lift one foot, then the other, softening his stance in fear of Bryan bouncing five and a quarter ounces of cork, wool yarn, and cowhide off his twenty-year-old right knee at ninety miles per hour. I loved the ability to strike fear into the hearts and minds of batters with simple, not-so-subtle wordplay.

  Psychological warfare is what Dr. Richter had called it. He was the most brilliantly deceptive and masterfully manipulative person I had ever met, but most of all, he was the best psych professor in the world.

  I had just talked a supremely confident homerun hitter into losing his nerve. Instead of thinking about crushing a fastball over the right field wall, he was now planning an escape route to protect his precious knees. Dr. Richter would be proud.

  Bryan made the face he made right before he threw hard. Every collegiate batter in the country knew that face, and most of them feared it. Goliath was no exception. The ball left Bryan’s hand in a blur and began rotating and picking up speed. It started to dive, and dive it did, right at Goliath’s feet. I drove my right knee into the ground behind his heels and forced my glove into the dirt, bracing for the impact of ball, glove, dirt, knees, and sweat. A cloud of sandy dust exploded as the brilliantly white ball powered into the dirt, squirming and twisting as it went. I felt the ball find its home in the webbing of my well-worn mitt, and my eyes darted down the third base line to see the runner coming in hard.

  Goliath had swung mightily in a descending arc of swatting and clumsy self-defense, and found himself stumbling backward out of the batter’s box as the cloud of dust continued to grow between my knees. With the ball still wrapped tightly in my mitt, I leapt from my crouch and spun to the right, pretending to be looking for the ball that everyone on the field believed had escaped between my feet. The umpire galloped backward, determined not to interfere with my effort to recover the ball that was loose and still alive. My charade was working perfectly. Bryan broke into a sprint toward the third base line. The determined runner from third kept coming in hard. He was, quite literally, playing right into my hand. It was time to stop the charade and play some full contact baseball. The left fielder began sprinting toward third to back up the throw I would inevitably make if I survived the collision with the runner at home.

  The runner thundering toward me from third, and his teammate plowing from second behind him, were just temporary obstacles. In my mind, I was already drinking beer in the clubhouse and watching Bryan do the ESPN interview.

  I turned and powered back toward home plate with reckless abandon and ultimate determination in my eyes. At that moment, everyone in the park, from the umpire to the hot dog boy, and especially the runner from third, realized that I’d never lost the ball. It had been firmly embedded in my glove from a millisecond after it crashed into the dirt at Goliath’s feet.

  I watched the runner make his decision to run through me and tie the game. I had other plans. I was wearing ten pounds of armor and two hundred pounds of determination to not lose the inevitable train wreck. I’d never been afraid of a base runner, and this guy was no exception. When the dust settled, I’d still be holding the ball and the runner would be lying in the dirt, trying to catch the breath I’d knoc
ked from his lungs.

  I watched home plate disappear between my feet and felt my cleats dig into the same dirt Goliath had kicked up a few seconds before. I bent my knees, lowered my shoulder, and waited for the impact. I didn’t have to wait long. I secretly hoped the runner wouldn’t disappoint me by chickening out and deciding to slide. I wanted to feel his shoulder hit my chest pad and hear the sounds he made when I didn’t surrender. He did not disappoint me. He didn’t slow down, and he definitely didn’t slide. I felt my teeth rattle, and the explosive collision sent stars circling my head. Fortunately, I had exhaled as he hit me, so my lungs were relatively empty, but his were not. He had been chugging down the third base line, sucking in air as fast as his lungs could take it, and fortunately for me, he had just filled his lungs the instant his shoulder plowed into my chest.

  I knocked the wind from his lungs and the ambition from his eyes. I won’t lie—it hurt like hell. But I won, and more importantly, I didn’t get tangled up with the runner after the collision. I shook the stars from my eyes, leapt to my feet, and turned to position myself for the throw to third. Throwing with all of my might should've placed the ball in the third baseman’s glove less than a second after leaving my right hand, but that’s not what happened.

  Instead of the ball rifling into his glove as it should have, it corkscrewed through the air like a broken Frisbee. Terrified, I watched the ball sail across the third baseman’s head and into the grass. The disbelieving runner watched the ball flutter into the outfield, and he rounded the bag, heading straight for me.

  The world moved in ultra-slow motion as I watched the play that should’ve already ended, continue to build. I couldn’t understand why I’d made such a terrible throw. I glanced down at my right hand, only to find a twisted nest of misshapen fingers pointing in every direction but where they should’ve been. As I glanced up to see the runner picking up speed with victory in his eyes, the left fielder twisted his lanky body into a throwing arc that launched the white baseball—one hemisphere still covered in red clay—that soared past the runner’s head and toward my chest.

  I glanced back at my badly broken hand and noticed that my fingers weren’t the only problem. My wrist was already bulging as if the bones were trying to force their way through the flesh. I looked back up to see the ball screaming through the air while the runner accelerated as he careened toward me for the second collision in one play. Not looking forward to the coming crash, I tucked what was left of my right hand behind my back and reached out with my mitt to catch the muddy missile that was now less than a tenth of a second away. The ball and the runner arrived simultaneously. This time, I wasn’t quite as prepared for the impact. I hadn’t exhaled. I hadn’t planted my feet. I hadn’t tucked my chin, and I hadn’t lowered my shoulders. In fact, I hadn’t done anything right. Worst of all, I was standing on my heels. I remember the sound of the runner’s feet hitting the ground and the feeling of my lips exploding against my teeth as his shoulder met my face. I remember the sound of the back of my head hitting the ground and the agonizing feeling of my breath leaving my body in an explosive evacuation. Then the lights went out.

  When I came to, I wasn’t on earth. I was several feet above the earth in Bryan Payne’s arms, being hoisted higher and higher by every infielder on the team. Every player, coach, and manager whose uniform resembled mine came pouring out of the dugout with fists raised and shouts of victory bellowing from their lips. Although I had no memory of it happening, we had apparently won.

  As fate or luck would have it, I still had the ball in my mitt after the collision. Both runners were out. Goliath was confused and the umpires were leaving the field. We had just won the College World Series and I was the MVP. In less than six months during the following winter, I would be twenty-two and a professional baseball player. I was going to be a Major League catcher. I had solidified my place in collegiate sports history. I’d never been so happy until I looked down and once again saw what was left of my right hand dangling helplessly at the end of my arm. My adrenaline-charged, euphoric high that had kept the pain at bay faded in an instant. I yelled in agony, but the team kept lifting and tossing me about, drowning out my cries for help. Knowing I was badly injured, and with no way to express my dire need for help, I chose to tuck my destroyed hand behind my chest pad and hold on for the ride. Sooner or later, they’d put me down. I was just praying for sooner.

  Finally, the celebration began to lose some of its energy as the reality of the victory overtook the elation of the moment. I was crying, but I was not alone. Almost every member of the team was crying. Theirs were tears of joy while mine were those of unimaginable pain. My whole body felt like it was on fire. I saw a medical trainer running toward me, his eyes filled with terror. He’d known all along what had happened during the first collision. It was his job to know. I felt his hand slide up my chest and around my neck. He laid me gently on the grass and watched my eyes roll back in my head as my mind and body succumbed to the trauma.

  When I awoke in the recovery room at the Nebraska Medical Center, I had absolutely no memory of the game, the victory, or what had happened to my hand. I was confused, afraid, and very groggy. My right arm was in a white cast that completely encased my hand and continued just above my elbow. I thought I must’ve been having some bizarre dream. None of it could be real. I was twenty-one years old and the star of the University of Georgia’s baseball team. I was going to catch for the Atlanta Braves. I shouldn’t be in a hospital with a broken arm.

  A nurse with eyes that looked like the ocean stood beside my bed with one hand on my chest and the other fiddling with an IV bag. She wore a look of pure sadness. She tried to smile at me, but her smile was hollow and incapable of masking her concern.

  In the kindest voice, she said, “Mr. Fulton, your surgery went very well. The doctors were able to repair most of the damage to your hand. You’re going to be all right. The doctor will be in to tell you all about it as soon as the anesthesia wears off. Are you thirsty?”

  What the hell is she talking about? What damage to my hand? What surgery? What’s happening to me?

  As my confusion became apparent to the young nurse, her tone softened even more. “You don’t remember the accident. Do you?”

  “No,” I said. “What accident? What’s this all about?”

  She patted my chest and leaned closer. “Mr. Fulton, you were injured in the game against Oklahoma State this afternoon. Your hand was badly broken, but the doctors were able to repair the broken bones, and they believe, most of the nerve damage. The surgeon will explain all of that to you very soon. Do you understand?”

  As my confusion continued to grow, I mumbled, “Did we win?”

  Her smile became animated and sincere. “Yes sir, you surely did.” Her Midwestern drawl was as cute as her dimples and deep blue eyes.

  I was still a little groggy when the doctor came in wearing green scrubs and carrying a clipboard in his hand.

  “Well, Mr. Fulton, it’s good to see you awake. I’m Doctor Goldman. I’m the orthopedic surgeon who led the team to perform the initial reconstruction of your hand. You suffered what is called a fracture dislocation of the wrist. You see, there are eight bones that make up the human wrist, and your accident essentially split those bones apart from the inside. You were quite fortunate it wasn’t actually an open fracture. Had that been the case, you would’ve lost a lot of blood, and that alone could’ve made the overall injury dramatically worse.” He paused, I suppose expecting me to celebrate with him, but I didn’t flinch, so he continued. “In addition to the damage to your wrist, you managed to break all of your fingers as well. Your wrist and hand are remarkably complex structures. The damage you sustained in the accident was severe to say the least. You’re quite fortunate that we were able to get you into surgery literally within minutes of the accident. We’ve saved the hand, but you’re going to require a number of additional surgeries and several months of physical therapy to regain any measure of normal use out of t
he hand. Were you right handed, Mr. Fulton?”

  My memory was returning in spontaneous flashes. Trying to piece that together with what the surgeon was saying was overwhelming. “I’m still going to be able to play ball, right, doc?”

  He furrowed his brow. “Young man, you’re lucky to still have any use of that hand at all. I’m afraid your baseball days are over. You’re going to have to focus on the rehabilitation that lies ahead. It’s important that you focus on the fact that we’ve been able to save your hand, and not worry about what you can’t do in the future.”

  He looked down at me expectantly.

  Does he expect me to thank him for telling me I’ll never play ball again? That’s not going to happen.

  “Look, doc. I’m going to be a Major League ball player. It’s just a few broken fingers. I’m young and in great shape. I’m going to be fine, right?”

  He lifted his clipboard and frowned. “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple, Mr. Fulton. We’ll be moving you up to your room in a few minutes and your family will be able to see you then. If there’s anything you need, the nursing staff will be checking on you regularly. You and I will talk again later this evening.” With that, he patted my leg and disappeared through the curtains.

  2

  The Recruit

  My mind was reeling and my thoughts were completely disorganized. I had learned everything there was to know about the Kübler-Ross model in my psychology classes. The five stages of grief were pretty simple, but they clearly didn’t apply to me.

  The doctor is wrong. My hand’s going to be fine.

  Denial. Stage one.

  Damn it! Why me? This isn’t fair! I’m too young and talented to have this happen. It’s not right!

  Ah, anger. Stage two.

  I’m going to make the sacrifices necessary to regain full use of my hand. I’ll just work harder than everyone else. I can do it. I can work harder and do everything right to use my hand and play ball again. It’s just going to take some hard work. That’s all.