Grimacing against the terrible pain in his shoulder, Ryan stood tall, on the verge of his greatest moment. Giving one last caress to the “P” on the front of his cap. Reaching back, he bent his back and delivered the grandest pitch he could deliver.
Ninety-five miles of gas exploded toward the powerful Dragon slugger.
Impossibly, Ryan’s fastball speed continued to increase, despite his severe shoulder ailment. Impossible because a pitcher suffering a rotator cuff tear, could not generally increase his speed.
Vega swung a mighty swing… but couldn’t catch up with the speed of the heat.
A swing and a miss brought a savage groan from the crowd.
Borelli gazed at the deepness of his catcher’s mitt, in contemplation. Profound reverence at what he was witnessing moved him. He held the ball shortly, as if feeling the man’s pain through the baseball’s seams, before tossing the ball back to Ryan.
I’m finished, confessed Ryan, in his heart. I’m spent.
I’ve got nothing left.
Certainty resided in his uncertainties.
The inside of his shoulder tissue ripped, detaching his torn muscle completely from the shoulder joint.
Now, on the threshold of his tremendous accomplishment, somehow all of the Panther team discerned Ryan’s shoulder give out.
Ramsey, to a greater degree than the others, comprehended the impossibility of Ryan’s herculean accomplishment. Yet, the Panther manager sat frozen in the far left corner of the dugout, absolutely still. Incredulously watching the greatness of the man who stood on the mound, who dared to face off against life’s pain and refused to be its victim, Ramsey fought to shield his eyes in shame.
I am witnessing the inconceivable.
Vega kicked at the dirt in the batter’s box. Straightening up, he gripped the bat in his right hand and mumbled something angrily under his breath. After adjusting his batting helmet, he went through his ritual, spit to the side, and earnestly stepped back into the batter’s box.
In contrast, Ryan’s heart pounded incessantly in his chest.
Two strikes. I’m two strikes away from proving to all who doubted me that they were wrong and ending this Godforsaken torment.
Borelli signaled one finger—heater in the dirt.
Ryan shook him off.
I don’t want Vega to detect the lost velocity on my fastball.
Gripping the ball in the palm of his hand, he delivered a changeup that hit the dirt on the front outside part of the plate, evening the count at 1-1.
I need to readjust Vega’s eye to a slower speed. It’s the only way he won’t notice the speed I’ve lost.
Three pitches later, the count again even at 2-2, time came to a standstill. The ghosts of Lockhart Field descended upon the image of Ryan Haddox.
The glory of baseball added to Frankfort Panther baseball lore.
At last, Ryan was one with his lifetime dreams. From childhood to manhood, all of his dreams merged at this one single moment.
Everything became a vision of his boyhood dreams. All the years of dedication and now, he stood upon a mound of apparitions.
He saw his dawn and boyhood looking up at Uncle Mitch.
“Dad? I want to be a major league pitcher when I grow up. And I want to pitch for the Frankfort Panthers.”
He heard his voice clearly.
“You will, Son,” he heard Uncle Mitch reply to him through the heaviness of death. “I always believed in you.”
Above the roar of the Dragon’s crowd, Ryan heard his uncle’s voice.
Through his agony, he believed he’d earned his place in the greatness of Panther baseball.
At that moment, without reservation he believed he would win the contest.
I gave everything… and I’m going to win.
Pitching from the windup, he unleashed a powerful throw.
Pushing back the air, the pitch moved directly to Borelli’s mitt.
Travelling nearly at the velocity of a fastball, Vega braced his stride leg anticipating contact. With equal force of will, Vega turned on the pitch, bringing the head of the bat to the ball.
Just before the point of contact, as the ball reached the fifty-eight foot mark, its trajectory severely cut downward.
Like falling off a table, the slider sank 6 inches.
A savageness that left Vega off balance. Adjusting his swing he couldn’t modify it enough to make direct contact.
Striking the ball on its top, Vega sent a bounding ball to third base.
Mike Schmidt, guarding the line, stayed down on the grounder. Fielding it cleanly, Schmidt came up deliberately and fired to first base.
Lane Hunter, at full extension, caught the ball on the web of his glove.
It was over.
Ryan Haddox had won the side-by-side contest!
The Frankfort Panthers were the Independent Mountain Conference champions!
Like an avalanche of pleasure and relief, triumph landed upon him. A great gasp of relief surged through Ryan, ending a pain-filled season. The pronounced end of a long and torturous odyssey dispensed the incredible pleasure of victory!
“I love you, Ryan,” he heard Stephanie’s voice in his heart.
Like a gladiator winning his freedom through battle, Ryan raised his arms in conquest. His knees buckled and he slumped to the earth.
“Get up, Cowboy!” Borelli’s mighty heave lifted Ryan to his feet and the Panther battery embraced at the center of the diamond, relishing in the euphoria of being champions.
The Panther bench emptied and joined the celebration at the center of the diamond where all of the Panther players were reveling in the celebration.
“I did it. I did it,” Ryan uttered in exhaustion, below the screaming of his teammates.
“You did it, Cowboy! You really did it!” Borelli’s voice thundered in the middle of the chaos.
“We did it!” emphasized Ryan.
After so long, Ryan, once again, tasted the sweetness of a great victory.
Marry me
The weight of the competition lifted, the Panther players appeared more relaxed than they’d been in the past three months. They cut loose, a prelude to the wild revelry exploding in the clubhouse.
The celebration in the clubhouse was a legitimate celebration.
Exhausted from the championship, and the side-by-side competition, the team celebrated in the manner of champions.
The numerous congratulations he received kept Ryan preoccupied and he decided to wait and call Stephanie after the merriment.
The winner of the Southern side-by-side Ryan looked at and treated as a major league pitcher.
Not until a full hour later did Ryan finally allow himself to leave the warm glow of the team reception and begin to get out of his sweaty uniform.
Under the hot shower, the hotness purged his tired body.
Refreshed, he emerged from the showers. He considered calling Stephanie, imagining her excitement and happiness.
We’ll have a lot of planning to do. We need to find lodgings and make arrangements.
The major leagues!
We finally made it!
Ryan had never been so happy in his life.
He slowly sat down in front of his locker, careful not to move his arm too quickly. The heavy throbbing in his shoulder a never-ending constant.
Now, out of the high exhilaration, a thought entered his mind. The idea didn’t scare or worry him anymore.
It sounded good to him to think such things.
I’ll ask Stephanie to marry me. God knows she’s been patient. She waited long enough.
We’ll celebrate our great future together… It’s time to plan our marriage.
Haddox concluded the money they gained from his major league call up gave them a solid basis to marry. Their long, six-year engagement could finally take the next ultimate step.
Yes, Ryan smiled within his heart, we’ll be married before next year’s spring training.
With the money from the ma
jor league contract, I’ll try to repair my arm. I’ll try to pitch again.
Stephanie! I love you! I’ll work the rest of my life to make you and little Mitch happy.
He looked up and Ramsey stood at the locker room entrance. “I didn’t see you there, Skip. How long’ve you been standing there?”
Ramsey’s faraway look possessed a heaviness. “Not long. Not long at all.”
Not convinced with the truthfulness of the manager’s answer, too euphoric to care, Ryan quickly pushed his suspicions aside. “Everything okay, Skip?” he feigned concern.
“I… We… I need to see you in my office.”
He’s going to tell me I’ll be called up to the majors.
“Sure,” Ryan responded happily, tiredly. “I’ll be right there.”
I won the fucking contest!
Putting on his street clothes Haddox imagined where Stephanie and he would go to celebrate. Glancing at his cellphone, he thought about calling her right then.
I’ll wait. After I talk to Sonny, I’ll call. It’ll be better that way.
After all the struggles of the season, his elation reflected brightly on his face. Confidently, he entered Ramsey’s office and sat down in front of the manager’s well-worn desk. The feelings running through him provided a natural high lifting the weariness from his bones.
No more “Wait until next year.” I finally made it!
Ramsey looked up when Ryan entered his office. Quietly he put down a folder he’d been going over and waited for Ryan to sit down.
“How’s the arm?”
Ryan smiled. “It’s iced. It’s all set.”
All the years of his minor league career, since he’d signed a professional contract, he’d imagined this moment. Now, at the moment’s arrival, his mind recollected all of his visualizations.
After all the pain, after everything Stephanie and I, and little Mitch went through, we’re finally going to have a better life.
“Your performance… it…” Ramsey stopped, reconsidering how to say the thoughts in his mind.
Ramsey fumbling over his words seemed unusual to Ryan. Normally, words flowed naturally out of him.
“I did it, Skip,” announced Ryan, displaying the exuberance of a boy. “I won the side-by-side.”
Ramsey weakly smiled at the pitcher. “You pitched a hell of a game, Kid.” Lowering his head, Ramsey finished, “A hell of a game.”
“What’d you wanna see me about, Sonny?” His voice sounded loud. Its echo trouncing his ears like an avalanche.
Ramsey looked at him without answering.
“Sonny?”
Having trouble looking Ryan in the eye, the manager looked away. Returning his attention to the man sitting in front of his desk, Ramsey leveled his sight on him. Ramsey’s voice cut through the air and cut through his heart like a jagged blade. “We’re going to call Dalton Young up.”
In the distance of forever, Ryan became the consistency of stone.
The wrongness of the situation froze the jubilation he’d been feeling. Energy drained out of him. Like a slow death, the entire season flashed before his mind’s eye.
From the early season, to the meeting with Ramsey and Young, to the excruciating pain—everything came back to him.
All reality became a blur to Ryan. Nothing was real.
Words held no meaning; actions quickly faded, nothing enduring but a series of shadows.
“Call up…? You’re going to…?” Incredulous, a worse pain than his rotator cuff agony entered his heart and pulverized his mind. “But I… I won… I won…” he managed to stammer.
Then, the incredible realization came to him, long before his heart accepted its truth.
More pain gripped him—far worse pain than the pain he’d felt pitching through his rotator cuff injury. Worse than when he’d felt the tear growing larger in his supraspinatus tendon.
All is out of my hands.
Powerlessness became misperception. Confusion gave way to dreadful sadness. His emotions crushed him. His greatest fears defenseless against their ferocious assault. As darkness encircled him, a terrible hopelessness gripped him.
Everything I worked so hard for. Gone.
Out of the pit of his guts, a tremendous wave of anger resurrected him. His nostrils flared and his eyes stabbed at the coach. “You sons-of-bitches.”
His words bristled with rage.
Ramsey, caught off guard, raised his vision to encounter Ryan’s fury.
“I won, Sonny. I’m the better man! And… and… you’re still going to call up someone else… besides me?”
Ramsey looked away again.
His silence further infuriated Ryan. “You’re going to call up the man I beat?”
The manager remained silent.
“I deserve an answer, Skip!”
“Ryan, we feel Dalton gives us the best chance to compete at the major league level. We’re a baseball organization… and this is… just business. Please try to understand.”
“Understand, Sonny? Six fuck’n years… Every day I waited, I understand too well.” He shook his head furiously. “The call never came… until today. Today I made my own way. Other players called up got their shot while this organization left me behind. Left me here in the minor leagues… to rot!”
Ryan turned away briefly, fighting to gain his composure. He recognized arguing was futile, yet he refused to remain silent.
“This year… things were different,” he reasoned, imploringly. “Your competition… finally I had my chance to make my own way. I believed… I didn’t need to wait… that my time had come and it was… my turn.”
Through the walls, the sounds of the players still celebrating their victory over the Dragons entered the office.
“What was this, Sonny, just a fucking lie? You said the winner of the competition would be the one called up. I won the fucking contest! Why can’t the Panthers trust in me? I’ve trusted in them!”
Ramsey held up his hands, in defense. “Ryan, I realize you’re angry. But—”
“I’m more than fuckin’ angry!” Ryan lashed out.
Ramsey sat at his desk, cold and unresponsive.
There wasn’t anything he could say.
He hated himself, and blamed himself, for Ryan Haddox’s suffering.
“Sonny,” Ryan stammered, fighting to find the words in the emptiness of his heart. “You and Leon put this thing together and threw me in it.” Unable to control his heartache, he pressed a finger to his chest. “I took it. My family took it. This is the business I’m in—I accepted it.” He thrust his chest further out. “But I… I won this fucking thing. I came out the better man.” Squinting his eyes, Ryan shook his head violently. “I won. I came out ahead, and now you sit there and tell me I… that I didn’t win.” His head came to a slow movement. “You… can’t…”
I’ve lost everything. My career…
Wallowing in self-pity, Ryan’s thoughts of failure burned him through, leaving him a cinder upon the ashes of a perceived lost future. Overcome by his perceptions, he fell into a progressively deeper pit.
I can’t get married. I can’t even take care of myself. How can I take care of a wife, or a newborn child?
“You can’t… do this… to me… My family…” Ryan said, unsure how to say what he believed he needed to say.
Anguish caught in the throat of the disheartened pitcher. Spent, inner turmoil tore him apart. Ryan lowered his head, searching for answers.
Ramsey, sat in silence, his eyes glued to the side of his chair.
Ryan’s eyes shifted here and there, and suddenly he comprehended everything. Awareness left him sick. “You didn’t expect me to…” The words died in his throat.
Ramsey sat at his desk unwilling—unable—to tell him the complete, awful truth.
“This whole idea you and Leon Hounsfield drew up… you didn’t—neither of you—believed that I’d win. You thought I’d lose. It would justify you calling up Young and leaving me here… to wait another
year… and rot in the bush leagues. All would go on… You never intended to call me up to the big leagues. Did you?”
Ramsey didn’t answer.
“Did you!”
His voice reverberated against the walls of the small office and bounced back against the man sitting at the desk. The sharpness of Ryan’s conviction seemed to strike the manager.
Ramsey sat, a man defeated by the passionate truth of a wrongly wounded man who’d given all and had nothing left to lose.
“It backfired on you, didn’t it?”
Ramsey slowly straightened in his chair. His entire career he’d been able to communicate on a one to one basis, honesty being his primary strength. The direct accusation of deceit and pretense coming from a player who he admired and respected left him feeling nauseous.
“Players are supposed to be able to trust you, Sonny,” he’d been told by the team’s brass of the day. “We’d like to see you use your abilities to develop our organization’s future players in the most positive of ways.”
Looking back on their comments, it seemed like a line of bullshit. “Backfired?” he started, in his best managerial voice, “Ryan, what do you mean?”
Ryan shook his head. “All of this. Every damn bit of it. You and Hounsfield never expected me to win the competition did you? You never intended to call me up?”
Ramsey didn’t answer.
Frustrated by the man’s reticence, Ryan pleaded with him. “How could you do this to me, Sonny? I trusted you. My family… My son… I never would’ve believed…”
Ryan got up from the old wood chair.
“Ryan?” Ramsey called out.
The young pitcher didn’t respond, continuing for the door.
“Ryan?”
Closing the door behind him, Ryan stood there, unable to take a breath or gather his thoughts, unable to bring any semblance of coherency to the situation.
I did it, he wondered in his heart. I should be calling Stephanie to pack. We should be planning living arrangements in Frankfort.
Instead…
All the suffering. All the… fucking pain.
All for nothing.
He was a grown man but he couldn’t prevent the tears. Welling up, his moans drowned his sobs.
Paint Black Page 19