"My First PT At An Away Game:Field Goal"

So I ended up getting some playing time last year, by the grace of god. I got a few innings at home, and then we headed to play a weekend at TCU. I should have known this was going to be a messed up road trip, because our planes were all kinds of delayed. Nothing went smoothly at the airports or on the playing field.

So the game was dragging on very slowly. We were not playing well at all, and the umpires were really screwing us over. Nothing was going our way. I just had a pretty bad feeling about this road trip the whole time we were there. Earlier in the game, EB had almost gotten thrown out of the game for starting a fight with the other team's third baseman. Anyway.

So I'm chilling in the dugout trying to pay attention to the game. I'm sure I'm shooting the shit with one of my boys and then all of a sudden I hear the umpire yell, "Your out of here!" I looked up, and our starting catcher has the "what the hell did I say" look on his face. Our starting catcher had just gotten tossed from the game. Supposedly he told the umpire that he was squeezing the hell out of our pitcher, among other things.

Then I heard it: "Rut your in!" I'm thinking oh shit I don't even know where my gear is. After scrambling around the dugout like a chicken with my head cut off, I run out on the field to start playing. My arm was so tight because I hadn't thrown a ball all game. After a few throws to warm up, the games began.

This is all I could hear from the crowd: "Get your fat ass back to the bullpen!" ;"You suck! You are the backup!"; I'm pretty sure I heard a "How does your ass feel from sitting on the bench for so long?" Either way, I was in the game and I was pretty pumped about it. Once I quit thinking about the tounge lashing I was recieving, I settled in behind the plate. I was feeling good. I don't even remember who was pitching, but we were in the zone(I was reminded yesterday that it was Roger.Roger and I were in the zone). Then we got a guy to groundout. 1 out. Then we struck a guy out. What do you do when you strike a batter out with no one on base? You throw the ball around the infield, and make it look as crisp as possible. What do I do?

Instead of throwing the ball to the third baseman, I come up throwing as hard as I can and I launch the ball in to left center field. You would have thought someone put a ball on a tee and tried to rip a double into the left center gap. I completely overthrew the third baseman, and made a fool out of myself. Most people would have felt pretty embarrased. There was no way I could feel embarrased when I looked in our dugout and Coach F. was holding up his arms yelling, " The field goal is good!" I could only laugh. This got the opposing crowd all fired up again and I proceeded to get dog cussed out about how badly I sucked. It was great.

Then I came up to bat. This was maybe my 5th at bat ever. Coach gives me the take sign. So there goes a fastball off the outside corner, for a ball. The count is 1-0. He doesn't give me a sign and I step back in the box. Little did I know, I was supposed to take again. What did I do? I hit a dribbler to the third baseman and got thrown out by 30 feet. My fat ass wasn't even half way to first base before the umpire was calling me out. I ran all the way through the bag to try and preserve some of my dignity. I didn't realize I was supposed to take the pitch until after the game. I guess the coaches figured it wasn't even worth telling me during the game. I already had to deal with getting cussed out the entire time I was catching.

Well it was the worst road trip I ever went on. We got beat by a team that we never should have lost to, and I recieved the worst verbal abuse of my life.Somehow that made me a better baseball player(obviously not or I wouldn't be writing this story right now. I would be in the Cape dropping bombs). Not only did they beat our ass at their place, but they came to our place this year and beat us again.

So damn you TCU. (BTW "Cotton" that fell in love with the stripper plays at TCU).

P.S. I am waiting to write the "It's Ferg" story until tomorrow because I just got back from a really good dinner with even better wine, and the hot tob at this place sounds a lot better than sitting in front of this computer. See you tomorrow.