183 Game One: Sunset Preparatory 5 (1/2)

I was stunned. I felt sad, confused, and disappointed all in one. I slowly made my way back to the dugout, where my teammates faces were reflecting my own emotions. I passed Noah, who was in the on deck circle, and he handed me my bat on my way in. No words were exchanged. I sighed and took my stuff to my bag.

I put my helmet away and examine my bat to see if there was something else I missed. Maybe I had a dent?

”It's not your bat.” Zeke came up to me, holding his own bat. ”You were distracted. Easily. Then you were fooled by the low pitches you saw.” Zeke tilted his head at the field. ”If you paid more attention to the other at bats, you would have noticed something. Something like how half of his outs came from fly balls. A fly ball pitcher. Not uncommon at the high school level.” Zeke gave me a pat on the head. ”There's no such thing as a perfect batting average. Why are you upset over it?”

I put my hat on to hide my embarrassment. ”I could have done better.”

”That's a good trait to have as a ball player.” Zeke said, fully turning to the field. ”But just know, there's never been a player who had a perfect batting average. At any level. Getting out is just part of the game. The most important aspect is the final result. I rather go 0 for 4 at the plate and win instead of going 4 for 4 with a loss. It's about perspective.”

Mahki smacked a hard grounder towards first. The first baseman dove, stopping the ball in its tracks. The pitcher came over to cover the base and the first baseman tossed him the ball. Just barely beating out Mahki. Out number two. Noah walked up to the plate and Zeke left me so he could go to the on deck circle.

Noah didn't do any better than us, and ended up grounding out to the shortstop to end the inning. He came back in and we exchanged sighs. What a rough inning. Noah switched out his gear and we took the field together.

Garret stood on the mound with the poise of a great pitcher. He shut Sunset Prep down, three up, three down. A groundout to Noah, a fly out to Sean in right field, and then a swinging strikeout. It's hard to imagine that I was even worried for a second in the first inning. Garret bounced back fast...I should take note and do the same.

As Noah and I sat down by our bags, we both let out sighs; this time they were sighs of relief and not of depression.

Top of the fourth would get to start with Zeke, Garret, and Jordan. I started to hope for some action on their behalf, wanting to score more runs.

”Hey, Noah?” I asked, thinking of something he had said before.

”Hmm?” His eyes remained on Zeke, who was stepping up to bat.

”You know how you were saying that you have to speak to the universe? What does that mean exactly?”

”It's relative to the law of cause and effect. For every cause, there's an effect. And vice versa. For every action, there's a reaction. Law of laws: you get back what you put out. You put out negative, you'll get negative back. Put out positive, and positive will be returned. It's very philosophical.” Noah spoke, never taking his eyes off Zeke.

I nodded even though I hardly followed. I believe in concrete numbers and equations like in math, where there is always an answer. In math, nothing is based on feeling or emotion, it's just right or wrong. No gray. Philosophy doesn't seem to be up my alley at all, and I hope I won't have to take such an abstract class like it.

But...Something bugged me about what he said. ”Well, what if...both teams are putting positive vibes in the 'universe' like we will win?” I scratched my nose. ”Who does the universe answer first?”

Noah was about to reply, but the ding of the bat cut him off. Zeke hit a laser line drive a few feet away from the shortstop. Amazingly, the shortstop jumped as high and far as he could, totally outstretched, and snatched Zeke's would be hit. Instead, it was Zeke's first out of the season. The crowd went wild with claps, cheers, and ”oohs” and ”ahhs”.