I’m not even going to attempt to time this one, but I started it at 8:32am.
With baseball season around the corner, I had a memory jarred loose from one of the craziest high school baseball games I was involved in. It was against a heated rival. We beat them 51-8 that year in football when they were ranked 4th in the state and unbeaten, the basketball team split with them and shared a conference championship while having two bench and stands clearing brawls in the same game (those were fun and will be shared at some point), they were really fun.
This team was in our conference, so in sports other than football, you generally played them twice. Once at your place, once at their place. They had about 3-4 decent athletes, that were the cornerstones of each those 3 sports.
The best player was the mouthiest. He played wide receiver in football, shooting guard in basketball and played shortstop in baseball, but boy did he have a mouth. We did too, so that made it fun.
In football he took a beating. He physically took a beating. In basketball he was the main reason that the first fight got started (he took a beating there too) in baseball again, he took a beating.
On the road at their dump of a baseball field that had an awkward crown in the outfield (shared facility/field baseball/football), it made easy fly balls interesting as you were running up or down the slope at an odd angle based on how it all fit together. Our school also shared space the same way back then, but our crown wasn’t as pronounced. Theirs had an arc to it. Ours was barely in existence thanks to some floods.
We were on the road so we got to hit first. Our pitcher, our best player hit 3rd and took one in the thigh. It was expected, he caused some of the trouble from our side during basketball game, so again it was expected. There was so many confrontations with this school and a few others, that the state was close to considering putting the boys athletic program on probation. It got to the point that if there was another altercation in baseball, that our season was over. Thankfully that never happened.
Well, he gets hit in the thigh, we score 7 or 8 runs in the first inning, and they come up to bat. He hits the guy in the leg, take first base. Batter #2, runs the count 0-2, then plunks him in the side. Batter #3 is the mouthy shortstop and he didn’t stand a chance. The first pitch was high and tight and as he’s ducking the ball hits the bat, foul ball. He worked the count some, got it full, then hit him in the shoulder. Bases loaded, no outs and all 3 base runners have been hit by the pitch. Clean up hitter. Strike 3. #5, strike 3. #6, strike 3, end of the inning. 7 or 8 to nothing, we come to bat again.
We score 4-5 runs without any incident. They come to bat. #7, strike 3. Now I’ll be clear these weren’t 3 straight pitches and the batter is out. Sometimes a guy would foul some pitches off, but in the end, strike 3. #8, strike 3. The 9th batter comes to the plate and our 3rd base comes in on the grass a bit like he was expecting a bunt (which makes zero sense with 2 outs), Fastball (mid 80’s). Strike 1. Curve (sloppy swing), strike 2. Our third baseman sits down on the infield dirt(they didn’t have a grass infield). Our pitcher laughs when he sees it. Our coach is yelling at him to get up. Calls time. Chews him out on the mound until the umpire breaks up the talk. Play ball. The pitcher is on the rubber and starts his windup and as he does the 3rd baseman drops to the ground again. Strike 3, end of the inning.
It pissed our coach off so much that he took him out of the game on the spot. Every so often looking over at him, shaking his head, half smiling while switching between “Jesus flipping Christ” and “gemini crickets”, he tried not to cuss much, and “flipping” used earlier was actually flipping, but when we were on the mound during that time out, he blistered our 3rd baseman.
I won’t continue the play by play, but I will say that the game lasted five innings (shortened by the 10-run mercy rule). We beat them 17-0. The shortstop got hit by the pitch each of the three times he came to the plate and our pitcher walked 2 batters in the 5th inning just so that he could hit him again. He ended up with a pitching line of 5 innings, 5 hit batters, 2 walks, and 15 strike outs. No Hits, no runs no errors. A pretty crazy no-hitter.
We had a classmate that didn’t play baseball, but came to all of our games, might as well been on the team but didn’t play that year. He was our traveling heckler. He’d talk so much trash to the opponents, umpires, whoever. His favorite line when the best pitcher was pitching. “Next! Just like a barber shop, Next!”, he got threatened with a bat on more than one occasion and he’d simply say “get back in the batter’s box and strike out”, more times than not they would. He was already in their head.
So that might be the craziest baseball game I was ever involved in.
Maybe one day I’ll share my shortest experience in a baseball game.
“Next, just like a barber shop, Next!!!”
9am… nearly 1000 words. That works.
