The New Ball

The New Ball-


It was the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded,two outs and two strikes when Dusty Johnson stepped up to the plate.How freakin' cliche, he thought to himself. It had been an epic series, his team almost having been knocked out on more than one occasion, but now here they were, standing alone against the only other team left to oppose them and down by two runs. Everything depended on Dusty.

Gripping the bat tightly in his sweaty and mildly shaking hands, he hunkered over the plate and stared down the pitcher with a determined glare. The pitcher on the mound locked eyes with him for a moment, then abruptly looked down. At least I'm not the only nervous one Dusty thought.

Then the pitcher straightened up and let fly with an impossibly fast pitch. Dusty barely had time to register before the ball shot past him... a little on the inside.

"Ball!", bellowed the umpire as the catcher tossed the ball back to the mound.

Dusty gripped his bat even tighter and when the pitcher let loose with his next pitch, Dusty hit it perfectly and the ball sailed high into the stands.

At first he didn't comprehend what had happened, then all at once the understanding overwhelmed him in a bubbly euphoria. Behind him his team-mates were cheering ecstatically, before him the crowd was displaying their approval with a unanimous roar, and in the field, the opposing team was already beginning to show the signs of ultimate despair. As Dusty half-jogged around the bases, he almost felt sympathy for the losing team, (was the first baseman crying ?!?) but then he realized it was better them than he.

Almost as soon as he reached home plate, he and the rest of his team were whisked up to the Victory Box where they would be granted the best vantage point of the field for the post-game festivities. Dusty gazed out upon the field where the losing team was still assembled. They had all taken on the air of subjects in a mad psychological drug test. Some staggered around the field in eccentric circles, while others sat on the ground and wept. But most of them stood stationary, with dazed expressions on their faces.

As was customary, it was the team manager who got the first crack at the losers. His weapon of choice was a grenade that he claimed was passed down through his family since his great-great-grandfather brought it home from after serving in WWII. To Dusty it seemed like a waste of a family heirloom, but maybe it was meant as some kind of symbolic gesture.

The explosive landed a few feet shy of the pitcher's mound where the pitcher hadn't moved since throwing the last pitch. He barely seemed to register the grenade until the last moment, and when it blew up, the blast sent shrapnel tearing into his left side, nearly severing his arm.

With that, the crowd erupted into a frenzy and the air became filled with hundreds of projectiles as the spectators launched attacks of their own. Anything that could be used as a weapon was; broken bottles, rocks, arrows,one fellow even released a wolverine onto the field, which was promplty incinerated by an errant molotov cocktail.

Dusty witnessed all of this with a morbid fascination, until a team-mate passed him a bird shot loaded shotgun. He unenthusiastically squeezed off a shot, peppering the left fielder and sending him sprawling. He then passed the gun, grabbed a handful of pretzels and left the stadium.

As he made his way to his car he decided that this would be his final game. His contract was up and he could go out on top. Besides, sports were just becoming too violent for him.