The Prospect by Eliot Parker (epub ebook reader .txt) 📖

the suspensions, so Shane would miss a start during one game in the series and Biggie Rowan would miss the next game. Shane and Biggie had not spoken to each other since the bus incident. Even during warm-ups and practice sessions, both players proceeded with their routines, exchanging looks but nothing more.
Before the bottom of the eighth inning, Harry went up to Shane sitting on the bench.
“I wonder why Chris is being brought in now. He has not worked two innings all season long. I just hope that he can get Richards and Frame out. Those fellas are killing us.”
Shane agreed, but added, “If we do not start hitting the ball and soon, it will not make much difference how many innings Taylor has pitched.”
Harry wiped the sweat from his left cheek as it streaked down his face. Harry always perspired more than anyone on the team, regardless if the weather was cool or blazing hot.
Harry reached and patted Shane on the arm. “I know you want to pitch, but I am so glad that you gave Rowan a good whooping. Boy, he can be a real jerk sometimes.”
Shane looked and saw Harry’s childlike face darkened in the oncoming afternoon shadows. “I had some pinned up anger and I just lost it. I’m not too proud of it.”
“Oh, I no you’re not proud. I just think that he needs to support you and I guess that you need to support him. We are a team you know. A family. We need to stick together and get along.”
Scratching the corner of his mouth, Shane thought about a clever and rational response to that statement. “Every family has their squabbles from time to time, though.”
Harry wiggled his mouth from side to side. “Yea, that’s true. And I guess that some people in some families just do not get along at all.”
“You got it,” winked Shane. He stood up and tapped Harry lightly on his left hand. Harry chuckled as he watched Shane raise his head out of the dugout to see what was happening on the field.
What was transpiring on the field was quickly becoming a disaster. Chris Taylor had walked one batter in the bottom of the eighth inning and surrendered a triple to another. The next hitter was Jeremy Richards. Ben Cignetti, who was walked on four bad pitches, was watching Taylor from behind the mound. The sign from Biggie Rowan was for Taylor to throw his patented slider in the hopes of forcing Richards to hit a ground ball to enduce a double-play. Taylor, not used to long relief appearances, paid no attention to Cignetti, and as soon as the slider pitch was thrown, Cignetti was running towards second.
The slider slipped into Biggie’s glove on the outside corner of the plate. Richards swung and missed the pitch completely. Biggie flung off his catcher’s mask and threw a bullet to second base. Ryan Head ran in the direction of the throw and stood at the appropriate distance in between the runner and second base. The throw was low, but Head managed to scoop up the ball as Cignetti began his horizontal decent into third base. Ryan reached around and placed the tag on the hand of Ben Cignetti. Unfortunately, Cignetti’s hand reached the base before the tag.
Walter Mann, a brusque manager during close calls, was screaming at the second base umpire. Some of the words did not sound like ordinary English, but Shane and the other Loggers enjoyed watching his baldhead turn the shade of a fresh skin bruise. The umpire turned his hands clockwise in circles, letting Walter know he did not want to hear what he had to say.
Biggie Rowan was visibly upset at himself for making such a poor throw. Chris Taylor would be even more rattled, as the next Lakewood hitter, Jerry Kelley, blasted an 0-2 fastball from Taylor all the way towards left center-field for a three-run home run. Kelley knocked in at least 50 RBI’s for the Blueclaws over the last two seasons and was part of an impressive hitting trio with Ben Cignetti and Jeremy Richards. Jerry lived up his reputation and the Loggers would never recover, losing 8-0.
After three days of games, the Sheaville Loggers found themselves losers of four straight games and six of their last seven. Suddenly staring at 30 wins and 25 losses, as well as losing three games in the standings to first place Charleston, the Loggers headed back to West Virginia as a team with a slightly broken spirit.

XIII

When Shane arrived back in Sheaville early Monday morning, his home never looked so good. Although he was unable to spend the Memorial Day weekend with his mother, he was anxious to see her. Moreover, he wanted to inspect her progress or regression in battling her borderline personality disorder.
Approaching the house was always the same. The dirt road leading up to the hollow was churned slightly as thin coats of dust lay on top of the more solid, compact surface. The green field next to the house was still tucked underneath the mountainside, although the grass was starting to resemble a hay field, and the little white house still titled on the grassy knoll at the top of the road. No lights were visible, but for once, piles of old Charleston Gazette newspapers were not strung along the rotted porch. Either Joann had noticed the papers, read them, did both, or did neither. Shane concluded that idea was really anyone’s guess.
As he walked into the kitchen, Shane noticed the dishes had been washed and the floor had been mopped. The distinct odor of watered-down bleach circumvented throughout the room, and the aging tile floor almost sparkled. In the living room, furniture had been rearranged. The coffee table was now in the middle of the floor. The chairs were now facing each other in the corner of the room, closely resembling a Franklin Roosevelt fireside chat. For the first time in years, Shane could see the glass doors on the cobblestone fireplace. The house looked and smelled different.
Shane dumped his bags, including his glove and bats, in the floor and marched to the bathroom. He felt drained. His legs ached and a sharp pain was coursing through his lower back. For the most part, he noticed his arm did not hurt, although it experienced its usual allotment of fatigue and stress. Yet his shoulder was sore and Shane had a difficult time moving it backwards in a counter-clockwise motion. Walter had suggested that it might be tendonitis, but Shane refused to believe such foolishness. Tendonitis was something that afflicted unprepared and overzealous pitchers. Shane considered himself neither of those.
But the most puzzling ache came from the left side of his body. The pain centered next to his rib cage, and pulsated near his abdomen. It was a dull, sharp pain that was so intense at times, that he would become doubled-over in pain. Yet after a few seconds, the pain would subside. Shane’s initial thought indigestion from eating too much junk food since the season started. But the pain had been going on consistently for a couple of weeks.
He had not visited a doctor since his physical prior to spring training, his appendix could be suffering. Thus. Shane made a mental note to give his condition some more careful thought.
The Triplet bathroom had also received a thorough cleansing. Shane observed as he walked into the room. The sink and toilet were cleaned, and the soap scum caked on the glass shower door had been wiped away. Shane turned on the water in the sink and splashed several generous helping across his face. As he paused to look at himself, he believed his face had seen better days. His eyes were sunken and the dark circles pertruded around the base of his impossibly long eyelashes and his cheeks was sunburned badly.
Shane peeled off his white cotton t-shirt and his gray sweatpants. He loved to wear sweatpants in the evenings because the softness of the cotton helped him relax and rest better, but tonight it was too warm for that. Shane splashed generous handfuls of lukewarm water over his entire face and walked down the hall to his bedroom with droplets of water falling onto the carpet.
He leaped back onto his twin bed and switched on the radio. The Reds were on Charleston’s WCHS-580 AM and the raspy and slick sounding voice of announcer Joe Nuxhall was jumping through the radio speakers. Joe Nuxhall, the old lefthander. Today was not a good day for the Reds, however. Losing to their rivals the St. Louis Cardinals 3-1 was bad enough, but pitcher Rob Dibble left the game in the third inning with a foot injury. Nuxhall sounded melancholic in his diagnosis and prognosis and Shane could not help but compare Dibble’s struggles in this game to the struggles the Loggers were having over the last several games, minus the foot injury and all.
Shane closed his eyes to relax. He wanted and needed rest. Traveling on a bus for hours going to places all across the eastern United States, compiled with smearing Biggie Rowan’s face with his fist and missing a scheduled start were becoming too taxing to think about. Had it not been for a loud crash against the front screen door, Shane would have been able to forget all about those worries and slept intensely.
Instead, he was forced to race to the door to confront the commotion. Shane stuck his neck around the door and found Olivia on a bicycle stopped below the steps leading to the road. She was shielding her eyes from the sunrise, eagerly trying to determine who was exchanging glances with her. Shane knew immediately, and noticed that Olivia was wearing the same red hat from several weeks ago, although this time she had on white shorts and a black tank-top with spaghetti straps. He still could not see her face.
She nonchalantly waived and Shane hopped out from behind the door and sauntered down the steps to the road. Olivia was riding a bike that resembled a cross between a mountain bike and a trekking bike. It was solid white trimmed in blue with a suspension fork, adjustable angle stem and cold-forged linear-pull breaks. She seemed to fit snugly on the bike, although her smallish physique made the bike appear somewhat larger than it actually was.
“What’s with all the noise, Olivia with one L,” Shane inquired coyly. By the way, I did not tell you this the other day, but that’s a weird name for a girl. Olivia.”
Olivia ignored his statement, but correctly assumed what brought Shane outside. “You’re still asleep at at seven thirty?” turning her eyebrows upward.
“…Anyway, I know one thing, you guys choked on the road trip. Not what anyone in town was expecting. Speaking of my name, Olivia was my grandmother’s middle name, thank you very much.”
Exhausted with thinking about justifications for the losing streak, Shane just smacked his lips together. “Well, we will do better. Some things went on behind the scenes that sort of affected how things went.”
Olivia smirked and raised her right eyebrow in curiosity. “Ah….the problems would have nothing to do with you and Jason Rowan would it? I mean, the word in Sheaville is you kicked the crap out of him. I find that hard to believe, he being so much taller than you and all.”
In a moment of machismo, Shane blurted out, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Shane could not help but wonder how Olivia was always supplied with fresh information. She had a great understanding and knowledge of current events Shane reasoned, no matter how large or insignificant.
“You do not strike me as the violent type.