Room 132

Max Brettler

Language Arts

Period 2

April 1, 2006

I See Baseball in the Future

Hey my name’s Mitch, Mitch Hipp. My real name’s Mitch but my friends call me “short stuff”. I’m not that tall, I’m around five one or five two. I am fourteen years old and love baseball. Baseball is not only one of my favorite things, it is my life. I am on a type of select baseball team where we play for ten straight months and then we take two months off to rest. My family is also very into baseball. My dad is one of our assistant coaches and my mom cheers me on. My mom isn’t at every game like my dad, because my sister Lilly is into ice skating. She is also on a select team but for ice skating not baseball. Lilly is a very girly girl when it comes to certain things.

A bunch of my friends are on my baseball team. Josh “speedy” Smith is my good friend and neighbor. Josh is our lead off hitter on the Rough Riders baseball team. Joseph “Calculator” Thompson is also my good friend who lives just down the street. Joseph doesn’t play much but doesn’t really mind. He likes to take the stats for the team we consider him a team player. Joseph usually gets to play when we need a runner on base. Joseph will step into the batters box and lean over the plate with his eyes closed and get nailed by the pitch. Joseph has gotten used to taking one for the team, meaning getting drilled by a pitch. Drake “big boy” Nielson is our fourth spot man on the Rough Riders. Drake is also in the neighborhood just a few blocks a way near Joseph’s house. Drake is a power hitter and a real good one too. Drake isn’t a very fast runner like Josh but it doesn’t matter for him since he can hit it so far. Although Drake is big, he’s kind of a baby sometimes. For instance if Drake were to have to intentionally be hit by the ball then he would probably cry. There are many other kids on the team, but none that live that close to me.
We had a big game tonight against the Hoosiers. This game decides who’s in first place and who gets the bye in the playoffs. The Hoosiers are our rivals every year. Our team and theirs are the only good teams in our district 8 bracket. Every year it’s always both of our teams in the district championship. Out of the six years that I have been on the Rough Riders we have won four out of those six championships, all against the Hoosiers. Our game tonight will be the biggest and best game of the season against the Hoosiers.
“Hey is” I said to the batter to try and distract him.
“Shut up,” the batter replied rudely. It was the top of the fourth inning and we were leading the Hoosiers to a score of 3-2. They were in the middle of their batting order. The four, five and six batters were scheduled to be at bat this inning. I was playing catcher calling pitches for Ernie “sharp shot” Peterson on the mound. Ernie looked down from the mound at me and gave me the nod. I wiggled two fingers slapped the inside of my right thigh and signed and upward motion towards my chin. In English all that meant was curve ball outside and high. Ernie has a pretty good slider and a wicked curveball that could drop from above your head and sink to your feet. Ernie went into his wind up, took a quick look over to first. The runner had a good sized lead off so both Ernie and I had our Eye on him. Ernie then looked in at my again, I shook my head and changed the call to a pitch out because I had a feeling the runner was going. Ernie wound up and threw the pitch up high so that I could have a quick release to second to catch the guy on first stealing. The runner went just as I expected. I stood up to catch the ball and at the same instance the batter swung to make it harder for me to throw it. The batter didn’t notice that I stood up right behind him so he swung his hardest. I reached out for the ball and everything went black.
“Are you awake Sir?” said some strange sort of human robot.
“Umm I think so,” I said still feeling light headed. “What was the score to the game?”
“What game do you speak of Sir?” the robot said curiously.
“My baseball game, the one I got hurt at, at least I think that’s how I got hurt?”
“You most indefinitely be delirious Sir, take it easy on yourself,” the robot implied. I fell back to sleep still feeling quite sore and dizzy. I had a pretty deep cut on my eyebrow and forehead.
“Excuse me do you know where the bathroom is?” I asked a woman at the front desk.
“Why yes I do Sir just down the hall,” she replied. I couldn’t understand why everyone was calling me Sir but I didn’t mind that much. I walked into the bathroom and did my business then went down to the cafeteria and got some French fries. French fries were one of my favorite foods in the whole world!
“YUCK!” I said as I spat out what I though was French fries. “What is this crap?”
I threw away the remainder of my “French fries” and wandered back to my room. The robot came in and told me to leave and that I was fine now.
“Where am I? What day is it? Ouch my head hurts! What the…” I yelped as some sort of car flew past me going extremely fast. There were cars everywhere, on the side of buildings and on the ground even some hovering up high. I was so confused because the last thing I remembered was that I was getting ready to gun the runner out on second. Now there are people calling me sir where at home I’m called short stuff and there are cars flying and driving on the side of buildings where last I remember the drove only on the ground. I looked around at my surroundings and noticed that I didn’t recognize anything. Nothing looked the same to me. I franticly looked for a stranger to ask where I was and what time and day it is. I saw a man dressed in all black walking towards me. I looked down at his feet and saw nothing, he had no feet, and he was hovering like those guys from Star Wars. “Excuse me sir, umm what time is it?”
“Why do you ask?” he replied keeping his face turned from me.
“Well see I don’t really know where I am, last thing I remember is the runner stealing second. I just would like to know what time and day it is.”
“It is twenty three hundred hours and its Jebuarch twenty third two thousand sixty eight,” he said.
“What did you say?”
“You heard what I said boy now scram,” he implied. I was completely confused, nothing made sense to me. I kept on walking around when I heard the ping of a baseball bat making perfect contact with the ball. I walked towards the sound, as I got closer I heard kids cheering and chanting things at each others just like the Rough Riders do. I walked over to the fence and saw a pitching machine and a kid batting. Ping, Ping, the sound of baseball made me feel more comfortable.
“Hey can I play?” I asked the kid who was batting. “My names Mitch, I play for the Rough Riders.” The boy ignored me. I kept on trying to get his attention. He finally gave me a look and told me I could shag balls in the outfield. I got in the outfield and waited for him to hit one for me. Hi popped one up into center field. It was hard so see the ball with the lights being so bright. I shielded the light with my glove and waited for it to come down; I caught it and threw it in, just like at practice. “What team do you play for?” I asked him. He still didn’t answer me. He hit a liner into left field. I jogged over to the ball in left. I bent down to pick it up…
“HEADS UP MITCH!” he shouted. I looked up from picking up the ball to see one of the bright lights in my eyes. I couldn’t see the ball. I franticly tried to shield the light from my eyes and catch the ball but I couldn’t find the ball in the sky. I looked down at the batter who was watching me try to find the ball. I looked back up in the sky to see the ball coming at me as if I were in a movie. The ball came at me in slow motion. I could count the seams on the ball it was going so slow. Everything went black once again.
I shot up out of the bed and felt an arm grab my arm. “Mitch are you ok sweetie?” The sound of my mom’s voice was so comforting.
“Mom is that you?” I asked excitedly.
“Yes its me, how are you feeling?” she asked happy to see that I was awake.
“I’m fine now that I know I’m home and safe,” I said with a smile.
“What do u mean happy to know your home you’ve been home this whole time,” she said.