Plunking Reggie Jackson Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ricky Huff, juggled the throw and had to come off the bag. Olivares rounded third and bluffed toward home plate, but Ricky walked straight at him, holding the ball, until he chased him back.
    Coach Mason called time and approached the mound. The coach was an easygoing old guy, but he wouldn’t tolerate a pattern of mental errors. He asked Coley if he was tired.
    â€œHell no, why would I be tired?” Coley asked.
    â€œThere’s a runner on second and the third baseman throws to first. What do you do?”
    â€œOh, yeah. I forgot to back up third.”
    â€œYou back up third,” the coach confirmed. “You don’t stand on the mound watching the game like a spectator.”
    â€œYeah, I forgot.”
    â€œYou also forgot you had a runner on first. You pitched from the windup. What’s the matter with you?”
    â€œNothin’s the matter,” Coley answered quickly, although he knew immediately that the same free sense of disengagement, of being out from under , was undermining his concentration.
    â€œIf you think your stuff is so overpowering you don’t need to pay attention to fundamentals, you’d better rethink.”
    â€œI don’t think that,” said Coley. “This is more or less like practice, Coach. When we have a real game back home, I’ll have my head in it.”
    But Mason was shaking his head even before Coley finished the sentence. “Sorry, but that’s not how it works. You ain’t in the big leagues yet; this is not spring training, even if we are in Florida. But even if it was , you play the way you practice. If you don’t concentrate now, you don’t concentrate when you think it counts.”
    It wasn’t the first time Coley had heard this axiom, not by a long shot. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Jesus Christ, Coach, I might as well have the old man down here with me.” It wasn’t true, though. Ben Burke and Coach Mason might have been on the same page as far as the letter of the pitching law was concerned, but not the spirit. The old coach settled for firm and disciplined, while Coley’s dad delivered reproaches with unequivocal passion.
    â€œIf you mean your dad, we could do worse,” Mason declared. “Without his financial support we wouldn’t even be here.”
    â€œI don’t wanna hear it,” Coley replied abruptly.
    â€œOkay, then hear this: The score is only four to nothin’. It’s only the fourth inning. The game’s not over yet. Get your head in the game as well as your arm.”
    â€œOkay, okay.”
    Lee Edwards, a three-sport athlete with a Division I future in football, was the next batter. He had a big reputation, which Coley had read about in the morning sports page of the local paper.
    Now that there were runners on first and third, Coley worked carefully from the stretch position. He still felt free and strong, even after Coach Mason’s reprimand. He threw two strikes over the outside corner, one on the fastball and the second on the slider. Edwards was a good hitter, probably the best on Hamilton’s team, but Coley had the count at 0-2.
    Coley understood that good hitters, once they got behind in the count, weren’t such good hitters anymore. Their confidence was down because they felt tentative. If they got into the guard-the-plate mode, they were more likely to swing at pitches out of the strike zone. Coley wasn’t just a talent; he understood the craft of pitching. Years of clinics in the backyard bull pen with his father and his older brother, Patrick, had seen to that.
    Coley threw Lee Edwards a too-high fastball, but Lee didn’t swing at it. Then he saw Lee crowding the plate, something hitters liked to do when they could get away with it, to force outside pitches. The tape played in Coley’s head: You can’t win if you don’t pitch inside. The inside of the plate belongs to you, not the hitter. Hitters who