A Midsummer Madness by Guy Franks

Author:Guy Franks [Franks, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532046926
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2018-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

14

CHAPTER

I don’t care how long you’ve been around, you’ll never see it all.

Bob Lemon

It was the weekend before the All-Star break. Since the Fire Festival of Lithia, the Kingsmen had played .500 ball. Leading up to today, Sunday the 6th, they had played fourteen straight games and gone seven and seven with six losses on the road. It wasn’t really a tailspin (they were still two games up in first) but it was a bit of a funk. Shake knew that every good team had one and it was how a team handled it that mattered. Hitters were in mini-slumps, pitchers weren’t hitting their spots, and two of their top players—Burks and Horn—were on the DL with injuries. But slumps and injuries were part of the game. A team knows when it was good—they just knew—and Shake could still see that confidence in the clubhouse. He wasn’t too worried.

Shake had shuffled his rotation around a bit and had Chuck Davis going against the Nashua Pirates today. That gave enough rest for his big three—Basset, Santiago, and Ellsworth—to pitch in the All-Star Game Wednesday. Svoboda took Burks’ spot in left field and Rosecrans, a utility infielder, was starting for Horn at first. Rosecrans had shown some pop lately in pinch-hit appearances and the big cub wanted to see him get some regular at bats.

It was Dairy Day and there was a cow-milking contest before the game. Guida’s Dairy, Deerfield Farm and others had stands set up selling half-off ice cream. The temperature was pushing ninety and they did a brisk business throughout the day. The game was also brisk and entertaining. The Kingsmen won 4-0 and Davis pitched a three hit shut-out. In the fourth, Rosecrans broke his bat but hit one out for a homerun. Shake had never seen that before and, like most managers who’d been in baseball nearly all their life, he’d seen just about everything.

After the game, most of the players scattered to the four winds to enjoy the extended All-Star break, some to catch up with their families, some to go fishing, and others just to chill out and mend their aches and pains. Shake and Rick, along with six Kingsmen, didn’t have that luxury. They had an All-Star Game to play.

Shake finished up his paperwork and took a shower and changed into some nice clothes. He was taking Lucy to the theatre to see The Taming of the Shrew. First he planned to take her to dinner and then they’d walk over to The Repertory Theatre to see the play at 8:00. Their relationship had been a little strained lately and this was his way of making it up to her.

The theatre was rather small and the performance was sold out but he had tickets in the third row, dead center. Shake and Lucy sat down in their seats and read the program. His brother Gilbert had told him about this production. It was set in the Wild West, in a Texas saloon, with Petruchio as a cowboy and Kate as a Calamity Jane-type character.

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