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Ethan Mason stepped up to the plate. With a light tap to his right cleat with his wooden 30 inch Louisville Slugger he dislodged the lightly caked on clay that stuck during his last big swing. He had just barely fowled that one of down the left field line. “Just a tad early on that one.”
He briefly made eye contact with the pitcher, who he had known his whole life. They had grown up together in the Milwaukee suburbs and came up through the community little league program. And now, Ethan was wearing his familiar number 27, in Brewer blue while his best friend sported his number 3 in St. Louis Cardinals red. During any down times, they were the best of friends. Each being single, they hung out together, went hunting and camping together in the few months they each had off during the winter.
Ethan knew his friend well enough that he would never see a pitch like that again for not only this his second at bat of the game for probably for the rest of the game as well. The game was tight, 1-0 Brewers lead in the fourth inning, with the courtesy of the one run coming off Ethan’s bat in the bottom of the second inning. His sizable friend, Chad Demings, who shot up to around six foot, six inches tall and a rather firm two hundred fifty pounds, had left a curve ball hanging over the sweet spot of the plate.
In all fairness, the pitch was perfect, but Ethan had a way with turning great pitches into runs for his team. First off, he was fairly compact at five foot ten. His stance was also compact witch presented a smallish strike zone. His stance was set up in such a way as to maximize his power when he basically uncoiled. His hand eye coordination was off the charts as he could immediately catch the rotation of any pitch almost before it would leave the pitchers hand. Indeed, he was the next big opportunity to hit above .400 for the season as he was sitting at .402 in late August.
In that briefest of eye contact with Chad, Ethan knew… He just knew what was coming. That was almost home run number two in as many at bats and that would not do. Chad was about to send one way to the inside of the right handed hitter.
Chad took his sign, without change. It would be a fastball. Everyone in the stadium knew it. He had a nasty tail on it that he could control at will. He set up and went into his full wind-up as there was no one on the bases. Actually he hadn’t let anyone on the bases the whole game. He had only given up one hit and it had hurt the worst. Kicking his right leg up, his pivot leg being a lefty, he pushed his right foot into the ground.
At the plate, Ethan brace as he tracked the hand in as it reach its set point before coming forward. Already tracking where that would be, he knew that Chad was dropping his shoulder and flattening out his pitch, not quite a submarine release, but just as efficient. Chad could do that. He had three pitches that he could release from any angle. And only Ethan knew him well enough to know what was coming. He sensed rather than saw the right foot come down and the hand on its way to the release point.
But at the moment Chad’s foot impacted the ground, the lights of the stadium completely went dark, plunging the field into complete darkness.
And almost a fraction of a second later, Ethan felt a horse kick his left shoulder deep and close to the shoulder blade. Chad had continued on with his motion and released the bean ball and plunked Ethan in the back.
Fortunately for Ethan, Chad did manage to take something off the ball before he threw it and for that Ethan was thankful.
“Dude, you okay?” Chad shouted into the oddly quiet darkness toward the plate as he clearly heard the impact.
“Yeah, I guess I deserved that one somehow?” Ethan chunked back at him.
“I guess your boss forgot to pay his bills again?” Chad chuckled and started to head toward the plate. As he moved forward, the crowd began to murmur. Just a little at first, but it grew in crescendo. “What do you make of this?”
Having only receive a glancing hit, Ethan was able to raise up and take a look around. “I don’t know. There is no light at all. You’d think folks would pull out their Iphones by now.”
“Check out the sounds, beyond the crowd.” Chad intoned.
“Yeah, you’re right. There is none.”
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE.” The Umpire behind the plate yelled out. “The authorities are working to restore the power.”
Ethan stepped back and looked toward where the umpire’s voice came from and quietly said, “You’ve heard from them already?”
“No, but it’s obvious that someone has to be working the problem. We don’t need you guys getting hurt wondering around in the dark and ruining your earning potential with a senseless injury.” The umpire said.
Chad found this funny, “Good one! We are all porcelain lined and lace bound.”
Ethan grinned at this though the other two couldn’t see. He did know that the catcher had already wondered off toward the dugout. Ethan could tell that he had been green around the gills from the first pitch. Probably too much preparation the night before.
“Wonder where the ushers are with their flashlights?” Chad asked.
“Chad, I am getting a bad vibe about all of this. Come with me.” Chad followed Ethan closely toward the Milwaukee dugout and toward the door toward the clubhouse. Just before they reached the first step, the Emergency lighting around the field and stadium came on.
“About time the generator kicked in.” They heard the Umpire say somewhere behind them.
The lights near the top of the stadium were the brightest but they only provided a very dim glow compared to the usual playing lights. And as this was an aging stadium, a number of the lights were point straight up into the air looking like signal lights from an airport. Ethan was looking at these beams when something caught his attention. At the same time a whining noise was growing in a Doppler type effect, louder and louder. To his horror, he realize about five second before impact a large commercial aircraft, probably a 757 or 767 in a flat spin with now external lights screaming toward the stadium.
In almost slow motion, the plane descended into the left field stands, almost the exact location where his foul ball had landed. He knew that whoever caught the ball had caught their last souvenir, ever. The plane took one final slow motion spin before hitting the stands, instantly sending a mushrooming fireball that soon engulfed the entire outfield and spread out to grab the rest of the stadium.
Ethan pushed Chad into the tunnel and slammed the heavy door closed. “Come on!” He shouted and ran. They made it to the clubhouse before the reverberations from the impact reached them. Instantly the room was full of dust. Ethan grabbed two hand towels and gave one to Chad. They both put them over their mouth before heading toward the exit. As the clubhouse was positioned behind homeplate deep in the stadium, it was the furthest from the impact and this greatly increased their chances of getting out. When they came out of the stadium, bits of foam and fabric where raining down onto the street. Everywhere they looked, cars were stall out on the thoroughfare, stopped where they stopped rolling when engines died. People were mulling about, not really sure what to do.
“Follow me!” Ethan shouted to Chad. They made their way to the player’s parking lot and Ethan found his truck. His team mates often teased him for driving this ancient four wheel drive pickup when he could have easily afforded so much more. They both jumped in and Ethan said a quick prayer before he turned the ignition. The truck roared to life. He quickly exited the lot and with a little effort he was able to weave around people and knowing to stay off the interstate he was heading north out of the city. They began to see the houses start to spread out after about 20 minutes. They had seen no other cars.
“What was that? Why did we leave so quickly?”
“Chad. Listen carefully. Something bad has happened and what happens next will be permanent.”
“What exactly has happened?”
“I don’t know, honestly. But what I do know is that for now and for the next little while, motion means life.” He looked over at Chad. “To stand still, even for a moment means death. There was a lot of death at the stadium. To stay there would have meant our death.”
The End
The Last Baseball Game
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