The crack of the lumber, the cheer of the crowd, the rounding of the bases.
The thud of the ball hitting the mitt in one of my favorite places.
The umpire yells "Batter-Up" and it is now 9 vs. 1,
He digs in the box aware of the fact that his opponent has a gun.
The pitcher winds up and all eyes are on the kid at the plate,
This pitch is offspeed, slow as can be, but the batter takes the bait.
"Strike-One" is called by the man behind the plate in blue,
The pitcher gets his sign to throw the heater for pitch #2.
He takes a deep breath, rears back, and throws with all he's got,
Only to see the ball get rocked, and know that it won't be caught.
He turns around to see it go, wondering what he thought.
The team comes out with congratulations for the batter,
but the pitcher's team is ahead by far so it didn't really matter.
