Form One Lane

Honesty

Thinking back ...

We're a few games away from the playoffs and we're not playing well. That is, my team is not playing well, and I'm not playing well. Meanwhile the rest of the league have found their form. We're kind of struggling to hang on. I step into the box and go through my usual routine of tapping the plate, digging in, and warning the pitcher to watch out for that gap his fielders have made in deep left because I'm a quality slugger. Then I shape to bunt.

The first pitch is somewhere up near my head and I dive out of the way. The second pitch is a gutser and I pull it foul on one of the lousiest bunts you'll ever see. The third pitch drops down towards the plate and I struggle not to chase it, in the end executing a clumsy half-push-half-stumble towards the ball before skipping away, ball two. "Hey," shouts the catcher, "he went at that one!" "Pull the other one," retorts the umpire, the manager of another ballclub we pulled in because we're short on blues.

I get back into the box and start thinking. I think about whether or not I feel like I pulled out of the bunt in time. I think about all the times, as an umpire, I might have missed a close call and had the benefiting team falsely agree with me. I think about my relationship, as a social ballplayer, to the other clubs in the league. And, for a shameful minute, I think about the league table, our struggle for the playoffs, and the fact that going 1-2 down would put me seriously in the hole. Then I turn to the umpire and say, "No, mate, they're right. I went at that one, it was a strike."

"Pull the other one," he retorts. "Ball two."