Reflections on the end of Game One, or Why my Thumb Hurts

the ball starts in the pitcher's hand, which is Freddy, who can hang with anybody, outhit and outdrink the young kids, it flies toward right field off the bat of Sam who is trying to outthink the scouting report on him-- pull hitter, good pop-- and today will have nothing to show but two rockets into the glove, and Bill is catching this one in right, you gotta watch this one, he's sneaky, by which i mean his teams win an awful lot and once in awhile he'll hit a home run or gun someone out from the outfield hitting the catcher in the chest with the throw and you'll say, hmm, this skinny dude can play, but most of the time he is a cerebral and unobtrusive force in the dugout, well, in this case the bases are loaded and the man from third is Havelock, a week away from 6000 plate appearances, he is across home plate with career run #1103. can you get to know a man by his numbers? so the throw must come into the cutoff man, the tail runners can do anything they want but score, only one more out is needed here. I take the cutoff, and one thing you can say for me, 4 seasons in, is I have a knack for being in the middle of strange plays, which this is about to become when Alex rounds third too wide. the throw must go home, to stop his forward momentum, and Tony is catching, the godfather of the game, you didn't cross don corleone in his old age either. there is a rundown. Alex's resume involves a bunt triple and a baserunning style that borders on kleptomania. Glen is playing third, his reputation consists of 924 hits, and an aversion to aluminum, and he runs Alex towards the plate, and looks up, and there I am in the baseline, in the middle of another play, when I could be guarding second base or picking my nose, and the ball is there, and here comes Alex at full tilt and the only question is, will he succeed in ripping the glove off of my hand, which he doesn't so the comeback is dead as a doornail, and the fielders are celebrating.