It had been a long road for the Calvary United Methodist Church softball team. The last two months had yielded six straight losses, five by one run. On Sunday night, the team found a cure - namely, a game against the last team that they'd beaten.
Things started out shakily for the gang in gray, courtesy of six first inning walks. A relief pitcher came in, but the score was 5-0 before Calvary swung a bat.
Fortunately, the green team's pitcher was equally down to the task, walking leadoff man Joe McDonald on four pitches, and eventually three in a row before being replaced himself.
Pulling the score up to 5-4 shifted the momentum for the rest of the ballgame. Relief pitching gave up only a couple of runs in the remaining innings.
Meanwhile, team green seemed to take a defensive gamble by positioning all of their male players on the left side of the field, leaving the right side of the outfield particularly spacious. McDonald came to the plate with one runner on base and stroked the ball to right center for a double.
In his next at bat, with a runner on first, he drove a lofty fly ball toward right field that eluded the uncertain right fielder by a good five feet. With the runner pausing between first and second, McDonald crossed the plate mere steps behind his teammate, and a foot ahead of the throw home for his second home run of the season.
The next inning, the Calvary bats that had suffered from a hung over case of lazyflyballitis for much of the summer suddenly started tearing holes in the defense with solid line drives and ground balls. By the time McDonald came to the plate again, the bases were loaded, and again his eyes turned to right field.
"You've got to make the most of what the good Lord gives you," he said.
As it happened, on the first pitch the good Lord decided to lay one down the middle of the strike zone. The ball rocketed toward the gap between right and right center, and the record Calvary crowd screamed with delight as McDonald circled the bases without a play for the first grand slam of his career.
A few meek at-bats later by team green (and following a too-little-too-late defensive shift), smiles were all around the Calvary team huddle.
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