The Ringer - Part One

Hear the story read by the author.

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Choir director Shane Reed is the coach and second baseman of the church softball team, the “Miracles.” And this season Shane was delighted to have a new player: Audra Park.

Audra, a single mother of a six year-old boy named Tyler, had only joined the church a few months earlier. She was a sweet, quiet young woman with lovely delicate features and long black hair. And Shane had a crush on her.

But every time he tried to ask her out he froze up. And the more time passed, the harder it got. So when one day after church Shane asked Audra if she was interested in joining the Miracles he had actually intended to invite her out to dinner but just chickened out at the last minute.

When Audra responded positively to his impromptu softball invitation Shane was thrilled. In addition to spending time with her on the field they’d be going out for pizza after every game. Yes, the rest of the team would be there too, but it was a start.

“What position is she going to play?” Thad Wheeling, the team’s shortstop, asked Shane as they watched Audra stretch before the first practice. Thad guessed Audra weighed about a hundred pounds. She didn’t look like much of an athlete.

“I was thinking left field,” Shane replied, a dreamy smile on his face.

“Do you think her arm’s strong enough to throw all the way to the infield?”

“I don’t know,” Shane shrugged. “But she can’t be much worse than Tabitha.”

Tabitha was the teenage girl that had played left field the previous season. She was center fielder Katie O’Donnell’s best friend. Shane figured Katie and Tabitha could alternate innings at center.

This did not go over so well with the two teenage girls. They wanted to play together, not take turns riding the bench by themselves. But Shane made a big speech about the team being bigger than any one player. When that failed, he offered to pay their share of the post game pizza. They grudgingly agreed to this arrangement.

Shane started practice by hitting fly balls to the team. Thad stood beside him to catch the returning throws and feed them back to Shane. The first ball Shane hit toward Audra sailed long. Audra loped backwards, made the catch, spun, and fired the ball to Thad. It hit Thad’s glove with a resounding smack. He grunted in pain.

“Guess her arm’s okay,” Shane whispered.

It turned out a lot more than Audra’s arm was okay. In his excitement at the prospect of spending time with her, Shane never asked whether Audra had any experience. If he had, she would have told him about being an all-star second baseman on her state champion high school team.

Audra’s expertise became even more apparent as the Miracles started to scrimmage. When Katie fielded a deep fly ball and made a two bounce throw to first, Audra shouted, “Katie, you should use me as a cutoff man on those long throws.”

Later when Katie threw to first with a runner going to second, Audra called out, “play’s at second, Katie!”

Katie was getting annoyed at Audra’s coaching, but over on first base sixty-two year-old Del Winslow smiled with satisfaction. Finally someone who knew something about the game was helping out. Del liked Shane but felt the kid was a little too nice for a coach.

Then Audra yelled, “Del, you need to play farther left when nobody’s on base.”

During a break in practice Thad pulled Shane aside. “Audra’s awesome,” Thad enthused. “She’s wasted out there. You should move her to the infield.”

Shane agreed, so he told Del he was switching Audra to first and moving Del out to left field. “But I played first base in college,” Del protested.

Del’s college experience was three decades before Audra’s high school experience but Shane didn’t mention that. Instead he just said, “I’m experimenting a little.”

“Audra used to play second,” Del pointed out. “Maybe YOU should switch positions with her.”

“Look, I’m the coach and I really need you to work with me on this,” Shane pleaded.

Del scowled as he considered Shane’s earnestness. Finally he said, “I heard you offer to pay for Tabitha and Katie’s post game pizza.”

“I’d be happy to pay your share too if that’s an issue,” Shane said quickly. Del nodded and headed for the outfield, grumbling under his breath.

As practice continued and Audra grew more and more comfortable shouting instructions to the other players, Shane began to wonder if maybe she was kind of usurping his roll as coach. But his concerns were trumped by the fact that she looked really cute in a baseball cap. And after all, they were just playing for the fun of it.

The Miracles first game of the season was against the Cherubs, a team from a small Catholic church on the other side of town. The Cherubs had two teenage boys playing shortstop and second base. When Katie and Tabitha saw them take the field, the two girls fell in love at first sight.

As Katie stepped up to the plate for her first at-bat, she was more determined to get on base than she’d ever been before. She wanted to get a closer look at the guy she was already imagining in a tuxedo at their wedding.

“Katie, get the bat off your shoulder!” Audra yelled. Katie’s face reddened. She left the bat just where it was to teach the meddling Audra a lesson. Katie proceeded to strike out in three pitches. But at least she made her point.

“You can’t get the bat around fast enough if you rest it on your shoulder,” Audra explained as Katie slumped back into the dugout. Katie clenched her teeth so she wouldn’t violate the league’s no-swearing policy.

The Miracles kept it close but ended up losing by two runs. Apparently Katie’s poor hitting had not dented her appeal with the boys because they struck up a conversation with her and Tabitha after the game. Their names were Steve and Blake and they accepted the girls’ invitation to join the Miracles for the post-game pizza party.

As they were walking into the restaurant, Blake noticed that Audra’s son Tyler was wearing a Pittsburgh Penguin’s hockey jersey. “You a Pens fan, little man?” he asked.

Tyler shyly hid behind Audra’s legs. “My brother works in public relations for the team,” Audra told the boys.

“Really?” Steve asked, his eyes shining with excitement. It turned out Steve and Blake were both huge hockey fans.

“Yeah,” Audra said. “If you’re in Pittsburgh during the season some time I can hook you up with tickets.”

The boys were speechless.

For the next hour Katie and Tabitha sat fuming in a booth while Steve and Blake peppered Audra with questions about her brother’s job.

As Shane totaled up the cost of the meal and his four shares it occurred to him that it would have been cheaper if he’d just had the nerve to ask Audra out instead of bribing the girls and Del to make room for her on the team. But his pizza parlor expenses were about to lessen.

The following Sunday Katie and Tabitha informed him they were quitting the Miracles. “Free pizza just isn’t worth it,” Katie said.

With the next game two days away, Shane suddenly found himself a player short.

To be continued...