It technically wasn't a pennant, but it sure felt like one. When the Base Corps returned from the dugout at East Side Park, they found the locker room covered in plastic liner, and several open coolers of champagne in the middle of the clubhouse. Glenn Sutton warned the team to not lose their minds, as they had a game to play in a couple days. Then he grabbed a bottle for himself and ambled out of the room as the rest of the roster dug in.
The merrymaking went on for about an hour, with the feeling among the Drawkian roster ranging from "Isn't this great? What a fun way to celebrate this crazy run we're on!" to "We still have at least 4 games to worry about here, also who paid for this?" Tyler Silvanus was among the latter group, and he was the first one to leave after the initial furor.
"What a party pooper," Claire Kirkland commented as she watched Silvanus pack his things and leave the clubhouse. She had ensured most of her bottle sprayed into her mouth rather than the wall, floor, or ceiling.
"Give him a break. He's got Game 1 to worry about," Boone chuckled to himself, taking a sip from his bottle.
"True that." Claire grinned. "Can't wait for Game 2. I'm gonna f*cking shove."
"You're gonna have the worst first month of a PBL season ever," Boone drolled. "Your bandolier is gonna be empty by Opening Day."
"To hell with that." Claire shrugged, taking another swig. "Got a better chance of winning a chip here than we do in Sadeg after that sh*tshow last season."
"Hey, have you guys seen Aaron and Richelle?" Joe Shrub stopped in front of Claire and Boone, his skinny frame towering over the pair sitting at their locker stools.
"No, why?" Claire asked.
"I saw them spraying champagne at each other like 10 minutes ago," Boone answered at the same time.
"I've been trying to spray them this whole time. They must've given me the slip." Joe grunted and stalked away.
"Does he know them that well?" Claire gave a quizzical look.
"They grew up in the same area. Think the three of them were on the same travelball team, or something. I remember Aaron saying something about it in Jaffro." Boone raised his eyebrows. "Though I'm not sure those two had Joe on their mind when they disappeared a few minutes ago."
"Oooh ..." Claire chuckled.
In another corner of the locker room, the Kavana bros sat enjoying the scene. Abram was already nursing a second bottle.
"This is what it's all about, Abram." Lane mused quietly, barely audible over the din of music, and shouting. "This is why we slaved away in the trenches for so long. This right here."
"'We' is an interesting term there," Abram yawned. "Personally, I think this is a little premature, but I'm not going to ignore an excuse to drink. Not sure why THIS is the goal you want to shoot for."
"It's not this specifically. Like winning a semifinal in particular, nah." Lane shook his head. He pointed at the middle of the room, where the six former Skyhawks were clustered together, laughing and having a good time. "That's what I mean. We're building something. For the first time, the goal isn't to not be an embarrassment. The goal is to win. The goal is to achieve greatness. Those kids there, they've come into this program when that's our goal. They were watching when we were turning this team into something real. They could be the core of the future Corps. A generation of players could look up to them and want to be them, and want to be in their place, making Classic championships and showing off for our nation."
"Nice speech." Abram took a swig. "Those 'kids' are like 30 years old, by the way."
"Point stands." Lane shrugged. "If we can do something in this final series, we can turn this from a surprise fluke into what historians will call just the beginning of something great. We could build the first great Drawkian dynasty at the international level."
"Hold on." Abram snatched the champagne bottle from Lane's hand, took a big sip, and held the liquid in his mouth for a moment with narrowed eyes before handing the bottle back. "Never mind. I thought for sure your booze must be laced. You are genuinely tweaking, brother. We're not building sh*t here."
"I am begging you to not be a cynic for four seconds," Lane groaned. "I'm serious. People will notice. It won't be the dregs of the league getting coerced into playing in black and red. If we do this again, and again ... pretty soon, it'll be seen as a real honor to play for the Base Corps. I mean, there are kids at home right this second who are going to bed, dreaming of playing baseball for their nation. They saw this game. They saw Boone slice and dice for seven innings, and they imagine themselves doing that. They see you spanking a double into the gap to blow the game open, and they picture themselves making that swing."
"Yeah, and they see Bell sh*t his pants on the mound and decide to manifest that next time they come on to close their kiddy league game." Abram coughed, clearly having trouble with his latest sip. "Oops, wrong pipe." He hesitated, then decided to continue. "Listen, Lane. You can have fun with that whole dynasty-building exercise. But I'm not interested."
"Okay, I can't make you buy in, that's fine." Lane had grown used to his brother's stubbornness. "But you could at least-"
"Nahh." Abram shook his head. "This is it for me, brother. Win or lose. I'm tired. I figure an appearance like this is as good a time as any to go out on a high note. Better this than some random quarterfinal loss."
"Come on," Lane chided. "You're only 43! You're got plenty of gas in the tank still. You-"
"Yeah, you know in other countries, 43-year-old athletes are considered fossils? I'll be 45 next cycle. I'm personally not stoked with the prospect of trotting out here and fighting through impending old man aches and pains so I can be worn out by the time the regular season actually starts." Abram put on a stank face. "Going through all that, just to bat in the back half of the order and get yanked between the infield and outfield every other day for the benefit of a couple slap-hitting chicks? No thanks."
"Are you telling me you don't enjoy this?" Lane gestured vaguely at the room. "It's not like you're playing high-stakes baseball in Archifel right now."
"Quite frankly, no." Abram put his hand up, as if to pause. "Okay, yeah, I enjoy it, but not as much as I did earlier. We've played more baseball these playoffs than we have in some entire cycles. It's hard, man. Tough. Stressful. I liked the WBC more when we just got to chill and skip the first few weeks of spring training. And don't give me your idealistic sh*t about playing for our country. That's not what it was when we started. I mean, when you started, and basically coerced me to come along."
"Excuse me? Coerced? Playing in the Corps literally jumpstarted your career."
"Yeah, you and dad basically shoved me onto the team. I was still in high school, man. I had to miss like 2 months of school. I almost didn't graduate because of that sh*t. Who cares if I got drafted 20 picks earlier?"
"Wasn't that your junior year? I feel like if your grades plummeted that badly you could've made up for it in the entire year afterwards."
"Who's counting?" Abram tipped his bottle bottom-up, slapping the side to shake the last few drops loose. "You're lucky I'm such a good brother, or I would've left your bum ass to rot on this team years ago."
"Yeah, maybe we should've let you leave. Maybe we would've actually broken through sooner without your co*cky ass sucking up a roster spot."
"This team employed Chan Ford for nearly a decade, pal. Don't act like we were calling up elite talent in the early 50s. You'd have been lucky to scrape up a AAAA scrub to play second base."
"Touche. At least promise you won't dial in this final series, alright?"
"You kidding? Did it look like I dialed it in tonight? You could say I dialed in two ribbies. Called the gapper hotline. 1-800-SUCK-ME. Don't you worry, brother. I'm going out in a blaze of glory."
"You got bailed on a check swing call, by the way."
"SCOREBOARD."
In the center of the clubhouse, the Sadeg State graduates were milling about, joking around as they usually did. It wasn't just the core four of Houston, MacBay, Honeycutt, and Gates. Jeffry Judd and Trevor Bell, also veterans of that State team that won IBS 19, were in the throng too. To Trevor's relief, nobody was really focusing on his almost-choke in the bottom of the ninth.
"YEAH!" Ted Honeycutt roared. He was well-lubricated. "You finally DID sh*t! I f*cking love you Lizzie! Insult to injury double to cap off the rally! That's what I've been f*cking TALKING about bitch! When are you gonna pick up the slack, Alex??"
"I literally had a huge 2-run homer out of the 9 hole two games ago man," Alex whined, but he didn't seem too torn up about it. "At least I've gone yard. And I literally have as many RBIs as Zac."
"Woah, woah, buddy." Zac put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "Let's not be too hasty. I also have as many runs. I've been an everyday contributor. I know that's foreign to a bench piece like you, but-"
"Zac, you LITERALLY haven't done anything since like the Quebec series." Lizzie stuck out her tongue. "Have you no shame? Enjoy the 9 hole in Game 1!"
"You're joking." Zac stopped dead in his tracks. "Glenn wouldn't do that to me."
"Wait and see ..." Lizzie pursed her lips into a satisfied smirk.
"Guys, guys, let's not get out of hand." Alex tried to defuse the situation. "We've all had our moments in this series, and-holy sh*t, is that Jimmy Todd shirtless?!"
Jimmy Todd stood on top of a table, jersey and undershirt missing, finishing off a bottle and triumphantly thrusting it into the air when he finished. Champagne glistened and dripped down his pecs which looked like they were carved from marble by a Renaissance sculptor (not sure why they got so good at that in Xingcheng), and Top Jimmy roared in glee.
"LET'S GO WIN A CHIP BABY! WOOOOOO!!!" The King announced, and the rest of the roster remaining in the locker room cheered in response.
"I think that's the cue to pack up," Cooper Calebs joked to Sara Barton.
"Real," Sara replied.
In the uproar and the general movement to start packing things up, Trevor Bell found Lorraine Lockwood over by their lockers. He stopped, took a deep breath, and tapped Lorraine on the shoulder.
"Hey." Trevor said simply.
"What's up?" Lorraine asked, looking back over her shoulder at Trevor.
"Thanks. Really, thanks."
"Don't mention it, man." Lorraine gave a small smile.
Trevor leaned forward suddenly, wrapping Lorraine in a hug. It wasn't sensational ... it was just pure gratitude for saving his ass.
All too quickly, the time for celebration was over. There was one more hurdle (really four) to deal with. And with the momentum the Corps had on their side ... maybe they really could beat the Elephants to the finish line.
GAME 1
Okay, I'm honestly getting tired of Tyler Silvanus winning player of the game, like quit being so good you freak
Championship, Game 1 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Drawkland 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 5 7 0
South Newlandia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0W: T. Silvanus (6-1)
L: H. Clark (---)Game MVP: Tyler Silvanus (7.0 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 10 K, 1 BB / 1-for-4, 1 HR, 1 R, 3 RBI)
A pitcher's duel in Game 1. Tell me where you've heard that before. Hailey Clark, the South Newlandian ace, was on the hill for the Pachyderms. Clark is arguably the best pitcher in baseball, being the top hurler on the best national team in the WBC and revered as one of the fiercest in the LPB, the best baseball league in the multiverse. There's nobody you'd rather have starting at pitcher for your team ... except maybe one other guy.
Tyler Silvanus is an aberration. A fearsome power pitcher on the mound, and a terrifying power hitter at the plate. This kind of talent only comes around once in a generation, if that. He's perhaps the best player in Drawkland's PBL right now, always in play for the MVP with his Bellator Cavaliers. Though he's had a couple blowup starts (by ace standards anyway - barely missing on a quality start while not receiving the necessary run support) in the playoffs, there's nobody the Base Corps would rather have on the mound. No, Kirkland stans, calm down. We'll glaze Claire later.
So the matchup was in. Clark vs Silvanus. And for five innings, it was exactly the kind of game expected. A rowdy crowd crammed into the Worm Hole, stars and celebrities from South Newlandia, Drawkland, and even Zwangzug all in the mix and getting their 5-second candid crowd shots on the broadcast. They watched in keen anticipation as both hurlers allowed just a couple singles apiece through the first half of the game. Who would blink first? Surely this wouldn't end up like that WBC 55 Game 7, of which Zebra and Elephant fans are so familiar.
Clark ran into trouble first. After inducing a Zac MacBay flyout to lead off the sixth inning, Aaron Frost worked a patient walk, the first base on balls of the game. He really earned it too, forcing Clark to throw nine pitches as he continued tipping off the borderline pitches and taking the junk without flinching. Finally, Clark tried to drop the hammer with her surprise curveball, but Frost watched it drop just under the knees. The entire stadium froze for a moment, then watched as the home plate umpire simply stood up. Frost took his base, and brought Lane Kavana to the plate. Lane also forced Clark to hit her spots, but he was less interested in working a walk (which he hadn't done for the entirety of the playoffs). Anything remotely close to the plate, Lane was tipping away into foul ground, almost intentionally. He was fishing for a mistake. Clark wouldn't make it. Eventually she threw a belt-high slider that cut inside but not far enough. Lane roasted it through the right side of the infield, but couldn't get far enough under the ball to send it skyward. Instead it zipped at Mach 2 to Jaffro Drawk Raffaele Pohl in right field, too fast for Frost to try moving first to third.
Then came Tyler Silvanus. He was hitless in the game so far, but his second at-bat was a seared liner that just didn't find the grass. He came to the plate with what looked like a mask of disdain drawn across his face. Utter determination. Complete focus. If Hailey Clark was a lesser woman, she might've turned into stone on the spot. But she had a job to do. This was the first time either team had a runner in scoring position. With how Silvanus was fileting the Elephant lineup, a single run could be deadly. An out was necessary. Two would be nice. Time to tango. Similar to the prior two at-bats, Clark was having trouble putting Silvanus away. He spat on the pitches outside and low, and was pounding the pitches in the zone foul with authority. It came to a 2-2 count, and Clark once again dug for the curveball, which she hadn't thrown since Frost's AB. It was hung. Not by much, but up enough for Silvanus to get under it and clobber it to right-center field. Drawkland had just taken the lead.
That would be the end of Clark's night. Côme Nguyen came in, hoping to keep the score where it was. Richelle Shard was her first challenge. Nguyen went for a changeup on a 1-2 count, but Shard waited on it and barreled it. The ball zipped down the left field line and probably broke somebody's jaw in the first row of seats. Back-to-back jacks, and the Drawkian crowd was completely inconsolable. Nguyen finally got the final two outs, but the damage, as they say, had been done.
Silvanus kept ripping through the Elephants, meanwhile. The Corps added on another insurance run with their third homer of the game, a dead center missile off the bat of Jimmy Todd. He's the king, you know. That would be the last hit of the game from a Drawkian bat, but it didn't matter. Silvanus departed in the seventh by earning his 10th strikeout of the game, walking back towards the dugout to a standing ovation by the Drawkians in attendance (much to the chagrin of any fans sitting behind a Drawkian).
Sara Barton, the spot-starting, long-relief, setup-woman swing pitcher for the Corps, was on the mound in the eighth. Glenn Sutton expected her to pitch the last few innings without any drama, and she accomplished just that. Two innings in relief, two hits allowed, two strikeouts, and nobody getting two or more bases. A routine grounder from Aaron Frost to Ted Honeycutt was the last out of the game, and the Drawkians celebrated.
Drawkland has a lead in the WBC Championship series. Surely this won't last, but you gotta enjoy what you've got while you've got it.
Game 2 vs South NewlandiaON THE BUMP: Claire Kirkland (5-1, 1.25) R
lineup avg ops
1. (R) A. Frost SS .345 .748
2. (S) L. Kavana CF .485 1.212
3. (L) T. Honeycutt DH .279 .898
4. (R) R. Shard 1B .350 .959
5. (R) A. Kavana RF .308 .872
6. (R) J. Todd C .276 .828
7. (S) E. Houston 2B .303 .803
8. (R) Z. MacBay LF .262 .659
9. (S) A. Gates 3B .250 .659
With Silvanus taking his legally mandated break day, Honeycutt slides to DH, Shard slides to first, Abram Kavana rejoins his brother in the outfield, Houston moves back to second, and Gates gets back into the lineup at his native third. Honeycutt fills the role of big scary lefty in the 3-hole which Sutton seems fond of for the Corps lineup. Abram has still been hitting decently well, so he stays in the middle order, and Top Jimmy's shot in the seventh inning gave Sutton enough confidence to keep him in the lineup and move him to sixth. Then the pod of Skyhawks sans Ted occupy the bottom third ... but that's a bottom third with some serious upside. MacBay and Gates, the two PBL MVPs from last season, aren't really hitting to their full potential lately ... but disregard them at your own risk, Wolodymyr King. The absence of Silvanus is almost a blessing: it allows Sutton to cram another righty (or rather, a switch hitter) into the lineup against the lefty King. Not like Silvanus is awful against lefties, but I digress.
Game 1 had an amazing blast to win a hard-fought pitcher's duel. It was a great game of baseball for the Drawkians ... but you can't expect the Elephants to lay low all series. There's going to be a counterpunch coming ... but will it come against Claire Kirkland, who has only given up 3 runs in 4 appearances these playoffs? With Sara Barton beautifully eating two innings at the end of Game 1, you better believe every arm in the Base Corps bullpen will be ready to pitch at a moment's notice. Jury's out on if that's really a good thing, but the back end has been weirdly solid, besides Trevor in Game 5.
On Corps, baby. Keep it rolling.
