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Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 48 gentlemen. We have it on the replay and it is not a trapped ball, but a great play by a little known center fielder . . ." We rotate. I'm in the weeds and Fenn's at the plate. Butch's specialty in Wall is the ricocheting fast ball. He nails it through the strike zone, straight off the wall and back through. Fenn doesn't have a chance. I've hit against it and the only way is to close your eyes and swing as the ball is released. Butch throws hard enough to blast shingles off the wall. Three swings later, Fenn is out in the bullrushes and I am on the mound. "Who was that?" Butch asks. "Randy Lander. His fourth strike out of the season." "Randy Lander?" "He moved to Oregon with his mother, remember? His father is in prison or something?" I try to throw what can be called an angle-ball. I step wide off the mound and deliver at an angle so the ball wings back through the zone like a slider. The trouble is the pitch is easily telegraphed and Butch adjusts his stance and slaps my first pitch back off the wall at a slant and it goes over the side fence into Haslam's yard: automatic double. I regroup and start throwing drops which give him more trouble. But with a two and two count, Butch tomahawks a deep drop down off the base of the house, through the infield in two hops and into the bushes. As he runs for the porch, he cries: |
