I wanted the outcome of any game I played to be in my control. As a child who loved sports I felt the urge before I could put my attitude into  words, like a boy who hangs around a kid down the block without saying “best friend,” or a twelve year old happy to be with a girl before  “love” flickers in his brain. But by the time I reached my mid-teens, whenever I was in a game, there was a message in bright lights that blinded me to everything else: GIVE ME THE BALL!

That worked perfectly in basketball: near the end of games I dribbled where I wanted and either made a shot or passed to the right person for an easy basket. Baseball wasn’t so certain, as everyone had to wait his or her turn at bat and being “the one” was more random. Yet somehow, more often than not, I came to bat when it mattered most. I’m not a man of faith, but at those moments I truly believed someone was watching over me.

So, after years of magic, I was surprised to find myself on the sideline with my law school team losing a lob pitch softball game by one run with men on second and third with two outs. I was one hitter away from my turn at bat and figured that this time the result was out of my hands. My friend Chris, the guy ahead of me, would either make the final out or get a hit to win the game.

This should have upset me because a far inferior team was about to eliminate us from a tournament due to our lackadaisical play and overall hubris. However, through some miracle of second chances that only sports can deliver, we were catching up, and there was a strong chance that we were heading towards an ending where my turn at the plate would be decisive. And yet, that afternoon, through some quirk in the order of our universe, someone else—a good player, but still not me—would be determining whether we went home happy or depressed.

I say “should” have upset me because for reasons I cannot fathom to this day (other than law school had been battering my ego for two years), I felt relieved. Finally, it would not be up to me, and the lifting of the weight not only surprised me but brought on a calm I’d never anticipated.

The first pitch to Chris was a ball. The pitcher wouldn’t want to throw another ball, so the next pitch seemed likely to end the game, one way or another. In my mind, I urged Chris on: Get ready, this is your moment.

Instead, Chris took the pitch, and the umpire called out, “Ball two!” Ball three followed.

By now I couldn’t swallow and the words “This can’t be happening” rushed through my brain. As the next toss left the pitcher’s hand, I immediately knew the ball was off target, and as Chris watched it sail high and wide, he pumped his fist and tossed away his bat. Ball four!

I was stunned, as if the earth beneath my feet suddenly had opened. Chris jogged to first base to the whoops and hollers of our teammates, then he turned to me, pumped his fist again and called out, “Come on big guy. This game is yours.”

For a second, I wondered: maybe a miracle would occur and make this all go away. But that wasn’t going to happen, so I walked as confidently as I could fake towards home plate, my legs weak and hands shaking, not so intensely that anyone would notice, but enough for me to know that the warm rush of anticipated success wasn’t going to flow through me this time. Instead, I was being overwhelmed by a force I couldn’t fight off, and my body and brain were starting to shut down.

Is this how other people felt?

I scolded myself: Concentrate! You’ve been in this situation a million times. Just wait for a pitch you can hit, then explode into the ball with a level swing.

I took a deep breath, dug my feet into the batter’s box and looked up. First, I fixed my mind on where I wanted the lob pitch to land: waist high, outside part of home plate. Then I picked the spot on the field where I wanted my line drive to land: fifteen feet behind second base in an imaginary square I outlined on the sunlit grass. Finally, I located the fielder who posed the greatest obstacle: the second baseman, an athletic-looking guy who played deep, shaded towards the base. If he was quick enough, he could dive to his right and backhand my drive before it hit the ground.

I raised my arms, so the bat pointed straight up, wiggled my fingers on the handle, and stared out at the pitcher, forcing myself to focus on his right hand. He was rolling the ball in his fingers to get a better feel, then gripped it with his whole hand. The first toss went up, and to my surprise, disappeared into the sun that had shifted enough since my last at bat to blind me. This wasn’t good. Then, when the pitch finally emerged, it was in the “wrong” spot for me to swing, and so high that the umpire should have called it a ball. He didn’t. As an amateur arbiter, maybe he had guilt about calling so many balls during Chris’ at bat and felt like he owed the pitcher a strike. This also was bad.

And yet, despite echoes of anxiety, sun in my eyes, and an umpire anxious to call bad pitches strikes, I sensed that my old self was coming back, slowly and inexplicably, like when I was five years old and could feel that everything and everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be.

But it wasn’t that simple anymore. I now was older, and “feelings,” even the most positive, no longer existed without words and counter-feelings, so as much as I tried to turn off the tap of negativity, the drip continued: What if I can’t see the next pitch? What if I don’t take a good swing? What if that stud second basement makes a diving catch? What if I fail?

I shook my head to clear it: I didn’t want to put myself in the helpless position of taking a second strike. Unless the next pitch was extraordinarily wild, I was ready to swing. I expected to swing. Win or lose, this was the decisive moment.

I watched the pitcher rock back, then come forward with an underhand motion that sent his pitch skyward. Once again, the ball vanished into the sun, but I waited, and as if by some preordained plan, the ball finally came out of the blinding light and dropped into my perfect zone: waist high and far enough away that I could extend my arms and take a full swing. I waited and waited, then exploded, the ball shooting off my bat. As I followed through on my stroke, aiming the bat towards second base, I saw the white sphere, glistening in sunshine, fly over the bag. The second baseman was diving to his right, his arm extended, his glove looking longer than a glove should be, and for a split second—it couldn’t have been any longer—I waited for the “pop” of ball into mitt, but then it was past him, bouncing and sliding towards the centerfielder.

Perhaps my memory is distorting what happened, but I swear that from the moment I heard the crack of ball on bat to the moment the ball hit the outfield grass not one sound was being made by anyone or anything. But as soon as the ball struck turf and started skimming along like a skipping stone over water, cheers erupted, the world shrank and nothing else mattered.

I watched the man on third score with the man on second right behind, teammates swarming all around the tying and winning runs, until everyone wheeled and sprinted towards me, my only thought being that this was way things were supposed to turn out: I’d done what I’ve always done. And yet, as I stepped on first base and my friends tackled me, I lay on the bottom of the pile and knew that this time was different. This time I had doubt. This time I realized a possibility that never had occurred to me before, at least not with so much intensity: I might not succeed. And while over the years I’ve retained my desire to control the outcome of every game, and every other part of life for that matter, I must admit, that since that at bat, now decades ago, the moments I used to crave are not welcome anymore. That’s not a horrible thing, but life was a lot easier to handle the old way.

***

Stewart Bellus’ most recent major publication is a short story collection titled “Moments of Truth.” He previously published “The Villa,” a historical fiction novel set in WWII Italy. Both works have consistently received 5-star ratings on Amazon. His e-novel, “Tip of the Tongue,” was a contemporary tale of respectable people acting in disreputable ways. He also has had short stories published in literary magazines such as Confrontation, Mediphors, Washington Lawyer (a fiction contest winner), Wood Cat Review, Dumbo Press, and two anthologies. His story “My Friend George” recently was longlisted in the “History Through Fiction” short story contest and published as an independent work of fiction.

“Game Changer” originally was published in Stewart’s collection of short stories, Moments of Truth, released by Atmosphere Press in 2021.