It was the kind of warm August night where you don't even want to move. My friend and I were just lying on the couches in my living room playing a baseball video game. We had just started a new game and it was still scoreless.
My phone buzzed soon after we began play so I paused the game to fish it out of my pocket. It was rather late and I was wondering who it was during the retrieval. When the phone's screen met my eyes I could see a text message from my girlfriend was the cause of the buzz.
"Hey babe, I just got off work and am super tired, I don't want to bike home and was wondering if I could crash at your place tonight."
I typed out and sent the message, "Sure, Gregg and I are just lying around playing video games."
"Who was that?" Gregg asked me.
"Linda, she just got off work and is going to crash here tonight." I replied.
"Cool." Gregg said, "hey we just started this game, why not take a break to get something to drink and wait for Linda to show?"
I agreed with his suggestion and led the way to my kitchen. I opened the fridge and pulled out two beers, handing one to Gregg.
"A nice cold drink will feel great tonight, it is so freaking hot!" Gregg accepted the beer.
We sat at my kitchen table enjoying the cool beverages. Soon I heard the familiar sound of a bike rolling down my gravel driveway
"Sounds like Linda has arrived." Gregg said.
I had always allowed Gregg to go on about how hot he thought my girl was, but his excitement at her arrival was a little uncomfortable. Linda was a sweet eighteen year old, tough for any twenty-one year old guy to resist and Gregg was a member of the latter category.
"Hey babe." Linda came through the door greeting me with a kiss. "What's up Gregg?"
Linda elaborated on her tiered state, noting a long shift and the ridiculous heat/humidity, saying she could only hang out for a bit, but needed to go to sleep soon. She stayed for a beer, the three of us chatted for a bit, but after the one drink she announced her retirement. She moved to go to my room upstairs, I told her Gregg and I had a game to finish and I would join her after it was done.
"Let's get back to work." Gregg said as he finished his beer.
I agreed and we made our way to my living room.
"Hey how about we make this game a little more interesting? You win you get $50, but if I win...I get Linda." Gregg said.
This caused me to finally break down, "dude! Don't talk like that about my girl! Besides you'd have no chance with her."
"That doesn't matter, she's in a dark room, if we don't hit the lights she'll just think I'm you."
"So you solved one problem, but she's still my girl and I don't want my friends dick in her mouth!"
"You got nine innings to make sure that doesn't happen...$50 buys a lot of beer."" He tried to convince me to accept.
I was pretty good at this game, and having a pretty good night. Gregg and I had played four games so far and I had won three, I figured my chances of winning the fifth were pretty good.
"Fine, but only because I know you're going to lose." I said.
"Whatever. Let's wait until after the game to choose a winner" Gregg returned.
The further terms of my agreement included that I would be able to choose my team first. I had a favourite team for this game, it had a line-up of sluggers that could belt out home runs at a tremendous clip. My team's starting pitching sucked, but it was a one off game, they had one good pitcher I would always select in similar situations.
I chose to be the away team, any notion of home field advantage really doesn't exist in video game sports. I liked to bat first, in the past I figured out if I could score a few runs early on I could affect my opponent's confidence for the rest of the game. This demoralization, I found, would cause the opposite player to make stupid mistakes and if I was really on my game, I was able to turn the match into a blowout.
My strategy did not work this particular time however, Gregg controlled the pitcher with tremendous expertise. He turned the first inning into a one two three affair. He repeated his domination in the second, the third, and so on until we found ourselves in a scoreless ninth.
Somehow I managed to string together three base hits, only allowing Gregg to get one out.
:You really screwed up this time!" I gloated. "All I have to do is hit a ball to the outfield and I'll be winning."
"Don't count your eggs jerk, I just have to make the right pitch to make you ground out to get the double-play." Gregg retorted.
The bet added heat to our friendly rivalry, I was finding myself becoming quite competitive. The last thing in the world I wanted was to share my girl, take away the innocent version my mind had created of her. I would have done almost anything to win.
Sure enough Gregg made a double-play pitch, ending my threat.
"Looks like I'll be walking you off." Gregg said.
"I will win it in extras easy." I responded with confidence.
As it almost always seems to play out, I had to retire the top of Gregg's lineup if I wanted to force free baseball. His lead off hitter worked me for a walk, but his number two promptly swung at the first pitch, grounding out allowing me to erase both. I only needed one more out, but I had to work my way through his number three, the most talented offensive player on his chosen team.
When facing this batter I made sure to nibble at the corners of the strike-zone. I didn't want to throw him anything he could hurt me with. Gregg was able to take until the count was full. If I was able to make my pitcher throw one more strike he would be out, but if I just lobbed one in there Gregg would get a hit for sure. I had to take a second to think about what I should do. I figured it best to throw a breaking pitch, a ball that would look like a strike but then right before it reached the plate would drop, bouncing in the dirt. Hopefully this would induce a swing and miss, but worse case he would be able to react holding his swing. It was a bigger deal that his current batter would get a hit than he would walk.
This seemed like a foolproof strategy, my high confidence caused me to deliver the pitch with ease. I guess I forgot about the third outcome though. I made my guy throw the pitch, but I was too slow in hitting the right buttons, causing me to miss my intended location. What resulted was a slow moving lob that was in Gregg's sweet spot. He didn't make a mistake crushing my offering the other direction. It did not take long for his rocket to clank off the animated stands behind centre field. As I watched his player trot around the bases I wanted to call off the bet, I can't believe I lost.
Gregg made a hissing noise, "and the crowd goes wild!" He continued to imitate the announcer, "down at field level our roaming reporter caught the hero just after he hit the game winner."
