"BALL THREE"
Bellowed the Umpire behind homeplate, Scott stepped back out of the batters box, the pitch count was now full, three balls two strikes, two outs, tying run at second base, bottom of the ninth inning. "No pressure", Scott kept repeating to himself as he swung the bat back and forth lazily as the opposing teams catcher tossed the ball back to the pitcher, with the count full, and two outs already,Scott knew the pitcher had no choice but to throw the ball in the strike zone. Scott smiled to himself, he'd been on a hitting streak for the past week, if the ball was anywhere close to the strike zone, he was gonna tag it good.

Scott looked up into the stands behind homeplate, the two seats he had reserved for his Brothers were both empty, as they normally were. Three years of playing College ball they'd not shown up for a home game, the Ticket manager for the team had done his best to persuade him to relinguish his tickets a year ago, but Scott had held out hope at least one of them would show up, hell the game was even right here in Justice against the local University and still no Brothers. "Screw both of ya", he muttered under his breath, some kids shouted out his name and he turned to wave, the local paper had written up a story on how a local boy was returning home despite being on the rival team, but he was pretty sure it was because his last name was Jagielski.

He was about to step back in the batters box when he caught a glimpse of kids chaperone, an attractive long haired redhead, her deep green eyes noticed him looking and smiled coyly, Scott gave her a quick grin then at the Umpires urging got back the the batters box and settled into his stance, bringing the bat back to his shoulder. He watched as the pitcher nodded his head at whatever signal the catcher had given him, watched as he wound up, pitching arm comng over at the three quarter position, Scott tensed, the ball left the pitchers hand but went high and wide, Scott grinned and adjusted his stance, in stead of coming in hard and fast, the pitcher was trying to catch the corner of the strike zone with a curveball, but unfortunately the pitcher released the ball to soon and it floated high and instead of breaking down over the corner of the strike zone, the curveball broke downward across the center of the plate. Scott waited a fraction of a second as the ball broke down, adjusted his left foot to open up his stance then swung then for the fences.

The crack of the ball hitting the bat and then launching into the air like a cannonball ,brought the Bruin fans to their feet. Scott took off running for first base as the crowd roared and the radio announcers excitingly discribe the hit,

" HOLY COW sportsfans, number 21 Jagieski just crushed all of the pitch, the pitcher hung a high curve ball and Jagieski's making him pay for it....its going, going... no wait, its dropping, flags around the left field are blowing in, the balls caught in the crosswind and dropping, the winds been sporadic the whole game..... the center fielders running back but running out of room, he's at the warning track, I think the ball's still gonna clear the wall but its gonna be close, fielders at the wall, he's jumping.... AAWW MAN , AAAWW MAN, WHAT A CATCH AN INDEFENSIBLE CATCH, I DONT BELIEVE IT, The fielder just leaped up, hung his mit over the wall and stole the game winning hit from Jagieski and the UCLA Bruins, OUTSTANDING defensive play, and that ends the ball game folks thanks for listening and join as on Monday when Justice University takes on San Franciso A&M".

Scott had rounded second base and going to third when the third base coach waved him off just as the home team started jumping up and down then running out to swarm their pitcher, he looked around confused at first then he looked up to see the replay of the catch on the stadiums large screen video display. "Well son of a bitch" was all he could say as he turned and walked back to the visiting teams dugout.