When Daisy was Hit by the Baseball
A Story of Dalton Hill
Nothing was ever the same after the day that Daisy got hit by the baseball.
I was there that fateful summer day, the sky blue, not a cloud seen anywhere. A more beautiful June day could not be painted by artists or sung about by minstrels. The Independent League baseball game was surprisingly well attended, considering the home team had not won a game in over three years.
It had become a tale of legend, how the Dalton Hill Pirates had started their ill-fated run of mediocrity that saw them lose an astronomical 268 games consecutively, a record of incompetence unmatched in the history of sports. Even the Washington Generals knocked off the Harlem Globetrotters every once in a while.
That exciting day, three years prior, when the Dalton Hill Pirates had their last W, everything was looking up for the team. They were a few games ahead of their rivals, the Springdale Aardvarks, in the league standings and they were just a few weeks away from taking the division crown and advancing to the one game playoff for the league championship. This was a game that they would not see.
The Dalton Hill Pirates lost that lead in the standings and continued to lose game after game until the very mention of an Independent League baseball game drew ridicule and divisive comments.
How did this streak of all streaks start? The popular theory among the pundits at the coffee shops was that the team had been cursed. Without a better answer to the riddle, most people just accepted it as gospel. They even had an unfortunate scapegoat.
Beatrice Hopper was the proprietor of a holistic nutrition store in Dalton Hill called The Cauldron, where she would sell all-natural and Vegan foods, nutritional supplements and fresh herbs of all kinds. However, it was speculated that Beatrice Hopper was much more than a simple store owner. It was a scarcely hidden secret whispered among the citizens of Dalton Hill, albeit with a lack of any contributing evidence, that Beatrice Hopper practiced witchcraft.
So it came to a special promotional night at the ball field where they were celebrating Halloween. Why they had scheduled a Halloween promotion during the summer months was a subject of great debate. Fans were encouraged to come to the ballpark in their best costumes and cosplay outfits. There were several Halloween themed activities being held between innings including best costume, the skeleton base run and bobbing for baseballs (apples colored to look like baseballs).
Beatrice Hopper was a regular at the field. She loved baseball and she knew plenty about the sport. She had come in an angel outfit, but the promotional geniuses that were employed by the team had another idea. They wanted a special guest host for the night and they approached Beatrice, a theater major in college, to fill that role. She had played host many times over the years and was considered almost an honorary member of the team.
The problems started early that day. No one from the office approached Beatrice about her costume because they just assumed what she would wear, considering the reputation that followed her and her shop. The angel costume came out of left field.
Before the game started, members of the promotional crew came to see her and handed her one of the most generic witch costumes anyone had ever seen.
“What is this supposed to be?” Beatrice said, immediately offended.
“What’s the big deal,” said Gerard Dragen, one of the upper management of the team and not the brightest bulb in the pack. “You’re used to wearing this and it is not as if I want you to put a wart on your nose.”
If it were just Gerard’s well known ignorance, Beatrice might have been able to proceed without incident, but it was about this time that some of the players on the Dalton Hill Pirates jumped in.
“Did you leave your broom at home?”
“Double, double toil and trouble…”
“Do you need a live chicken?”
Their razzing was not intended as mean-spirited, but it was certainly tone deaf and ill-timed. Beatrice felt piled upon and bullied so when the crowd started joining in, unaware that the words were hurtful to her, she made a decision.
Beatrice put on the witch costume and held the anger inside, being a total professional with the host gig that she had accepted. Beatrice shoved the unintended insults down deep in her heart and did what she had to do to get through the evening. With the game ending with a Dalton Hill Pirates victory, the final straw was when star player, right fielder Carlos ”Cheeseburger” Macin dumped a large jug of Gatorade over her head. It was a typical, nightly celebration that the team would do after the win, and no one thought that she would take it poorly. The team saw it as an honor.
For Beatrice, it was not.
After this victory, the last one they would have for a long time, Betarice went into the office of Gerard Dragen to unleash her anger with the perceived insults, letting her displeasure be known.
Although the meeting was held behind closed doors and no one besides Beatrice and Gerard were in attendance, several staff members reported afterwards about the fire, the vitriol that Beatrice delivered her remarks. Word spread quickly that the local witch was unhappy at her treatment and how the day progressed.
So the very next day, when things around the team began to unravel, everyone believed they knew what had happened. Baseball players are a superstitious lot anyway and when Carlos Macin slipped on a puddle of spilled Gatorade in the locker room, tearing his MCL and ACL, putting him on the injured list for the better part of a year, panic threatened to spread throughout the team.
This was the first of a series of unlucky events. A buffalo the team had brought in for their weekend series with the team well above them in the division, the Buffalos, got loose and rampaged across the field, stampeding through the team’s batting cage, destroying everything beneath its ample weight. The team’s boiler broke down, depriving the team of any hot water in the shower or the training room. There was an unexpected infestation of silverfish in the home uniforms.
Worst of all, the team lost the game that night, starting off the plummeting of the team in the standings for that season. Most of the community had a guess about why so much went wrong so quickly, but only a few brave souls found the courage to approach Beatrice, and even fewer brought up the subject.
The few times anyone would broach the subject with her, Beatrice would flatly deny any hand in the losing streak, only ever saying that ‘Karma was..’ Well, you know the saying.
Flash ahead three years and two hundred and sixty eight games, the Dalton Hill Pirates were wallowing in another year of utter chaos and wishing to reach the level where they could be considered mediocre.
Daisy McMahon was the unluckiest lady in all of Dalton Hill. It had become a running joke, and Daisy was the first to laugh about it. If anyone had a right to be negative, it was Daisy because she was constantly having things go wrong, but she never reacted in that manner. She would throw her head back and laugh out loud, joyously clapping her hands at every drawback. It was inspirational.
Daisy was in attendance at Pirates Park for a game between the Dalton Hill Pirates and their local rivals the Springdale Aardvarks. She loved coming to the ballpark early to watch the warm up. Everything seemed to be going fine, when it happened.
Rookie shortstop Jamaal Jones was an incredible athlete. He could hit to all fields with power and could run like the wind. He was one of the best players to come to Dalton Hill since “Cheeseburger,” but there was one major drawback.
His arm was errotic.
There were times when he would deliver a perfect strike to first base on a ground ball, yet other times the ball would be picking off the mascot or scattering the players in the dugout.
On this fateful day, the ball had a mind of its own.
During ground ball practice before the game, Jones scooped up the grounder in a fluid motion and sent the ball soaring. Unfortunately, the throw was nowhere near first base.
It seemed as if it were an incoming missile and the entire audience in attendance gasped at the unintended target.
There was Daisy.
The ball struck Daisy in the left shoulder, knocking her backwards into a front row seat on the first base side of the stands. With her legs extended and the ball slowly rolling away from her, Daisy looked stunned. By the time the security and the ushers got to where she was to check on her…
Daisy was laughing.
The laughter spread around the park, from fans to players and back. Daisy was fine, maybe a little sore, but the laughter was catchy. The cameras had caught the impromptu moment and rebroadcast it on the big screen for the whole crowd. They replayed the video throughout the game, with a riotous response from the happy crowd.
And something strange happened. Everyone was so relaxed and the morale was so high that everything started going well. The unforced physical and mental errors that had become a trademark of the Dalton Hill Pirates’ game were suddenly, magically, gone. It was a night and day difference.
The 268 game losing streak came to an end, 4-1.
With the expectation that the team had finally turned the corner and that the long nightmare had thankfully come to a conclusion, the fans returned to Pirates Park the next day filled with a new hope and a breath of fresh air.
And the Pirates lost again.
And the next day.
And the next.
The fears that the victory was just a hiccup in the swirling sea of negativity embraced the players and the staff, causing some wild ideas to be discussed. The video of Daisy being knocked over did not seem to inspire the troops any longer, but there was a bizarre idea that sprung from it.
“Let’s do it again,” said team manager Butch McGraw.
McGraw’s idea was simple. He claimed that the bad luck that had engulfed his team over the last few years had been subdued by Daisy McMahon’s amazing reaction to being hit by the thrown ball. So he thought that all they needed to do was reenact the event, with Jamaal Jones hitting her with a ball once again.
The plan was poo-pooed by many, claiming that it was the spontaneity of the moment that brought the magic and that any attempt to force the magic back would be artificial and contrived. Yet, Daisy agreed to give it a try.
Problem was… Jamaal Jones had his issues trying to get the ball from shortstop to first base. Can you picture how comical it was to see him trying to hit a woman in the front row of the stands instead.
What a sight you will never see. Imagine, a baseball team warming up for a game, with their starting shortstop peppering the crowd with baseballs trying to hit a specific woman, who kept walking by, trying to make herself an easier target.
Daisy was like a duck in a shooting game at the carnival, with baseballs flying past her as she moved back and forth. It was so ridiculous, but, after several failed attempts to get hit by the ball, Daisy would make a DING sound as she turned around and went back. She was laughing the whole time.
Eventually, other infielders and even the coaching staff joined Jamaal throwing baseballs into the stands. Daisy was, quite literally, having a ball. It got to the point where Daisy started to throw herself into the path of the ball, to help the players out.
The new losing streak came to an end after this game and now there was a new activity for all home games. Try to hit Daisy with a baseball! They started pulling names from the fans to try between innings too. It became one of the most popular features during the games. Daisy was officially hired as a member of the Pirates’ staff.
The Dalton Hill Pirates played better. They won some. They lost some.
They laughed a lot.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 