Somewhere in the Luck of Jirachi
World Baseball Classic 51 Series 6: Hapilopper v. the Church of the Luck of Jirachi
And yet again, another series had passed where the Hap Thrashers had clearly gotten the better of their opponents. The Haps were, at this point, the best baseball team in the World Baseball Classic, having gone 17-1, and with Ethane getting the better of Cassadaigua during their series, the Haps were all by themselves with the best record in the World Baseball Classic. When one watched the Hap Thrashers, it was evident why. The team was playing to a whole new level. The pitchers were getting the outs they needed. Hitters were getting the shots they were looking for and running like mad on the bases. The Hapiloppian brand of baseball – that balls-to-the-wall, all-out, style of baseball, was clearly winning out.
In the first game, Hot Sauce Gibbs put on that kind of performance that everyone expected of him. No runs, four hits, one walk and sixteen strikeouts in a complete game shutout. Nobody from the Alma-Ata Clerical Institute could get past second base as Hot Sauce and the Hap defense were on the top of their game. Meanwhile, the Haps got on the board with the assistance of some shrewd basehitting from Jerome Hayden, who didn’t hit one out of the park in the first game, but instead brought Terry Blanchard and Dayton Rowe home with a two-out double to center field. The next inning, Grant Bonney roped a line drive over the left-field fence – not a high or a deep ball by any means, but enough for the Haps to pull out to a 3-0 lead.
In game two, Vic Foster got out some of his tools of the trade, inspired by a recent incident in the team hotel when Randall Pemberton “borrowed” a bottle of Hot Sauce Gibbs’ “The Hot Sauce’s Hot Sauce” to pour in a large pot of chili being fixed for members of the pitching staff. When the pitchers realized their chili had been ruined, the team looked for the culprit, and other players almost instantly stooged Pemberton off. But rather than kicking his ass, Vic called the hounds off, and asked for the bottle of hot sauce.
“I want to see how this works on a baseball,” Vic said.
And it almost worked, until the fifth inning, when Vic actually forgot he was handling some ultra-hot sauce. As center fielder Josiah Talyev fouled off a 2-2 pitch, Vic lazily looked towards the dugout, then moved up to rub his left eye. It wasn’t until it was too late that Vic realized his eye was slathered with ultra-hot sauce, and within seconds, he was in a world of hurt. Vic spiked the ball down on the mound, accidentally drawing a balk, sending Sergei Tilekov to second base. Vic didn’t care. He had accidentally introduced his left eye to the magical world of a hot sauce rated at around 15,000 Scoville units, and was in a world of hurt. Trainers rushed out to the mound to take Vic out of the game, and Martin Meadows was brought in on short notice to pitch a few innings.
Vic was brought back to the trainer’s room, where his eye was flushed out. Even still, he was screaming in pain, so much so that Dale Moss went back to see what was going on at almost the very moment Talyev hit a two-run home run to right field.
“What the hell did you do?!” Dale asked his pitcher.
“I think I rubbed my eye with hot sauce,” Vic said.
“Why’d you do that?” Dale asked.
“I don’t know, why am I an idiot?” Vic replied.
“Beats me. Either way, don’t use hot sauce again,” Dale said. “I imagine it’s a great tool to use but it’s unsafe. Don’t use it again.”
So it came as no surprise the next morning when the National League of Hapilopper announced a list of banned substances to use on baseballs. Bodily fluids were already forbidden (for obvious reasons) as were bull excrement (for a reason related to an incident a few years ago where Vic’s “bullshit” pitch got its name), and now hot sauce had been added to that list.
In game three, the Haps took another victory, putting them 17-1 and well ahead of Daskel, the only team in the group to have beaten the Thrashers at any point. The third win came through longballs. Terry Blanchard hit one in the first. Jerome Hayden hit a tape-measure shot in the second. Grady Elliott hit one in the fourth. Jerome Hayden hit another one in the fifth, and in classic Jerome fashion.
You’ve heard this story before. Jerome saw a pitch he liked and hammered the hell out of it. He knew it was gone and stood at home plate, watching his handiwork. A huge smile came over his face and he shook his head as he slowly trotted around the bases, making a strange arm gesture along the bases before stopping at home plate and planting his right foot on the base.
The next series would bring the Haps home to Capital Stadium to take on the Tigers from Super-Llamaland, a team the Haps felt was much better than their 9-9 record would indicate. In fact, manager Dale Moss said the Tigers could be a real spoiler in the three-game series.
“Yeah, we swept them over there, but that was one series,” Dale said. “Super-Llamaland is a good baseball team. Isaac Oladipo is a good manager. He’s got some real good ballplayers on that team, and we’re going to need to be at our best if we’re going to have a repeat of that last series we had against them. If we can do that, we’ll be lucky as hell, to say the least. That team should be running up with us, not running at 9-9. Simple as that.”
