An Unlikely Slugger: The story of Cole Bassitt

Chapter 10: Power Trip

The next few nights were pretty mundane, with Tate seeming a little bit down and giving Kairo a little bit of pointers (he's been learning English with Kai). After a good night's sleep, I woke up, throwing on some shorts and my Suns Out Guns Out tanktop even though it was 6 AM and the sun hadn't risen yet. I emerged from my room at the same time as Corey Bertram, today's starter, and he followed me to the elevator, where we bumped into Kairo and Kai, brushing up on Kairo's english.
"Now let's try with Cole!" Kai instructed.

"Hi, Cole. I'm Kairo. Good evening." Kairo stammered. English was a little tough to him, and it would take a little while for him to learn. I smiled. "Almost, Kairo! You're getting better!"Kairo cracked a grin.

"Thank you." Kai and Kairo slapped hands. Kai whipped out some home-made looking flash-cards, and Kairo groaned as we stepped off the elevator, to the hotel breakfast below, where Cordell served himself some bacon and pancakes. He hungrily licked his lips and walked back to his table. Like the before game, an air of general uneasiness went around the breakfast. Kellen, Corey, Kairo, Kai and I all sped over to the breakfast bar. Kellen instantly snatched up some jerky(?) and sat down as I filled up my plate with a pancake and filling a glass cup with apple juice. I sat down with Kellen as ESPN had 2 men talking about last night's bowling matchup.

After finishing my breakfast, I headed back up to my room to collect my bag and uniform. We wouldn't have batting practice until 3, but we were going to the field to work out a little bit. I threw in some shorts along with my black jersey. We were a low-seed team, so we would have lots of away games.

(6 hours later)

We pulled up to beautiful Lansing Memorial Coliseum, where the coliseum seats were barren. I could see in the distance, a packed restaurant, full of the hungry fans. I took off my normal clothes, and put on my workout shorts as Coach strolled in. "Big game today. Brantley, center! Kordes, 2. Hound, catch. Caldwell, left. Bullock, short. Barry, third. Sipe, DH. Crawford, first. Dumas in right and Stackhouse on the mound."

As I strolled into the gym, I noticed that Reece and Braxton were both gone. Kai muttered my way.

"The front office dumped Reece and Braxton to Indy for some reason! I can't believe this!" I gasped. Reece? Our star pitcher? "Why the-"

"Hold your horses, there, dudes!" Bryan stopped us. "Coach had good reason. We're probably not getting far in the playoffs, so he's stashing picks for the draft!" I slunk. He was probably right, but this year was the final year of Cordell, Drake, Jae, Danny, Eden, and Bryan's contract. I wanted to win, though, because I was probably getting traded too.

My train of thought was interrupted by Kellen slapping me across the face. It was my turn on the deadlift. I took a deep breath, chalked my hands, and snatched a 45 pound plate from the rack, sliding it on the bar and clipping it into place. I lifted the bar, heavy as it was, grunting all the way. Then, I dropped the bar and the crowd of players around clapped. It wasn't as much a workout as a competition to see who could lift the most, and like usual, Kellen won.

The rest of lifting was pretty boring until the last 5 minutes, where I walked into the locker room to see two new faces gearing up. Above them, their lockers were already customized with Alvarez and Cornelius as their names. Noticing my confusion, Cornelius introduced them.

"I'm Jack Cornelius, and he's Marco Alvarez. New call ups from Triple A. We've been waiting for this moment our entire lives." Marco nodded. "He doesn't speak English. I'm filling in for Hampton, and Marco's filling in for Gentry."

"Keep your shirt on, Corny. You're a reliever here." Bray butted in. "I'M the starting third baseman now, so Marco can scoot on back to Mexico." Marco cocked his head confusedly and mumbled some Spanish to a nearby Kairo.