C h a s i n g D r e a m s ➮ C a r r i s o n

• 21 •

Carrie was getting bored out there in center field. This was one of the games she had a love hate relationship with. If she wasn't getting any action that meant their pitcher was throwing a hell of a game. But Carrie also wanted some action to keep herself awake and in focus. She had settled to pacing a few feet back and forth between pitches to pulling out her card from her back pocket to check the pitch calls even though she already memorized them.

Following the strikeout pitch, Carrie jumped up and down a few times in the outfield to stretch her legs out. They were into game three of the championship series with the Pride with no score. Needing just one win to take it all, Carrie hoped they could accomplish it tonight so she could head out to LA tomorrow and spend the rest of the MLB season with Harrison.

Carrie wanted to run. And she needed to run. She was due up second in the bottom of the fifth and with the way the pitchers were throwing today, she wouldn't be surprised if she got called on to drop a bunt down and try to beat it out.

She finally got her wish. The Pride batter lifted a shallow fly ball into center field. The ball hardly had any hang time at all as she charged in and slid to make the catch. Getting quickly to her feet, she hustled in and right into the dugout to get her helmet and gloves.

It wasn't long before she got her third plate appearance of the game as the first pitch was popped right up to the Pride catcher. Carrie wasn't sure what to do this at-bat. Last time up, she beat out an infield single from the right side. She wasn't instructed to do anything specific and decided to take this at-bat from the left side. As soon as she stepped into the left handed batters box, the third baseman and shortstop came creeping in to play the slap.

Carrie had other ideas. She lifted the pitch into shallow left field, the ball landing right on the edge of the infield dirt with nobody around it. It was an easy double and hopefully it got a rally going so the Bandits could get on the board first. She quickly pulled off her batting gloves and strapped on her sliding glove to her left hand.

That was the only piece of fancy gear she wore. Carrie refused to wear an elbow or shin guard when batting as she claimed it would give away which side she would be batting from. And she sometimes switched in the middle of an at-bat. She only wore the glove to keep her from jamming her wrist or fingers diving into a base. Carrie didn't need to worry about diving on the base paths this time around as she scored easily on two wild pitches.

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Carrie jogged out to center field for the top of the seventh inning. "Anything that comes out this way is mine," she told her left fielder Kirsten.

"You sure about that?"

"I'm bored out here," she yelled back. "I'll come take it out of your glove if I have to."

"I want to see that."

Carrie got her wish to run again. There was a line drive hit in the gap between center and left field. She got a good jump on it but it was dropping fast. Carrie knew she was going to have to lay out and snag the ball off the ground.

She dove. With her outstretched glove, she made the catch just inches above the ground. That was when she realized this dive wasn't going to end well at all. The ball was low enough that she caught it with the strings of her glove brushing the grass. She tried to lift her glove up to extend fully into the dive and land on the grass but her glove dropped enough from the weight of the ball and impact of the catch that it got stuck.

Carrie threw her right hand down to try and flip herself onto her shoulder but it was no use. She landed right on that wrist. Before she even completed the dive she heard the pop and felt the pain shoot up her arm.

There was no doubt she'd just broken her wrist and maybe a lot more.

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Totally didn't stall out of ideas for this book...