Wow In Deed

Aaron was our righfielder. Aaron was a dead ringer for Daniel Day Lewis in the Last of the Mohicans. Tall, lanky, long dark hair, all around attractive hippie, carpenter type guy but not much of a baseball player.

Plus on this day, he was on acid.

Aaron had a magnificent German shephard dog, named Jeremiah who went out to rightfield with Aaron when our team took the field. As you might imagine, this league was pretty damned low key with far more ale than anxiety. 

Somewhere in the middle innings, the word got around that Aaron was tripping. This information added to the appreciation of the game that Aaron was playing in the outfield. Let's face it, most of the time in baseball is spent just standing around and nobody spends more time standing around than a rightfielder in a slow pitch softball game where almost everything is hit to the left side and nobody stands around better than a guy on acid whose got control of his trip and is with his dog in a field of flowers.

As the inning began, Aaron was sitting on his haunches whispering to Jeremiah, seemingly about the dandelions that were growing around them in righfield. Nobody was paying too much attention, when a left handed batter, the only lefty on the opposing team, smashed a line shot into righfield.

This is when the change began for everyone.

Time slowed down.

Space altered.

Aaron physically and visually shared his trip with everyone who was paying attention.

He was still on his haunches when the ball was struck. The people in the know started laughing and saying...that's a home run....Aarons on acid.

That's when everything slipped into slow motion.

Aaron rose to his feet. 

The ball seemingly over his head.

He started moving back, back, back....

It didn't look like running....it looked more like flying or pathfinding or deerslaying. Aaron had big feet to begin with but as he flew back...back...back...his size 11 sandals looked like they had become size eighteen. Jeremiah was nipping at his fluttering bell bottoms.

The ball which had rocketed over his head, seemed to hesitate as Aaron began to glide, covering more ground with each step than humanly possible. Everybody on the bench suddenly realized that we were seeing things through the altered consciousness of Aaron.

After seven or eight giant steps with the ball still past him, Aaron reached out his now giant sized glove. The ball had seemingly stopped and as the giant glove stretched out a few more inches on is own, the ball gently fell into the seemingly elastic glove.

Aaron caught the ball and went into a slow motion forward roll with Jeremiah who had been at his heels during the whole pursuit, virtually rolling with him. Aaron held on to the ball and waved it in the air.

Everything seemed absolutely right with the planet.

Time regained its composure as Aaron made his way to our bench.

When he got to the bench after making the greatest catch in the history of baseball, Aaron said "Wow".

Wow indeed