Dead Ball in Karakura

It had taken him far too long to find this place, but it was worth it. An open-air pitching machine setup wasn’t hard to find, but the Japanese loved to stick their programmable machines inside of temperature controlled buildings. It might protect the equipment more, extend its life, and allow them to cram more people in year round, but that was boring. How could you expect to get a feel anywhere near a game time situation without feeling a refreshing breeze or dealing with the occasional bug trying to invade your nostrils?

It felt good, damn good. The heft of the bat in his hand, the sounds of the city, and the fact that he was hitting around a .300 added up for one hell of a practice. Kevin had loaded in all of the pitches into the machine blindly from his old team’s game earlier in the day and was doing better than his former club. Someone could argue that he had an unfair advantage, as he knew where each pitch was going to be coming. They might have a case if he were playing the same game over and over again, but his routine of never replaying the same set of pitches helped fight against that.

Top of the 5th, one out, runners on first and second. In the actual game, the team’s new free agent shortstop had managed to jam the ball into a double play. He’d managed to mirror his teammates’ actions so far, loading up both bases in his mental game, though the out came from him whiffing on a curveball instead of popping out to third. Kevin had no such plans of ending the inning without bringing in a run, though.

”Come on, you motherfucker!” he shouted at the machine as he prepared to swing for the fences. He twirled his bat in his hands briefly, trying his best to ignore the dog his shouting had likely spurred into barking. After stepping his foot down on the switch to send the ball, he heard the telltale thunk as the pitch landed in the spinning wheels of the machine, one of which had slowed down and tilted slightly in order to impart enough spin to throw a mock changeup. Kevin saw it all in his mind’s eye. The roaring crowd, the anxiety on the pitcher’s face as he tried to force the out, and the runners from his two previous at bats, eager to advance and score, it was all there.

With a forceful swing, he popped the ball up into the netting, sending it careening toward his illusionary outfield. This wasn’t going to be a double play. No sir, this was going the distance. It just might make it! Kevin dropped the bat in relief as the ball sailed on, but his mental illusion was broken as an ugly black speck drifted into his line of sight from the sky. It was one of the Baltimore Oriole outfielders, and that son of a bitch had managed to jump up and snag his home run. Sure, he’d get a RBI off of it, but he had been robbed!

Snapping out of his daydream, Kevin saw the bastard responsible for ruining his three run shot, pointing his bat at it angrily and shouting, ”Hey you dickass bird! You ruined my homer!”

He watched the bird circle down, tracing its movements with his keen eye and waiting for the thing to leave before he would send another ball. To his shock, the little black bird made its way down to the pitching machine and perched right on top of it.

“Get the hell off of that!” Kevin cried to the bird, leaning back slightly and pointing his bat at the bird as if he were calling out a shot, “I have a deposit on this cage and old man Miyagi or whoever is gonna be pissed if it’s covered in bird shit.” It wasn’t until he looked down the barrel of the bat that he noticed the scratches the bird had already put into the machine’s paint job, his face shifting slightly in anger.

Dropping his bat, Kevin reached behind him and grabbed one of the balls off the ground, turning back to size the avian invader up. He didn’t want to Randy Johnson it and get bird guts all over the pitching machine, but he did want to get the bird off before he would run afoul of the property owner. Sure, he could easily buy thousands of state of the art batting cages with his money, but that wouldn’t be supporting local business or contributing to the development of regional baseball talent, now would it?

”I’m warning you, bird. If you don’t move soon, I’ma have to make you move,” he said, rolling a shoulder back and picking a spot just above the bird where a nice cutter would work to both scare the bird off and prevent him from being anywhere near doing any further damage to the pitching machine.

Kevin smiled and nodded as the bird hopped off the machine, hoping that the claw marks could be easily patched over with paint. ”There ya go. Good bird,” he said, giving his new avian spectator a nod. Close to the bird at last, he finally felt a small twinge of unease pass over him as he sensed its weak spiritual aura.

Unfortunately, as he had yet to encounter a Hollow himself, he wasn’t sure of just what this weird bird was. Maybe it was one of those funky Japanese spirits. It sure didn’t seem to be keen on starting anything other than messing with his game a bit. If anything, that was a welcome addition to make the game more realistic. Extra eyes, the sounds of a crowd, actual goddamn spectators? What harm could there really be in letting it hang out for a while?

Giving the ball a little toss over his shoulder so it can rest with the others that got past him, he picked the bat back up and then pointed toward a small resting bench across from the batter’s box, hoping the bird can understand his gesture if it can’t understand his speech. ”You’re gonna want to move over there, bucko. That machine’s set to throw between 75 and 98 miles per hour. That kind of mustard’s enough to break my bones, wouldn’t want to see what it’d do to you,”

Kevin had gotten his footing set back to take another ball as soon as the bird was safely out of the way. It was possible that it’d take off the second he got another hit, but the gulls that made so many major league parks their feeding grounds didn’t show that kind of fear, and this one didn’t seem to show it either. Maybe it was the god of Japanese baseball, come to watch a true American professional!

If that was the case, he owed this mysterious bird a quality demonstration! Thinking that he remembered the next pitch from the machine, a two seamer that just clipped the right side of the strike zone, he lined back up and got ready for the next ball. As he straightened out his arm to survey the pitching machine, tugging up the sleeve on his light blue button-up short sleeved shirt, he was taken aback by a Crow opening its mouth and, instead of cawing, releasing seemingly human speech.

Turning to it in surprise, Kevin chuckled and moved his foot away from the release switch, placing the bat over his shoulder calmly as he surveyed the bird with a newfound interest. ”Well fuck my ass, you can speak. So what’s your deal? Are you some kind of baseball spirit?”

”Oh, you’re one of those things, huh? A peacock. No, a parrot,” Kevin said, accidentally using the wrong tropical bird, “You look more like a crow or a raven, though. Wait, are you asking me that? You’re some kind of spirit, right? You’ve got some funky stuff coming off of you. Meaning no offense, you just don’t look like a normal bird.”

With a lighthearted huff of air out his nose, he set his free arm on his hip, amused by the little spirit thing before him. Japan really was a weird place. If he’d have played Japanese ball instead of sticking in the states, he wondered if little guys like this would have regularly shown up at the games. Sure, the normal fans wouldn’t see them, but from what his mom said his special blood made it possible to see all kinds of goofy shit that others couldn’t.

Did these things normally interfere in games? Ravens were supposed to be tricksters according to all kinds of Native American stories. That Poe guy wrote about them too, but they were all spooky or sad or something in that. Kevin didn’t really remember what the poem actually said, he just knew a bunch of the goth kids were super into him, so that probably meant it was something sad. Still, this was a different country. Maybe Japanese crows were famous for liking baseball.

”I suppose I am a baseball spirit, little birdy dude. Name’s Kevin, glad to meet you. So is this lot your home? You don’t mind me hitting a few balls here, do you? I could pay you in peanuts. I think I got a bag in my pack. Crows like peanuts, yeah?”

”Oh, Jesus! Fuck!” cried Kevin as he tightened his grip on the bat sitting over his shoulder and swung it out one-armed to block the onslaught of the oncoming bird and knock it away. He wasn’t swinging to kill the thing, instead aiming for contact to push it away. A nice gentle blooper over the shortstop’s head was all he needed to bring this run home, no point swinging for the fences on a pissed off bird spirit. What would the manager of this place think if Kevin killed his baseball spirit just because it had a peanut allergy or something?

With an unexpectedly loud thwack, he connected with the body of the bird and followed through, aiming to push it downfield a ways and buy himself some distance to try and reason with the thing. ”Look here, chief. I just want to play ball. Don’t make me go all Quincy on your ass,” he insisted, taking a step back toward his bag and reaching for the mitt he needed to be able to put this bird down if it truly was pissed off enough to go back for his throat. Those claws were sharper than they looked, noticing in his peripheral vision the deep gashes made by the thing’s talons.

”Aww son of a bitch!” Kevin had not expected the bird to call him out before he managed to glove up. He could have thrown one of the balls on the ground at it to buy time, but he wasn’t sure he could peg the spirit with one of them quickly enough anyway. Perhaps this is why his Quincy tutors had insisted that sticking the key to unlocking his power into a large baseball glove was a bad idea.

His resolve wavered for only a moment. That was stupid, just like them! There was no style to being bland, and bland made you predictable and easy pickings. Accepting that this creature was going to get a runner on against him, Kevin braced his glove arm forward, sliding the mitt on and preparing to receive the sharp claws on his non-dominant arm. For all he knew, the creature was just planning on perching on him like he did to the pitching machine and bench. If not, he had one hell of a double play brewing up inside of his glove.

What was this bird’s problem? He just wanted to play a mock baseball game and now it was trying to tear apart his glove? Reaching his pitching hand inside the mitt, he gripped the swirling mass of reishi that he had coalesced there. He’d make it up to the owner for killing his baseball spirit. A generous donation always helped smooth things like that over in Kevin’s mind, even if there was no way the owner would have known about the bird unless he was also sensitive.

”Caw yourself, douche nozzle!” Kevin cried out, spinning his fingers around the orb of glowing energy and finding where its seams would be with the reflex practice he had learned over his entire life. He might not have trained with the bow or Quincy hocus pocus since he was three, but he had something those suckup kids that followed the traditions didn’t: gumption. Propelling himself backward, he launched a submarine toss at the bird, putting enough of a curve on the unorthodox throw to send a miss careening off into the night sky.

Kevin watched the blindingly bright ball shoot off into the sky as it utterly destroyed its feathered payload. As chunks of the little creature broke off, he couldn’t help but feel a little bad. He’d just wanted the blessing of the strange creature. He’d have to find some Japanese dude who knew shit about this kind of stuff to figure out if he should do a bunch of whatever the Japanese equivalent for a Hail Mary was. Probably something with ringing a bell, he supposed. He’d seen that on TV before, so it had to be right.

His musings about bird funerals were interrupted by the echo of bird calls all around the lot. Yup, he’d pissed them off. He wanted to leave, especially since the whole situation was making him uncomfortable, but he still had half a game left programmed into the machine. It would have been irresponsible to leave that unfinished, especially if some high school kid came in for batting practice and faced a lineup of major league simulated pitches. That’d just destroy that poor child’s confidence and might turn him away from the sport, and that would be an even greater affront to the baseball spirit he just killed.

No, Kevin was going to make this right. Slinging his glove under his arm in a sign of respect, he pulled out his phone and did a search for ‘Bird Funeral’. Clicking on the first video in the list, he quietly stood still in respect while a three minute clip from The Office played at max volume in memory of the bird.



Raising his head after the somewhat undignified yet still solemn funeral played, Kevin noticed the cawing had finally stopped. Surely, his heartfelt apology must have gotten to them, making the grounds safe for baseball yet again. Wordlessly, he pocketed the phone, resolved to go ring a bell a couple of times in the morning to make sure the Japanese were cool with the dead bird too, took his position back in the box, and lined up for the next pitch.