It’s the top of the Ninth, the home team is four runs down, and the playoffs were a mathematical impossibility 10 weeks ago. Among the few spectators still in the stands are a pair of stoners with season tickets who have now taken to heckling their own centerfielder.

Joe, who had hoped to give his kids an experience like he’d had growing up, first realized that this ballpark outing might be a mistake when he easily found parking on the first level. Thankfully, the kids had seemed oblivious to the desolation as they walked to their loge.

The stoners are an annoyance, but Joe is glad that anyone at all is still in the stands by the ninth. The heckling has been completely family friendly since one remark had prompted Joe, who has the forearms of a gorilla, to glance back and rest one across his daughter’s chair-back.

***

“I’ll be in Houston next year”, thinks the fielder, “and the fans here deliberately hurt my feelings.” But his body is hard-wired for baseball, and long before the signal arrives from his neocortex, he is already in the air.

***

On the ride home, the boy turns the ball in his hands. In years to come, he will be successful, but at no time will he own an object for which he would trade it.

Joe had been gratified to see both stoners buying number 8 jerseys before leaving the park. “Best loss ever”, he says to his kids, who will remain giddy with excitement for days. Just then his boy asks a question which has been vexing him since the seventh inning.

“Did the center-fielder's mom really owe that man 5 dollars?”

***

Two years later...

“Well boys”, said the judge, looking down at the incident sheet, and noticing that neither of the accused was under 30.

“Gentlemen, I am at a loss”, He continued. “to understand why two men would travel from Cleveland, and pay more than $100 for tickets to a game in Atlanta, in order to heckle their star player… in a game against Huston!”

“Your honor we only came here to support our favorite player”, replied one of the defendants. Both men rotated to expose the 8s on the backs of their jerseys.

“But he asked us to stop in the second inning so he could concentrate” added the other.

“And so you chose to heckle his opponent instead?”

“Yes, your honor”

The judge nodded, resting a hand on his gavel. Had Holmes been asked to adjudicate in such a case? 

“Well boys, I don’t follow baseball… and in any case I’m from Connecticut, so it pleases me to inform you that while you were in holding, Houston won the game.  So if you wish to continue your antics, you will need to travel to either Texas or to California”

The judge suppressed an upwelling of wrath as the boys high-fived each other, and added seriously: ”your tickets will not be refunded, and I warn you not to press the matter...” 

“However your fine will be waived because by all accounts, your taunts were all G-rated. I also don’t want it on the record that I lowered the boom on someone for saying...” he looked down again at the sheet. “that golden glove will look good on the shelf next to your barbie dolls”.

“Providing you spare me the high-five… Case dismissed.”