Red Head Rivalry

My mom was an incredible athlete throughout her entire life. She seemed to accel in every sport that she played. She was a state champion in field hockey, scored one thousand points in basketball in her four years in high school and still holds the school record to this day, and even played in the NCAA national championship game for division three softball while being named most valuable player for three years in a row at Saint Joseph’s College. She also coached AAU softball for seven years and lead her team three New England Titles. My mother is someone that I aim to one day be as well decorated in sports as she is. The way that she takes pride in the way that I play sports makes me feel proud of myself coming from such an accomplished person that she is. She loves bragging about how her “little boy” is captain of the football team and she loves to embarrass me by shouting “Go Boo Bear!” at all of my games. She knows everything there is to know about sports and even knows about the malicious rivalry between myself and the infamous “Ginger Twins” of Old Orchard Beach.
The Ginger Twins are two identical twins and are inseparable from each other. Their clean cut, buzzed, military style, bright red hair is always the first thing that is noticed about them. Their faded and pale white skin resembles that of the color of cold chapped lips. Their noses, sharp like a shark’s, are surrounded by a faint blanket of freckles that hug their cheeks from eye to eye. We have an extensive history of technical fouls against one another and intentionally hitting each other in baseball. The start of this rivalry was a moment that my own mother took shame in because of the bad reputation that I had suddenly given myself in the town of Old Orchard.
I had made varsity baseball my freshman year where I played third base and was a relief pitcher. My team and I were playing at an amazing baseball stadium in Old Orchard. It was priorly home to a minor league baseball team, and we all felt like kings once we stepped foot on the finely cut diamond. The game seemed to fly by because of how much fun we were having up until around the fifth inning. One of the two twins was on the mound while I was hitting up at the plate. A fastball flew right behind my back for the first pitch. Intentionally throwing behind someone’s back is a huge no-no to baseball players, worse than intentionally hitting them. Throwing behind someone’s back is like throwing the first grenade in a battle. You took the first punch, but now you have an entire team angry soldiers that are waiting to attack the other side.
I was hoping that the pitch was unintentional and I was just assuming that this kid was god awful at baseball. I stepped in the box for another pitch. The twin on the mound was a serpent. His smirk told his entire story. He wasn’t bad at pitching, it was intentional. I knew what was about to come next. As he began his wind up, time began to drag. From my cleats to my batting helmet, my muscles became tense with heat from the ensuing anger that was about to overtake me in about two seconds. The pitch came straight for my rib cage and I didn’t move an inch. I stood there and only stared at his dark eyes as the pitch came in and struck me. The twin started to sarcastically smile at me as he was being yelled at by his coach and receiving a warning from the umpire for doing this.
I was pissed.
My ears began to ring as all of the noises surrounding me were fading away. My head cleared of all thoughts except for retaliation. I needed payback. His smirking brother with the razor sharp nose was standing next to second base and enticing me to steal. So I did. I stole second. I took off and was focused on his shins and only his shins. I slid into second base while my cleats were aimed directly towards the second twins’ legs. His smirk vanished while he fell over me while cursing. I dusted myself off, stood up, and blew a kiss to the pitching twin while the other one was lying on the ground in pain. I was too cocky. I was immediately taken out of the game by my furious coach while my mother hid her face behind her hands from the
bleachers. I looked towards my mom while she stared back at me with an empty look in her eye. I have never seen that look before and I knew that I was about to be in some serious trouble.
The hardest part about that day was the ride home with my mom. She stayed silent throughout the drive toward Minot, but the silence rang so loud that it hurt my ears. She had always taken pride in my actions on the field, but now I knew she was hurt more than my ribcage hurt from the pitch or the bloody and bruised shin from one of the twins. My actions were indirectly the cause of her pain, and that hurt me as well.