Good day, Shotgun readers, I’ve returned to share more work-in-progress. Let me know what you think.
Untitled family drama
By Michael C Lorah
Chapter One
The Thresher’s season might as well be over, Roy Templeton thought. Mid-June, the long baseball summer just barely underway, and the team had sunk like an anchor to the rocky bottom of the Florida State League. Little Leaguers played with more poise; the Thresher kids threw the ball around wildly, hurled bats and water coolers at the slightest suggestion of a controversial call, and self-promoted at any opportunity. No matter how creative Roy’s public relations campaigns, getting fans into the ballpark to watch such immature gamesmanship proved impossible. Roy was under considerable pressure to improve attendance, but he didn’t have anything in his bag of tricks to overcome a simply terrible product. The blistering heat of Florida’s early summer certainly wasn’t making his job any easier either.
It was too damn hot for baseball anyway. Who wanted to sit under the cancerous sun, breathing scorched, humid air? He hadn’t walked down to the field, the open, sun-baked, heat-shimmering field, for three weeks now – never left his temperature-controlled office unless he was meeting in somebody else’s temperature-controlled office or stepping out for dinner at a too-air-conditioned local eatery. He could see the sunlight lancing down into the Earth, burning away any comfort, eating up the life of Floridians everywhere.
Roy looked forward to getting away for two weeks, even if he had to take his laptop and work cell. All the summer’s giveaways and major promotions were already scheduled, so it was only the follow-through that required his attention. Getting fourteen days off early in the baseball season, even at the minor league A-ball level, required calling in a lot of favors. Roy’s boss Paul Simonson called him into the office three different times to ask why he couldn’t have vacationed during the offseason. Of course, the year’s promotions needed to be arranged prior to the season starting. The kids being in school added another wrinkle. Roy wasn’t sure those unavoidable factors registered entirely in Paul’s mind, which had sincere difficulty working outside his own box of strategies. But he’d gotten his vacation approved, and it was time to enjoy it.
