The Ballad Of Ricky Joseph, A Puresim Dynasty

[sovstar]

He's pissed that he cant run puresim in windowed mode, which makes playing and dynasting difficult.

Are you serious? Is it because your display is limited?

[Suicane]

He's pissed that he cant run puresim in windowed mode, which makes playing and dynasting difficult.

Are you serious? Is it because your display is limited?

I just didn't have the settings right, now I do. But i have no interest in writing a story right now. But at the same time I want to play his games. Damnit.

[Suicane]

Chapter 3
Opening Night Lights

I spent March 31st at home just lounging around and chilling out. We had a picnic in the afternoon. All my buddies and not buddies were there. There were people there who I don't even recall ever having met before, but I guess that's how it goes when you get famous. Living just 45 minutes away from the park was a major plus as I could be home alot, but where exactly home was gonna change in not too long a time.

Ya see, once I made the major league roster I was guaranteed $110,000 a year. Trouble was that I was Phillies property for the next 5 years at that base level. I was hoping that once I showed I could do on the field I could work out a deal with the team. For now though I had to postpone my dreams of a lavish lifestyle and just buckle down and play hard. One plus was that mom didn't need to work anymore, with that salary I could pay her rent no problem. She still worked part time though, said she needed something to keep her busy.

Anyhoo, to get back on track. At the picnic I had no shortage of willing females who were willing to be the buns to my hot dog if you catch my drift. Every chick there, from the grade A girls to the bar skanks were all over me, but I was having none of it, I needed to get my game face ready. At about 6pm I went upstairs, my and Johnny Martin watched some TV for awhile and talked about all the glorious things that could be on the horizon, just like we'd done the past few years, except now it was less than 24 hours away. I headed off to bed around midnight, dreams of Home Runs dancing in my head.

I slept in on Monday, not getting up till around 11am. We headed out for the park at around 1 in the afternoon. When I say we, I mean Johnny, my mom, my aunts, uncles, cousins, two of moms friends from work, a couple of guys from the high school team, just a cavalcade. Really, it was too much. When we got there it was still a good 5 hours before game time but someone from the front office, or stadium crew, or somebody, i don't know who, gave them all a tour of the stadium and showed them around, killed time to be exact. They were in their seats in the 6th row along the dugout when I came on the field for batting practice at around 5, it was insane, a little overwhelming actually.

While they were being shown around I made myself comfortable in the locker room. As guys trickled in we exchanged formalities and this and thats, I mainly just laid back and took it all in. I thought I had gotten tight with alot of guys in Spring Training but here and now, in this locker room, the real deal, I was overwhelmed. I felt like I needed to go thru the whole initiation process again. Kruk got a poker game going and Mitch invited me in. After a few minutes I started to relax and feel at home, I suppose it was just butterflies. Sometime around 4pm I got dressed, it was amazing. The pinstripes, the maroon cap with the white logo, I felt like a king.

When gametime came I was out of my mind. A crowd of about 55,000 people had assembled, in part to watch me play. I was getting butterflies again as the darkness crept into the sky and the stadium lights began to take over the suns duties.

I sauntered out into Left Field at about 7:10pm and was in awe at the size of the thing. You can't truly understand what it's like to be out there unless you've seen it first hand. Everywhere you look there are just masses and masses of people, it can incredibly overwhelming. I took a deep breath and tossed a ball to Nails, watched him to toss it to Chamberlain in right and then return it to me. This went on for a few moments and then it was time. Schilling took the mound, Vince Coleman stepped into the box and it was on. 21 years old, starting left fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, holy shit!

Curt mowed em down 1-2-3 in that first half inning. In the bottom of the stanza I sat near the end of the bench, ready to grab my helmet and bat and head to the on deck circle. Lenny singled on the first pitch El Sid threw to him. I could hear a caucous cheer from behind me as I walked to the on deck circle, but I couldn't acknowledge it, I was in a zone. Kruk flied out weakly to right and I was up. As I walked to the plate, umpire Eric Greg, also an area resident, said "local boy makes it big" and let out a hearty laugh. It relaxed me a little. Maybe a little too much, as I popped weakly to shallow left field after just 2 pitches. Bleh.

The first 3 innings flew by with neither team putting anything together. In the bottom of the 4th I was set to come up again. Kruk had grounded into a fielders choice and I came up to the plate with a man on and 2 out, I dug in. Sid was throwing alot of first pitch fastballs so far, and I was prepared for it. I figured it would be something low and sure enough it was a low fastball, a little inside, but not too far. And I turned on the mutha and drove it deep into the night, hitting off the base of the seats out in left field, a good 15 feet clear of the wall. I was running full speed down to first base and hadn't even noticed it. 1st base coach Jon Vukovich yelled "it's out of here" as I approached first base, I looked up and saw the fielders standing still and the crowd on their feet. I winced the wince of a man who's being watched by 50,000 people and isn't entirely comfortable with it and then slowed down and began my trot around the bases. As I circled 3rd base I pointed to my section of the crowd and headed home, Phils up 2-0. I grounded to SS in the 7th in my 3rd at bat. Curt Schilling threw a hell of a game, went 7 scoreless innings, unfortunately Cliff Brantley and Danny Cox sucked the high hard one, giving up 6 runs in the last 2 innings. Nails hit a 3 run blast in the bottom of the ninth with 1 out. An out later I stepped to the plate. Oh man, 2 down in the 9th, down a run, this is childhood dream kind of shit right here. I stepped in against John Franco and i'll be blunt, he blew the first 2 right by me. I steadied myself and readied for something off speed but again it was the fastball. I made slight contact and sent it over the head of Junior Noboa at 2nd base, it had some lift on it though and Bobby Bonilla was able to grab it on the run, game over.

After the game there was a brief speech from Fregosi and then everyone sort of did their own thing. I sat and had a beer with Dykstra and he had a few choice words for Brantley and Cox, i just smiled, but I wasn't pleased to see any sort of cracks in team chemistry, not already. There were a good deal of reporters at my locker but I didn't talk for too long. The last thing I needed was for me to become a bigger story than the team, even though in all honesty it was. I retreated to the showers and stayed there until most of the media had dispersed. I left the park at around 1am, joing my family and friends and heading home. Day 1 was over and I was thankfull. Tommorow would sort of be the first normal day of my career and I was looking forward to it.