My boss, Mr. Fiscus, shared a funny baseball story at lunch one day, which gave my brother and me plenty to laugh about while we worked the rather monotonous job of cutting unwanted corn out of bean fields one summer.
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In the summer of 1965, my brother, Bob, and I worked for Leland and Francis Fiscus of Fiscus Farms. They were good people, in their sixties or early seventies, who insisted we eat lunch with them on the days we worked for them. Mrs. Fiscus provided us with a great variety of food, while Mr. Fiscus provided us with a great variety of stories.
One of my favorite stories was a baseball story. “I got up to bat, took a couple of pitches, and on the third pitch, swung my bat and hit the ball out of right field,” recounted Mr. Fiscus. “I ran down the first-base line, and just as I was rounding the first base bag, I looked up and saw the right fielder bobbling the ball a little bit.”
Mr. Fiscus then told how he decided to go for second base. “I turned up my engine as fast as it would go and slid on into second base. Just as I slid in there, I rolled over and realized I had just rolled on top of the ball!”
Thinking perhaps he could create enough of a diversion, Mr. Fiscus told us, he started looking to the left, looking to the right, then looking to the outfield and hollering, "Where’s the ball? Where’s the ball?" While everyone was looking for the ball, he stood up and slid the ball into his hind pocket, before rounding third base, and heading toward home base, all the while shouting “Where’d the ball go?”
Needless to say, according to Mr. Fiscus, the ball was never found because it was in his hip pocket. “They counted my run and kept on playing the baseball game,” he concluded, chuckling.
Bob and I kept laughing about Mr. Fiscus’ story all afternoon. It made our monotonous work infinitely more entertaining.
[This story is excerpted from the chapter entitled, “Fun at the Fiscus Farm: The Best Baseball Story Ever!” and is part of the book, Only Broken Seeds Grow: True Stories of Success and Wealth Sprouting from Poverty and Pain by Steve Ames. Purchase the book here.]
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