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High Schools - Forty helps Esperanza Charter do a number on King
Wait, don't tell us . . .
"Yeah, my last name is a number," Ayron Forty said, laughing. "I don't like it. But that's the name of my pop, so I have to eat it."
Speaking of something that was hard to digest . . .
The final score yesterday in an outrageous Public C baseball opener was Esperanza Academy Charter 19, Martin Luther King 0.
The win went to Forty, a 5-11, 185-pound junior righthander, and rivers of sweat did not exactly pour off his body. Fact was, he barely reached the beads stage; the mismatch was limited to three innings by the 15-run rule.
Ayron struck out six and allowed one hit, Anthony Wright's scratch infield single to start the bottom of the first inning.
King trailed by 4-0 by then, on the strength of Carlos Rodriguez' sacrifice fly and a trio of bases-loaded walks. Things would get much worse. Esperanza scored 13 times in the second thanks to six walks, six errors, Luis Santos' RBI triple and two-run singles by Reinaldo Benitez and Angel Rivera.
The Cougars, vastly inexperienced anyway, had to go without a trio of projected starters who had not yet received medical clearance.
At least they took their licking in good humor. More than once, catcher Donavan Bowman was heard to mutter, "We're like the Bad News King Cougars."
Did Forty feel some sympathy?
"Well, it's on them now," he said. "They'll see how serious they take the game, and how hard they want to work."
As recently as the 2006 season, Forty, who lives near 9th and Butler, was strictly a rightfielder.
"But from the time I was little, I always used to dream of being a pitcher," he said. "Last year I talked to the coaches and asked them if I could try out."
When asked what made him think he could handle mound duty, he shot back, "Trust." He then added, "I had confidence in myself."
These days, he's one-dimensional.
"When I'm not pitching? I just sit on the bench and watch," he said, smiling. "Truthfully, I used to be a little scared in rightfield. I always hoped the other team wouldn't hit the ball to me. They hardly ever did, so that was good. Finally, I decided to speak up about trying to pitch.
"How I pitch depends on how my arm feels. If it's good, maybe I'll try for some strikeouts. Otherwise I just pitch and let things happen. My coach [John Grone] always says to put my trust in my team.
"I'm real happy today. I did my job and did it right. That's the best game I've ever been part of. In my whole career."
Hey, it's easy when your team supports you with almost half as many runs as your surname. *
