The Minnesota Twins were playing a doubleheader and Hannah had the game on in the kitchen of The Cookie Jar. The Twins and Detroit were battling it out at Target Field. The Twins were winning, four to three, but the bases were loaded with Tigers. It was the ninth inning and the new relief pitcher for the Twins, who had been recently brought up from the minors, was struggling.

“Strike him out!” Hannah instructed the pitcher, just as if he could hear her instruction through the tiny screen of her kitchen television set. “You can do it! Come on!”

It was a full count. It had been a full count for the past four pitches. The Tiger at bat, their second baseman, kept hanging in there by hitting foul balls. As she watched, the batter fouled off another three pitches. Would this inning ever be over? How long could a pitcher pitch? And how long could a batter hit foul balls that were uncatchable?

The inning seemed endless as another three pitches were delivered and fouled off. Hannah was surprised that the announcer wasn’t giving statistics about the record for the number of pitches fouled off by a single batter.

Two more pitches, two more uncatchable foul balls, and Hannah turned away to take a peek at the timer to see how many minutes her cookies still had to bake. And that was when the crowd roared. Something had happened!

Hannah’s head immediately swiveled toward the television set. Instant replay. Normally she hated instant replays, but this time she was grateful for the technology that generated the replay footage.

“Wow!” Hannah gasped as the pitcher threw a wild pitch, and the Tiger on third base sprinted all-out for home plate. The catcher got out of his crouch much faster than Hannah had thought was humanly possible, retrieved the ball that had ricocheted off the wall between home plate and first base, and threw a missile to the pitcher who had correctly dashed off the mound to cover home plate. The Tiger approaching home slid in feet first, the pitcher reached down to tag him before his foot reached the plate and that was it. Game over, and the Twins had won! Mike had once commented that he thought baseball was as boring as watching paint dry, but he’d obviously never seen a game like this one!

Hannah was smiling as her timer dinged and she opened the oven door to take out her cookies. They looked good and she was eager to taste one.

“Oh, good!” Michelle said as she came into the kitchen and saw that the bakers rack was full. “We’re almost out in the coffee shop. Lisa’s story is really pulling in the customers today.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t pull in Mother. I don’t think she’d appreciate the people in Lake Eden knowing she pretended to interview Starlet for one of her books.”