Aiding Hearts

by BloomBoy06

Rousing Defeat

It was a simple decision as to who would join the two elder apple siblings for the game on Friday. Big Mac would take the most, bringing along Braeburn, Caramel, and Spike. Applejack invited two of her friends, but it was an easier choice than she would have thought in deciding who would go. Twilight had already mentioned that she would be the guest of honor for the game and was invited to a private box; Applejack understood. Fancypants invited Rarity to his own private box at the new stadium, which meant she wouldn’t want to be in a “peasant” section in front of the elites, but that didn’t matter to Applejack. Pinkie Pie more than obliged, and Fluttershy politely declined the opportunity; she knew the pegasus might not be comfortable among a sellout crowd, but it was worth an ask.

Rainbow Dash may have been the most athletic of the bunch, but that didn’t mean she would immediately jump at any opportunity for sports, “I already said, Applejack, not today.”

“Why not? Don’t you wanna come over to the Nationals game with Pinkie, Mac, and the rest of us?”

“I already said, it’s because I’m saving my money for Wonderbolts tickets, they cost a fortune these days.”

“But I’ve been… wait, why’re you saving for Wonderbolts tickets? I thought you see them constantly.”

“That may be,” admitted the cyan mare, “but they keep jacking up the price for it all. I would have had enough for a ticket Friday, but a ticket went from 25 to forty bits and there’s no way I could afford that with my other living expenses,” she punctuated with a harrumph.

Applejack took a sigh of despair and tried to cross her message to her friend, “Look, I know the Wonerbolts are essentially your life-”

“No duh.”

“But I’m not asking you to chip in with your bits.”

“Well, what do you expect me to chip in with? A date?”

“I’ve tried explaining to you,” the farm pony reminded, “the tickets are complimentary.”

“To what? Dinner?”

The apple pony’s brain hurt at the incomprehension at hand, “all ‘complimentary’ means is that it’s free. Macintosh couldn’t invite all his buddies, and we have to bring Applebloom and her friends along as well, so I’m invitin’ who I can.”

“Well, you aren’t getting me to go,” Rainbow stated, though this time her voice hesitated a smidgen with the possibility of accepting the offer, “it’s just not in my schedule.”

Applejack sighed, but never let on to her hint of seductiveness, “Well, go ahead, I guess you’re not going to see the Cloudsdale Freight play in that case.”

Suddenly, interest piqued, “I thought you said it was a Ponyville Nationals game.”

Aha, caught on the line, “You didn’t think they’d play themselves in a game, did you? Cloudsdale’ll be the visiting team.”

“You know what, 4 o’clock game? I think I’d be up for it. Only for hometown pride, though,” she was careful to add.

“And friendship,” Applejack added with a gentle bump of her friend.

“To a degree.”

Slightly before the start of the game, the nine ponies and the dragon arrived at Unico Field, the stadium which would be the home of Ponyville’s new team. Scootaloo gawked at the pure awesomeness of even the entryway, constructed in the same cyan shade of her idol. Sweetie Belle stood amazed at the concession stands, oohing at all the fattening choices that her older sister would have otherwise described as uncouth; Rainbow assured her they would get snacks after the third inning. As rough-and-tumble as Applebloom was, she hadn’t been impressed by the stadium itself, but then the ten of them decided to trot to their seats. Their seats rested two rows behind the home-team’s dugout – only nine of whom gladly appreciated the location - and the moment the young bowed filly traversed the alley into view of the field, there wasn’t another step her body would make for her.

Four hundred feet of dirt and grass stood in front of her, yet the distance felt like an open meadow. In a weak, though defined voice, the filly spoke to her friends, “Girls, our next cutie mark’s gonna be in baseball.” Without even waiting for a reply, Applebloom sped to the spot just before the field, next to the dugout. To the first player she was within earshot of, she shouted, “Hey, sir! Do ya think you could teach me baseball?”

Applejack hid under her hat in embarrassment, but the pegasus who heard first did not seem to mind. He had a brown coat, and a smooth mane a few shades of brown darker, but the party of ten should have known he would have been compassionate toward the young soul, “At least not now; you realize we have to prepare for the game.”

“Oh,” but the mode of sympathetic pity couldn’t last, “Would you be able to show me afterward?” she asked in optimism.

“Of course, we’re…”

He’d been cut off by a more brusque stallion, “We always have an on-field session after games.” Though his sympathetic tone sounded less genuine, he held his ego in check among the public audience, “It’s usually a meet and greet, but I might be able to teach a thing or two about hitting.”

Now, it was Rainbow Dash’s turn to abruptly address a player. She directed her faux angst at the charcoal stallion who had just spoken, “You know, Grand Slam, I still respect you, though it’s kinda less since you left Cloudsdale.”

The voice resonated with the home run hero, “Ah, Rainbow Dash. I remember your cheering for Cloudsdale early in our championship season three years ago.”

“I’m surprised you remembered, traitor,” she jested.

Slam managed to chuckle at the comment, however feeble it was, “Keep in mind, it was an expansion draft, not much of a choice.”

“Just warning you I’ll have split allegiances.”

“Noted.”

“Great,” Applejack managed to cut in during the conversation’s break, now could we all get back to our seats? It’s gonna be a few minutes before the game starts.”

Some in annoyance, some in acceptance, the remaining nine took to their seats, but Applejack noticed the tone the first stallion had taken. It seemed surprising to her, the charcoal earth pony was more hotheaded than the brown pegasus, but then again, she kind of saw it as a similar scenario to Rainbow Dash and herself, but the rolesseemed to have been reversed. Pinkie may be the one who knows everypony, but that didn’t mean she could be the only pony who knew others.

She managed to ask the colt, “Hey, partner. Never caught your name.”

He turned around to see the orange, freckled pony by the foul fence. As he was about to reply with his name, he managed to irk out, “oh, I’m Coe-” before somepony interrupted him.

“Cousin Applejack! Weren’t you the one who told us to get to the seats?”

“Be there in a moment, Braeburn!” she called out.

“Don’t worry,” the meek player replied, “every player has to stay for the field stuff afterward.”

Applejack would have replied, but the announcer interrupted the flow of mind and signaled her to return to her seat to listen to it all, “Fillies and gentlecolts, mares and stallions, welcome to Unico Field. Today, we commence the season and christen the Ponyville Nationals as they face the Cloudsdale Freight. If you would, please remove your hats as we sing the Equestrian National Anthem.”

Although most would recognize the music as the Hearthswarming tune, it still lightened the spirits of the thousands attending the game. Just before the trailing words, the crowd erupted in cheers, as the ceremonial first pitch was about to be thrown. Twilight had been the ceremonial guest, but opted to let a filly from the local orphanage launch it in; she went by Melody and must have been at least a year younger than Applebloom. After a swift inside strike on the left side of the plate, Twilight trotted back to the mound and handed the pitched ball to Melody, after which a young colt promptly shouted “PLAY BALL!!!” at the cue of the PA announcer.

As the Nationals took to the field first, an angsty Rainbow Dash vented, “It’s about time.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo added in accordance, “Let’s get my first game underway.”

Rainbow took pride that the youngster loved the sport as much, “Come on, Let’s go Cloudsdale!”

“Let’s go Ponyville!” Scootaloo’s statement accidentally synchronized over Rainbow’s. She felt some need to correct, “I mean…Cloudsdale.”

But even Rainbow had to concede, “Scoots, I know Ponyville’s your adopted hometown, no need to hide it.”

The first Cloudsdale batter, a blue earth pony, swung his bat with his teeth, but missed his third strike from the pitcher. Scootaloo made sure she was thankful toward the pitcher, “WOO-HOO! Way to go, Rolling Strikes!”

With the whoops and cheers of Scootaloo, Applejack couldn’t help but giggle at her friend’s minor dismay, “Now, now, sugarcube, there’s still 26 more outs before your side is over.”

“At a minimum,” Pinkie corrected.

“But it’s not gonna take longer than that, is it?” asked Caramel.

“Probably not, but it’s one of the sports I’ve noticed goes into extra time often, and sometimes, even the nine inning games can last between three and five hours.”

Whatever situation had occurred, the conversation broke off with a crack from a purple pegasus. The aluminum bat as his cutie mark should have given away his power potential, as the ball soared deep into left field. Another defensive pegasus soared up to the fence, jumped up high, and made an attempt to flap his wings in order to gain potential leverage. That swipe down of the wings led to his outstretched glove, which also rested on his left wing, but despite holding out the gloved wing, had run into a force field, letting the ball soar in to the stadium’s picnic grass for a home run as he fell flat onto the ground.

While a small few cheered the early lead, Sweetie Belle wasn’t buying it, “Hey, isn’t that cheating? Shouldn’t he have been able to fly on up to catch that?”

While not knowing much about baseball, Applebloom knew the basics, “Well I can’t fly. An earth pony’s at a natural disadvantage at a game like this.”

“But that doesn’t explain why he was stopped.”

“Action Umpires,” Big Mac tried to explain.

Spike, who knew a simpler way to explain it, made his attempt at explaining for his younger audience, who held a blank stare at Applebloom’s brother’s attempt,“It’s really a case of magic guards. There are neutral ponies who make sure that the game is not only fair between teams, but so the unicorns can’t use magic to teleport the ball to their glove – we’d be here for at least fifty innings if that happened – and so pegasai can’t jump as high to make sure they retrieve the ball.”

Sweetie Belle took the explanation well, and cheered the home run. Fairly quickly, she retracted the erroneous cheer for the away team.

The next actions didn’t take place until the bottom of the fourth. The Freight still led 1-0, but despite the tense nature, Rainbow felt a need to yawn. Despite the early home run, there was little action to liven the mood. Occasionally, a ball would be hit to the outfield, but the Nationals players would always be under it. The closest to a hit came as Grand Slam bashed one on the shortstop side, but Swift Sands dove for it, and while he overshot the ball on the slide, he managed to buck the baseball to first base for the out.

While the plays were entertaining, Rainbow Dash needed some ‘action,’ “Hey, Scoots, Sweetie Belle, you two still hungry?”

Ears perked up, Sweetie replied, “Sheesh, I thought I was going to have to wait forever to eat!”

“Eh,” Scootaloo nonchalantly agreed, “may as well get some popcorn or some snack of the sorts. You gonna come along as well, Applebloom?”

As connected as the yellow filly was to her comrades, she felt compelled to the game at hoof, “You girls go ahead, I’ll tell you about what happens while you’re gettin’ stuff.”

“Thanks,” responded Rainbow Dash with a vapid tone, careful to add in whisper to her fan, “don’t worry, we’re not going to miss much.”

Neither pony anticipated that Sweetie Belle needed to use the little fillies’ room, which took four outs of the game just to stand in the line for that, and another five outs worth, but it felt as if the bathroom line took longer. With all three now empty and ready to be filled again, returning to their row with nachos, pizza, and popcorn in hoof, they came back and looked at the scoreboard in shock. Ponyville now held a 3-1 lead in the top of the seventh.

Rainbow had no words to describe her confusion, only one question: “How did this happen?”

“Well, it all started when…” Big Mac started off before being cut off by his youngest sibling.

“Big Mac! I said I’d tell’em the story,” Applebloom reminded, and proceeded to tell a shortened version of he would have recounted, “Cracked Contact hit a bases loaded double with two outs in the fourth, the inning you left actually.”

“So let me get this straight,” Scoots expressed, “The only awesome thing since the first inning, and we missed it?” All Applebloom and the cast along the row needed to do to answer was nod their heads to the inquiry.

“Not cool,” Rainbow moped in mental pain, “It’s just like reading the review for Daring Do and the Crystal Muffin; since I knew how it happened before I even saw it, it’s not awesome anymore.”

Pinkie tried to lighten the mood, “Aw, come on, Rainbow, don’t be all disappointed because your team is down, there’s still a few more innings to go. I mean, the party can’t end early, can it?”

“I appreciate the attempt,” Rainbow deadpanned, “but Pinkie, could you please shut up?”

The top of the ninth should have been a lockdown win, or in this case, a save opportunity for Lockdown, but this was one of his few games where he faltered. He’d already let a run score in the top of the eighth, but now there were two runners in scoring position and two outs in a 3-2 Ponyville game. Cloudsdale’s batter, Second Chance, launched one to deep right field, letting the two runs score, but Ponyville caught a break when Chance tried to take second base. The right fielder gave a great heave into second base, and the tag just snatched the runner from an extra base. Cheers rang out, but most of them cheered in relief rather than gratitude.

Most being the qualifier, as a certain cyan pegasus cheered for different reasons, “Ha-ha. Did you see that? 4-3 Cloudsdale. We should have this one down for sure.”

“Don’ get too cocky about yourself,” Braeburn cautioned, “There’s still the final frame to go.”

“Yea, but you can’t beat Final Flank! He was second in the league in saves, and he’s gonna get the great season started off right.”

Indeed, Flank had 42 saves for Cloudsdale the previous season, but even a strong, constant pitcher as he was couldn’t have a perfect save record. His inning started off well enough, a simple strikeout swinging on a 2-2 count. The pitcher caught himself in a rut, and it started with just one hit. Line Drive, the next Ponyville batter to the plate, shot one right down the first base line, and it caromed off the corner of fair/foul territory, Drive darted toward second, and dashed his way to third. While the throw was no way near the base, L.D. thought it best to slide to be on the safe side. There was no way he would run home on his own; he would need help.

That would have come from Swinging Strike, but the coach decided to pull him for a pinch hitter. It was the familiar brown pegasus Applejack and the others had met before the game, and the announcer gave the name, “Now pinch-hitting for the Ponyville Nationals, Number 34, Helping Hearts!”

Rolling off to the aisle as part of her laughter, Rainbow managed to explain her optimism, “Wow, ha-ha, you’re kidding me. Old Aiding Hearts? He batted .185 last season! He’s going to be Ponyville’s last hope?”

“It’s only one down now,” Pinkie reminded, as she briefly paused as the crowd did once strike one buzzed by, “Besides, Hearts over there led the entire Daimonds League with 52 sacrifice hits for the Coltimore Mustangs last year. Not to mention that in six seasons alone, he’s accrued 311 over his career to this point, a career league record.”

Rainbow Dash stared at her perplexing friend, not really knowing where to go with her retort, “How…did you… know… something like that?”

Pinkie had a simple answer, “Somepony’s gotta keep track of these stats,” and she watched one final pitch cross the plate.

At a 2-1 pitch, the colt at bat swung at a pitch slightly inside, but early enough to drive it deep to left field. The crowd gasped in silence as it could have very well been Helping Heart’s first home run in his career. Regrettably, it dropped into the outfielder’s glove, but that didn’t lead to groans, but rather to deeper breaths as Line Drive tagged up and rushed his way home. The launch of a throw soared in the air, but to the Freight’s dismay, it sailed into the stands, and the run scored, tying the game 4-4.

“WHAT?!” screeched Rainbow, but her dumbfoundedness had been drowned out by the roar of the crowd. New life for a new franchise.

There was barely any time for anypony in the crowd to question what could happen next. In a state of frustration, Final Flank tossed a strike right down the middle; it was a pitch that Grand Slam could not refuse.

“Oh, Celestia!” Applebloom gasped, “Look at that thing soar!”

“It’s going deep,” Sweetie Belle commented further. The center fielder tried rushing toward right, but gave up running when he realized that even his jump would not be able to acquire the rogue pitch.

“It’s OUTTA HERE!!!” Scootaloo punctuated, just before the home crowd erupted as well. A 5-4 win in the last at-bat for the Nationals, and even Rainbow had to concede defeat here, her Cloudsdale idol had clinched the game for the rival, but she had no less respect for him. When Grand Slam trotted his way back to home plate, the team glomped him in celebration. The thirty-someodd ponies joined him, but Applejack noticed the mess was a shade of brown short.

Indeed, as she got up from her seat, and peered into the dugout, Helping Hearts, or Aiding Hearts as Rainbow put it, remained in his bench-bound seat in a downed state. She wanted to know what happened, but then the announcer gave the news that Applebloom sought before the game started:

“Folks, if you wanted to ask a question to any of our players, or even just get an autograph, feel free to come onto the field now and ask away!”

“If anypony wants to leave now,” Applejack hollered, “Y’all can do so. I was gonna take Applebloom to see the players.”

While the filly gawked with wide eyes, this gave Big Mac and the other guys to split off, “Thanks, but we best be going, Caramel said he wanted to head back to his place, and we’d rather not let him travel back on his own.”

“Understood,” replied Rainbow Dash, Applejack let it slide as the group’s official statement, “Come on, Crusaders! If you want to earn a baseball cutie mark, you’re gonna have to ask them how they got theirs,” and with that, the remaining girls rushed onto the field.

Applejack followed last, she had a question she wanted to ask as well, though she found it rather ironic that she wanted to ask her question to the only player on the team without a cutie mark in baseball.