The Time Luis Almost Sent the Wrong Skid Steer to a Little League Field

True story. Last March. A contractor calls in. He needs a skid steer for a job out by the high school baseball field. Just a regen, just a re-grade, no big deal. Luis takes the call.

“Luis,” the contractor says, “send me the smallest Bobcat you’ve got. We’re working around a pitcher’s mound. Got it?”

Luis: “A pitcher’s what?”

Long pause.

Contractor: “…the mound. The dirt mound where the pitcher stands.”

Luis: “There’s a man who stands on dirt? Why?”

What happened next.

The right machine showed up. On time. Properly sized. The contractor’s crew finished the job a half day ahead of schedule, the field opened on time, the pitcher (a fifteen-year-old named Marcus) struck out the side in his first inning back on the mound.

Luis still does not know what a strikeout is.

But the machine got there. The dirt got moved. The kid got his start. And nobody at our yard had to know the rules of baseball for any of that to happen, because that is not what we do. What we do is iron. What we do is dirt. What we do is pick up the phone.

BadaBING, badaboom. That’s the whole business.