Below are the responses to the Sage Challenge for June 2025.
Previous Challenge results were published in individual issues of the SouthWest Sage. Links to those issues (February 2023 to the present) are on the Sage News page. SWW Members have full access to the Newsletter Archives that begin in 2004. Go to the Sage Challenge page for details about the current Challenge open to SWW members.
THE JUNE SAGE WRITING CHALLENGE:
Sports and Games
Do you play a mean game of Canasta…or Bridge? Maybe your best memories are of Little League Baseball or winning at Bingo. The challenge was to write a story – fiction or non-fiction in prose form – up to 1000 words – real or imaginary in any genre. It can be a section of a book you are writing or have written, or an article you wrote for a newspaper….get creative!
Below are the stories submitted for this month’s Sage Challenge, all written by SWW members. From memoir to Science Fiction…the challenge inspired true creativity!
- Junior at the Plate by Ed Johnson
- Ritual of the Plastic Array By S.C. Poli
- Life and Ping Pong by Rick Reichman
Junior at the Plate
By Ed Johnson
The summer before his father hung himself in the family garage, thirteen-year-old Junior stood in the long shadow of an apricot tree with a baseball bat in his hand.
The ball field, an occasional gathering place for kids from a tiny village in northern New Mexico, was on my grandfather’s property. The dirt was hard, the bases were rocks and dark green alfalfa marked the outfield edges. Home plate was guarded by the shade of the large dying fruit tree.
There weren’t enough boys and girls for two teams, so we forsake keeping score and took turns batting and fielding. Junior was the best player, but he usually gave into the whining of his cousin Bobby and let him pitch.
“Today I have a secret pitch,” Bobby announced and the grumbling began.
“Oh, no, not again.”
“Every time you have a secret pitch, one of us gets hit.”
“Just throw like you usually do,” Junior insisted.
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Bobby said.
Junior shook his head then startled me, shoving a worn, graying bat in my direction.
“You’re up.”
“Me?”
“You came to play, didn’t you?”
Reluctantly, I accepted.
“All right, fresh meat,” Bobby said.
“Keep your eye on the ball,” Junior instructed.
“And get ready to duck,” someone else warned.
The ball came in high, but I thought it would fall over the plate. Instead, it swerved toward my head and I hit the ground dodging it. Bobby cackled while the others giggled. Segundo did not laugh.
“Just throw the damn thing right,” Junior said.
“That’s my killer curve.”
“Throw it again and I’ll kill you.”
“Just cuz you can’t hit it.”
“Nobody can hit it. It’s nowhere near the strike zone.”
I looked at Junior, hoping for a reprieve, but got a scowl, forcing me to try again. Bobby’s next pitch came in high and fat, but my swing was so wild I again tumbled. More laughter. Bobby strutted. Junior glared.
“You almost had it,” Junior lied. “Go again.”
I dug in as the pitch floated toward me. I swung wildly and missed. Bobby gloated. Junior fumed.
“Gimme the damn bat,” Junior said.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Here we go.”
Junior kicked at the hard dirt as he twirled the bat. He swung hard, but came nowhere near the ball. Bobby’s killer curve had fooled him. We gasped. When it happened a second time, Bobby reacted as though he had won the World Series. Junior steamed. I felt a little better, but uneasy, too. No one was prepared for Bobby to own the game.
Junior noticed the shock on my face and it only added to his anger. “Get out and field the damn ball!”
I retrieved my glove and hurried to the outfield while Junior squeezed his bat and Bobby crowed.
“Who’s dogging it now?”
“Just throw the damn thing!”
The ball came in as before. Only this time, Junior crushed it. The baseball soared like a small full moon in a high light blue sky. I raced back, but quickly realized I could not catch it. It sailed beyond the field, beyond the alfalfa, beyond an embankment, toward the creek. Finally it bounced off a boulder and landed between two stones on the far side of the water’s edge.
As the others come up behind me, I pointed to the distant baseball.
“Holy crap,” they said.
“Holy hell,” Bobby said.
“Hey,” Junior called.
Everyone turned, mouths still agape, and there was Junior still standing at home plate, bat in hand. Soon enough his life would change and change forever. But on that day he was a boy savoring a time and a game with a bunch of kids being watched as only a summer sun could.
“Are we gonna play or what?”
* * * * *
Ritual of the Plastic Array
By S.C. Poli
We picked them up in the northern hemisphere of the third planet, on a tangent with the system’s main sequence star. Interceptions of the planet’s broadcasts indicated that the inhabitants considered themselves champions of this ritual, a contest between pairs of maturing adults.
<We have the materials to accommodate their ritual?> I asked Xokta, my research director. It was my first observation as her assistant, and I could not forget anything that would jeopardize our inquiry.
<Affirmative.> She gestured at a set of red polystyrene chalices stacked on a long table. <The acquisition of the polyethylene altar was more difficult than expected.>
I was not taken on the acquisition mission; junior researchers rarely left the ship. Nervous, I stimulated joy. We would learn much about these beings tonight.
<Summon them.>
I brought the two bipeds up from the lower deck – males, fully mature according to physiological scans. Both wore thin chains of gold of unimpressive purity, and the tallest wore headgear typical of bipeds – a fabric helmet with an extended horizontal ledge. Xokta identified it as a tool for blocking solar radiation. Curiously, the biped wore it with the ledge to their back, possibly to protect the back of their head from the light.
Both seemed anxious, but nonviolent. A good start to the observation.
<Let us begin their ritual.>
I established the two triangular arrays of red chalices on either end of the altar, then filled each halfway with water. Xokta theorized that the act represented balance, with the empty space above the line being in equilibrium with the water filling.
<Commence the sound.>
I played a recording that I had intercepted from their radio broadcasts. Xokta had praised my selection at the time, theorizing that the variations of low bass, repetitive meter, and asymmetrical language signaled the intended emotion to participants in the ritual. The sound did little to stir my own feelings.
The shorter biped looked at us and spoke in its own tongue, which rendered an error from my translator. It spoke again, and again, no transcript entered my mind.
<Is your translator malfunctioning?> Xokta’s response could confirm a potential failure of mine, this time in my calibration task.
<No, it functions.>
Relief.
<These bipeds speak a more drawn-out dialect than I expected, likely due to their previous ingestion of ceremonial liquid.>
The consumption of the ceremonial liquid accompanied many biped rituals. Their prior consumption would matter little.
<Can we continue?>
<Yes, and perhaps we should provide them additional liquid.>
I gathered four frosted aluminum cylinders of liquid – one for each being on the deck. The bipeds took them readily, touching their cylinders together before imbibing. Xokta and I drank from our own, struggling with the bitter taste.
Xokta then provided both bipeds with white thermoplastic spheres and ushered them to one side of the altar. She gestured at it, reminding me to attend the far side. I twitched to action, embarrassed at my lack of focus.
The bipeds looked at each other, then – less cautiously than before – took their place to begin the ceremony. The short one stepped forward, hinged one of its upper appendages, and launched the sphere at the array. There was little splash as the sphere entered a chalice in the back row.
I removed the vessel with the landed sphere and waited for the other biped’s attempt. He moved centrally and performed the same motion – another plop in the array.
The bipeds were vivacious in their liturgy, gesticulating until we drank from our own cylinders and returned the spheres. Their next two attempts bounced off the rim of the chalices, leaving us to retrieve them and take our turn.
Xokta, having studied the biped’s technique extensively, launched and landed the sphere in the first chalice of the array. The vessel removed, I launched my own sphere which missed entirely.
The spheres passed between both ends of the altar for a time, the bipeds eliminating an additional three chalices as Xokta took two of their vessels. Mine impacted on the rim each time.
“Solo”
Even without the translator, we knew that word. The biped’s call was surely a testament to their lone star, the lifesource of their system. The sphere plopped into the chalice separated from the rest of the array, resulting in our loss of two additional vessels and the further consumption of the ceremonial liquid.
Xokta and I opened new cylinders – our third – to comply. We pressed them together like the bipeds did, finding novelty in the strange tradition, and drank. Mysteriously, the taste had improved despite our careful experimental controls. Further sampling confirmed the off-putting aroma and biting flavor were indeed muted.
The sound shifted to another rhythm as we controlled the spheres again. For the first time, the sound spoke to me; I entered a bliss, bouncing unconsciously with the vibration. My next launch found the water, as did the next. Xokta’s praise buoyed my spirit further.
My third shot knocked the front of a chalice in the following turn. Now the bipeds made a move, gesturing their upper limbs together – Xokta interpreted the motion as a request to adjust the array into a straight line. We obliged, and they splashed both spheres, leaving a solitary vessel.
The sound changed again, a building rhythm that spurred the bipeds into ecstasy as they shot at the remaining chalice. Two more launches flew forth and found the same water.
I cursed as the ritual concluded. It was over so quickly, and just as we were starting to make some real observations.
<You performed well.> Xokta looked at me, still holding her aluminum cylinder. <Perhaps we should perform the ritual again to verify our results?>
I nodded and looked at the bipeds. Their beckoning motions conveyed their clearest communication yet. At ease in our study, the arrays were reset, and we continued our research, one chalice at a time.
* * * * *
Life and Ping Pong
Rick Reichman
I never realized my mother was athletic until eighth grade, when my dad bought a Ping Pong Table.
My mom had a slight build—about 5’5″, with long dark hair and a nice smile. She excelled in theater. An outstanding actress and the chair of a theater company, she brought what we might now call “Black plays” to our Southern city during a time of civil rights and far too many civil wrongs.
Ping pong? That was the last thing I expected from her.
But we had room for a table, and I would soon discover how wrong I was.
We lived in a large duplex—my grandparents on one side, me, my two sisters, and my parents on the other. That arrangement left us one large empty room. Big enough for the table, with good space on all sides and two windows looking east.
When the table arrived, I was home. My mom said, “Let’s play.”
“Sure,” I said, thinking I’d win a few games and be done with it.
Instead, she smashed me so easily I wondered what else I didn’t know about her. Besides Ping Pong and theater what other strengths was she hiding?
Those first matches weren’t even close—21–5. If I managed double digits, it was rare and only during “garbage time,” like in basketball when the game’s already out of reach and the reserves play the remainder.
Then one day, I won! I think it was 23–21, in overtime—since you had to win by two.
That win changed things. She stopped being just an opponent and became my mom again. She placed her paddle on the table, wanting to talk.
“How was school?”
“Unfortunately, still there.”
She shook her head. Still didn’t love my sarcasm.
“Oh, come on, there must be something you like.”
“Nope. Even lunch was put on a salmonella watch list.”
“What about girlfriends?”
“Mom, I’m in eighth grade.”
“Surely there’s someone you kind of like.”
I looked down. Might’ve blushed. “I saw this girl at the other junior high school fair…”
“Where your sisters go?” I nodded.
“She was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Rosy cheeks, big brown eyes, and she moved like an angel.”
“Where did that come from?”
I shrugged. “Maybe a book. Or a movie. But I think I just thought of it when I saw her.”
“She have a name?”
“Richard told me who she was.” (Richard was one of my cousins.)
“So you have a girlfriend?”
I shook my head. “I just saw her. She has no idea who I am.”
What I didn’t say: I think she’s the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.
As a side note: I actually met her again about 25 years later. She was even more radiant. The same rosy cheeks, beautiful long dark hair, those dynamic eyes—and, of course, married to a doctor. We briefly worked on a literary magazine together.
I didn’t know how to tell her I’d seen her all those years ago and had been enchanted ever since. I really wanted to say that if she were ever single, she should call me. After all, at least my father was a doctor.
But I was too afraid. So I just watched and worked with her, always in awe. Then she drifted out of my life again, and I was both happy and sad to have really gotten to know her better, even if only a little.
Back in eighth grade, spring was coming and junior high was nearly done. The ping pong matches between my mother and me were much closer. Some days I even won. I’d sometimes accuse her of letting me win, but both history and her personality made it clear—that was baloney.
Then one fine morning, one of my classmates announced an upcoming birthday party. The big event? A ping pong tournament.
Immediately, Tom, Dick, and let’s say Harry—declared themselves champions. Each sure the trophy would be theirs.
I figured I had no chance. I mean, what could I possibly do against champions when I could only barely—sometimes—beat, my mother?
The day arrived. Brackets were drawn. Double elimination. You had to keep winning until everyone else had lost twice.
I was scared. Shaky.
Sure enough, I lost my first game.
Then something took hold. Maybe it was hearing how awful I was. How I shouldn’t have even been allowed in the tournament.
I won. One game. Then another. Then three. I didn’t lose a match after that. No miracle comebacks. No close over-21 finishes. I beat everyone—even the ones who’d already been eliminated. The trophy, the grins, the glory were all mine.
At home, I showed my mother the trophy. She nodded, barely impressed.
“Okay,” I said, lifting a paddle. “Let’s play.”
She nodded again. No words. No fanfare. Just two players, a green table, and the quiet that knew what was coming.
After all, I was the champion. The one. The only. I had beaten the best of eighth grade.
Didn’t matter.
Final score? I don’t remember.
What I do remember is watching the ball blur past me again and again, the way she snapped her wrist, the tiny grin she couldn’t quite hide. And just like that, I was back to losing. Not losing completely—as I was learning.
What I learned was this: trophies gather dust on the shelf. However, some victories always stay with you. My mom didn’t just teach me how to play, she showed me whom she was. And whom I might become.
No matter what tournaments I won or what trophies I brought home in the future, my mother was—and always will be—the true champion.
So as Walter Cronkite would say: That’s the way it is.
Eighth grade.
A ping pong table.
And a mother who played like she had nothing to prove—but proved a lot anyway.
* * * * *