Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook #3
Page 7
“I’ll be sticking around, so don’t believe the hype,” I said. “Well, believe the hype about me and vote! A vote for me is a vote for stability!”
If anyone had told me that I’d be this optimistic about staying in Peach Tree a week ago, I would have laughed, and then probably cried. If anyone had told me I would feel this way because I had PETER on my side, I would have taken their temperature and gone through a list of all the world’s other Peters to make sure they weren’t talking about my brother.
But things change fast! Just like my parents’ plans to move would change as soon as we ran the All-Pros Play.
As long as I was thinking positive, I decided to wish Nolan Chao a good game.
CHANGE OF PLAY: SIDELINED BUT SO NECESSARY (THAT’S ME!)
I may not have had the perfect ideas in mind, but my sudden decision to be nice to Nolan felt right: getting over my feelings about him taking my place would be like hurling one chunk of the boulder, at least. Devon had pitched the last game, so it was his turn to take the mound. But when I circled around the stands to the dugout, it was Devon coming in from warm-ups.
“Where’s Nolan?” I asked Coach Hollyligher.
“He’s not starting,” Coach said with a small frown, looking stressed. There are several kinds of coaches, and Coach Hollylighter was the calm but stern kind. Stressed was new for her. I looked at Mario, who was getting his batting gloves on.
“Where’s Nolan?” I whispered.
Mario shook his head. “He was suiting up in the locker room, but then he didn’t come out.”
“What happened?”
Mario shook his head and looked spooked. “I don’t know.”
The game was starting and Devon was on the mound. I stood against the dugout fence, and my stomach dropped. All my confident thoughts were replaced with a bad feeling about the game, like stepping into a house you know is haunted. Not that Devon couldn’t handle pitching today (or any day), but being put in the game because your team COULDN’T FIND the other pitcher wasn’t going to get you off to a great start.
The first batter from Luther came to the plate, a boy named Jonathan Dominguez who’d been a year behind me in school and who was now much taller than me. A lot of the time, everyone was, but I’d specifically remembered Jonathan being shorter than me when we went to school together.
I love pitching to really tall batters. I could almost hear my mitt as I folded it in and out three times. Of course, I wasn’t wearing one, but I knew the sound. I could almost feel the soft leather covering my hand. Which reminds me, I haven’t given my glove its usual maintenance appointment lately.
GLOVE CARE LIST
Brush away dirt and debris by using a brush or piece of cloth
Use a bit of leather cleaner to ensure the dirt is really gone (nothing should get between your glove and the ball!)
Every few weeks or games, use a glove conditioner to keep the leather soft (don’t use too much; it will weigh your glove down!!)
At least weekly, give your glove positive affirmations (suggestions: “Thanks for giving me a hand!” “You’re quite a catch!” “I always have a ball with you!”)
If I’d been catching (Coach Hollylighter had made me try it over the summer), I would have signaled for Devin to throw a slider, given Jonathan’s height, so the ball would drop just as he swung for it. (As a rule, Coach Hollylighter likes us to go easy on sliders and curves so we don’t screw up our elbows before we’re fully grown, but Devon and I are careful.) Devon hurled a fastball at him, and it must have gone right toward his bat’s sweet spot. He hit her first pitch into far left field, where a new Penguin (a seventh grader who’d quit lacrosse and asked Coach for a tryout to play in the tournament) ran to get under it but couldn’t in time. Jonathan made it to first, then second.
I could feel what Devon was feeling as she tried to shake off the bad start. She huffed out a breath and looked to the dugout and bullpen, probably hoping Nolan had shown up. Still no Nolan. With everyone else taking spots on the field, it meant Devon wouldn’t even have a reliever this game.
The next batter stood at home plate, waiting for her pitch. It was critical Devon didn’t get nervous because she’d let someone on base. Some pitchers would be totally miserable about that first batter, but she was an expert at managing her mound mood. Usually.
But she tossed a wild pitch way outside instead.
Every pitcher has bad innings, but starting your game with one is the worst. Devon needed to rest her arm, and the longer she tried to throw with it, the harder things were going to get.
“I’m going to go find Nolan,” I told Coach. I stood up and tried to fold my arms across my chest with determination. Too bad the cast got in the way of that and I sort of hit myself in the throat.
“I saw him in the atrium last,” Coach Hollylighter said.
In the bleachers, Diego was bent over his notebook and Katy was chatting with the talent squad, but Johnny saw my face as I stepped out of the dugout. “Is Devon okay?” he asked me, and we looked over to see her wiping her forehead. She’d just let the second batter get a walk.
“Nolan was supposed to pitch,” I said. “I think Devon is feeling the pressure.”
“I wonder if the team’s off balance with you not on the field,” Johnny said, looking like someone who possibly had an instrument to measure this balance in his backpack. A very cute someone.
“Maybe, but they definitely are going to need someone to relieve Devon.”
The Penguins needed ME to relieve Devon. But if I couldn’t be on the mound, I had to be useful in some other way.
Nolan was still in the atrium. His mitt wasn’t on his hand, or even in his lap. It was on the floor in front of him, like he’d tossed it there. Uh-oh.
“Hi,” I said. I sat down in the chair next to him.
He looked frightened to have me talk to him. “Gabby Garcia,” he said, like this was a bad thing. “Did Coach send you to kick me off the team?”
I shook my head. “No, I sent me. Is something wrong?”
“No,” Nolan said, but he gave his tossed-aside mitt a look that said something was very wrong.
I sat there for a minute, counting down in my head and waiting. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six . . . he would tell me.
“I just . . . can’t pitch.” Nolan said what I thought he was going to say. A pitcher didn’t get angry at his glove for nothing.
“You were great the other day,” I said. “You definitely can pitch.” I wanted to be nice to him, because we pitchers can be very sensitive.
“No, I mean, I CAN’T pitch. Like I feel like I forgot how.” Nolan kicked the tile floor with the tip of his cleat and sighed really loud. “You must think I’m a weirdo.”
“No, I think I know what this is.”
“Are you going to tell me I don’t have what it takes? Because I already know,” Nolan answered before I could even say more. He was really down on himself. I never would have guessed his swagger could turn to this.
“I’m going to tell you that you have the yips,” I said.
“The whats?”
I explained that the yips are what happen when you let all your worst thoughts take over and you sorta kinda forget how to play baseball and feel like you’ll never remember again. “So what were you thinking about when you were getting ready for the game?”
“At first, only that I was pitching,” Nolan said. “But then I started to think about this . . . pattern I think I have. In my summer league, every time I had a good game, I would really screw up the next game. But this is Piper Bell! If I screw up here, I’ll be off the team. It’s like I forgot how to throw. I can’t even get my glove on.”
“You’re one hundred percent in the yips. I hear them in your voice,” I said. “Let’s get to the dugout, and from there, I can help you with the rest.”
He pointed to his glove like it was a lump of Dumpster’s fresh dog doo. “What about THAT?”
“I’ll carry it,” I said. I picked it up
like it was a baby, which Nolan seemed to appreciate.
By the time we got back to the field, Luther was up 2–0 in the fourth. Devon looked miserable on the mound, or as miserable as Devon will let herself look.
Nolan wasn’t even trying to conceal his mood. He was lying on the bench, looking at the dugout roof. I sat next to him.
“So I think some of it started because I was a really good tennis player,” he began.
“What?” I asked him. I thought I was going to get him to watch the game.
He was telling me his problems. Okay.
“I played tennis when I was little and I was good, and my parents play tennis and they like tennis and they UNDERSTAND tennis, but then when I said I wanted to do baseball, they didn’t understand as much.”
“And that makes you feel . . . ?” I sounded really professional.
“I feel . . . like I have to be REALLY great at baseball all the time to prove I made the right choice. If they could just SEE how great this game is for me, then it would make me feel less like the odd man out in my family.”
“Hmm,” I said. It sounded like Nolan was doing the same thing with baseball that I wanted to do with Peach Tree.
“See?? You don’t even get it,” he said. “You’re GABBY GARCIA. You can pitch and you’ll probably be class president and you don’t have any problems.”
I laughed. “That’s not true. At all. I broke my arm by tripping over a hot dog!”
Nolan cracked up. “You WHAT?” Laughing is good. It upsets the yips.
As the team shuffled back to the dugout after giving up another run, everyone was surprised to see Nolan. Maybe because he was taking up the whole bench.
“Nolan’s back,” someone said.
“Who’s up?” someone else said.
“Is he going to pitch?” Devon asked, rubbing her shoulder.
“Give us a bit; we’re working through something,” I said.
Madeleine went up to the plate and had a small hit that made it to center field, mostly because the Lions shortstop had missed the grab. The Penguins weren’t in a flow, but at least the Lions weren’t, either. After Mario went down swinging, Ryder came up to bat and hit a solid almost- homer to left field. Madeleine scored.
“See, you don’t have to play all by yourself,” I told Nolan. “Your teammates are there so you don’t have to get the win on your own.”
He seemed to believe me, because he’d finally put his glove on. He was still tightly gripping the bench with his other hand, but it was a start.
By the seventh, with a tie score of 3–3, Devon was done. “The best way to show your parents you love baseball is to play it,” I told Nolan. He looked at me like that was the right thing to say and stood up.
“Can you take over, Chao?” Coach asked. Nolan took a deep breath and nodded as he took steps out of the dugout. His strut was gone, but he was on the field.
For his first pitch, Nolan threw a fastball right down the middle. Swing and a miss. Piper Bell could stay in the tournament even if they lost to Luther, but it was better if they got the win. “I don’t know how you did it, but I’m impressed, Garcia,” Coach Hollylighter said. She tossed me a jersey. One with a penguin on it. “Even if you’re benching it, I don’t see why you shouldn’t suit up.”
Then Nolan flubbed. He threw a meatball to Michael Datson, who used to be a soccer player at Luther and had just switched to baseball this year. Michael wasn’t very good yet, but still, his bat took a huge bite of that juicy pitch and he wound up on second. Then Nolan seemed to go for a curve when Casey Allen was at bat. (I could only think of the poem “Casey at the Bat,” where the main guy is sure he’ll get a hit and strikes out.) But Luther’s Casey snatched a piece of it for a line drive that seemed to dodge our shortstop. Now Nolan had two people on base with a tie score. The new Luther center fielder, Avery Banks, came up to bat. On her first swing, she knocked the ball way past Madeleine in center field. The Luther fans went wild as Avery cleared the bases with an in-the-park home run. The score was 5–3, Luther.
When Nolan returned to the dugout, I tensed up. What if he was mad at me for pushing him to go out there?
I started to ask him, but he mouthed the words “Thank you.”
Piper Bell lost. But Nolan didn’t look too miserable.
He’d made it to the mound. That was a big deal. And I’d helped make it happen.
I was sidelined but not out of the game. I couldn’t be replaced so easily.
If anyone could make the All-Pros Play work, it was me.
PROSPECTS FOR A NEW SEASON OF GABBY IN PEACH TREE: Excellent.
THE GREATS: GABRIELLE “GABBY” DOUGLAS
Born: December 31, 1995, in Newport News, Virginia
Origin story: When she was a toddler, Gabby’s older sister, Arielle—a gymnast—wanted to teach her baby sister the sport she loved and started training baby Gabby, who was soon flipping off the family’s furniture. It took four more years before their mom made it official by signing Gabby up for lessons.
Huge moments: In 2012, she became the first African American gymnast in Olympic history to become a gold medalist in the individual all-around competition. That year, she also won a gold medal with the US gymnastics team (and repeated the team gold in the 2016 Olympics!).
Quote: “Hard days are the best because that’s when champions are made.”
(Gosh, I hope so, fellow Gabby!)
Gabby Garcia
English Composition/Vocab Essay
An Essay About a Misunderstanding
By Gabby Garcia
If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that communication is critical. There are multiple kinds of communication, from spoken to written to telepathic thoughts to knowing enough about a person that you get their meaning, even when they don’t specifically articulate it.
Recently, my best friends (and one person who is sort of my boyfriend but for the sake of this essay, let’s lump him in with friends) have misunderstood me. My family might be making a change. I don’t want to reveal the specifics, so let’s say my family plans to adopt a pet. The pet is a species I’m truly allergic to, that I believe caused a number of physical symptoms that have hampered my athletic aptitude.
I was counting on my friends to comprehend that there is no way I will allow our family to take on this pet, which would not only be a bad pet for me, but would also require life changes that would keep me from seeing my friends on a regular basis. My friends should understand that I will find a way to keep this pet out of my life because in the past, I’ve always had a plan. In fact, having a plan to address any life situation is a trait I always embody.
However, I’m feeling misunderstood, because instead of believing I can fix this situation, my friends are celebrating my still-petless status by taking me to many places I can only go as long as this horrible PET doesn’t enter my life. Yesterday, one of my friends (the one I’d classify as a boyfriend) made a big deal out of all of us going to get frozen yogurt. Even though frozen yogurt is an acceptable alternative to ice cream, it’s really only exceptional for the topping options. He alluded to the frozen yogurt proprietor that I might soon be unable to visit due to the arrival of the pet.
If the frozen yogurt outing had been just a random Wednesday event, I could live with that. But my friends decided to act very solemn, like this was our last-ever trip to a really commonplace frozen yogurt emporium. Even as I made counterpoints to let them know that I was making efforts to keep a pet out of my life, and that we’d be able to enjoy frozen yogurt on future occasions, they seemed resigned to the idea that I wouldn’t be able to change anything.
In conclusion, sometimes you can be misunderstood even when you believe you are clearly communicating your message. To solve this misunderstanding, I will do everything I can to prove this pet is a BAD IDEA for my family, which will demonstrate to my friends that they shouldn’t have doubted me. These actions will utilize all my communication skills.
THE SWEET SPOT
Action: Hmm, maybe accept that Peter and I are a TEAM?
Post-Day Analysis:
September 14
Life has this way of moving even faster when you want it to go slower. This is different than sports, where you can call for a time-out and the action stops while you sort things out. The game cuts to a commercial while the players meet on the mound (or in a huddle or near the Gatorade).
It shows how great sports are because, even though they have their own rules, when you’re in a game, the rules of life and time and space become a little flexible.
My up day at the game had come crashing down today for a few reasons. First, my dad and Louie were not even trying to hide they were researching school districts in Seattle, “just in case.”
And my friends had put together another commemorative outing to mini golf, like my move was inevitable. Plus, Johnny had sent this text before school today:
Not to worry you but polls show that students wouldn’t want to vote for someone who might move. ☹
Why the sad face? Why is Johnny even asking poll questions like that? And my friends seem to want to be extra careful about my feelings—especially Johnny—but everything makes him worry, and I don’t want to be the person people worry about. On the other hand, he’s still working on my campaign even though he thinks I might be leaving.
What does THAT mean?
And why can’t my friends treat me normally? And by normal, I mean Gabby Normal. A normal where I’m not going to quit until my parents stop looking at new houses and we stay here and everything is FINE.
Better than fine! I’m going to live in Peach Tree until I eventually go on to college and major league greatness. AS. PLANNED.
I guess, though, there are a few not-normal things. Like my preelection speech: I’m writing a draft of it now using all the data Johnny keeps gathering. He just sent me a text update before English class. So, right now, I’m pretending to write about the themes in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963. It’s a really good book, but I can’t focus on my essay.