We walk silently toward the baseball field.
Now we are in the high school field. A Mexican dude is watering the grass while other guys rake the infield. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the scoreboard is huge and says SOUTH WILDCATS BASEBALL. This is the last stop on the train to high school baseball. This is where we have all been heading since Coach Devin declared the mission of his team—“to get you boys ready for high school ball.” That was BS of course; it was to get Eric ready for high school ball. But still, everyone is jacked.
The stadium doesn’t seem like league ball with concrete dugouts and a heavy fence that keeps fans from the players. People are handing bottles of Gatorade through the mesh and rock music is blaring while the ground crews finish. Everybody is looking up to the announcing booth where the freshman coach is hunched over. You can see Coach Poppers in his blue South Wildcats High School shirt and it’s like he’s a celebrity. Bob Hoskins, the varsity coach, is walking the fields, stopping to chat with coaches and players. I am at the Olympics, man.
The stands are already full. I guess parents made a point of getting there early for front row seats. Mom has us catch a popup, then react to a bunt grounder before running in. She takes the throws and some of the guys screw up easy grounders. Then I see Eric walking across the field in his red-and-white Tri City uniform.
“Hey, beano,” he says, swinging down his bat bag.
“Hey,” I mutter.
“Listen,” he says. “It’s already been settled. I’m going to be the starting pitcher for the freshman team and Roy Jackson is going to be the B team pitcher. But we need a good catcher,” he continues, nodding to me. “You should try out for it.”
It’s like he’s the coach and offering me a position.
“Yeah, right,” I say, turning away.
Eric grabs my shoulder and his eyes change.
“Look. We probably won’t play each other because your team sucks and you’ll get eliminated. But if we do, man, you really don’t want to pitch against me. First of all I’m the pitcher,” he declares, pounding his chest. “Coach Poppers already told me, so do yourself a favor and go for catcher.” He picks up his bat bag. “Because if I go against you, I’ll wipe the floor with your sorry ass and you won’t make the team at all. It will be bye-bye, beano.”
“Don’t call me that!” I shout.
My heart is going boom boom boom. I stare at him and it’s like we are back in the lunchroom and he’s dangling that cupcake over his mouth. I have the plastic knife and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Eric stands there with his mouth open. He shrugs with this fake laugh.
“Hey, whatever. I was just trying to help you, beano. But I can see you’re too stupid to understand what I’m telling you.” He slips the bat bag on his back. “Maybe you can be the water boy or you can cut the lawn before we play. You’re good at cutting lawns, right?”
I want to kill him, man. I want to take a bat and cave in his skull. But that’s the thing: When you are really angry, you kind of freeze up. And being angry is really bad for your pitching, which Eric knows.
But I just stand there while he laughs and walks away.
Guys like Eric always seem to get the last laugh.
31
WE WON OUR FIRST GAME. Yeah. A forfeit! The other team couldn’t field a team because a bunch of kids got the flu and so we got the advantage. The tournament schedule called for two games on Saturday with one game on Sunday. If we won both of our games and Tri City won their games we would meet in a championship game on Sunday.
Well, maybe you’ve heard about the Fan. Cubs are just five outs away from the World Series. It’s game six of the National League Championship and a Marlins batter chips it off to left field and Moisés Alou runs to grab it. The ball is going right to the edge of the stands, but Moisés has it, then this dude grabs the ball. Then the Marlins rally and beat the Cubs eight-three and they go on to win Game Seven and go to the World Series. We lived in Chicago at the time and Mom said the guy (the Fan) had to leave town and go into hiding. I’m telling you this, because during our second game, I’m feeling like I grabbed the ball from Moisés Alou.
See, the second game, now in progress, started badly. The umpire started calling them tight and the Orioles stopped swinging.
Then I started to pitch wild, and now, as the game continues, I’m still doing that.
The problem is every time I think about the Pitcher, I get mad. I don’t want to pick a spot. I don’t want to follow through like I’m punching a man. I don’t want to throw any of the pitches he showed me. I want to pitch my old way and so I throw them in hard and wild. I try a change-up and that’s why I throw the floater this kid blasts for a grand slam. Four runs just like that.
That’s when Mom comes out, trailing dust with her Oakleys covering her eye that’s still black and blue. She walks up on the mound, her mouth tight, pushing up her glasses to those angry eyes.
“Alright, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, shrugging.
“Yes you do know and I’m going to tell you something,” she says, leaning forward. “Forget about that asshole in his garage. He’s just a drunk and the sooner you and I realize that the better off we are going to both be.” She breathed heavily. “Now. Try and use what he showed you if it works, but more than that, pitch the way you know how. Use the ability God gave you. Take your breath, relax, push everything out of your mind. The same way we practiced doing homework. Concentrate.” She puts her hands on my shoulders. “You can do this, Ricky.”
“I don’t want to use what he showed me,” I grumble.
“Then don’t! Pitch it however you want, but you just have to forget about him and do the best you can. Think of this as an early tryout.”
“This is an early tryout, Mom,” I say.
She nods.
“Then all the better. Just throw it in there like you know how.”
She gives me a knuckle bump.
“Get him, Zambrano.”
Then Mom leaves.
I try to calm down, but it is just no use. Every time I take my breath, I just can’t clear my head. I load up the bases again. The coach gives every batter the take sign when he sees I can’t hit the corners. People boo. I want to get off the mound because I feel another grand slam coming. Mom finally calls time and pulls me. We walk off the field and nobody claps. We just walk off and you can hear a pin drop. Artie takes over as I hit the bench. I throw my mitt on the ground and Mom picks it up.
“Don’t make it worse than it is,” she says, handing it to me. And that’s when I feel like the Fan. Yeah, I am feeling sorry for myself.
But I have a reason.
It gets worse.
Mom looks at the scoreboard as I pick up my bat and slide off the weight ring. It’s two away and bottom of the sixth and we are chasing three. We had two base hits and then lost gas with two pop-ups. So now I’m up to bat with two on. It’s up to me to bring us home and take the lead. I swing my Titanium Slugger around a few times. I like a big bat because of the power. I spit on my gloves and step to the plate, extending my bat to the pitcher, then hoist it to my shoulder.
A new pitcher has come to the mound and he’s a real skinny dude who has this crazy windup. I watch his warm-up pitches that are nothing special. Mom looks at me and calls out in a low voice, “Don’t go after the garbage, Ricky. Make him give you a good pitch.” She’s talking nothing high or low. Don’t swat at flies and don’t dig up anything from the ground.
I step out and tap the rubber and take a couple more swings. The bat fans the air like an airplane propeller making the whooonh sound each time. I step back into the box and the umpire guns his finger and hunches down. I stare down the pitcher as he leans forward. He goes back to his set and pitches from the stretch. I swing as the baseball ducks the bat, whooonh, then falls into the catcher’s mitt. A knuckle ball! They don’t act like anything you’ve seen on the planet. They float in their own weird space and dodge and wea
ve and somehow end up in the catcher’s mitt.
“STEEEERIKE!”
I frown at the umpire. Did he really have to yell like that?
The Oriole side is up on the fence and going crazy.
“WAY TO PITCH! NICE ONE JUST LIKE THAT!”
I look toward my side where the Marauders are like, Go, Ricky, You Can Do It. Make him Work for it. Don’t swat at flies. I bang the plate with my bat and take some more swings. The skinny kid tugs on his hat. He’s leaning forward and shaking off the signals. I hold up my hand and snatch up some dirt. I swing again and step back into the batter’s box, then snug my cleats into the dirt. I hoist the bat to my shoulder, rotating like it’s alive.
The skinny kid shakes off three more signals. I can hear the crowd. The catcher punches his mitt. The ump grunts as he leans down. The kid raises his leg and comes forward. The ball floats toward me like an alien ship. The ball hovers weirdly, but this time I see it and bring my bat around.
Whoonh!
“STEEERIKE!”
Everybody is going crazy and this kid is spitting like he’s Roger Clemens. He takes the ball back and grins at me. I really hate it when the pitcher taunts you.
“C’mon, Ricky … knock it out of the park!”
“You can do it, Ricky!”
“Send this guy home, Ricky!”
The Oriole side is yelling out.
“JUST LIKE THAT, BILLY!”
“YOU GOT HIM, BILLY!”
“ONE MORE, BILLY!”
A skinny kid named Billy is going to strike me out? I don’t think so. I beat the plate with my bat again and step away and the kid is grinning. Like he knows he has me. Two knuckle balls. I should have lit the second one up and blasted it away. I brush back some dirt from the plate with my cleat, then snug in again. The kid is sizing me up, trying to figure out if I’ll go for it again.
“Get him, Ricky!”
“You can do it!”
“Blast it out of the park!”
“Protect, Ricky! Protect!”
“Ready batter?”
Some more dirt on the bat and some more spit on the gloves. I hold up my hand, then look at Blue and nod. I bring the bat up, moving it again, and the skinny pitcher leans forward. This time I’m going to make him eat that grin, man. There is no way he is going to float that funky pitch by me again.
He leans back for his set. I breathe in, gripping the bat with my eyes locked on him. Bring it. Bring it so I can blast if out of the park. I can see the high school team out there like the moon over the back fence. The kid breaks and comes from the stretch again. I watch his arm come over the top and I cock my shoulder. I have a zero–and–two count and he could throw me a ball, but he doesn’t. He’s that sure of himself and I watch that knuckle ball lob under the lights like the moon.
I have him now.
I twist back with everything I have and swing as hard as I can.
“Steeerike Three!”
32
AFTER GAMES WE GO TO McDonald’s or Dairy Queen. Everybody is usually there from the field and we sit there eating fries and burgers and drinking shakes while talking over the game. I don’t know what it is about being in a ball field that makes you so hungry. Maybe the food just tastes better after being outside. I know it’s junk food, but Mom and I have had some of our best times under the golden arches. She always has a Diet Coke and plain hamburger, which drives the dude with the headset crazy. Plain? You want a plain burger? And then we have to wait and everyone behind us has to wait. And even if we lose, that junk food does make you feel better. But this time it does nothing and thing is …
We won!
After I struck out, the knuckleballer tried the same thing the next inning. Mom had everyone crowd the plate and he started loading the bases. Then Ronnie hit a home run. That was the game. I thought we would play on Sunday, but now we have a day off before we play Tri City on Monday. When we reach home we both look over to the garage. It’s like we can’t help ourselves.
“Forget about that asshole,” Mom says, getting out of the car.
It’s official. The Pitcher had become that asshole. But it’s not so easy for me to think that way, you know. I blamed him for almost blowing the game. I blamed him for never showing me a change-up and that’s why I threw the blooper that resulted in the grand slam. I know that isn’t fair. I think I really just felt abandoned. It was weird, man … when I saw him lying in his bed passed out, I felt like crying. I never felt that way with Fernando.
I want to tell you something: Homework and me don’t get along. We just play at different ends of the field. Homework lays there and wants to be done and I want to surf the net, watch ESPN, do just about anything else. But homework just waits for me. Mom walks into the living room. ESPN is doing a roundup of teams in contention for the National League and I’m eating a bowl of Ramen Noodles. Then a bowl of ice cream. Pop Tarts. Cookies. Potato chips. I’m having my after game feast after McDonald’s that leads to a snooze on the couch. Like I said, something about being in a ball field makes me really hungry.
Mom stands behind the couch seeing my socks and hat on the floor. I can feel it coming, man. I have violated like ten mom-rules.
“You going to clean up this mess?” she asks, staring at my bowls.
“Sure.”
“Hmm.” Mom’s eyes are on the prowl and she’s hooking up with her main man, homework. They are in cahoots on this one. She throws out the bait.
“How are the books going with that summer reading list?”
The summer reading list: Catcher in the Rye, There Are No Children Here, To Kill a Mockingbird, Precious, Burned. It goes on and on and I haven’t cracked one. I keep meaning to go the library and get one of the books. That’s the thing with me; I will do anything but homework. It’s like I’m allergic to it or something. So I stop in mid-ice-cream with the spoon just below my mouth. Careful now, there’s always a catch. I don’t even know where the list is anymore—maybe on the floor of my closet.
So I go into lie mode.
“Oh … good,” I answer slowly.
“You have been checking them out of the library?” Mom continues, raising her eyebrows.
Now I know homework is trying to trap me again. So I consider her question. Mom is just standing there like no big deal. I see no hazard lights; no warnings like … don’t say anything. Alright, I lie about my homework sometimes. Hey, man, you got to or you’ll always be in the doghouse. It’s like one of my many flaws, you know.
So I just shrug and nod. “Uh huh,” I mumble.
Mom crosses her arms with the sparks in her eyes. I know then I have been played. The question is, how bad.
“The library just sent us a notice,” Mom says lightly.
I look up at her, raising my eyebrows.
“Oh … Yeah?”
“Yeah …” Mom stands right in front of me. “Seems our library card was canceled in June!”
Just like that she drops me. What a setup, man. I mean, that’s not really fair. She just let me go down the path and then capped me with a mom-bullet. I drop my bowl of ice cream to the floor, which just makes things worse. Mom’s eyes start flying around like trapped birds, her chin bobbing.
“Why do you lie to me, Ricky? You haven’t read one book, have you?”
“Oh, so you have been spying on me!”
“I should spy on you the way you lie about your homework!”
Now I have something to build around. If I was in a war she would have just given me a foxhole to hide in. I jump up.
“So you’re calling me a liar?”
“You are a liar when you lie!”
I swing my arms around and start shouting. I learned this trick long ago. Lose your shit and people back off. Some of them.
“How do you expect me to do homework when I’m playing baseball?”
“I expect you to do your homework. Period. Do you know how hard I have worked to keep you in school, Ricky? Do you know everything I am doing for you?”
<
br /> “Well obviously you don’t do enough because I still suck,” I shout, making no sense at all. But that’s the way I roll when I’m cornered. “And it’s your fault the Pitcher won’t coach me anymore!”
Mom’s mouth drops open. Let me just say here, man, I don’t know what I’m saying when I fight with Mom. But it has to be somebody’s fault, because bad things don’t just happen for no reason. So I blame her, which is really sick, but I’m in a bad way, you know.
“My fault?” she cries out.
“Yeah … he was my coach and you … you turned him into your boyfriend!”
“I did nothing of the kind!
“Yeah, you did,” I continue, nodding. “You’re so lonely and all, you probably freaked him out and that made him drink again!”
Mom is like blown away. But with me, man, nothing is off-limits and maybe I do think Mom freaked him out. Why would he just start drinking again? I know it’s unfair, but that’s the way I think, man.
Mom comes close, jabbing her finger.
“You little shit. Don’t you lay that on me!” she screams. “He was a drunk before I ever came along and the fact is you never worked hard enough, Ricky! If he doesn’t want to coach you then you can’t blame me … why don’t you look at yourself!”
I feel my face get hot. I stare at her.
“What are you saying, Mom?”
“I’m saying that you are lazy, Ricky. Even with a major league pitcher you haven’t gotten control of your pitching because you won’t work! You lay around watching ESPN and dream about being a pitcher, but I don’t see you working at it. Not the way you should.”
I’m seeing red with my heart beating fast, man.
“And that’s my fault?”
“Who else’s would it be?”
Oh man, I feel like I am on fire. I hate being called lazy. A teacher once called me lazy and I went psycho and ended up in the principal’s office. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t stand it.
The Pitcher Page 14