by Tim Green
“Great idea,” said Cat’s mom.
“Okay with you?” Jalen’s mom asked him.
“Sure. Yes.”
After Cat and her mom drove off with George, Jalen’s mom suggested that just the two of them go to the pool area. When Jalen agreed, his mom put her arm around him and they walked like that until they found two chairs that looked inviting. Palm leaves rustled softly in the shadows. Jalen rested his arms on the chair and his mom covered his hand with her own.
“You’re some baseball player, Jalen.”
“Yeah, well, I love it.”
She gave his arm a pat, then sighed. “I feel bad that I’ve missed so much of your life.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s really not. Your life is quite exciting.”
Jalen turned his hand over and twined their fingers together. “You don’t have to apologize all the time, Mom. I don’t want you to. Apology accepted. And you have a pretty exciting life yourself.”
He squeezed her fingers to let her know he meant it.
“Thank you,” she said.
After a pause, Jalen said, “Dad called me at Steak ’n Shake.”
“I thought that might have been Fabio.” She spoke so softly Jalen could barely hear.
“I can’t keep doing this. I feel like I’m being disloyal to him. I keep going back and forth on how we should tell him.” Jalen’s insides twisted up on him as he peered at her in the dim light.
“You know what I think,” she softly said.
“That you and George should just show up and go straight at him.” Jalen couldn’t help feeling like he wanted to scream.
“Or that you should tell him,” she said. “It needs to be one way or the other, doesn’t it?”
Jalen nodded without speaking.
After a while, she broke the silence. “Don’t you think it’s a sign? Me being here and you winning like that? I do.”
“Maybe,” Jalen said. “You’re good luck. That’s for sure.”
“So,” his mom said after another pause, “tell me about this Lakeland team. Why are they so good? And why would you have to play them again to win the tournament when you already beat them?”
Jalen explained what Lakeland was and how they recruited talent from across the country before explaining what a double elimination tournament was.
“That was some kid they had pitching to you at the end,” his mom said. “No way did he look twelve.”
“Tell me about it. His name is Biruk Royal.”
“Sounds like a show name,” his mom laughed.
“Show name?”
“Like an actor who picks a name a movie star should have.”
Jalen looked at his phone. “Yeah, he’s a star, all right. I better get going, Ma.”
“Ma,” she said. “I like it.”
They walked back to the courtyard, where George was waiting. Jalen’s mom gave him a good-bye hug and a kiss.
Jalen’s thoughts focused on his mom and dad until he walked into his room and saw Gertzy.
“Gertzy?” Jalen stopped in his tracks. “What happened?”
69
GERTZY LAY IN HIS BED propped up on a half-dozen pillows. After a day of pitching, his arm and shoulder were wrapped in ice packs.
“Are you okay?”
Gertzy forced a crooked smile. “I threw a lot of pitches today. Maybe one or two too many…”
Jalen went into the bathroom and started brushing his teeth, but then he stepped back into the room. “How’s the soreness?”
Gertzy sighed. “Don’t worry. It’s worse than it looks. My mom, she makes a big deal out of everything.”
Jalen finished brushing his teeth. “Dude, we need you if we’re gonna have a prayer of winning this tournament. But you can’t play if it’s not okay.”
Gertzy held out a hand. “Hey, help me up. These ice bags are starting to melt.”
Jalen helped him up and unwound the bandages so that the plastic bags of watery ice dropped to the floor. Where the ice had been, Gertzy’s skin was an angry red. Gertzy slowly rotated his arm.
“Better?” Jalen asked.
“It will be.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. The knob rattled, and Coach Allen stuck his head inside. “How are you doing, Gertzy?”
“Better, Coach,” said Gertzy. “Tomorrow I’ll be good to go.”
“Good. Great job today, both you guys. We just gotta keep at it. Today was a perfect example of ‘next man up.’ Remember, the runs that got us back in the game were produced by the bottom of our lineup.”
“You got it, Coach,” Gertzy said.
“It was a team win,” Jalen said as he rushed into the bathroom to finish up and dump the melting ice.
“Gertzy, I assume you’ll be okay sitting out tomorrow?” asked their coach. “We need you ready for the championship Monday. Not that anything is going to go wrong, but if it does, we’ll have to deal with it. The rules say, and I agree with them, that if you pitch more than three innings, you can’t play the following day.”
“What a stupid rule.”
“Gertzy, there are thousands of kids who have had serious arm injuries, who didn’t have to play by these rules. Better safe than sorry.”
“I guess,” Gertzy said unenthusiastically.
Jalen came out and hopped into bed.
“Okay, guys, good night.” Coach Allen flipped off the lights and closed the door.
They lay in silence for a minute before Jalen rolled onto his side. “I don’t know about you, but Coach didn’t sound all that confident to me.”
“He’s like that when he’s nervous,” Gertzy said. “The glass is always half-empty.”
“We just beat the number one team,” Jalen said.
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?” Jalen felt almost offended.
“Well, for starters, we sucker punched them. They didn’t think we could beat them until we went ahead in the ninth.”
Jalen protested, “They ended the game with their top pitcher.”
Gertzy snorted. “And how’d that work out for them?”
Jalen sat up in bed. “I emptied the bases with a moon shot.”
Gertzy chuckled softly. “Then what happened? He woke up and crushed us. And did you see me? I was hanging on by a burning thread. You put any one of our other pitchers, like Hot Sauce, in there, and they’re gonna have a picnic.”
“Daniel’s been getting a lot better! Coach has been giving him extra time.”
“Come on. You think we’ll see anything but people’s ace pitchers from now on?”
After a moment, Jalen lay back down with a heavy sigh. “So what! If we can beat the number one team, we can beat any team.”
“We’re not even close to bad, but all these teams are great. And we can be great. We just proved it. But do we have the depth to be great with our three and four pitchers? ’Cause sooner or later at one of these shindigs, we’re gonna need them to shut down an entire lineup of batters as good as you and me, maybe better. Although the way you’re going, there may not be anyone better than you.
“Besides,” Gertzy added, “do you really think all these other guys are as focused as you and me?”
As if on cue, Fanny and Daniel exploded into laughter they could hear through the wall. One of them was also pounding on it with his fist.
When the laughter stopped, it wasn’t ten seconds before more muffled noise seeped through the wall.
“What are they saying?” Gertzy asked.
Jalen paused to listen, to be sure. “We’re number one.”
Gertzy said, “I guess that’s true. For now.”
70
THE NEXT DAY THE BRONXVILLE Bandits continued to impress people by beating the eighth-ranked team from Dallas. Jalen had two dingers and grounded out once. Daniel closed the game, giving up three hits, but no runs. After lunch they went to the dormitory pool. Atop Fanny’s shoulders, Daniel carried a palm frond while Fanny paraded around, pro
claiming him Caesar of Baseball.
Saturday afternoon, in the broiling heat, the Bandits faced the number-five-seeded team: the San Diego Seals. Spirits were so high that Gunner suggested they change their pregame chant to, “We’re number one!” Jalen suspected that Fanny had put him up to it. Coach Allen snapped his reply. “You better not think this is going to be easy. It isn’t.”
The Bandits got smoked 11–1.
Jalen homered, producing the only run they got on a solo dinger. He also had a double and a strikeout. Daniel pitched the first two innings, giving up seven runs before getting yanked. Coach said he hated to say he told them so, and Jalen hated hearing it.
That evening Cat and her mom went to visit friends in Tampa, so it was just Jalen’s mom and George with him. They went into Tampa for a meal at a famous steak house that George had heard of called Bern’s. Jalen had never seen anything like it. Black-and-white marble floors, statues, and red velvet gilded chairs were everywhere. The food didn’t disappoint. They had gigantic chilled shrimp, thick, juicy steaks, and molten chocolate cake with ice cream.
They managed to avoid talking about baseball until the last half of dessert, when they ran out of other conversational topics.
Finally Jalen sighed and said, “Coach said we can still win this tournament.”
“Of course you can,” Jalen’s mom said.
George held up a fist. “To quote Churchill, ‘Never give in, never give in, never, never, never’!”
“Yeah, well, we’re not giving in, that’s for sure. We’re in the loser’s bracket now,” Jalen said. “But if we win in the morning, we’ll probably face Lakeland again.”
“You beat them once already,” said George.
“True.”
“That’s the spirit.” George gave Jalen a satisfied nod.
Back at the dorm, Jalen found Gertzy packed in ice. “Déjà vu all over again.”
Gertzy smiled weakly. “Yeah, Coach wants me ready to pitch tomorrow in case we play Lakeland. I think he’s convinced that I’m the only pitcher who won’t wet my pants going up against those guys.”
“Probably true.” Jalen pointed at the wall. “All quiet over there with Daniel and Fanny?”
“Like napping babies.”
“Sweet.” Jalen ducked into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
He was finished and in bed when Coach Allen came by and checked on them “Big day tomorrow, guys. Rest up.”
They lay in the dark for several minutes before Jalen said, “Like we needed a reminder that tomorrow is a big day, right?”
It took a while before he realized that Gertzy was already asleep.
71
SUNDAY MORNING THE BANDITS GOT past the twelfth-ranked team, the Colonels from Louisville, 8–6. Jalen kept his home-run streak alive by adding another moon shot to go with a single, a punch-out, and a double play in the field.
Excited, the team ate together at the Campus Center. Jalen had chicken and steak quesadillas that were amazing. His teammates raved about everything from the cheeseburgers to the double play in the third inning.
After lunch they had a team meeting, where the coaches confirmed that Lakeland had just won their game. “So we’ve got some time. We’ll be on field one again at five o’clock. Gertzy? You gonna be ready to go?”
Gertzy rotated his shoulder. “You bet, Coach. Let’s win this!”
“That’s great. Really great. Guys, we figured we’d see Lakeland again. We knew we’d probably have to beat them twice to win this thing, and here we are. No big deal. We beat ’em once, we can beat ’em again. Okay, go back to your rooms, get off your feet, and drink plenty of water.”
It was a short walk back, but by the time they got into the lobby, where the AC was blasting, Jalen was sweating.
When he saw Blondy, the blond-haired kid in the orange cap, from the Somewhere, Arkansas Dirtbags, pointing at him, with his other hand tugging the arm of a Lakeland employee, he began to sweat even harder. Jalen looked the other way and kept walking, only faster. He passed Gertzy and stepped onto the elevator just as the doors were closing. He saw a look of horror on Fanny’s and Daniel’s faces before he felt the man’s hand clamp onto his shoulder.
The elevator doors reopened and began to buzz.
“We’ve got you!”
72
BLONDY POINTED AT FANNY AND said, “That’s the other one, the big kid.”
“You need to come with me too,” the Lakeland official said, pointing at Fanny.
Fanny’s eyes got big and his mouth fell open. He looked at Daniel and Gertzy as if they could help him, but he didn’t say a word. The official led Jalen and Fanny to a door behind the Lakeland Academy welcome desk, then took Fanny into an office and Jalen to what looked like an employee break room.
Jalen sat with his face buried in his hands. He cursed himself. He knew better than to go along with Fanny’s pranks. He knew the tournament was over for him but wondered if this would cost him his place on the team as well.
If he couldn’t play for the Bandits or his old Rockton team, he didn’t know who he could play for.
The idea that he might have ruined his whole baseball career, all because of a stupid joke, made his heart freeze. His mom would probably brush it off, but the embarrassment of having to tell his father made his head spin. His father, who believed Jalen could do no wrong, would be utterly shocked. And disappointed.
Time stood still.
Finally he heard voices, the door opened, and in came Coach Allen, wearing a scowl that could melt cheese.
“Jalen, do you know why you’re here?” Coach Allen asked.
Jalen could only nod without looking up.
Coach Allen patted his back and sighed. “I hate to play this next game at anything less than full strength, but there’s really nothing I can do.”
Jalen fought back tears of relief. That didn’t sound like Coach was going to bounce him from the team. He looked up because he thought that was the right thing to do. “I—I’m sorry, Coach.”
Coach Allen’s face softened. “Well, I wish he’d listened to you too, but you can only lead a horse to water. You can’t make it drink.”
“Uhh…”
“Yeah, Fanny told them everything, how you warned him not to do it, how you and Daniel and Gertzy tried to flush the barf bag and keep him in the room.” Coach thumped him again on the back. “C’mon. Fanny’s out of the tournament. I need to tell Teddy Smart he’s playing catcher.”
Jalen followed his coach while sorting out what he’d just heard. Fanny was waiting outside the manager’s office with his chin on his chest.
“Let’s go, knucklehead,” said Coach to Fanny as they passed.
73
“YOU’RE SURPRISED?” ASKED GERTZY. “NOT me. That’s my Fanny, a team player till the end. Besides, the whole thing was his idea. Hey, watch that thing. You’re gonna break the mirror and then they’ll kick us out too.”
“I can’t believe he thought that fast. I almost peed my pants when that Lakeland guy grabbed me.” Jalen swung his speed hitter again and it popped like a firecracker.
“Are you gonna stop that?”
“I can’t just sit here watching TV. I gotta do something, and this can only help.” Jalen took another swing. It popped like all the rest. “Biruk Royal is gonna feed me that vicious curve, and my bat’s gotta be on time if I’m going to do my part.”
Gertzy snorted. “Bruh, you’ve done a lot more than your share. Are you kidding?”
“Thanks, Gertzy.”
“Don’t thank me,” Gertzy said. “I’m thanking you for putting us on the map. Do you know how many college coaches are gonna see us play? Everyone wants to see the team that brought down the mighty Lakeland Ascenders.”
Jalen took a swing. “We’re not gonna sneak up on them this time.”
“Hey, we don’t need to. You do your thing and I do mine and we can beat anyone.”
Jalen took another swing, only this time he didn’t connect.
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74
WHEN JALEN SAW CAT IN the dugout, she bit her lip and gave him a nod.
“You read my mind,” he said.
“I saw coaches from Georgia, Florida State, Baylor, Miami, and Vanderbilt,” Cat said. “And those are just the ones wearing college gear. At a 13U tournament.”
Jalen dumped his bag behind her. “Please, I’m already sweating.”
Cat squinted at the sky. “I thought those clouds would cool things down.”
“As long as we don’t get rained out.” Jalen headed out on the field. He was all business and didn’t even look up in the stands. He felt those coaches’ eyes on him and was determined to show them what he could do.
In that mode, before Jalen knew it, he was finishing up the last few lines of the national anthem and was ready to jump out of his skin.
With Teddy Smart in for Fanny, Coach Allen moved Gertzy and Jalen up in the order. In the first inning, Royal, the towering Laketown pitcher, sat down the first three batters easily. Only Gertzy made contact, with a grounder that was an easy play for the shortstop to throw him out at first.
Gertzy answered the bell on defense, though, giving up one hit—a double by Biruk—one walk, and no runs.
Jalen led off for his team in the second inning. He had tried his very hardest to get a read on the pitcher, hoping that he might pick up where he left off in their first game, but that wasn’t happening. Royal was a big, strong mystery.
The first pitch was a fastball, right down the middle. Jalen swung for the fences and got nothing but air. He kept calm, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. He studied Biruk, who was enjoying a huge wad of gum.
The next pitch was a filthy curveball that dropped so sharply that Jalen swung and missed again. The Lakeland dugout exploded with hooting and catcalls.
Jalen knew he’d see some garbage now that he was down 0–2, and he wasn’t going to go hunting. The next two pitches were low and inside. Jalen didn’t bite. With a 2–2 count, he had to be ready for anything.