Say It Ain't So

by Josh Berk

  I ran over, forgetting immediately about the conversation Other Mike was having with his new BFF Davis Gannett. Mike was in the booth too, wearing his uniform and smiling. There wasn’t much room for anyone else.

  “So what do you think?” Mike asked.

  “Well, you know,” I said, teasing. “It’s not quite as luxurious as what I’m used to, but it ain’t bad.” It really was a tiny little room, basically the dimensions of a shed. Coach Zo couldn’t stand up straight or he’d whack his head. He was very tall. Coach Zo was just a big guy. Even though he was over the hill, he had the height and build of a ballplayer. He looked like he could grab a bat and go out there and hit one four hundred feet. Stooped into the announcer’s booth, he looked like an old man, but Coach Zo was a beast.

  He smiled and handed me the microphone. “Newts here said you had some experience with this sort of thing. I didn’t know we had such a talent in the school. I mean—I knew you were a heck of a detective. I heard all about what happened at the Phils last year. Very impressive. I’m a detective fan myself. Agatha Christie, that kind of thing. Hercule Poirot has got nothing on you, though, kid.”

  Awesome! Coach Zo was a legend and he was complimenting me.

  He continued. “So Mike and his dad asked me if they could build this for you. They said you’re the one responsible for turning Newts here into a catcher. So thanks for that. They have been coming in after practice and working on this thing until it got dark. Pretty cool.”

  “That is pretty cool!” I said. Because it was. And also it was pretty cool that “Newts” was catching on as Mike’s nickname just as I predicted. Maybe I’d be able to give everybody nicknames! Oh, the power of the announcer! I could name Hunter Ashwell something like “Ash-smell.” … Though, wait, that’s probably not good. “Do I get a color commentary guy?” I asked. Every play-by-play announcer gets a retired big leaguer or wacky personality to sit next to him and make weird comments.

  “Oh no,” Coach Zo said. “You’re not … Well, you can’t do play-by-play really. The league has rules. You’ll be more of the in-game-type guy. The PA announcer. ‘Now coming to the plate …’ That sort of thing.”

  “Oh.” I shrugged. Not quite as cool. But still I couldn’t pass it up. There would be nickname possibilities. And I’d get to be part of the game, if not part of the team.

  “That is,” Coach Zo said, “if you’re interested.”

  “How much do I get paid?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Coach said.

  “Double it and you’ve got yourself a deal,” I said.

  “I’ll triple it,” he said, sticking out his hand. Ah, multiplication jokes. We shook on it. “When do I start?”

  “Today, if you’re up for it,” Coach said. “Game starts in a few minutes. I have the lineups here so you’ll know who is who on both squads.” He handed me a couple of printouts with names and numbers and positions for the Schwenkfelder Mustangs and the Griffith Griffins. “Just keep it simple—announce the name of the batter as he comes up to the plate. If there’s a pitching change, announce the new guy. Nothing fancy.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Simple. Nothing fancy is my middle name.”

  “Uh, thanks,” he said, giving me an odd look.

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. “And thanks to you too, Newts.”

  Before it got too sappy of a manly moment in that little announcer’s shed (it really was more of a shed than a booth), Other Mike came in.

  “You’re just like the hobbit in here!” he said to me. “Sweet hobbit-hole. Invite me in for elevenses sometime.”

  “Um, thanks?” I asked.

  “You are welcome,” he said. Apparently, being the hobbit is a good thing?

  Mike and Coach Zo squeezed past him. They had pregame prep to do. I had my own work to do! I had to learn how to operate the microphone, first of all! Well, okay, it wasn’t that hard. It basically just had one button that you pressed to talk. It was a cool mike, though—kind of old-fashioned-looking. I thought about my old friend Buck Foltz, the great Phillies announcer. Maybe he got his start like this? Probably not, because he was so old that he probably got his start shouting through one of those cone things. But anyway, this was an extremely cool chance to be back in the announcer’s seat. It was really nice of Mike.

  I had some other work to do too, mainly figuring out how to pronounce the names of the guys on the teams! I knew everyone from Schwenkfelder, and even knew how to say relief pitcher Henry Hrab. Hint: The H is silent. I mean in Hrab. You do say the H in Henry. What did you think, his name was Enry? I scanned the list. There were some tough ones for Griffith, including a pitcher named Jagdish Sheth. No offense, J-dog, but I sort of hoped you didn’t get into the game.

  But something was still bothering me from before.

  “Hey, Other Mike,” I said. “What on earth were you talking about with our dear friend Davis Gannett over there?”

  Other Mike was tapping on the Plexiglas window of the booth, muttering, “Precious … My precious …”

  “Other Mike!” I said louder, to snap him out of it.

  “Huh, what?” he said.

  “What were you talking about with Davis?”

  “Nothing. He was saying that he was mad he got kicked off the team, stuff like that. Oh, and he said his dad was in jail. Or is in jail. Not really sure. Not really surprised either.”

  “No,” I said. “I heard that part. I meant the other part. Right before Coach Zo started talking into the microphone.” This reminded me to quickly check to make sure that the microphone was off. That kind of thing was always happening to politicians and celebrities. They’d forget that a mike was live and they’d start talking about which countries they were going to bomb or which of their friends they hated. I had to make sure that never happened to me. Not that I secretly hated any of my friends. And not that I had any countries I wanted to bomb. Though, to be honest, Kyrgyzstan was kind of getting on my nerves. Only because we had to learn how to spell it for social studies. Ridiculous. Stupid Kyrgyzstan, why can’t you be more like Chad?

  But anyway, I did not want the microphone on while I secretly talked about Davis Gannett. The last thing I needed was to give him a reason to beat me up. I double-checked, then triple-checked. The mike was off.

  “Oh,” Other Mike said. “Davis was just saying that he did not steal Kyle Webb’s dad’s phone. He said someone else did it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “They found the phone in Davis’s shin guard. Who else could it have been who took it? Who else would steal a phone by putting it in Davis’s shin guard?”

  “That’s just the point, isn’t it?” Other Mike said. “They weren’t trying to steal it. They were trying to frame Davis.”

  I tapped the microphone with the tip of my finger a few times. “He said all that in the, like, two seconds you were talking?” I said.

  “Well,” Other Mike said. “That was the basic idea. I’m filling in a lot of the blanks. Davis mostly talks in grunts and snorts. It’s like talking to a caveman, kind of. He just said it wasn’t him who took the phone, ugh, grunt, snort. Just showed up there. Ugh, sniff, burp. I filled in the blanks. You’re not the only one who has detective skills.” He smiled and tapped his head.

  “Oh, I know it,” I said. “Remember when we were little and used to pretend to be spies, gathering information on everyone in the neighborhood?”

  “You were pretending?” he said.

  I laughed. “Yeah,” I said. “So who would want to frame Davis?”

  “Beats me,” Other Mike said. “I get the feeling that everyone kind of hates him.”

  “Imagine that,” I said. I tried to remember if I’d seen Davis torment anyone in particular at school besides us. He was pretty much an equal opportunity tormentor, but there were a few guys he really bothered I could name. I was going to run this theory by Other Mike, but although he does have some detective skills, he is also sort of ADD.

  “Hey, what does this do?
” he said, reaching over and flicking the microphone’s On switch. It was pretty obvious what it did, seeing as how it said ON in big red letters.

  “Stop it!” I yelled, and smacked his hand, but it was too late. He’d already turned it on. The microphone made a loud squealing sound and everyone could hear me yell. Coach Zo turned quickly and stared over at us. Great, I was going to get fired before the first pitch was even thrown!

  “Sorry!” Other Mike said, flicking the switch back off.

  “Yeah, a lot of people don’t like Davis,” I started to say. “But he made the team so much better that I figure they’d just put up with it to win a championship. The only person I can think of who could really stand to gain from Davis getting kicked off the team was—”

  But before I could finish that thought, Coach Zo came running over. He stuck his head into the shed. “We’re just about to get started. I forgot to show you this.” He handed me a portable CD player. “It’s got a disc loaded up already with the national anthem on it. All you have to do is press Play and hold it up to the mike. Start it when I give you the signal.”

  “Got it, Coach,” I said. I had so much power. The power to start the game! The very anthem of this very nation rested in my very hands!

  Of course I also had the power to solve mysteries.

  But did I want to?

  Coach Zo gave me the signal, and after a brief second of fumbling I found the Play button. The On switch I already knew how to find. I gently flipped it on. A loud brass-band version of the national anthem began to blare out of the booth. I guess Mike’s dad had installed speakers around the field. He must have buried speaker wire and gotten some rainproof speakers, not to mention all the time and effort and expense of putting together the actual booth. Shed. Whatever. It was really nice. Mike was a nice friend. A good person. Not a bad person. Not a bad person at all, right? Right.

  These thoughts were running through my head as the recorded brass band hit the final home-of-the-brave high notes at the end of the anthem. The umpire yelled, “Play ball!” and the game was begun. The season was begun. I got goose bumps. They really should have given me some time to practice. I had questions. Like, was I supposed to announce the starting pitcher? Coach Zo only said to announce if there was a pitching change, but in the first inning … I just decided to go for it. Thankfully, I was an old pro at this sort of thing.

  “Pitching for the Schwenkfelder Mustangs,” I said in my booming announcer’s voice, “number twenty-five, Hunter Ashwell.” There was wild applause, presumably all for me. The leadoff batter for Griffith was named Jaxon Sadler. Jaxon? I hoped I pronounced it right. Why did people always have to go sticking random x’s and q’s into names? Thankfully, Jaxon fouled off a few pitches, which gave me a bit more time to get acclimated and to scan the lineup card and get used to the names. Then he struck out on a wicked palmball and I had to bite my tongue. I couldn’t yell out “Whiff!” or anything like that. Just announce the batters and pitching changes. That’s it.

  There was also a guy on the Griffith team, no lie, named Trebor. Trebor Fenner. His twin brother was named Robert Fenner. How mean. To have twins and give one of them a regular name like Robert and then the other one a name like Trebor? Poor Trebor. And poor me! How are you supposed to pronounce that? Tree-boar? Treb-or? I thought about just going with Fenner when he came up, but there were two of them. I went with Tree-boar. Sounded kind of cool, really. Some sort of wild animal. Like a, uh, boar. That lived in a tree.

  It didn’t really matter how anyone on Griffith spelled their names. They might as well all have spelled them with nothing but K’s. K is the baseball term for strikeout. My point is, Jaxon, both Fenners, and even Jagdish Sheth were hopeless against Hunter Ashwell. (Jagdish came in to pitch in the third inning after their starter got hit around a bit. He stayed in to bat, but whiffed mightily. I mumbled his name a little bit and hoped he’d forgive me.)

  Hunter Ashwell really was an amazing pitcher! He just had those two pitches—the fast one and the slow palmball. But the way he threw them, you could never tell what was coming. Everyone was always hacking really early or really late. You would have thought that they’d make contact half the time just by guessing, but he always kept them off-balance. Mike kept them off-balance. He was a genius at knowing which pitch to call and when. When the hitters did make contact, it was weak contact. Hunter was unstoppable.

  I started to have visions of Hunter Ashwell pitching in the big leagues. It was kind of funny to ponder because Hunter Ashwell didn’t look like much. He had braces and the same swoopy haircut I mentioned a lot of the kids had. Hunter was on the short side and maybe they ran out of uniforms that fit him, because every bit of his Schwenkfelder maroons hung a few inches long. He was basically swimming in the shirt and the pants. Even the hat seemed oversized for his small head. Maybe he was one of those short guys who refused to admit that he was little and couldn’t let himself mark S on the S-M-L sheet they hand out when you have to sign up for uniforms. He insisted on being a large, never mind all the evidence to the contrary.

  Hunter also seemed to be having visions of himself as a big-league pitcher. He’d hoot and holler after every strikeout, yelling stuff like “Sit down, sucker!” and “I am the man!” If it was physically possible to high-five yourself while wearing a baseball glove, I’m pretty sure he would have done that too. He struck out just about every Griffin to grab a bat. Okay, not every batter, but the vast majority of them whiffed big-time. The few that made contact just dribbled grounders or hit weak pop-ups that were easily caught.

  The only drama was when Kyle Webb dropped a pop-up, but it was a foul ball, so the batter didn’t reach base. The batter had to get back there and swing again, which he did far too early. Palmball, strike three. Kyle’s dad seemed really mad about it, though. I could hear him screaming at his son from the bleachers. Kyle looked pretty sad. His dad was such a red-faced maniac. He was angrier than that girl in the Olympics who spent her whole life training for the vault, then fell on her butt on national TV. And that was the Olympics! This was just middle school sports. And a foul ball. I had the distinct feeling that there was something wrong with Mr. Webb and I felt really bad for Kyle. But it didn’t affect the game.

  It was already the fourth inning when I realized that no one on Griffith had reached base. Schwenkfelder had scored a ton. There is a “mercy rule,” which means that the game is called after five innings if one team is winning by ten. It’s also known as the “run rule” or, more often and unofficially, the “whoop rule.” As in “Schwenkfelder put the whoop on Griffith.”

  I know the big leagues don’t have the whoop rule (sorry, Houston Astros!), but it was still pretty amazing that Hunter had a chance at the perfect game. A perfect game! It’s really hard, one of the rarest events in all of baseball. The pitcher has to be, well, perfect. No walks, no runs, no hit batters. Even your fielders have to be perfect because an error can ruin a perfect game. Seems unfair, but that’s baseball. That’s life. That’s why the perfect game is so rare.

  Hunter struck out all three guys in the top of the fourth just about as quickly as I could announce their names. Boom, boom, boom. Schwenkfelder came up to bat in the bottom of the inning and tacked on a few more runs. Mike struck out for the third time of the day. Everyone was getting hits except him, so I wondered if he felt bad. But he didn’t seem to. He was focused on being a good catcher, and he was doing a great job.

  All that remained was the top of the fifth. Just three batters left for the perfecto. You could feel everyone get a little tense. (Well, everyone except for Other Mike, who sat in the booth next to me. I wasn’t quite sure he grasped the enormity of the situation, but it was nice having him there.)

  The first batter up got ahead in the count after Hunter threw two fastballs very high. You couldn’t blame him for pushing a little bit. It was getting exciting. No one mentioned the perfect game to him, as baseball superstition insists. You just can’t mention it. It’s considered a jinx. It
’s like how you can’t tell an actor “Good luck.” You have to say “Break a leg.” So no one said anything. It got to a point that no one was talking to Hunter at all. Everyone avoided him like he was carrying a rare and deadly disease. It seemed to shake him up.

  Mike walked out to the mound to settle him down, just like a good catcher should. The batter must have thought it meant he was going to throw the slow one because he waited on the next pitch, but it was a heater right down the middle. He couldn’t even get his bat off his shoulder. The next pitch was the slow one, but all the batter could do was manage a foul tip.

  Unfortunately for Mike, the foul tip made the ball hit the plate and bounce right up into his crotch. He shrugged it off. As for me, his good friend and practice crotch-kicker, I felt proud. Despite the rule against in-game commentary, I came up with a funny line I couldn’t resist.

  “Oooh,” I said. “Right in the newts.”

  That evened the count to two balls (ahem) and two strikes. The umpire threw the ball back to Hunter to give Mike a moment to recover. There’s a subtle brotherhood between catcher and umpire, the two masked men behind the plate. Hunter caught the ball, then took a little walk behind the mound. He hitched up his belt. He wiped some sweat off his forehead. He stepped back onto the mound. He wound up and fired strike three: pure smoke.

  The next batter was Trebor Fenner. The twins were both little guys with identical everything, including haircuts. Well, the part you could see under their hats was identical. Both hadn’t been to Benderson in many years, I knew that. A stream of long, straight black hair shot out of the back of their caps. They both wore identical scowls on their faces as well. These Fenners meant business. You could tell they wanted nothing more than to spoil Hunter’s perfect game.