Force Out

by Tim Green

  “How’s my all-star?”

  “Excuse me? Coach?”

  “Joey, how’s my all-star?” Coach Barrett’s voice was serious and Joey was choked with panic. Was he referring to Butch? Was Butch right this minute puking his guts out, having sipped some contaminated Gatorade or whatever else Zach was able to slip some dirty water into at the falls that afternoon?

  “What do you mean?” Joey asked.

  Coach Barrett laughed. “I told you! First alternate is nothing to sneeze at. You know who Bryson Kelly is?”

  Joey did know. Bryson Kelly and Cole Price were the two best pitchers in Little League. “Yes.”

  “Well, turns out he’s got a conflict. We found out last night. Band competition. He plays the trombone. Can’t play on Saturday. I feel bad for him. Mom won’t let him out of it, but it’s good news for you, right?”

  The news took a moment to sink in. “You mean, I’m on the team? The all-stars?”

  “You sure are.”

  Joey whooped so loud and so hard, he dropped the phone.

  His dad scooped it up. “Yes, I’m sure you heard. He’s excited. Yes, I’ll tell him.” His father snapped the phone shut. “Coach Barrett says you need to be at practice at seven o’clock tonight.”

  “Dad, I made it! I made it!”

  “What on earth is going on up there?” Joey’s mother shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

  His father grinned at him. “You sure did, Joey. You sure did.”

  “I got to text Zach.” Joey scooped up his phone from beneath the math review sheets and he sent it right away.

  just got off ph w coach Barrett

  i made it!!! ALLSTARS me n u!!! :)

  “Well, take ten more minutes, then you better get ready for dinner,” Joey’s dad said. “I’ll go help Mom so we can eat quick and I can get you out to the park.”

  Joey’s phone vibrated in his hand and he flipped it open.

  yahoooooooooooo!

  n i didnt even hv 2 tk

  out his son! bet ur ☺☺

  Joey was double happy. He wanted desperately to be on the all-stars, but he didn’t want another crime hanging over their heads to get there. One was enough. The lift from the news left him unable to concentrate on his math. His mind started down the road of what-ifs because it seemed that in an instant, his luck had suddenly changed, and that would mean he did ace the science test and Mr. Kratz would give him the pardon he would ask for.

  Just as important, he now had a chance to play with Zach in the all-star tournament. If the two of them could play the way they had all season (except for Joey’s meltdown in the championship game), then they’d both qualify for the Center State select tryouts the following week. If they both made the cuts, then it’d be a summer of baseball with his best friend, cruising the globe! Joey shivered and put his math notes away.

  It was time for dinner and he felt starved. The kitchen smelled of cloves and cooked ham and Joey gobbled down five slices along with some mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. He wiped his mouth and asked to be excused.

  “You’re like a different person,” his mother said.

  Even Martin seemed at a loss as to how he might bring Joey’s spirits down. Two times during dinner he stuck a finger up his nose before poking Joey’s mound of mashed potatoes and all Joey had done was smile.

  “I made the all-stars, Mom.” That’s all he could say about it.

  “You should have made it from the beginning,” his father said. “Go get ready.”

  Joey bolted back upstairs to gear up for practice.

  His dad drove him to the park, and Joey sprang from the front seat of the Jeep.

  “Hey,” his dad shouted through the open window, “you forgot your bat bag!”

  Joey laughed at himself, got his bag, and told his dad he’d see him later. Joey’s hands shook as he removed his bat from the bag and leaned it up outside the dugout with the rest of the team’s bats. Then he smacked a fist in his glove and turned to the infield. Coach Barrett wasn’t the head coach of the all-star team, only an assistant, but he stood alongside Coach Weaver—a wiry redhead with a crew cut—who was. Everyone knew Coach Weaver because he wasn’t just the coach of the Red Sox Little League team, he was a high school math teacher and an assistant JV coach. Coach Weaver knew his baseball and he was obviously glad to see Joey.

  “You’ll be at first base,” Coach Weaver said after welcoming Joey to the team, “but I’m going to ask you to pitch some, too, Joey. I don’t know if you know how this works. It’s six teams, double elimination over two days, so we need to win four games to win the whole thing, maybe even five, and we’ll have a lot of guys pitching. I don’t know how important it is for you, but if you’re like a lot of these guys and hoping to get picked for the select team, we probably have to make it to the semi-finals at least to get noticed by all the other all-star coaches and the Center State select coaches who are here. At the end of the tournament, we vote on the MVP and the top two guys to go to the select tryouts next week.”

  Joey had already run the number of players and the probabilities through his mind. Two out of eighty-four, one in forty-two, it was 2.381 percent. Fifty-fifty seemed like a giveaway. Joey knew he had to not only do well, he had to blow the competition out of the water. If his team won it all, that would only help. In fact, he knew that would be the only way both he and Zach would make it together, and wasn’t that what this was all about? Alone, the prospect wasn’t nearly as sweet.

  As if on cue, Zach slapped Joey on the shoulder. Joey turned around and hugged his best friend.

  “You did it, bro,” Zach said, clapping his back.

  “I did,” Joey said.

  They separated and Zach held out his hand. “Now guess what?”

  “We got to win this thing and make it to select, both of us.”

  “That’s right,” Zach said. “And the way we do that is with our batting, because everyone’s got a good glove here. So, guess what, again?

  “I got us a secret weapon.”

  49

  “Brian Van Duyn.”

  “What?” Joey wrinkled his face. “Who?”

  “That’s just what I said. Then my dad told me that he’s the guy who taught Ichiro Suzuki how to really hit.”

  “Ichiro Suzuki?” Joey knew Zach’s dad had been with the Mariners double-A team for a brief time, but no one ever said anything about a connection to Ichiro Suzuki.

  “Brian Van Duyn was the guy the Mariners used to work with all their young talent. He’s the master, but he retired from the Mariners organization to raise his daughter and spend more time with her.”

  “Where does he live?” Joey asked.

  “In Seattle, but he’s coming here.” Zach nodded at Joey’s mystified look. “Yup. Day after tomorrow, to work with me . . . and now you, too.”

  “Me?”

  “You think I’d let Ichiro Suzuki’s batting coach give me pointers and not you? Come on.” Zach gave his shoulder a soft punch. “Without you, I’m not even here for this.”

  Coach Weaver blew his whistle, and Joey and Zach joined the rest of the team circling up around him. Coach Weaver let everyone know who Joey was and why he was joining the team late. The only scowl Joey got was from Butch Barrett.

  “I’m sure he never thought the alternate would get called up,” Zach whispered in Joey’s ear.

  Joey ignored the dirty looks he got from Butch and just enjoyed being there. Even though the sun was dropping fast, the air was warm and pushed by a breeze stiff enough to keep the bugs down. Joey loved the smell of dust and grass and the leather of his glove. He loved the crack of bats and the slap of a ball fired into his glove. Even the sting a burner might leave in his fingers warmed his insides. It was baseball. He was playing with the best, and he was one of the best.

  Joey didn’t do anything to disappoint his coaches either. Three times in the field, he made amazing stretch catches, turning errors into outs. At the plate, he was a monster. Even batting
against Price, he pounded pitch after pitch over the fence. When he finished, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he marched back toward the dugout.

  Coach Weaver stood next to Coach Barrett, making notes on his clipboard, and Joey heard him clearly when he said, “Well, Don, we know who our cleanup batter is.”

  After practice, Zach pulled Joey aside in the shadows alongside the bleachers. “Bro, you made them look like big-time clowns.”

  “Who?”

  “The coaches. How did they not put you on this team to begin with? No one hit like you tonight.”

  Joey beamed with pride.

  “Did you see Coach Barrett’s face when Coach Weaver said that about you being the cleanup batter? Looked like he ate a turd sandwich.”

  Joey laughed. “Gross.”

  “It did.” Zach laughed along with him. “Okay, bro, my mom’s here. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Morning? Coach said practice was at seven again. Oh, the batting coach?”

  “Bro, you’ve got some serious baseball fever. Coach Van Duyn is Thursday. Tomorrow, we got our math final, remember?”

  Joey hadn’t remembered. “I like that, baseball fever.”

  “Hey, and text Leah, will you? I don’t want her crying to me all night on Facebook.”

  “I will.” Joey watched Zach jog toward his mom’s car. The reminder about tomorrow’s final and Leah’s unanswered text messages broke his spell, or his baseball fever, as Zach called it. Joey sent Leah a quick text to let her know about the all-star team and that he was sorry he’d been distracted with studying and would hopefully see her tomorrow after the test. His dad pulled into the parking lot and he climbed into the Jeep.

  “How’d it go?” his dad asked.

  “Awesome.”

  “Awesome is super,” his dad said.

  They were halfway home when Joey asked, “Dad, I can’t say who, but we were all talking at practice and one of the guys did something that he’s afraid will make his parents bounce him off the all-star team.”

  “Something bad?”

  “Not so bad.”

  His father glanced at him. “So, what’s the question?”

  50

  “Well, he asked me what I thought he should do. I don’t know—I was thinking what you’d say, you know, how you used to defend people and are always up for giving people second chances? I wasn’t sure, though.”

  “Can you tell me what he did?”

  Joey shook his head. “I made a promise.”

  “Well, keep your promise. I understand that, but can you tell me if anyone got hurt by this ‘thing’ he did?”

  “No. Nobody got hurt at all.” Joey didn’t think Daisy counted as “anyone,” because a big killer dog was far from a person. “Nothing got damaged, even. I guess it might have, but it didn’t.”

  “Then, I would think that whoever this player’s parents are wouldn’t bounce him from the team.”

  “Right, well, you wouldn’t.” Joey hesitated. He didn’t want to give himself away and while his dad was a bit of a softy, he was no fool. “But some parents probably would, just because what he did is wrong.”

  “We know one of those, don’t we?” His dad rolled his eyes. “I mean, I love your mother dearly. Sometimes I think it’s good the way she is, you know, to counterbalance me. I guess it goes both ways.”

  “I hope I didn’t do the wrong thing,” Joey said, “but I told him he should just keep it quiet. If it’s not that bad, he should just let it be.”

  His father slapped the steering wheel lightly. “I wish I had a dollar for every client I had who said too much. It’s human nature. We want to confess. The police—or whoever the authority figures are—they know that, and they prey on people.”

  “So, I did good telling him it was okay to keep quiet.”

  “No one got hurt? Nothing damaged?” His father shrugged. “I’m not saying people should do the wrong thing. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’d never say that. But what’s done is done, and if a tree falls in the middle of the woods with no one around, does it make a sound?”

  “I don’t know,” Joey said. “Does it?”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s my point. Your friend will be fine. Worse comes to worst, his parents find out and he can deal with it then.”

  “I know a good defense lawyer I can have him call.” Joey grinned at his dad.

  His dad laughed. “No, I swore that off. It is in my blood, though, isn’t it?”

  When they got home, Joey went right up to his room to study, building up brownie points with his mom in case Mr. Kratz’s case did blow up in his face. He felt slightly guilty about the discussion with his dad because he kind of tricked his father into taking his side. It was comforting, nevertheless, and that, along with his revived baseball career, helped Joey focus on his math.

  He studied until his mom told him it was time to shut off the light. Joey slept better than he had in several days, and when he woke, he wolfed down breakfast and rode to school for the last final of his sixth-grade career. He didn’t wait to be the last person this time. He marched in, hoping he’d see that mutt Butch Barrett, so he could ask him what number he thought he would be in the batting lineup.

  Joey didn’t get the chance, though. It was Zach and Leah he saw, just the two of them.

  “Hey, bro.” Zach put a hand on his shoulder. “We were just talking about you, number one student and all that. You ready to ace another one?”

  “Did you ace the science test?” Leah’s eyes widened.

  “I might have. I don’t think Mr. Kratz will have the grades posted until this afternoon.”

  “Oh boy, then he turns into the tooth fairy, right?” Leah’s giggle made them both laugh. “What’s your wish?”

  Joey just looked at her and shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”

  “That test buried me,” Leah said. “I can’t even imagine acing it.”

  Joey felt his back go straight. “Like I said, I get pretty wrapped up in the whole finals thing.”

  “But you’re going to the falls after, right?”

  Joey thought about the science test postings and Mr. Kratz. If he aced the test, he’d want to cash in on that right away. “I might be a little late, but, yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Leah touched his arm. “Nice.”

  Zach gave him a look and they went into the gym together.

  The test began.

  Joey raced through it, computing problems like a calculator. When he looked up, everyone around him was bent over his or her desk, lost in concentration. He thought about checking his work over, but the science test results were calling to him. He delivered the test to a proctor in front and buzzed out of there, riding home like the wind.

  He turned on the computer in the kitchen and tapped his foot while it booted up. He found the school website, then Mr. Kratz’s page. The closer he got to it, the more certain he was that acing the test would be his salvation. All his problems might already be gone. His heart thumped against his ribs as he scrolled down the list, his eyes darting back and forth between the name and score columns until he found Joseph Riordon.

  Joey took a breath, and held it.

  51

  His eyes went back and forth between his name and his score; five times he read it over, looking for the mistake.

  99.5.

  That was it, no mistake. There had been two hundred questions on the test. Joey got one wrong, and he bet he knew which one. One hundred twelve.

  “But it wasn’t wrong.”

  Pork Chop meowed and licked a paw from his perch on the kitchen table. Both answers were correct.

  “Both were right! He owes me that wish!”

  His rage echoed through the empty house. Pork Chop tumbled onto the floor and scooted down the hall. Joey clenched his hands until they sweat. His plan was ruined.

  He yanked the cell phone from his backpack and powered it up. With trembling fingers, he dialed the school number. The secretar
y answered.

  “Yes, this is Joey Riordon. Can I please speak to Mr. Kratz? Is he there, do you know?”

  “Oh, hi, Joey. It’s Mrs. Serandon. He actually went home for lunch, but I know he’ll be back because they’re cleaning out the lab. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Uhh, do you have a home number for him or a cell phone?”

  Mrs. Serandon went quiet for a moment. “I guess I can give you his home phone. I don’t think he has a cell phone.”

  Joey rolled his eyes and took down the number, then thanked the secretary and hung up. He dialed Mr. Kratz’s number and let it ring ten times before he hung up.

  “Who doesn’t have an answering machine?”

  He sighed and went upstairs to change into his bathing suit. He promised Leah he’d be at the falls, and after all his slow and spotty replies to her texts, he figured he better make good on that promise anyway. On his way out the door, he threw a couple slices of bologna and a piece of cheese between two pieces of white bread, gobbling it down with a glass of milk before stuffing a towel into his backpack and getting on his bike.

  He hadn’t even gotten to the end of his driveway before his phone rang. He stopped and looked, an unlisted number. Joey opened it.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, you just called my home phone.” The voice was low and rough and angry. “Who is this?”

  Joey choked. “This is Joey. Joey Riordon.”

  “Oh,” the gruff voice softened, but only a bit, “Joey. It’s Mr. Kratz. Why are you calling me at home?”

  52

  Joey got off his bike, lowered the kickstand, and cleared his throat with a squeak. “Oh, hi, Mr. Kratz. I was just calling about the final exam.”

  “You did very well.” Mr. Kratz’s flattened voice over the phone had less personality than Mr. Kratz in person, which was saying something.

  Silence hung.

  “Is that all?” the teacher asked.

  “I, um, I wanted to ask you . . .” Joey winced. He knew from both his parents that something really important needed to be delivered in person. That’s how you had the best chance of getting what you wanted. “Could I talk to you in person, Mr. Kratz? There’s something I need to tell you.”