The Big Field

by Mike Lupica

  Or all summer.

  “Man, I am out of shape,” his dad said.

  Darryl was with them now, having retrieved the ball from where it had ended up against the wire fence in back of first.

  “Don’t believe that,” Darryl said. “Captain, you never told me you had such a cool dad.”

  Maybe because I didn’t know myself, Hutch thought.

  Darryl said, “I can’t believe how much I learned in, like, fifteen minutes.”

  “Yeah,” Hutch said, not looking up at either one of them.

  “My dad sure knows his baseball.”

  The way it happened, Carl Hutchinson explained to his son, was this:

  He had made an airport run to Fort Lauderdale earlier in the day and was supposed to wait down there and pick up an arriving passenger and drive him to the Ritz-Carlton in Manalapan. But then the arriving passenger’s flight was canceled and he knew he had to pick up Hutch and Cody, so he’d decided to surprise Hutch and watch practice for the first time all season.

  “Surprise!” Hutch said when he finished, his smile as fake as the one you gave if you got a present you actually hated.

  “When I got here,” his dad continued, “Darryl was the only one here, and I decided to change in the car and work him out a little bit.”

  “Whatevs,” Hutch said.

  A Cody word. One that usually expressed total indifference, not that Hutch’s dad was going to pick up on that.

  “Darryl had an extra glove with him he’s breaking in,” his dad said. “That’s the way I used to do it. Had one glove as my gamer and another one warming up in the bullpen, in case something happened to the gamer.”

  “Dad,” Hutch said, “I gotta get out there and start warming up.”

  Like: Sorry to interrupt such a fascinating story.

  The rest of the Cardinals were starting to show up now. Hutch saw Tripp and Tommy and Brett, Paul Garner, Hank Harding. He was looking at them, not his dad.

  “Everything okay?” his dad said.

  “Fine.”

  “I thought you’d be happier to see me,” his dad said.

  Yeah, Hutch wanted to say, if you’d shown up about five years ago.

  “I’m happy to see you back on the field, Dad,” Hutch said, and then jogged toward the outfield to shag balls, just because that was as far away from his dad as he could get right now.

  Darryl was at first base, throwing grounders across the diamond to Hank Harding.

  “You are so lucky, man,” Darryl said to Hutch.

  Hutch had no choice but to stop.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Lucky me.”

  “Not only do you have a dad,” Darryl said, “you’ve got a baseball dad. You never told me your old man almost made it to the majors.”

  Hutch did not want to have this conversation with him right now, or maybe ever. But there was something in his voice Hutch had never heard before. He didn’t know if it was a kind of sadness. Or envy. Something, though. Something that didn’t make him sound cool or cocky or better than everybody else. Something that made Hutch want to like him for more than the way he could play baseball.

  “I never even met my dad,” Darryl said. Quietly, almost as if talking to himself instead of to Hutch.

  “Sorry,” Hutch said, knowing how weak that sounded, truly weak, but knowing it was the best he could do right now.

  “My mom says that even if he’d hung around, he wouldn’t have been here, y’know?” Darryl said. “What I know of him is just scraps and pieces.”

  “He like baseball?” Hutch asked.

  “Only to bet on it, according to my mom.”

  Now Hutch really didn’t have anything to say, so he just ran out to where Cody was waiting for him in right field.

  When he got there, Cody said, “You talk things out with Darryl like you said you were going to?”

  “Never got around to it,” Hutch said. “He just wanted to tell me what a cool dad I have and how lucky I am.”

  Cody said, “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but your dad probably didn’t think he was doing anything wrong—”

  Hutch cut him off. “Yeah, the way he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong when he doesn’t even want to watch baseball with me, when the only company he seems to want is a stupid can of beer.”

  “Maybe we should change the subject,” Cody said.

  “Maybe we should,” Hutch said, and then Cody was talking about tomorrow night’s game, about how good he’d heard their opponent, Punta Gorda, was, about last night’s Marlins game, about this Web Gem highlight of Ken Griffey Jr. he’d seen on SportsCenter, Griffey running into another wall and making another amazing catch and not ending up on the disabled list for once.

  Sometimes Cody acted as if he thought talking could fix anything.

  Mr. Cullen called everybody in a few minutes later, saying they were going to have batting practice first today, that he wanted the regulars to make a quick run through the order, Tommy O’Neill taking Brett’s place behind the plate so Brett could hit, Chris Mahoney calling balls and strikes.

  Alex Reyes led off, the way he always did, and when Mr. Cullen buckled his knees on an 0-2 count with a big breaking curve, Mahoney made a big show of punching him out, which drew hoots from the rest of the team.

  As Brett dug in, Darryl came and stood next to Hutch.

  “The way I’ve been off the last couple of games with my stroke,” Darryl said, “I probably should be asking your dad for batting tips, not fielding tips.”

  Hutch was swinging two bats, trying to get loose. Trying to make his voice sound loose, casual, he said to Darryl, “Go ahead and ask him if you want, he’s sitting right behind us in the bleachers.”

  “Nah, I don’t want to bother him any more today,” Darryl said.

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t be a bother. He seemed to be having a great time with you out there.”

  “The best,” Darryl said. “He must’ve taught you everything you know.”

  Hutch couldn’t decide whether Darryl was messing with him or not, so he used a line he’d heard in a movie one time. “Just not everything he knows,” Hutch said.

  Brett walked on four pitches, Mr. Cullen complaining to Mahoney about the last two calls.

  Hutch’s turn at bat now.

  He wanted to hit the first good pitch he saw as far as he had ever hit a baseball. Wanted to feel—and hear—his aluminum bat crush the ball. Wanted to show his dad that Hutch was pretty good at this game, too.

  He knew the biggest mistake a hitter could make was squeezing the bat and trying to hit a home run, that it was the the surest and quickest way to screw up your swing.

  Hutch didn’t care.

  Not today.

  Whatever crazy mixed-up feelings he was carrying with him to the batter’s box right now, he was determined to take everything out on the ball.

  He swung at and missed the first pitch and then took an even harder swing on the second pitch. Missed that, too. At 0-2, he took his wildest swing yet, a caveman swing, worse than the one Darryl had knocked himself down with last night.

  He was lucky to get a piece of the ball, off the end of the bat, grounding weakly down the first-base line.

  After Hutch had run it out, Mr. Cullen called over to him, “Okay, who are you and what have you done with sweet-swinging Captain Hutchinson?”

  “Just trying too hard today, Coach,” Hutch said.

  Mr. Cullen gave him a funny look and said, “Yeah, I get that. What I’m wondering is, why?”

  From the batter’s box Darryl said, “Maybe trying to show his dad a little something special.” Mocking him.

  “No,” Hutch said, going to get his glove. “You’re dead wrong, as a matter of fact.”

  “Sure about that?” Darryl said.

  It was like Hutch could hear the smile in his voice before he turned and saw it on Darryl Williams’ face, Darryl looking first at Hutch, then behind the plate where Carl Hutchinson was sitting, then back
at Hutch.

  Like he’d figured everything out.

  With about a half hour left in practice, after everybody had gotten their swings in, Mr. Cullen gathered the team around him near the pitcher’s mound and talked about what Hutch knew everyone was thinking about:

  Being one game away from Roger Dean Stadium, from getting their chance to play the state finals on the big field there.

  “They said our team was too young,” he said, grinning at them. “But that got old fast, didn’t it, boys?”

  Then he talked about what he had talked about the first day they were together, talked about pitching and defense, saying that in the end, no matter what level of baseball you were talking about, it always came down to pitching and defense for the best teams, with hardly any exceptions.

  “So even though you’re all tired and thirsty and your minds are already down in Lauderdale getting ready to play the Punta Gorda Pirates tomorrow night, guess what we’re going to work on?” Mr. Cullen said. “I mean, since we know we got the pitching.”

  They all knew the answer he was looking for.

  “Defense!” they shouted at him.

  Behind him Hutch heard Darryl say, “Except D-Will don’t want to work on any more dee-fense today.”

  Hutch knew Mr. Cullen had to have heard, too, but if he did, he didn’t let on. He just told the regulars to go take their places on defense. And as Hutch ran out to second, he heard Mr. Cullen call out, “Mr. Hutchinson?”

  Hutch stopped, turned around. “Yes, Coach?”

  Only Mr. Cullen wasn’t talking to him.

  “Sorry, I meant Hutch Senior,” he said, grinning.

  Then he yelled up to the stands and said, “I’ve been waiting all year to have you show up early for one of my practices.”

  “Why’s that?” Hutch’s dad yelled back.

  “Because I was hoping to get a chance to put you to work,” Mr. Cullen said. “You probably have forgotten more about baseball than I know.”

  Hutch’s dad just dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

  “Seriously,” Mr. Cullen said. “You mind helping out a little today, long as you’re here?”

  Say no, Hutch said to himself.

  “Why not?” his dad said.

  He got up, stretched, then made his way down the aluminum bleachers and around the screen behind home plate and out onto the field.

  “What do you want me to do?” Carl said.

  Mr. Cullen said, “Go out there to second and get with my star middle infielders. Including one I think you know.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I’ll put some runners in motion from various places,” Mr. Cullen said, “set up some situations like we usually do at this time of day. Then you check where Darryl and Hutch are playing, where they’re going with the ball. See if an old infielder sees some stuff I don’t.”

  Hutch’s dad said, “Got it,” and ran out to the back of the infield dirt, giving a little hop over the bag as he did.

  Mr. Cullen put Chris Mahoney on first, said Tommy O’Neill would be the runner from home as soon as the ball was in play.

  Darryl turned around to Hutch’s dad now, and said, “I didn’t know there were so many fine points to playing short until you started showing me, Mr. H.”

  He knows, Hutch thought.

  It’s why he was smiling at me before. He knows it bothered me seeing him on the field with my dad.

  It’s why he wants to act like my dad is his baseball dad all of a sudden.

  They went through various situations for about fifteen minutes. Darryl and Hutch made a couple of double plays, had to go to the outfield a bunch of times to get relay throws—“Was I out far enough, Mr H?” Darryl said one time—and it all would have been a routine ending to practice except for this:

  Every time Darryl asked his dad for advice or thanked him for giving advice, Hutch felt himself getting madder and madder.

  Like a balloon somebody was blowing too much air into, one getting ready to pop.

  His dad would give a pointer to Hutch once in a while, too, move him a few feet this way or that, ask him where the ball was going if it was hit to his right or left. But Hutch felt like his dad was just going through the motions, throwing him an occasional bone, that he didn’t really care where the second baseman was or what he was doing.

  Carl Hutchinson couldn’t help himself. He was a shortstop still, focusing on shortstop things, seeing everything through his shortstop’s eyes.

  It didn’t matter that the second baseman was his own kid, because the kid was still nothing more than a second baseman.

  With a few minutes to go, Mr. Cullen put Alex, their fastest guy, on first and sent Tripp out to the mound and told him to just lob some pitches in, they were going to try a couple of bunt plays.

  Tripp got into his stretch position. Mr. Cullen squared to bunt. When it was clear Tripp was delivering the ball to the plate, not throwing over to first, Alex took off.

  “He’s going!” Brett yelled.

  Then Mr. Cullen, even though he really wanted to lay down a bunt, missed the ball completely.

  Alex ran hard from first anyway, making the play into a straight steal.

  Usually Hutch would have been moving to cover first on a sacrifice bunt. But as soon as Mr. Cullen missed the pitch, Hutch raced to his right, trying to beat Alex to second base, keeping his eyes on Brett, who’d bounced out from behind the plate and unleashed one of his big throws.

  A few feet from the bag, Hutch looked up and saw that Darryl had come over to cover, too.

  They didn’t run into each other this time, both of them pulling up at the same moment, both of them watching Brett’s throw sail into center as Alex raced for third.

  Before Darryl could say anything—and Hutch could see he really wanted to—Carl Hutchinson said, “Shortstop covers on that play. Even Little Leaguers know that.”

  “But—” Hutch started to say.

  “No buts about it,” his dad snapped. “You should have been moving toward first as soon as Coach showed bunt.”

  Then he pointed to his head and said, “You gotta think out here.”

  “Yeah,” Darryl said to Hutch, shaking his head, walking back toward short. “Think like a second baseman.”

  And that was it. The balloon finally burst.

  Hutch followed him.

  “Maybe I get crossed up sometimes,” Hutch yelled, “because I’ve gotten used to doing the thinking for both of us. Even though you want my dad to think you’re more interested in defense than Ozzie Smith all of a sudden.”

  Darryl turned and smiled another one of his smiles.

  “That’s not what’s making you hot, though, is it, Hutch Junior?” Darryl said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hutch said, still yelling at him, in a voice he barely recognized as his own.

  When Darryl answered, it was in a voice only loud enough for Hutch to hear.

  He said, “What’s the matter, Hutch Junior? You afraid your daddy likes me better than you?”

  Hutch didn’t say anything, didn’t think, just dropped his glove and went after him, put his head down and drove his shoulder into Darryl’s stomach like this was football, put him down as hard as he could.

  By the time the two of them had been pulled apart, Hutch had been suspended from the Punta Gorda game.

  15

  THEY WERE IN THE FRONT SEAT OF THE COMPANY CAR. HUTCH’S dad had the key in the ignition but still hadn’t started the engine. The two of them just sat there in the new parking lot at Santaluces.

  Talking to each other about as much as they usually did.

  Finally Carl Hutchinson said, “I ought to make you sit in the backseat.”

  Hutch just sat there in silence.

  His dad said, “Want to know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because right now I feel like I don’t know you any better than the people I drive around in this thing, that’s why.”

  “Maybe you don�
��t,” Hutch said.

  Now his dad put the car in gear, pulled out onto Hypoluxo, drove them past the 7-Eleven where Hutch and Cody had stopped for Gatorade, back when the only problem in Hutch’s life was what he was going to say to Darryl Williams when he tried to make things right between them.

  Good job with that, Hutch thought now.

  Cody had gone home with Mr. Cullen, the coach saying it was right on his way, telling Hutch’s dad, “I have a feeling you and your boy have some things to talk about.”

  Hutch hadn’t thrown any punches at Darryl once they were on the ground, but then he’d never had the urge to punch him. It wasn’t about that. He just needed to put him down in the heat of that moment, knock that smirk out of his voice and off his face.

  Hutch knew, in the smart part of his brain, the part he wasn’t using, how stupid this whole thing was—“juvenile” was the word his mom always used for dumb guy things—but he still couldn’t have stopped himself. He knew Darryl had tried to get under his skin, knew what was happening between them was sillier than the silliest beef on a playground, one guy saying your dad liked him better.

  Didn’t matter.

  He went for Darryl the way you went for a high fastball you knew you should lay off sometimes, no matter how much you told yourself it was a sucker pitch.

  It had taken half the team to get them separated. Brett took hold of Darryl, while Carl Hutchinson had his long arms around Hutch.

  Darryl wasn’t smirking now, wasn’t wearing that smile any longer, just pointed a finger at Hutch and said, “That’s your one.”

  “One what?” Hutch said.

  “One free shot,” Darryl said. “Next one’s mine.”

  “There isn’t going to be a next one, for either one of you!” Mr. Cullen had yelled. “This ends here and it ends now. Is that understood?”

  Hutch and Darryl weren’t looking at him, they were still looking at each other, still trying to stare each other down. Playground stuff to the end.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Darryl said.

  “Right,” Hutch said.

  “Am…I…understood?” Mr. Cullen said, spitting out the words one at a time.

  Reluctantly, both Hutch and Darryl nodded.