“He said he was sick.”
Brenda heard something that sounded like “Pfffft,” which clearly indicated what her mother thought of Ed’s excuse.“What did you and the boys end up doing?” Adele asked.
“We went up to Quarry Park and played baseball.”
“Your father always said you had a great arm. I remember him taking you over to Wildwood Park to play catch almost every weekend in the summer.”
“That’s because he wanted a boy.”
“No,” her mother said gently. “That’s because it was the only thing he knew how to do that you both liked.”
“I guess that’s a nicer way of looking at it.” Brenda wasn’t sure what else to say to this. Her father had been a silent man who worked as a draftsman for an engineering firm. He had rarely talked about his work or his life, just got up every morning and did what needed to be done. On Saturdays he would take his only child out to the park to play baseball. Brenda liked to think this was one of the few tasks that Janusz Puchall had not done out of duty.
Brenda and the boys went to the ball field as often as possible, even after Little League practices began. Through some strange natural law, it seemed as though Andy and Jon’s obsession with baseball and the Cleveland Indians grew in inverse proportion to the Indians’ prospects. From a disappointing spring training, Opening Day started with a loss and just got worse.
The third week of the regular season, Andy’s Little League team got discount tickets to see the Indians play the Tigers. Brenda went as a parent chaperone, and Jon went because he was the younger brother and would raise holy hell if he couldn’t come along. Even with the discount, tickets for all three of them, plus factoring in a hot dog and a drink each, put a serious dent in the entertainment budget. Brenda had made a “no souvenirs” rule for the outing, but when the boys saw the Test Your Speed pitching cage, they begged to be allowed to try. It didn’t help matters that every other boy on Andy’s team tried it, as did all five chaperoning parents and two other accompanying siblings. She hated caving in to peer pressure, but she didn’t want Andy and Jon to be the only ones not to have a go. She took some of the money she had budgeted for snacks (she didn’t really need a hot dog or a drink) so Andy and Jon could each take a turn. Andy was pleased with his top speed of 48 mph. Jon’s best try was 33 mph, which disappointed him. Carl, Andy’s coach, kept trying to tell him that 33 mph was great for a kid his age, but it didn’t help. Brenda saw the familiar pink blush spreading up Jon’s face. Jon’s tantrums hadn’t eased up, and Brenda walked the fine line between trying to be understanding and not wanting to spoil him.
“Let me try again,” Jon whined. “I know I can throw harder than that.”
Brenda put an arm on Jon’s shoulder and walked him a little bit away from the rest of the group. “If I give you the money for another turn, then I can’t buy you a hot dog.”
“Why not? I want a hot dog!” Jon said loudly, the tears in his eyes threatening to start falling any second. Brenda felt herself blushing as red as Jon’s face. “Why can’t I do both?”
“Sweetie, I’m sorry,” she lowered her voice. “You had one turn already and you did great, but I don’t have enough money with me.”
Carl wandered over and put a hand on Jon’s tiny shoulder. “Come on, sport. I’ll spot you another try.” He looked up at Brenda with a smile. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“I want to,” Carl replied as he walked with Jon back over to the pitching cage.
“Thank you,” Brenda said. “I’ll pay you back,” she called after him, but Carl just gave a little wave that said, “No need to.” Carl coached his son’s Little League team and was always patient with the kids, even the benchwarmers. He was one of those men who seemed kind enough and decent enough that you couldn’t believe some other woman had gotten rid of him. Brenda wondered if Carl’s ex-wife ever called him a jerk under her breath or wished he’d be stricken with a bad case of crabs.
Jon was all smiles as he took the first of the three baseballs offered to him by the man running the pitching cage. He threw another 33 mph and then a 35-mph pitch. Jon was reaching for his third and last ball when he stopped and turned to Brenda.
“Mom, you haven’t had a chance to pitch yet,” he said.
Brenda tried not to get misty at her son’s gesture. “That’s very sweet of you to think of me, Jon, but it’s okay,” she said.
He turned and handed the ball to her. “It’s your turn, Mom.” Brenda heard a little “awww” from the other chaperoning parents as Jon moved aside. She was touched by his generosity and figured she’d just throw the ball and get the boys to their seats.
Ball in hand, Brenda approached the faux pitcher’s mound in the middle of the stadium concourse. A quick glance showed her that every kid on the team, as well as the adults and tagalong siblings (did she really just now notice that they were all male?), was watching her. A few people on the concourse had even stopped to watch, as if a forty-year-old woman with saddlebag hips couldn’t pick up a baseball without embarrassing herself. She stopped for a moment and focused on the image of a catcher painted on the electronic backstop.
The guy running the pitching cage said, “Anytime you’re ready, sweetheart.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him flash a condescending smile.
“I’m not your sweetheart,” she muttered. Without thinking, she threw.
She heard the familiar thwump and a small murmur of approval from the men standing around her. She looked up at the digital clock that displayed the pitch speed. It read 72 mph, which just seemed unbelievable. The guy running the game looked more than surprised, but just said “Not bad.”
“That was more than not bad,” Carl said. “That was great. Here.” He shoved a few dollars at the guy and handed Brenda three more baseballs. “Would you do that again? Please?”
This time, Brenda didn’t protest. She took one of the baseballs and faced the painted catcher again. She didn’t look around but could hear some of the guys talking about her last pitch. She would swear a few more people had stopped to watch. Fine. Let them watch.
Brenda’s next three throws were 79, 77, and 82 mph. She stared at the display for a moment, trying to figure out where that 82 came from. All the people standing around congratulated her. Some mumbled that the radar must be broken, that there was no way a woman could throw that hard. She saw a couple of flashes of light, like someone taking a picture. The game was about to start, and the boys started running to their seats. As she and the other parents tried to get all the kids situated without losing anyone, Carl mentioned that he played baseball in the local Roy Hobbs league and maybe Brenda would be interested in playing.
“Roy Hobbs, like Bernard Malamud’s Roy Hobbs?” she asked.
“Yeah, The Natural. Great movie.”
“Great book.”
“Never read the book. I’m not much of a fiction reader,” Carl said, as he gave a quick look around to see that they hadn’t lost anyone. “Josh! Ben! Stay with the group,” he called to his son and another boy who were dawdling behind. “I’m more into history and biography. So anyway, it’s the veterans league—thirty-eight and over, so you have a few guys who think they’re hot stuff and a couple of them still are—but mainly it’s just guys who love to play baseball. You’d be great.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t played hardball since I was a kid. And I can’t hit.”
“Don’t worry about it—we use a DH. Josh! Ben! Get away from the beer stand!”
Their conversation was permanently interrupted by the process of getting all the boys into their seats without losing anyone. Brenda ended up in the row in front of Carl, with Jon on her right and a stranger on her left. Andy was next to Jon, talking only to the boys on his right or behind him and trying to pretend that he wasn’t with his mom and little brother.
; Once the boys had gotten their hot dogs and drinks, they settled down and were quiet for the first couple of innings, giving Brenda a little time to think. She considered the fact that she had thrown a baseball an improbable eighty-two miles an hour. She might have cellulite, a sagging rear end, and a stretch-marked stomach, but she had an arm. It was a satisfying thought.
“What are you smiling about, Mom?” Jon asked in between innings.
“Nothing much,” she said with a little smile. “Just happy to be here with you and Andy.”
“Mr. Fleishman asked you to play baseball with him, didn’t he?”
Brenda hadn’t realized that Jon had overheard their conversation. “Yes, he did. What do you think? Should I join a baseball team too?”
“Yeah, you should. You’ll need a new mitt,” Jon said sagely. “Your old softball mitt stinks. But I think it’s a good idea. Then everybody in the family will be on a team. Andy’s on the Bears. I’m on the Twins. Dad’s on the Beeraholics. And you’ll be on a team.”
Brenda actually snorted. “Dad’s on the what? The Beeraholics?”
“Yeah. It’s his softball team. Is a beeraholic somebody who likes beer a lot?”
“Yes.”
“Like how sometimes you say you’re a chocoholic because you like chocolate?”
“Yes.”
“The Beeraholics play on Monday nights, so we haven’t seen any of their games, but Dad and Darlene told us about it.”
Andy had evidently heard at least part of the conversation, because he turned to Jon and punched him in the arm.
“Ow! Mom, Andy hit me,” Jon wailed.
“I can’t believe you told mom about Darlene,” Andy snapped in what was obviously meant to be a whisper but was loud enough to be heard three rows away.
Jon started slapping at Andy, who waved him off with a laugh that only infuriated Jon more. As embarrassed as she had been in recent memory, Brenda managed to cease the escalation of hostilities by moving Jon to her other side.
Jon was silent until just after the seventh inning stretch, when he looked up at her and said, “I’m sorry I told you about Dad’s girlfriend.” He looked like he was about to cry, as though even uttering the name “Darlene” had been treason of the highest order.
Brenda put her arm around him. “It’s okay, sweetie. I didn’t know her name, but I figured Dad might have a girlfriend. He’s allowed to. We’re not married anymore—you know that. He’s allowed to date.”
“But you don’t have a boyfriend,” Jon whispered in a voice so plaintive that Brenda had to lean in very close to hear him over the noise of the ballpark.
“I live with the two greatest guys on earth,” she whispered back. “I don’t need anybody else.”
•◊•
Excerpt from the transcript for Today in Sports with Charlie Bannister, ESPN, April 24:
Charlie: I’m here with former major leaguer Howie Wojinski for our weekly look at how the season is shaping up. Howie, we’re three weeks into the major league season. What kind of crazy predictions are you going to make about how it’ll all end up?
Howie: I’ve stopped making predictions because you always throw them back in my face at the end of the season when it turns out I’m wrong.
Charlie: Who me? I’d never do that. Come on—one prediction, oh wise and venerable baseball sage.
Howie: Since you put it that way, okay. In the National League, it’s going to be the Braves and the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Charlie: Excuse me, I think I just spit coffee all over my notes. Well, there’s one I’ll be able to throw back in your face come September. What about the American League?
Howie: ALCS—Yankees-White Sox.
Charlie: The White Sox? Are you kidding me?
Howie: If Jorge Racino can stay healthy for Chicago, he’ll drive in 110 runs.
Charlie: Is that another prediction?
Howie: That’s not a prediction, that’s a fact.
Charlie: As much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably right. Gimme another fact.
Howie: The Indians are going to end the season the way they’ve started it.
Charlie: In the basement with the Christmas decorations?
Howie: Was that one too easy?
Chapter Two
•◊•
Brenda had worked as a graphic designer before the boys were born, but with an outdated skill set after twelve years out of the workforce, she had taken the first job she could find, as a data entry operator for an insurance company. Most of the people she worked with were kids just out of college or women like her who had recently re-entered the workforce. The next day at work, she got a cryptic email from Robin. It merely read: “OMG, now you’re famous” and had a link to Cleveland.com. When she clicked on the link, she was surprised to see her photo—going into her windup in the pitching cage—as the photo of the day.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
Her coworker, Derek, from the next cubicle poked his head around the wall and asked what was up. Derek was in his mid-thirties and still dressed like a hipster, with skinny pants and square black glasses. They sometimes chatted and commiserated about divorce over lunch.
“Nothing,” she replied, clicking the window closed.
“Nice picture in the paper today, by the way. I put up a copy of it in the kitchen,” Derek said.
“Excuse me,” Brenda said. “I’m going to get lunch.” She grabbed her cell phone and went outside to one of the two picnic tables set up on the grassy strip between the parking lot and their two-story industrial park building.
Robin was number four on speed dial. “My ass looks positively huge,” was the first thing Brenda said when Robin answered.
“Aren’t you glad we aren’t on speaker phone?” Robin replied. “And no, it doesn’t. You look fine. Did you see it says you had the highest speed recorded so far this season?” She paused for dramatic effect. “Or last season. That’s impressive.”
“I guess so,” Brenda said. She had been sitting on the picnic table but now got up and starting pacing back and forth between the two tables. “It’s just weird to be singled out for throwing a ball. It’s fun and all, but it’s still just a game. Oh, and did I tell you that Andy’s Little League coach plays baseball in a Roy Hobbs league and wants me to pitch?”
“Cool. When’s your first game?”
“I’m not sure I’m going to do it. They play on Thursday nights, way over in Westlake. So it’d be forty minutes each way on a work night, plus I’d have to find someone to keep an eye on the boys . . .”
“Are you making excuses because you really don’t want to or are you just looking for someone to tell you it’s okay to do it?” Ever since college, Robin had had a knack for honing in on the heart of someone’s true feelings. Brenda figured that’s probably why she had gone into art therapy.
“I’ll admit, I kind of do want to play. When we all played softball together, back before we had kids, I had fun. Granted, I couldn’t hit . . .”
“But you had that rocket arm out in left center. And it was fun. Why not do it again?”
“You and Dan and Ed and I were all on the same team and we played against people we knew. That’s what made it fun. I don’t know anyone in this league.”
“You’ll get to know them.”
“And it’s all men.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Remember, you’re a single woman now.”
“I’m not ready to date anyone. And I certainly wouldn’t start dating anyone I played ball with.”
“More excuses?”
“What’s that line about not peeing where you sleep?”
Robin laughed. “You know you’re going to do this, right?”
“Yeah, I just needed you to talk me into it.” After she hung up with Robin, Brenda called Carl to tel
l him she wanted to play ball.
A few nights later, Brenda played her first game with the Lake Erie Lightning. Jon was happy about it. He was very big on things being even and fair, and Brenda’s joining the Lightning balanced out the family member-to-team ratio. Andy wasn’t as supportive. When Brenda told the boys at dinner where she’d be every Thursday night, he was aghast.
“Why do you want to do that?” he asked. “You’ll be the only girl.”
“So what?” Jon said before Brenda could even open her mouth.
“I mean, it’s okay for you to play with us, but in a league? Come on. Why can’t you just play softball or something like a normal mom?” Andy asked, absentmindedly flopping the tines of his fork up and down in his mashed potatoes.
“Andy, it’s something I want to do. It isn’t going to affect your life too much.”
“Fine,” he replied, still slapping the mashed potatoes with his fork.
“If I stink, I’ll quit. How’s that?” she added with a grin.
“Fine.”
“You won’t stink, Mom,” Jon said. “You’re really good. I heard Mr. Fleishman talking to Mr. Barrett at the Indians game. He said he never saw anything like it.”
“Thank you, Jon.”
“What are we supposed to do while you’re playing baseball?” Andy asked. “I’m not babysitting him.”
“I don’t need you to babysit me,” Jon snapped.
“After summer vacation starts, you can come to the games if you want. Until then, you’ll have dinner with Grandma. She said she’s looking forward to having you two all to herself on Thursday nights.”
“The Roy Hobbs League plays way over on the west side. I’m not going there.”
“Great. Then you’ll have more time to hang out with your grandma this summer.”
On Thursday morning, Brenda reminded the boys that she was going straight to the game after work and that their grandmother was coming over to make dinner. She was so preoccupied getting her own gear together for the game that she didn’t even notice what time it was when Jon asked if she was going to walk down to the bus with them.
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