by Carl Deuker
Before I made it to school, I’d gotten texts from my mom and Antonio and Suja—and pretty much anyone who had my number. When I did step inside Laurelhurst, my teammates were all over me, congratulating me by razzing me.
And then things got crazier.
After practice, I went back to the Thurmans’ house and down to my room to finish replying to texts and emails. I was half done when Mr. Thurman pounded on my door. I opened up, and he shoved a telephone into my face. “It’s a guy from ESPN. He wants to interview you for SportsCenter.”
I took the phone. The man introduced himself, but I didn’t take in his name. Then the questions came.
Did I realize what I was doing while the game was going on?
How does it feel to be better than perfect?
What’s next?
I was so nervous, I was sure my answers made no sense. The ESPN man didn’t care. “Perfect, kid. Short and sweet.”
“C-Could we r-redo it?” I asked.
“Why?”
“I s-stuttered. I know I d-did.”
“Just makes you more human.” He paused. “No guarantees, but watch the nine o’clock SportsCenter.”
At nine o’clock I was downstairs sitting in front of the TV with Mr. and Mrs. Thurman. Ian wasn’t there, and his parents didn’t mention him, so neither did I. “Call your mom,” Mrs. Thurman said. “She’ll want to see.”
“What if I’m n-not on?” I said.
“Call her.”
I went into my room and texted her.
We’ll be watching, she texted back, with about twenty smiley faces after her words.
When I returned to the living room, SportsCenter had started. NCAA basketball. NBA scores. NHL scores. Baseball scores. Golf. As one segment followed the other, I felt foolish to have texted my mom. I could picture her and Curtis and Antonio stuck watching hockey highlights.
The man had warned me.
No guarantees.
And then, in the last minute, my photo and the words Better than Perfect popped up in the left-hand corner of the screen.
The anchor guy briefly explained what I’d done, and then my voice—though it didn’t sound like me—was on national TV.
Twenty seconds and two questions later, a commercial for Gatorade came on. Mrs. Thurman clapped her hands together. Mr. Thurman patted me on the back. My cell rang.
I looked at the screen—Antonio.
The Thurmans left, giving me a wave as they headed upstairs.
“Whoa—you actually answered?” Antonio said when he heard my voice.
“Why w-w-wouldn’t I?”
“National star. I figured you’d forget all about us.”
I started to speak, but he’d handed the phone to my mom.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said.
Then there was more fumbling, and Curtis’s voice followed. “It’s great that you’re doing great.”
I thanked him, and then it was Mom again, and then Antonio.
“We’d better cut this connection,” he said. “The Yankees will be calling to offer you ten million dollars. And when they do, say yes, Bro. Say yes.”
Seven
At practice the next day, Ian worked harder at the plate and in the field than I’d ever seen him do. In a base-running drill, he barreled right into shortstop Andrew Comette, his best friend, bowling Andrew over.
“That’s because of you,” Hadley said, nodding toward Ian.
“Me?”
“Sure. This team has been the Ian Thurman Show for three years. You show up and you’re on ESPN within a couple of weeks. He’s never been on ESPN, and nobody has ever called him better than perfect.”
Halfway through practice, Coach Vereen came down the sideline where Kevin and I were throwing. He watched for a while, chewing on his lower lip. Finally he told us to huddle around him.
“I want you to know what your roles will be going forward.” He looked first at me. “Laz, you’ll be our number one starter.” He turned to Kevin. “Laz’s pitch count gets high, you’re in. Laz can’t find home plate, you’re in. You’ll be pitching, and pitching a lot.” He paused. “Any questions?”
Neither of us said anything. When Vereen headed back to the infield, I turned to Kevin. “I-I-I’m—”
He waved me off. “It’s okay. I saw this coming. I’m actually kind of glad. Eastside Catholic, Blanchet, Jesuit, Gonzaga—you can have them. I’m tired of being the guy who gets the blame when we lose. Been there, done that.”
* * *
On Friday afternoon, when I took the mound as Laurelhurst’s number one starting pitcher, the guys—even Kevin’s friends—totally accepted it. Coach Vereen hadn’t handed me the job; I’d earned it.
We were playing Skyline at their field in our last non-league game. They’d come in second in their league the year before and, like us, had won their first three games of the new season.
As I warmed up, the name Johnny Vander Meer jumped into my head. He’s the only major-league pitcher to throw back-to-back no-hitters. I thought how wild it would be if I could match him, in a high school way.
I was still thinking about Vander Meer as Skyline’s leadoff batter stepped to the plate. My first pitch was a fastball on the outside corner. In a blink, the guy pushed a bunt toward second. I froze for an instant before coming off the mound. The ball slid past my glove, and by the time our second baseman, Jared Bronzan, fielded it, the runner was across the bag.
Bronzan tossed me the ball, and I stepped back onto the mound, feeling shaky. If I hadn’t been in fantasyland, I’d have made the play.
Skyline’s number two hitter was skinny. No power, but probably pesky. As I went into my stretch, I checked the runner at first. He had that I’m-going-to-steal look. I dropped my eyes, then wheeled and rushed a throw to Sam Huffman at first.
The throw was in the dirt. Huffman tried to short-hop the ball, but it got by him. The runner raced toward second, looked back to the see the ball rolling along the chainlink fence, and kept going, taking third. Coach Vereen stepped out from the bench. “Come on, Weathers! Let’s go!”
I nodded, my chest tight. You read about athletes who get what they want and then immediately have a letdown. I couldn’t let that happen.
I looked toward home plate. The hitter was rhythmically swinging his bat back and forth. I checked third and delivered—fastball, right down the middle. The batter’s swing was late; all he could manage was a weak ground ball to second. But as Bronzan threw him out, the runner on third trotted home.
Skyline 1–0.
Huffman walked the ball to me. “No big deal,” he said, dropping the ball into my glove. “We’ll score ten.”
I retired the next two batters, striking out the first and getting the second on a pop fly. Coach Vereen clapped his hands. “Let’s get it back.”
And we did. Andrew Comette worked a leadoff walk. He stayed at first as Bronzan struck out, bringing Ian to the plate.
In the first three games, Ian had been impatient in the early innings, swinging at bad pitches. This time he laid off pitches that missed the plate. With the count in his favor at 3-0, the Skyline pitcher had to come in with a strike.
Ian’s bat whipped through the zone, catching the ball solid. It rocketed out of the park, gone in seconds. Guys on the bench erupted, whooping and hollering.
Ian wasn’t done. In his second at bat, he cleared the bases with a double into left-center, driving in three. He lined out in the fourth inning, a bullet that almost took the third baseman’s glove off. In the sixth, he hit what looked like a routine fly ball to left field, but the ball kept carrying and carrying until it dropped over the fence—a three-run homer.
Ian’s totals: three for four with eight RBI.
After my shaky start, I settled down and pitched four innings, giving up a bloop single to right in the third and an infield single in the fourth. Kevin finished up with three solid innings of his own. The only hard-hit ball came with two outs in the seventh. The Skyline hitter ri
pped a fastball into right center, but Ian ran it down and made a backhand catch to end the game. As he trotted in, he gave me a look that said I’m still the star of this team.
I didn’t care.
I’d gone 3–0 in the preseason, with an earned run average under one. My name had been in the paper, and my face had been on SportsCenter.
Eight
I met Suja on Saturday morning. We got maple bars and mochas and then went over my algebra. The whole time we worked, she seemed about to explode.
“T-Tell me,” I said when we’d finished.
“Tell you what?”
“Come on. I c-can see it in your face. What happened?”
“Whitman College. I got in—with a full scholarship.”
All week at Laurelhurst I’d heard kids talking about receiving acceptance letters from WSU and Western Washington and other colleges, some that I’d never heard of. Whitman was one of those. “That’s great, Suja. It’s f-fantastic.” I paused. “Where is it?”
She talked for five minutes straight. Whitman was in Walla Walla, way out in eastern Washington, but even though it was in the boonies, it was almost as good as Stanford. She was going to study chemistry or environmental science or be premed. She stopped. “I’ve been talking too much, haven’t I?”
“No, I w-want to hear.”
She exhaled. “Well, you heard.”
She took the first sip of her mocha—which must have been cold—and then asked me how I was doing. I had nothing much to tell, so I was done quickly. At the table close to us, a little boy spilled his Coke into his sister’s lap. She started crying, his mom snapped at him, and then he started crying. Suja leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t think I ever want kids.”
We watched as the mom cleaned up the mess and quieted the kids. “How’s J-Jet City?” I asked once peace had been restored.
She shrugged. “Closing down little by little. Every day or two, somebody leaves. My parents signed a lease at a trailer park out in Bothell, but we won’t move until school ends. Your mom and her friend and Antonio are going to Woodacres, right?”
“Yeah. April first.”
“How about you? Are you going to move back with your mom when school ends?”
“I can’t. W-Woodacres won’t let four people s-stay in a unit. B-But I wouldn’t g-go anyway. C-Curtis is Antonio’s d-dad, not mine.”
“So where are you going to live? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know f-for sure, but I’ll f-figure s-something out.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You amaze me. You really do. If I didn’t know where I’d be living, I’d be in a panic.”
“I’ve got s-some ideas.”
Her cell vibrated. She jumped up, went to a quiet corner, and talked for a few minutes. “That was my mom,” she said when she came back. “My grandparents are calling from Delhi in twenty minutes, so she wants me home. Sorry.”
Half an hour later I was driving the John Deere back and forth across the driving range. I’d shrugged off Suja’s questions when she was across the table from me, but with nothing else to think about, that’s what I thought about.
Where was I going to live?
What was I going to do?
The Thurmans would let me stay in their basement for a few weeks or maybe even a few months after school ended. But living downstairs, taking their charity—I couldn’t do that for long. I’d heard about guys fishing or working in canneries up in Alaska, but I didn’t even know how or where to apply for that kind of job, and I’d never been on a boat in my life. Recruiters for the army and navy had come to Laurelhurst. I’d missed the meeting, but I’d taken the pamphlets. I could try to enlist, but I’d have to take a test, and I didn’t know if I could pass.
What I did know was baseball, which is why my mind kept coming back to the June draft. If I could just get picked. That would solve everything. I didn’t care what team or what round. I’d sign for whatever money they offered; I’d play in whatever town they sent me to. I’d sleep on the team bus or in the dugout if that’s what I needed to do.
Nine
Metro league play started in early March with games against two south Seattle schools, Garfield on Tuesday afternoon and Cleveland on Friday night.
I watched the Garfield hitters closely in batting practice.
Their power guys had long swings; they wouldn’t be able to catch up to a fastball like mine. “No changeups or off-speed pitches,” I told Hadley before the game. “Nothing but heat until they prove they can hit it.”
Andrew Comette beat out a bunt to open the game. He took off on the first pitch to the next batter, stealing second on a close play. He went to third on a groundout and scored when Ian ripped a single past the pitcher’s ear to drive him home.
Taking the mound with a lead, even if it’s only one run, makes pitching easier. I struck out the first guy on a high fastball. The number-two hitter nubbed a grounder toward third. Jay Massine backed away from it, hoping it would go foul, but it rolled to a stop right on the chalk.
As I went into my stretch, the runner took a big lead off first. I looked toward home plate, then wheeled and fired to first. This time I remembered what Mr. Thurman had taught me and didn’t hurry my throw. The runner had started toward second, tried to come back to first, tripped, and ended up on his knees. Huffman put the tag on him for the second out. When the next guy popped up to first, I had what I’d wanted—a dominant first inning.
As I neared the bench, Mr. Thurman moved down next to the fence and motioned me over. “The man in the Mariners cap?” he said in his gravelly voice, nodding toward an older guy with a gut who was sitting behind home plate, notepad in hand. “That’s Tommy Zeller, a Mariner scout. He’s here to evaluate Ian, but he’s not going to close his eyes when you’re pitching.”
My eyes were on the field during the top of the second, but I didn’t see anything. When the guys around me grabbed their gloves and headed out to play in the field, autopilot kicked in. I picked up my glove and trotted to the mound.
Tommy Zeller’s presence worked like a shot of adrenaline. My pitches had more velocity and better movement. I struck out the leadoff hitter on three heaters. Their second batter chopped a ball off home plate and beat the throw to first, but a pop-up and strikeout followed, and another inning was over. As I walked off the mound, I saw Tommy Zeller writing in his notebook.
On the bench, I stared at the ground. I didn’t look up even when guys around me cheered. If we’d scored, I didn’t want to know. I wanted to pitch as if I were on the mound in a tie game in the World Series.
As the innings rolled by, my fastball kept its velocity and movement. The Garfield hitters were free swingers, but they weren’t making solid contact. A bloop single in the third, an infield hit in the fourth. That was it.
In the fifth, I felt stronger than I had in the first. Hadley put his mitt in the middle of the plate and I poured fastball after fastball into it. Three strikeouts, two swinging and one looking. Six more outs and I’d have a complete game shutout.
But as I returned to the bench, Coach Vereen clapped his hands and gave me two thumbs up. “Great pitching, Laz. You’re done for today. Kevin will finish up.”
I started to argue, but he gave me a look, and I stopped. Kevin gave up a run in the sixth but shut Garfield down one-two-three in the seventh. The final was 8–1.
As I packed up my duffle, Tommy Zeller was laughing with Ian and Andrew Comette and Jay Massine. I held back, not wanting to shove in where I wasn’t wanted. But then Zeller turned from them and walked toward me. “Hey, kid, come over here.”
He introduced himself, opened his wallet, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me. It had a Mariner logo on the front and his name and email address on the back. “Whenever you pitch, send me your stats. Runs, hits, walks, strikeouts. If you pitch great, tell me what was working for you. If you stink up the joint, tell me what went wrong. Just keep it short. I don’t read novels.”
On
the drive back to Laurelhurst, Mr. Thurman talked about how great Ian had hit and how great I had pitched. I guess I said some things, but I don’t remember what.
I couldn’t settle down that evening. I was starving, but I only ate a few bites of the chicken teriyaki I microwaved downstairs. Back in my room, I read a short story for English and did math homework, which killed some time. I turned on the Mariners game, listened for thirty minutes, and flicked it off.
I fell asleep right away, but woke up at two, staring at the ceiling. I’d made a good first impression on Tommy Zeller, but that was all. I had more to do.
Lots more.
Ten
Our next game was Friday at five. Late Thursday it started to rain, and it kept raining Friday morning. At noon an announcement came over the intercom: the game had been rescheduled for Saturday afternoon. Five minutes after the announcement, the sun came out.
I arranged a tutoring session with Jesus Ramirez. He helped me edit my history paper, and we didn’t call it quits until it was done. Then I walked to the Thurmans’ house under a perfectly clear sky.
Mr. Thurman and Ian were eating in the kitchen when I stepped inside. “Join us, Laz,” Mr. Thurman called.
The food was takeout from a Thai restaurant. Ian wolfed it down. “I’m going to watch the Dubs–Clips over at Martin’s,” he said as he wiped his mouth and stood up to leave. His father caught his eye, and he turned to me. “You can come if you want.”
I shook my head. “Thanks, b-but I’ve got stuff to do.”
As he left, his father called to him. “Don’t be out too late. Game tomorrow at noon. You hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ian said, not looking back. “I hear you.”
I studied, watched the last quarter of the Warriors–Clippers game in the downstairs TV palace, and turned off my lights a little before eleven. I woke up when I heard the hum of machinery as the garage door opened. Seconds later, the SUV’s headlights lit up my room as Ian pulled into the garage.