Tagged Out

by Joyce Grant

  Tagged Out

  Joyce Grant

  James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers

  Toronto

  For Bennett, and for all young baseball players.

  1

  The Pits

  Nash Calvecchio stepped up to home plate, his mouth set in a scowl. The sun caught one of the few shiny spots on his scuffed blue helmet. He’d struck out once this game and he wanted revenge.

  “Strike!” the umpire cried, balling his hand into a fist.

  Nash — known to his teammates on the Blues as Gnash — moved out of the batter’s box and glared at the ground.

  He looked over at Coach Coop, who calmly patted his chest and then his arm and his ear. It was the signal for “take.” Coop was betting the pitcher would throw wild. But not swinging went against everything Gnash was about. He wanted to crack that ball as hard as he could — so hard it would make the fielder’s hand sore.

  “Steeeee-rike!” the umpire called again, this time with a bit more feeling.

  The coach had been wrong. The pitcher had thrown a strike. And what had Gnash done? He’d stood and watched it go by with his bat up in the air. Like an idiot. Well, not this time. Gnash didn’t look over at his coach to get another useless signal.

  Gnash stepped back into the batter’s box. He knocked the head of his bat on the left corner of the plate, and then the right. Then he straightened up and raised his bat. He loaded up, shifting his weight onto his back leg. In a split second, the ball came screaming in at him . . . wide of the plate. Gnash swung wildly, catching a piece of it with his bat. But it was a small piece, and the ball spun crazily up into the air.

  “MIIIIIIIIIINE!” yelled the other team’s catcher, jumping to his feet. He snatched off his mask and helmet so he could see the ball as it came down.

  Gnash had started running when he’d made contact, but he knew it was hopeless. Halfway to first base he heard the thwack of the ball as it landed in the catcher’s mitt.

  “Out!” yelled the umpire.

  Gnash scowled on his way back to the dugout, gnashing his teeth in the way that had earned him his nickname. He avoided eye contact with Coach Coop, who was standing with his arms crossed.

  “Gnash, you’ve got to take my signs,” the coach said. “You need to wait for the good ones. That guy can’t find the strike zone.”

  Gnash’s response was a grunt. He threw his helmet noisily onto the bench. He looked around for his hat and his glove and took a long swig of Gatorade.

  “Nice one, Gnash,” said his teammate, Miguel. Miguel spat on the ground and shoved his cap down onto his head. “Way to go — you’re oh for two now.”

  Gnash kicked the metal fence, which clattered noisily. “Crap!” he said, loud enough for the parents in the stands to hear.

  The inning went downhill fast after that.

  Most of the players on the Toronto Blues Pee Wee baseball team had been playing together for years in an inner-city park called Christie Pits. The baseball diamonds — there were three of them — were located at the bottom of an enormous depression that had once been a gravel pit. It was a park with a lot of history, and not all of it good.

  “Christie Pits was where my dad mixed it up with those Jewish kids in 1933,” Gnash’s grandfather had often told him. “Man, him and his brother couldn’t stand those kids. Those kids thought they were better than us Catholics.”

  Gnash had heard the story of his great-grandfather and the famous Christie Pits riot a million times.

  “Dad was one of the Pit Gang boys,” Gnash’s grandfather would tell him. “One day after a ball game — well, those Jewish kids got their butts kicked, is what happened.”

  Gnash had even looked it up once, when he’d wondered whether his grandfather was exaggerating. But it had been right there in Wikipedia.

  Gnash scowled and looked out of the dugout. He tried to picture ten thousand hoodlums there, filling the Pits with their hatred for people who were different. But he couldn’t imagine his favourite park that way. The Pits he knew was a safe, warm place. It was where he went to get away from turmoil.

  “Six hours,” Gnash’s grandfather had told him, shaking his head. “Six hours they fought with clubs and bare fists. And then the cops came through on horseback. My dad said you shoulda seen them. They hauled all the kids offa each other.”

  The top of the inning brought Gnash back to the ballgame. He ran out onto the field with his team. They threw the ball back and forth while they waited for the first pitch.

  “Hey, Sebastian! Heads up!”

  Gnash saw Sebastian snap his head up and pivot his body toward the sound of the voice. The stocky catcher scowled behind his mask at a ball that was coming in fast from third base. The ball bounced hard off the ground near Sebastian’s foot and into the tip of his mitt.

  “Good block!” said Tami, at third base. She cringed. “Sorry about that.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” mumbled Sebastian, clearly irritated at Tami’s mis-throw. He stood up and whipped the ball to second. “Second base, coming down!” he yelled. Miguel caught the ball and then sent it back to Raj on the mound.

  Raj was at least a head taller than anyone else on the team. He was also taller than anyone else at school or, for that matter, any twelve-year-old in the neighbourhood. He weighed exactly twice as much as the team’s right fielder, Lin, who came up to his chest.

  Raj threw bullets. However, while a lot of kids feared Raj’s pitches for their speed and power, plenty more feared them for their inaccuracy. Gnash always said that batting against Raj reminded him of those firing squads from the movies — except it was the guy doing the firing who was blindfolded.

  “Play ball!” said the umpire.

  It was the top of the final inning, and the Cardinals were up by seven runs, thanks in part to Gnash’s unfortunate performance at the plate.

  “Don’t count yourselves out yet,” Coop told the kids who were slumped on the bench in the dugout. “Look at last week’s games — 15–11 . . . 8–3. Anything can happen — we’re still in this.”

  “Yeah, sure, we can win it,” growled Gnash. “If they suddenly start running around the bases the wrong way!”

  “Hey, maybe that would turn the score back, like when Superman flies around the Earth and turns back time,” said Sebastian, neatly catching the ball that Gnash suddenly whipped at him from the dugout. Sebastian laughed and adjusted his mask. He tossed it back and then crouched down into position behind home plate.

  On the mound, Raj put the game ball into his glove and leaned down into his pitching stance. He turned his head to look at Miguel on first base. Miguel nodded and smacked his hand in his glove. Raj nodded back and then looked at Sebastian behind the plate for the sign.

  Sebastian showed two fingers and then pointed to his left thigh.

  Gnash saw Raj shake off Sebastian’s sign and ask for a new one. Sebastian gave the sign for a fastball. Raj nodded.

  The pitch was intended to be fast and inside — and in a way, it was. It was practically inside the batter’s jersey. The Cardinal managed to turn his back to the stray bullet, so that it didn’t hit anywhere it would do real damage. But all of the parents in the stands heard the sickening thud and they made a collective gasp.

  “That’s gonna leave a mark,” Gnash heard Sebastian mumble as the batter limped down the first-base line to take his base.

  “Shake it off, Raj!” Gnash yelled to the mound as the pitcher took his stance again.

  But Gnash could tell that Raj wasn’t going to be able to shake it off. Nailing the batter had unsettled him. The pitcher’s face fell and he looked down at the ball in his glove. Ra
j wasn’t going to be able to shake it off at all.

  The next victim from the Cardinals was a gangly left-hander with a long, blue ponytail. She didn’t look thrilled to be facing Raj. Still, she gamely stepped into the batter’s box and raised her bat above her left shoulder. She glanced nervously over at the stands, where her mother gave her a shaky thumbs-up.

  Even the umpire was beginning to look a little rattled.

  Raj didn’t discriminate between boys and girls. He was an equal-opportunity hit-by-pitch-er. The girl walked to first on the first pitch, rubbing her ankle and pushing the batter ahead of her to second base.

  Once the Cardinals got into scoring position, that was what they did — score. Over and over again. The batters that Raj didn’t walk or hit managed to get around the bases on overthrows by the infielders. One stray ball went into the equipment shed, something that none of the Blues could have done on purpose if they’d tried.

  “We need another game ball!” the umpire called to the coach.

  “Get up there and find some, will you?” Coach Coop barked at Lin, who zipped out of the dugout to scour the long, scrubby grass on the slopes of the Pits, looking for glimpses of white amid the brown and the green — a hopeless task.

  Meanwhile, Raj was looking for a way out of the inning. He glanced several times over at the bullpen. He looked relieved to see Tami warming up.

  Coach Coop held up one hand and strode toward the first baseline. “Blue!” he said. The umpire yelled, “Time!” and everyone knew that Raj’s inning was over. Out on the mound, Raj handed over the ball to the coach like a farmer handing over a rotten egg. Tami jogged out to the mound and waited until the two had finished their conversation. Then, she took Raj’s place.

  The “good job” applause for Raj was polite but sparse as he left the mound but he didn’t seem to hear it. It was clear from the look on his face that all Raj heard was his own voice in his head telling him he wasn’t good enough.

  “I can’t pitch,” Raj said to Gnash as he slumped down on the bench in the dugout. “I suck. Everyone’s laughing at me. I’m never going to make double-A.”

  Gnash looked at Raj. Although he wanted to find some words that would make his friend feel better, he knew there was nothing he could say. Besides, thought Gnash, Raj is right — he sucks. He didn’t see how Raj would ever have a chance at moving up from A to AA the way he was pitching.

  The two boys watched the rest of the game in silence.

  2

  New Kid

  “Trade you half an egg for half a salami,” said Raj, holding out a bun toward Gnash and slopping egg salad onto the table.

  “Gross,” said Gnash.

  “I’ll trade,” said Tami, ripping her sandwich in half. She took a swig of milk. “Geez, I can’t wait to play the Pirates.”

  The Parkhill Pirates were an uptown team that hailed from one of the snobbiest neighbourhoods in the city. Worst of all, Parkhill was a team the Blues hadn’t beaten in years.

  “You mean you wanna beat the Pirates,” said Raj.

  “Yeah. I wanna get those rich kids on the field,” said Tami. “And then I wanna crush them.”

  “Then we shall!” said Sebastian enthusiastically, in a British accent. “Crush them, we shall!”

  The teammates laughed.

  “Hey, Sebastian, is that the new kid?” Tami asked in a low voice. She nodded her head toward a boy eating a sandwich two tables over.

  The five teammates turned as one to look over at a boy in a black t-shirt and jeans.

  “Huh. That guy looks really gay,” said Gnash.

  The others looked at the boy more closely.

  “Oh yeah,” sneered Gnash. “He’s definitely a ho-mo-sex-sssssual.” Gnash drew the word out like a hiss.

  “Keep your voice down, you jerks,” said Raj.

  “Why?” asked Gnash, loudly. “You in love with him or something?”

  There were snickers. Raj picked up a potato chip and threw it at Gnash, who made kissing noises with his lips. He picked the chip off the table and tossed it into his mouth. “Mrth, zmm — boyfriend!” he said.

  “Bite me,” said Raj, flicking chip crumbs off his shirt.

  The boy in the black t-shirt stared down at the sandwich he was eating, and chewed slowly. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood to throw his garbage into the bin as he left the cafeteria.

  “Hey, I bet that kid really is gay,” said Gnash.

  Several of them nodded.

  Raj watched the boy head out of the double doors of the lunchroom. He put his hands flat on the table and pushed himself to his feet.

  “I’m gonna go ask him,” he told Gnash with a smile.

  “Huh?” said Gnash. “You’re gonna ask him if he’s gay?”

  “Sure,” said Raj. “Might as well find out, eh?”

  Tami stared at the pitcher. “Raj!” she called. “Hey, Raj, you can’t do that — come back!”

  But Raj was already through the doors, following the boy. Gnash pushed out from behind the table and scrambled after Raj, beckoning to the others to come. They followed in a close clump behind Gnash. When he stopped suddenly at the doorway they bumped into him, sending him sprawling out into the hall.

  “Get back, you morons!” said Gnash, pushing everyone back inside.

  “Hi,” he heard Raj say to the boy in the black t-shirt.

  The boy stopped, not turning around.

  “Hi!” Raj repeated. He held out his hand. “I’m Raj!”

  The boy turned around and looked at Raj. Gnash ducked his head quickly backward to avoid being seen.

  “Ouch!” said Sebastian, rubbing his forehead where it had just connected with Gnash’s skull.

  Gnash looked at him accusingly. “I said get back,” he snarled. Then he turned his attention back to the conversation in the hallway.

  “I’m Jock,” said the boy, holding out his hand. A thin, white leather bracelet on his wrist stood out against his dark skin. “At least, that’s what my friends call me.” Jock shook Raj’s hand, not meeting his eyes.

  There was a pause.

  “Well, I’m supposed to go to the office . . .” Jock said, shrugging.

  “Do you go here now?” asked Raj.

  “Started this morning.”

  “You in 8-7?”

  “Nope, 8-6. Mr. Joyman’s.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s great. Hilarious,” said Raj with a smile. “Have you met him yet? Have you seen his clothes? I think he gets them from Goodwill. Really, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Yeah. I did notice that,” said Jock, looking down at the clock on his battered cell phone. “Well, I’m supposed to . . .”

  “Oh, yeah, the office. You’d better hurry.”

  Jock started to walk down the hall.

  “Hey, what’s that stand for?” Gnash heard Raj ask him, pointing to the letters CPS printed in red, white and blue on Jock’s t-shirt.

  “Crest Public School,” said Jock. “It’s in New Jersey. You wouldn’t know it.” Now the boy was sounding irritated. “Any more questions?”

  “Well, yeah, I do have one more as a matter of fact,” said Raj. “But it’s a big one.”

  Gnash couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Raj was actually going to ask him if he was gay!

  “What is it?” Jock stopped walking. He turned to look Raj directly in the eye, as if steeling himself for a blow.

  Raj stopped walking too, and paused. Then he smiled.

  “My big question is: Are you planning on walking the entire way around the school?”

  Jock looked confused.

  “Because the office is that-a-way,” said Raj, smiling. “I’ll show you.”

  The two boys turned and started walking toward the office. Gnash and the rest of the team dove back into the cafeteria and into their se
ats at the lunch table. Gnash slouched down in his chair, propping up his head casually on one hand. Sebastian linked his hands behind his head and leaned his chair back, whistling tunelessly.

  “Don’t look over at them!” Gnash hissed to his teammates, as Raj and Jock passed the open cafeteria doors. “Pretend we’re still eating!”

  That wasn’t hard for Tami, who hadn’t finished her sandwich yet. Sebastian, who’d already wolfed his down, grabbed an empty chocolate milk carton and pretended to drink from it.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Gnash heard Raj say, pointing at the cafeteria. “They’re total idiots.”

  “Yeah, so I’ve noticed,” said Jock.

  “Hey! That’s, that’s . . . slander!” said Sebastian loudly, getting out of his seat.

  Gnash shoved him back down. “Shut up, you idiot! They’re going to know we’re listening!”

  In the hall, Raj raised his eyebrows at the other boy.

  “Well, they’re pretty loud,” said Jock.

  “True,” said Raj, smiling over at his friends.

  “So, the office is just down here,” Raj said to Jock. The two boys walked down the hall and then entered the office.

  Gnash got up from the table and crunched his paper lunch bag between his hands. He dropped it in the recycling bin and then sped out of the lunchroom. He caught up to Raj, who was just coming out of the office.

  “Hey,” Gnash called. “Hey!”

  Raj stopped and turned.

  “Oh, man, Raj,” said Gnash. “What the heck?”

  “What?” asked Raj, his eyes wide with fake innocence.

  “You didn’t ask him — did you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” asked Raj. “We want to know, don’t we?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Gnash. “But it just seems . . .”

  “What, like none of our business?” asked Raj. He grinned broadly.

  Gnash stared at him, and then backed up a step. He came forward and slapped Raj hard on the back. “You loser!” he said gruffly, realizing that Raj had been stringing them along the whole time.

  “Don’t tell Tami, okay?” said Raj, stopping at his locker. He chuckled. “I’m sure she thinks I asked him.”