Biggie

by Derek E. Sullivan

  I’m happy that Coach Phillips sees me first. He frightens me less than Laser, which makes no sense, seeing how Laser would do anything to get me on the team, and Phillips could care less. That being said, I’m glad Laser hasn’t seen me yet.

  “Biggie, good to see you.” Phillips eyes my hat and duffel bag.

  He’s no genius, but I think he can put two and two together.

  Laser turns and looks pale. It’s been two weeks since he told me he didn’t raise a quitter. I’m sure he had given up on me.

  “Hello, Coach.” I slowly pronounce my words. “I want to help the guys win this championship. Can I help?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Come back in an hour, and I’ll let you know.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Come back in an hour, and I’ll let you know,” he repeats himself. “I’m busy right now.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  For the next hour, I sit outside the locker room. People pass, but no one I recognize. Finally, after an hour, which felt like ten, Maddux tells me to come into the locker room and get ready.

  As I slip on the jersey, which is a little baggy, Coach walks past, but remains silent. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable. Obviously, he’s screwing with me. If he didn’t want me here, he wouldn’t have told me to get dressed, but I can’t help but think an ass chewing is coming up soon.

  Phillips, Laser, Maddux, and I walk to the bullpen. It’s cloudy and the wind blows crisply onto my face. I look around and only see a handful of people searching for seats in the stands. The sky has zero blue, only shades of gray and black, like some old movie. It’s cold, but it’s not supposed to rain. As we walk to the bullpen, the scoreboard says that Council Bluffs beat Waverly-Shell Rock 5–1 in the third-place game.

  I search the stands for Jenna and maybe even Courtney. I’m not sure how much they hang out or if Courtney is the kind of girl to travel two hours to see a baseball game, but it doesn’t hurt to look. In between games, there are maybe a dozen people in the stands, and none look like Jenna or Courtney.

  “Biggie,” Coach Phillips finally speaks, “are you ready for this?”

  I nod and take the ball. It’s used, brown like soil, and the formally red seams are a dull maroon. Jet tosses baseballs on the far pitching mound. I only need to see two pitches to know Killer’s right. He doesn’t have a lot of stuff.

  I decide to show Coach that I’m fine. I toss a strike to Laser, who’s catching for me. Even at 70 percent, with no windup, I throw faster than Jet, who’s moaning and groaning before each pitch. Slowly but surely, I ramp up the velocity. The snapping noise coming from Laser’s catcher’s mitt gets louder after each fastball. By my tenth pitch, I’m firing at full speed and making it look like Jet is playing egg toss with his younger sister.

  I throw forty-two pitches, mostly fastballs, before Coach tells me to stop.

  “Jet, head to the dugout,” he says.

  “Yes, Coach,” Jet says, adding, “Hey, Biggie,” as he walks by.

  “Sit on the bench,” Coach orders me.

  He leans over; the smell of cigars fills my throat, almost causing me to gag.

  “Biggie, you just sit here by yourself and watch the game,” he says. “Watch every aspect of it. Watch every play, good or bad, we make.”

  “Am I going to pitch?”

  “I’m not even sure if you’re going to be allowed in the dugout at this point.”

  “I can’t go in the dugout?”

  “The dugout’s for ballplayers, for people who love to play, for people who have fun, for people that don’t skip two weeks of practice. You quit on me, son. I don’t know what to think about you just showing up for a game.”

  I sit there in complete silence and think about what he said. Did I come down here because of the championship game? I don’t know. Maybe I did want to help Kyle and Jet and maybe even Killer. Maybe I felt I owed Laser something for training me and giving me his number. Maybe seeing my name on that roster got to me. Hell, I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m here.

  Jet struggles from the start. He allows a run in the first and second innings and a three-run home run in the third. The good news is that Killer wasn’t kidding about Finch’s hitting. Kyle smacks a three-run triple in the bottom of the fourth, and Finch leads, 6–5. After shutting out St. John’s in the fourth, Jet allows three hits and one run in the top of the fifth. I count every pitch. When a St. John’s batter pops out to Killer for the final out of the fifth, Jet has thrown 102 pitches. Unfortunately for me, his arm is still attached.

  Finch retakes the lead in the top of the fifth when Aargo doubles off the wall, scoring Kyle. Going into the top of the sixth, Finch leads 7–6. Killer said if I could have held St. John’s to six runs, the Yellow Jackets would win. He was right.

  Jet walks the first two batters of the sixth. He’s now at 112 pitches, give or take a couple I may have missed because I was looking into the stands.

  Laser and Maddux leap out of the dugout. Maddux carries a face mask and catcher’s mitt. I stand up. Defying gravity, a lump climbs up my throat. I reach down and grab my cap and glove.

  “Let’s go, Biggie. You have to get warm,” Laser says.

  I throw seventeen pitches as Killer, Kyle, and Coach Phillips walk back and forth to the mound. When the umpire orders the meetings to end, Jet, with little effort, tries to pick off a base runner. Everyone knows he’s done. I know he’s done, which explains why I feel like I’m going to piss my pants.

  After my eighteenth warm-up pitch, Phillips lifts his left arm. He’s calling for me.

  He’s waiting for me.

  He raises his arm again.

  The moment freezes me. My throat feels sore, and my hands numb. Although I’m standing in a massive baseball stadium, I feel cornered, trapped, like to get to that mound, I’m going to have to crawl through a tight tunnel. I can’t do it. I have to go. I have to get out of here. My pants feel itchy, and my cap feels too tight. I take the cap off and try to breathe.

  “You have to go now,” Maddux says.

  I still stand there with my cap at my hip. Even when I hear the announcer say, “Now coming in to pitch—No. 9 junior Henry Abbott.

  “You have to go right now, Biggie,” Maddux says firmly.

  “Maddux, be quiet,” Laser says before placing his hand on the No. 9. He rubs my back, which doesn’t make me breathe any easier.

  “They’re quiet now, but they’re going to cheer for you. You know that, right? They’re going to stand, clap, and cheer your name. Not because of who your dad is or who I am. They aren’t going to cheer because of the uniform you’re wearing or because you’re a star. They’re going to yell your name because each and every one of them knows what you’ve done for their favorite team.

  “Those people in the stands, they love Finch baseball, and they know all about your hard work. They saw you run up and down their streets. They’ve noticed all the weight you’ve lost. We live in a small town, Biggie, where everyone knows everything. Some will say that’s a bad thing. But you’re going to find out tonight that being from Finch is wonderful. Strikeout or walk, they’re going to cheer your name, and you’ve earned that moment.” He pushes me forward. “Now, go get six outs.”

  I stumble, but keep moving. I take four or five steps, but then I turn around.

  “Hey, Laser, I just want to say—”

  “You can thank me when the story ends. Today, all this, it’s just the beginning. Go get six outs.”

  I step onto the grass and take small steps. I’m terrified.

  “Biggie, you can’t walk. You’ve got to run!” Maddux yells.

  Chapter 35

  Fastballs

  The mound doesn’t feel as high as I imagined. For some reason, I always believed that all of the other mounds that I practiced on would be lower, beaten down over time, but the m
ound in the middle of the Principal Park infield was the same height as the Laser-constructed mound in the dome. Straight ahead of me are rows of Finch fans, all wearing blue and gold. They stand in silence.

  Although I’m surrounded by Coach Phillips and our infield, I know every eye is on me. I’m a car wreck that has to been seen. I’m the old lady who has slipped on ice. I’m an old man clutching his chest. People stare because they don’t know how it happened and they don’t how it will end up.

  I’m too far away to hear the whispers of, “Is that Biggie?” or “Is he on the team?” or “Does Coach Phillips want to lose his job?” But I know that’s what they’re saying.

  “When you tried out two weeks ago, I really loved your fastball,” Phillips says. “Do you have confidence in it? Can you throw it for strikes?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Then do that,” Phillips orders. “Throw one strike after another. Look at me. You will not—you hear me?—you will not get fancy. It’s one fastball after another.”

  As everyone heads back to their spots, I turn around and see Jet stretching his legs in his favorite spot, center field. He’s back in his comfort zone. I’m two hours away from mine.

  I look up at the darkening sky and see zero stars, which differs from the perfect game fantasies I imagined as I jogged through Finch. Also above me are light towers releasing blocks of clear, white light. I count about eighty-two bulbs before Kyle attracts my attention and tells me the signs or, better yet, sign. One finger means bring the heat.

  I can tell the baseball hasn’t been used yet. The umpire must have handed it to Kyle before he walked out to the mound. It’s the same size as every other baseball I have thrown since last September, but glossy. The ball’s white, ideally white. There’s hardly a smudge on it, just two sweaty fingerprints from Kyle’s fingertips.

  When I look down at Kyle, he seems a hundred miles away. For a moment, I wonder how I can get the ball that far. The fans are a hundred feet away, but it feels like they are sitting on my shoulder. Although the fences are almost three hundred feet behind me, I struggle with the tight squeeze of claustrophobia. Flashing phone cameras leave me light-headed. My dry and red eyes can’t focus. I rub them with the balls of my hands. Kyle pounds his catcher’s mitt and repeats, only louder this time, “Bring the heat.”

  I want this first warm-up pitch to be a strike. I want to get off to a fast start. My feet are parallel with my shoulders. My fingers grip the glossy baseball tight.

  From behind me, I hear a loud belly laugh, the kind that sends milk down a little boy’s nose.

  Kyle stands up, “Biggie, pitch from the stretch. Do you know how to do that?”

  I turn my shoulders and place the inside of my left foot on the mound. Behind me I see the runner at first base is the one laughing. Watching him chuckle at my simple rookie mistake only makes me want to beat them more.

  All throughout my idiotic quest, Laser forced me to pitch from the stretch at least half the time. “Just in case a batter gets on base,” he would say. I felt foolish doing it then and I still do now.

  Calmly, I snap off seven more warm-up pitches, each one requiring little effort or mobility from Kyle.

  During the past year, Laser told me a lot of things: keep your head up, legs straight, arm warm, and so on. He also said baseball has no clock. Oftentimes during hundred-pitch practices, my patience would wane. Throws would come faster and faster as I yearned for blue Gatorade or cold water. Laser would tell me to slow down. He would repeat over and over that I could take all the time I needed. There is no clock in baseball.

  Remembering that, I stand tall with my feet on either side of the rubber and close my eyes. When I dreamed about this day, I felt myself surrounded by a perfect early-summer breeze, a Finch breeze. If some guy from Canada felt the gust on his face, he would feel heat. If some guy from Florida, Southern California, or a desert stood here, he would be freezing, but to us in Finch, the wind is perfectly uneventful. Now as I stand here, the wind barely exists. Instead, a faint mist hovers over the grass—the quiet before the storm. The chemical smell of the treated grass hides the musk smell so evident in my nose, just as when I put back the mower in our garage.

  While baseball has no clock, I do have to open my eyes, squeeze the baseball, lift my elbow, arc my back, lift my leg, and get this guy out.

  “Here we go,” I whisper.

  My first-ever high school pitch is bunted out in front of the plate. I stumble off the mound, but keep my balance and reach the rolling ball first.

  “Throw to first!” Kyle screams.

  I pick it up and cock my arm, but it fails to move. I just grip the ball and watch the kid race up the first-base line, chin up and knees chugging. Our first baseman stretches out his gloved hand and waits.

  “FIRE IT!” Killer yells.

  I grit my teeth and throw. The ball arrives a split second before the runner.

  “Nice throw,” Kyle says. “Let’s not make it so dramatic next time.”

  The base runners move up to second and third. If I allow a hit, both could score, and St. John’s would take the lead.

  The out calms me and lifts a lot of stressful weight off my shoulders. The next batter, a small kid with baggy pants, steps in the box.

  I fire a pitch: strike one. Then another pitch, even faster: strike two. And then I grit my teeth and let the next pitch fly. The umpire, as if someone lit a firecracker below his ass, explodes out of his crouch, swings his arm like he’s speed-painting a wall, and yells, “Strike three!”

  Kyle pumps his fist, and Killer belts, “Two down!”

  As my head spins toward Killer’s excitable roar, I see our senior third baseman hunched over not in pain, but in laughter. When he sees my eyes, he bites his lip to stop his laughing. My guess is he’s laughing at the perceived absurdity of my unhittable fastballs. As I scan the rest of my teammates, I see others smiling like the Joker from Batman, cheeks high and mouths partially open and curled.

  They might be surprised, but I’m not. One more out and I’ve cleaned up Jet’s mess. Five minutes after Kyle seemed a hundred feet away, he now sits right in front of me. I feel like if I stretch my arm a little bit more than possible, I could pull and snap back his catcher’s mask.

  Then I hear it. Only a couple people shout it, but I hear it.

  “Biggie! Biggie! Biggie!”

  Once again, deep breaths calm my demeanor as I regenerate my self-confidence. Now poised on the mound, I feel like I’m immortal. Okay, maybe not eternal, but at the very least, I feel like a good baseball player. No! A great baseball player. I feel like I belong on this mound. It feels more like home than the synthetic mound under the dome, thirty feet from my bedroom.

  I rock and fire, and the batter swings and fouls the ball straight back. The ding of the aluminum bat startles me.

  “That’s the only time you’re going to touch the ball,” I whisper to myself.

  The cheer has gotten louder as more and more fans join in. “Biggie! Biggie! Biggie!”

  I find myself listening more than concentrating. I’ve heard experienced athletes say they can’t hear the cheers when they’re on the field and in the zone. Since this is my first real athletic experience, I hear the fans loud and clear. I try hard to block it out and concentrate, but it sounds so amazing.

  The ball feels smaller as if I could wrap my fingers around it, bury it, hide it. With the tips of my fingers, I spin the ball in my palm and dig my cleats into the dirt. Again I grunt as the ball races to the plate.

  The batter swings and the ding returns, only louder. The base hit screams to right field, easily over the outstretched arm of our second baseman. The runner who was on third base scores, while the runner who was on second is rounding third. Jet scoops up the ball and in one motion fires the ball to the plate.

  “Get down, Biggie!” Kyle yells over the deaf
ening St. John’s fans’ cheers.

  Like a second-grade tornado drill, I drop to my knees and cover my ears. The ball skips off the grass and lands in Kyle’s glove. The runner tries to slide around the tag, but Kyle slams his mitt on the runner’s knee inside a cloud of swirling dust.

  Before my eyes focus on the scoreboard, which now says the game is tied at 7–7, Killer places his face in my line of sight and claims, “We’re going to score a lot more runs, Biggie. It’s all good.”

  As I sit in the dugout, Maddux hands me a blue Gatorade. “You’ve got to go tell Jet thanks for picking you up,” he claims.

  “What?” I ask between gulps of Gatorade.

  “It’s baseball stuff,” he continues. “You have to tell a player thanks for picking you up when they save your ass.”

  “Really?”

  He just nods like a bobblehead.

  I get up and tap Jet on the shoulder, “Hey, man, thanks for picking me up.”

  “Keep firing, Biggie, you big old son of a bitch. We’re winning this title,” Jet says with an unnecessary punch to my chest.

  My ass plants back down on the dugout bench next to Maddux.

  “It’s insane out there,” I mutter. “There’s lights and noise everywhere. It’s hard to breathe.”

  “You got to throw the pitch, the Wiffle ball,” Maddux says.

  Elusive Gatorade soaks my chin as I try to get the last ounce out of the plastic bottle. I belch and wipe my chin clean with the back of my hand.

  “Coach said only fastballs,” I inform him.

  “He doesn’t know about the Wiffle ball. Trust me, the pitch is unhittable. I mean jeez, Biggie, that’s why we are here—to throw the Wiffle ball. Remember?”

  I do.

  After Finch fails to score in the bottom of the sixth, I’m back on the mound. I feel a lot more comfortable pitching from the windup and more relaxed knowing there aren’t any base runners behind me.

  Maddux told me that the heart of the St. John’s lineup is coming up and if I want to avoid a big inning, I’m going to have to throw the Wiffle ball. I’m hesitant to defy Coach Phillips, but Maddux is right. We just spent nine months perfecting the magic pitch.