Sliding into Home

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  “Are you looking for somebody?” A tired-looking girl had just emerged from the bathroom behind Joelle. She wore a blue and gold Greendale Academy sweatshirt and shorts. A sweat-band plastered her damp curls against her forehead.

  “Yeah, I’m looking for your gym teacher,” Joelle said.

  “Ms. Azline? She’s out on the softball field. Go out that door down there.” The girl pointed.

  “Great. Thanks.” Joelle jogged the rest of the way down the hall and pushed open the door.

  She found herself at the back of the school. A huge open area stretched all the way to empty farm fields that were ready for planting. A group of kids, boys and girls, were doing sit-ups and stretches in one area. The boys’ baseball team was practicing in another. And further on Joelle spotted the girls’ softball team.

  Nobody paid any attention to Joelle as she headed toward the softball field. She didn’t want to disturb the practice, so she sat down on the grass behind the fence and watched. She’d talk to the coach when they finished.

  The softball team was working on throwing and catching drills. There were only four girls sitting on the bench. Everyone else was out on the field.

  Coach Azline had on a light blue warm-up suit. She was tall with dark hair that was graying at the sides. She stood at home plate and batted to different players.

  “Use both hands to catch, Sonia,” Coach Azline called to the right fielder.

  Sonia leaped up and caught the ball in her glove. Then she threw the ball to the pitcher.

  “And get your elbow up when you throw,” the coach said.

  Joelle noticed how serious all the girls seemed. No one was talking, not even the players on the bench. Every player seemed to have her eyes and ears on the drill. No wonder they were state champs.

  “Again,” Coach Azline said to the pitcher.

  The pitcher went into her windup and released. The coach slammed the ball right back at the pitcher, who jumped in surprise, but managed to catch it.

  “Look alive, Kelsey!” the coach shouted to her.

  Kelsey tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder, then got back into position and pitched again. This time, the coach hit a line drive straight to the shortstop, who ran forward and caught it.

  “Not bad, Nikki,” the coach said, nodding.

  The players on the bench rotated in. Nikki was one of four girls who came off. She glanced curiously at Joelle as she sat down.

  Joelle got up and moved behind the bench area. “Nice catch,” she said.

  All four of the girls on the bench turned around. “Who are you?” Nikki asked. She wore her black hair in about a thousand braids, each one held by a small bead at the end.

  “You don’t go here, do you?” asked the blond girl who sat beside Nikki.

  “No.” Joelle leaned against the fence. “I’m Joelle Cunningham. I go to Hoover.”

  “So what are you doing here?” the dark-haired girl on the other side of Nikki asked. She grinned. “Scoping out your competition?”

  “No.” Joelle shook her head. “I play baseball. A few of us are trying to get a girls’ league going. I came over here to see if any of you guys might be interested.”

  Nikki cocked her head. “How would it work?”

  “Just like any other baseball league. Except it would be all girls,” Joelle explained. “We’d play with each other and against each other.”

  “Excuse me,” the coach interrupted. “Do I hear talking over there?” Her hands were on her hips and she looked irritated.

  All four girls spun back around.

  “Why don’t you ladies come back out here,” Ms. Azline said. “You can pair up for some more throwing and catching practice.”

  “If you’re interested, come to the organizational meeting at the library next Wednesday,” Joelle called as the girls took to the field.

  None of them looked back.

  Joelle glanced at her watch. Four twenty. Practice wouldn’t last much longer. When it was over, maybe she could talk to the girls some more. And to Coach Azline, too.

  The practice went on much longer than Joelle expected. After throwing and catching drills, the team moved on to running drills. And after running drills there were even more throwing and catching drills.

  Every now and then, someone would look over at Joelle or a pair of girls would whisper among themselves, then look at Joelle. Did that mean some of them were interested?

  At about ten after five, Coach Azline must have overheard two girls talking. “What’s this about a baseball league?” she asked angrily.

  Joelle couldn’t hear what the girls were telling their coach, but afterward they all looked over at her.

  “Keep going,” the coach told the girls. She adjusted her cap, then headed toward Joelle. None of the players moved. Their eyes were on their coach.

  Uh oh, Joelle thought, scrambling to her feet. This lady does not look happy.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here,” Coach Azline said when she got close to the fence. “But this is a closed practice. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”

  “I-I just wanted to t-talk to you and those girls,” Joelle stammered. The whole team was watching her now. “There’s a group of us trying to get a girls’ baseball league going and—”

  “No one here is interested in a baseball league.” The coach folded her arms across her chest and glared at Joelle.

  Joelle felt stung. How did this lady know whether they were interested not? A few of them looked interested.

  “My girls are state champions. They don’t need any distractions. Now, please be on your way.”

  “But—” Joelle began again.

  “Please!” The coach barked. Then she whirled around and headed back to the field.

  She’s worse than Coach Carlyle, Joelle thought.

  The Greendale Academy team quickly resumed their drill. But Joelle noticed that Nikki looked back at her over her shoulder.

  “Wednesday night! Seven o’clock at the Greendale Public Library!” Joelle called.

  Then she turned and ran off the field before Coach Azline threw her off.

  Chapter Thirteen

  All those fliers must be paying off, Joelle told herself a few days later. People were definitely hearing about the Eastern Iowa Girls’ Baseball League. More letters about girls’ baseball were beginning to show up in the Gazette and on the newspaper’s website.

  Joelle scanned them eagerly each morning. Some of them were good.

  Hats off to Joelle Cunningham! Why not start an all-girls’ baseball league? Let’s keep expanding interest in girls’ sports!

  Others were not so good.

  Greendale does not have sufficient resources to support a girls’ baseball league. The few ball fields we do have are not in great shape. Several baseball and softball groups already vie for playing time. How can we as a community divide our resources among so many different groups?

  Joelle skimmed over the letters on other topics and looked for another one on baseball. She was particularly interested in a letter signed by a rec center employee.

  During the past few years, we’ve noticed fewer girls signing up for our summer athletic programs. No doubt there are girls in the area who will be interested in playing baseball, but it is unlikely there will be enough of them to fill an entire league. And many of those girls might have signed up for one of our programs. If we don’t have enough girls to keep our programs going, we may be forced to cancel some of our programming. Then no girls in Greendale will be playing any sports this summer. If Joelle Cunningham is so eager to play baseball, I would urge the school board to change their policy and allow her to play on her school’s team. She would also be welcome to play in our summer baseball league. Perhaps Ms. Cunningham would not feel compelled to start her own league if she could play elsewhere.

  Jeffrey Tibbetts, Director

  Greendale Recreation Center

  Joelle liked Mr. Tibbett’s “urging” the s
chool board to allow her to play for Hoover. But it didn’t look like that was ever going to happen. That was plenty clear to her now.

  So now that she’d finally found an alternative, this Mr. Tibbetts was worried about girls not signing up for programs at the Greendale Recreation Center. What about all the girls who lived in those dinky little towns around Greendale that didn’t even have rec centers? They had to come all the way to Greendale for sports. Maybe an area baseball league would give them an opportunity to have a team in their own community.

  Joelle sighed.

  There was always somebody somewhere telling her no.

  “So what are we going to do now?” Joelle asked Elizabeth’s dad after dinner. She had brought the newspaper over to the Shaw’s house to show them. “I’m not surprised some people were against the idea of me playing on the Hoover team. But now they don’t even want me to form a separate girls’ league.”

  Mr. Shaw glanced at Joelle over the top of his glasses. “We’re not going to let a few letter writers get us down, are we?” He put the paper down beside him on the couch and Elizabeth picked it up.

  “But what if some of these people actually show up at our meeting and make a big stink?” Joelle asked, frowning.

  “Oh, I don’t think they will,” Mr. Shaw said. “What we need to do is to find out how many girls around here want to play baseball. If just a few show up, then those naysayers don’t have anything to worry about. We won’t have a league. But if a lot of girls want to play, well … then we’ll have to deal with some of these questions. Especially about where we’re going to play. There is a shortage of playing fields around here. But we can work something out.”

  “Okay,” Joelle said, trying not to sound discouraged.

  “Hey, Joelle.” Elizabeth looked up from the editorial page. “Look at this. All the letters against you are from men!”

  “What?” Joelle grabbed the newspaper from Elizabeth. She hadn’t noticed that before. But Elizabeth was right.

  Maybe she should write a response to all those guys. At least she could bring up some of the positive points that no one else had mentioned.

  As soon as Joelle got home, she went straight to her computer and started typing.

  Dear Editor,

  It’s me, Joelle Cunningham, again. I am very upset because so many people don’t want me to start a baseball league for girls. Why is it so hard for girls to play baseball around here? A lot of people think softball is the girls’ alternative to baseball. But softball was never meant to be that. If you look up the history of softball online, you’ll see that the first people who played softball were men!

  There are definitely other girls who want to play baseball in Greendale. I’ve met them. They played at the rec center last summer, but they were all put on different teams. We think it would be fun to be on the same team and to play other girls. That’s why we’re trying to start this league.

  I’m sorry if there aren’t enough fields in Greendale. But does that mean it has to be the girls who don’t get to play? Can’t we build more fields? Can’t we do something? We don’t want the rec center to lose business. And we sure don’t want any girls not to be able to play the sport they want. We just want to play our sport, too. Is that so wrong? If the rec center is worried about losing girls, maybe they can sponsor our league.

  Sincerely,

  Joelle Cunningham

  Joelle reread her letter. She’d just thought of that last part, about the rec center sponsoring their league. Brooke was the one who had put the idea in her head. Joelle hadn’t paid much attention to Brooke the other day in band when she’d asked whether the rec center was going to sponsor their league. But it was a pretty good point. If the rec center sponsored the Eastern Iowa Girls’ Baseball League, they would supply the coaches, the playing fields, the equipment, and the schedules. Plus, they would get the money from people who signed up. Everyone would be happy. Maybe the guy from the rec center would read her letter and realize what a good idea that was.

  Joelle thought about showing her parents her letter, but they were out on a bike ride. And what could they possibly object to, anyway?

  She transferred the file over to her parents’ computer so she could e-mail it to the newspaper. She added a brief note that said, “Please publish this before Wednesday.” She wanted the letter to get there before their organizational meeting.

  A few minutes later, Joelle was surprised to find a return e-mail from the newspaper. Wow, she thought. That was fast.

  Dear Concerned Citizen,

  We’re sorry, but we’ve already published a letter from you within the last 30 days. We cannot publish more than one letter from any writer within a 30-day period.

  Linda Monico, Editor

  Great, Joelle thought. A form letter. And thirty days from now, the organizational meeting would be long past. She needed to tell her side of the story now.

  Joelle decided to call up Linda Monico and explain the situation. Surely the editor would understand. The phone number for the editorial department was right there on the Gazette website. Joelle was surprised when the editor answered the phone herself.

  “Hey, Joelle.” Ms. Monico talked as if she and Joelle were old friends. “You sure have sparked a lot of debate around town.”

  “I know,” Joelle said. “Um, I was just wondering why I can’t write two letters to the paper during the same month.”

  “Newspaper policy,” the editor explained. “We can’t publish the same people’s opinions all the time. We need to give other folks a chance to be heard.”

  Joelle sighed. Another policy. She was getting awfully tired of small town policies.

  “But this is a whole new thing,” she pointed out to the editor. “The last time I wrote about not being able to play baseball in school. This time it’s about starting a girls’ baseball league.”

  “I’m sorry, Joelle,” Ms. Monico said firmly. “Both letters are on the same subject, from the same person. You can submit the new one to the Reader’s Opinion section of our website if you’d like. But we can’t use it in the paper.”

  Well, the website’s better than nothing, Joelle decided. But before she hung up, she had another idea.

  “Hey, you’re always looking for news stories, right? Maybe instead of printing my letter, could someone interview me about the girls’ baseball league? You know, do a whole story about it.”

  Ms. Monico paused for a moment. “Well, I guess I could check with the features editor. Or maybe sports. It might be possible to send a reporter out to cover the organizational meeting and do a follow-up story,” she said. “We’ll have to see.”

  In other words, no promises. “Okay, thanks, Ms. Monico,” Joelle said. She hung up and went straight to the newspaper’s website. She pasted her letter into the form on the site, but it was too long. She had to do it in two pieces. It wasn’t as good as a letter in the paper. But at least her opinion was being heard somewhere.

  Joelle was about to shut down the computer when she noticed her In Box. She’d been so wrapped up in other things that she hadn’t even noticed the e-mail from Jason. She immediately clicked on it.

  Hey, Pest,

  How’s it going? Sorry I haven’t called you back. Now that baseball’s started, I’m pretty busy. The other guys on the team are really good. Most of them are better than me. I got my position, though. First base. We won our first two games and lost last night. The girls’ league sounds great. But sorry, I don’t know anything about starting one up. Your trial at school sounds interesting. You’ll be a good lawyer because you’re so good at arguing! Ha! Seriously, I don’t know why you keep calling me for advice. You’re doing just fine on your own. You don’t need me. Later, Jojo!

  Jase

  Joelle bit her lip. “I’ll always need you, Jason,” she said softly as she shut down the computer.

  “Okay, people,” Mr. Hawkings said at the end of class on Tuesday. “Our trial begins next Monday. I hope you’ve all been practicing your p
arts.”

  Joelle gulped. She’d been so busy thinking about the league, she hadn’t had much chance to prepare for the trial.

  “Here’s how things will work,” the teacher went on. “Each lawyer will present an opening statements. Brooke, since you’re the prosecuting attorney, you’ll go first. After the opening statements, Brooke will present her case and call her witnesses. Joelle, you’ll have a chance to cross-examine Brooke’s witnesses. Then Brooke, you’ll be able to question your witness again if Joelle brought up anything you want to explain. When you’re out of witnesses, Joelle will call her witnesses. You’ll cross-examine and she’ll redirect. When both sides are finished, you’ll each make closing statements and then the case will go to the jury. Any questions?”

  Nobody raised a hand. The bell rang and kids began stampeding for the door.

  “You may as well give up now, Joelle,” Brooke said with a smile as they left the classroom. “This is an open-and-shut case. You don’t have a chance.”

  “Don’t bet on it!” Joelle told her. She knew Brooke was just pretending to be kidding.

  “Yeah, watch out, Brooke,” said another girl behind them. “Joelle always has to win. No matter who she hurts along the way.”

  “Hey!” Joelle spun around. “That is so not true!”

  “Whatever you say.” The girl shrugged and walked off down the hall with Brooke. Brooke turned and waggled her fingers at Joelle.

  “I don’t hurt people just to get what I want,” Joelle muttered, slumping against a locker. “I don’t!” The idea that anyone would think that really made her mad.

  Then she thought of Elizabeth. Hadn’t her friend said right from the start that she didn’t want to play baseball? She’d made that totally clear. Yet Joelle had sort of pushed her into it. Was it because she needed Elizabeth’s dad to coach?