Team Players

by Mike Lupica

  “So do you accept my apology or not?”

  Cassie smiled. “No,” she said.

  Sarah said, “I see what you did there.”

  “Good,” Cassie said.

  And for one of the first times since she’d known her, Sarah Milligan smiled back at her.

  “You’re tough,” Sarah said.

  “Makes two of us.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  It was 4–0 for Greenacres in the semifinals by the time Cassie’s dad got Allie out of the game in the top of the fourth. It was Wednesday night. The Cubs would play the next night.

  Allie had given up two runs in the first, pitched well for a couple of innings, and then put the first two batters on in the fourth. She got two outs after that, both on pop-ups in the infield, and looked like she might get out of it with the runners still at first and second. But then Marisa Russell, the Greenacres pitcher, tripled over Nell Green’s head in right. A two-run game had just gotten a lot worse. The Sox were four runs behind now, and Marisa was pitching like a total star for the other team.

  Suddenly the season was shrinking on them. Even if they somehow managed to hold the Giants from here, they still needed five runs. If they couldn’t get them, not only weren’t they going to get their shot at playing in Fenway Park, but they weren’t even going to make it to the finals.

  When Cassie’s dad went to take the ball from Allie, he signaled for Sarah to come in from center field. Cassie was on the mound with her dad after Allie left. Allie was on her way out to right. Nell was going to move over and replace Sarah in center.

  Chris Bennett said to his daughter, “I was one batter late. I’d convinced myself she was going to get out of it, and then I was going to bring Sarah in to start the fifth.”

  “I felt the same way, Dad.”

  When Sarah got to the mound, Cassie’s dad said, “You can do this.”

  Sarah looked at him, acting almost confused by what she’d just heard.

  “I know I can,” she said. “I have to find out if I will.”

  Even now, things were black and white with her.

  Cassie’s dad left first. Cassie lingered for just a moment, and said, “Look on the bright side. At least he didn’t wish you luck.”

  Sarah said, “I need to warm up. Please leave now.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Is there any time when you don’t want to talk?” Sarah said.

  She walked the first batter she faced, the Greenacres right fielder, on four pitches, not one of them being close to the strike zone. So now the Giants had first and third. Still two outs. Cassie thought: We can’t get much further behind, or the only season I’ll have left by two o’clock is the one the Cubs are still playing.

  I’ll be a full-time coach by then, she thought.

  The next hitter for the Giants was their first baseman, Stephanie Rawls. She was the biggest girl on their team and had nearly hit a home run off Allie her first time up.

  Sarah finally threw a strike right down the middle. Stephanie took it, as if she weren’t going to swing until Sarah did throw a strike. Cassie exhaled so loudly, she was afraid Sarah could hear her at the pitcher’s mound.

  But then Sarah threw the same pitch again, a fastball down the middle that was a little higher in the strike zone this time, and Stephanie scorched a line drive to Cassie’s left. If the ball got past her and into center, the score would be 5–0 and the inning would continue for the Giants. And Sarah Milligan still wouldn’t have recorded her first out.

  Before it was past her and into center, Cassie dove and got her glove on the ball. She felt the sweet sting of the softball in the pocket of her glove. Where it stayed. As the game stayed 4–0.

  Cassie got quickly to her feet, tossed the ball to the infield ump, and jogged off the field, as if what had just happened were no big deal. Even though she knew it was a very big deal.

  When she got to the bench, Kathleen was the first to greet her.

  By now she’d already had surgery to repair the torn ligament in her knee, and had been sitting next to Cassie’s dad at the end of the bench, her cast stretched out in front of her, crutches in the grass next to her. But she didn’t use the crutches to get to her feet. She got herself up and put up her hand to Cassie for a high five.

  “Don’t knock me over,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” Cassie said, and softly slapped her hand.

  “That was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen you make,” she said.

  “Sometimes there’s only one reason you make a play like that,” Cassie said. “ ’Cause you have to.”

  “Now we have to score some runs,” Kathleen said.

  “That would be fun,” Cassie said.

  Just two old friends, Cassie thought, chopping it up at the big game. Better late than never.

  But nothing changed in the bottom of the fourth, because Marisa Russell breezed through a three-up, three-down inning. Sarah did the same in the top of the fifth. It was still 4–0.

  What happened next, though, in the bottom of the inning, happened fast, like a storm blowing across Highland Park, one that started at the top of the Red Sox batting order. Lizzie walked. Allie surprised everybody and laid down a bunt. Cassie doubled both of them home. Sarah doubled home Cassie. Greta singled home Sarah. In a blink, it was 4–4. The Greenacres coach got Marisa out of there. One batter too late.

  The game was still tied in the top of the seventh when Sarah walked Marisa, who was playing third base now. Then the girl who’d replaced Marisa as pitcher, Shannon Betts, hit a pop fly to short right-center that Cassie knew Sarah would have caught easily. But Nell and Allie both broke late on the ball, and it dropped between them. Marisa had to wait and see if it was going to be caught, so she only made it to second. It was still first and second, nobody out. If the dropped ball bothered Sarah, she didn’t show it, because she proceeded to strike out the next two batters.

  Then she walked the Giants second baseman on a 3–2 pitch, even though the pitch looked perfect to Cassie from where she was standing at short.

  Just not to the home plate ump.

  She called it ball four.

  Bases loaded.

  And Sarah Milligan was hot.

  “That was a strike!” she yelled.

  She wasn’t looking directly at the ump. She’d actually turned and was facing center field. But the ump had to have heard her, because Cassie was pretty sure everybody at Highland Park had heard her.

  Sarah didn’t seem to care.

  “Totally a strike!” Sarah yelled again.

  Cassie asked for time and walked to the mound, even as Sarah continued her loud conversation with herself.

  “That was a strike, totally a strike, a strike right down the middle,” Sarah said.

  At least she’d lowered her voice slightly.

  “You can’t call that a ball. That is wrong. Totally wrong.”

  Cassie was at the mound by then, facing home plate. She could see that the umpire, a woman, had taken off her mask. Never good. And the look on her face said that Sarah better not say another word.

  Sarah turned back around.

  “Do not look at her,” Cassie said, keeping her own voice down.

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  “I’m the captain of the team,” Cassie said. “So, yeah, right now I can.”

  Cassie looked over and saw her dad standing halfway between the Red Sox bench and the first baseline. Cassie gave him a fast shake of her head.

  “Are you going to tackle me again?” Sarah said.

  “Nope,” Cassie said.

  “So what do you want?”

  “First of all, I want you to shut up,” Cassie said. “And second of all, I want you to remember what you told me when I did tackle you, about how I didn’t trust you. Well, this time I’m going to trust you to help us win the game. Because you’re too good to get thrown out of it.”

  Sarah was taking deep breaths. Her face was red. But she had shut up,
at least for the time being.

  The ump started walking slowly toward them, her first sign that this meeting at the mound was about to come to an end.

  “You wanted to be a part of this team,” Cassie said. “Well, be a part of it now. The last hitter didn’t lose us this game. But the next one sure can.”

  She took the softball out of Sarah’s hand, rubbed it up hard, slammed it back into the pocket of Sarah’s glove.

  “You’re the one who needs to stop talking now and pitch,” Cassie said.

  Cassie didn’t wait to see her reaction. She was on her way back to shortstop. Chris Bennett had already taken his seat next to Kathleen on the bench. Sarah threw strike one and then strike two to the Greenacres left fielder, Lily Bates, who then hit a routine ground ball to Cassie’s left. Cassie reached down, picked it up in stride, ran, and touched second base herself for the force that ended the inning.

  Cassie singled with one out in the bottom of the seventh. The count went to 3–2 on Sarah. Cassie was thinking that maybe the best play for the Greenacres closer was to walk Sarah, then take her chances with Greta, even though Cassie would have moved to scoring position.

  She threw Sarah a fastball instead. Sarah hit it over the center-field fence. It was 6–4, Red Sox. They were in the finals. Cassie waited at home plate for Sarah, with the rest of the Red Sox losing their minds behind her.

  Cassie looked back at them and said, “Nobody touch her.”

  Nobody did. They just formed a long receiving line behind Cassie that stretched nearly to first base, all of them chanting Sarah’s named.

  As Sarah came down from third base, Cassie grinned and said, “Can I just say one more thing?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Don’t forget to touch home plate,” she said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Jack had decided that Sam would start their semifinals against the Clements Astros, who’d dropped to fourth place by the end of the regular season. That meant that if the Cubs beat Clements, Jack would start the championship game.

  But only if they did beat Clements.

  When he told Cassie what he was doing, she said to him, “Wait a second. Aren’t you the guy who says that we’re never supposed to look past the next game?”

  Jack said, “I think we can beat Clements without me pitching.”

  “But that means you think we need you more in the championship game, only, we don’t know who we’re playing in the championship game.”

  “It’s gonna be Hollis Hills,” Jack said.

  Cassie said, “And you know this . . . how? Rawson did end up with a better record than they did.”

  “They were always the second-best team in the league next to us,” Jack said. “Just took them a while to figure that out. And then there’s one other thing?”

  “What other thing?”

  “I follow some of their guys on Facebook. There’s been a lot of chirp about how badly they want us.”

  “Which makes you want them badly,” she said.

  Jack didn’t say anything. He just smiled at her.

  “You’re still putting a lot of pressure on Sam,” she said. “A couple of weeks ago you said you were thinking about starting J.B. in the play-offs.”

  “He got too good as a closer,” Jack said. “And as for the pressure thing? Pretty sure Sam’s been under a lot of pressure since he started in T-ball. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

  Now, after Sam had finished warming up with Teddy down the right-field line before the Clements pitcher, Cassie said to Jack, “You still have that good feeling about your starting pitcher?”

  “Ask me in about an hour,” he said.

  By then they were into the fourth inning, Sam was pitching as well as he had all season, working on a two-hit shutout, and the Cubs were ahead 2–0. Jack had tripled in the first, Gus had doubled him home, Teddy had singled in Gus, Cassie waving him all the way even though there was already one out. She’d noticed during warm-ups that the Astros’ right fielder had the weakest arm in their outfield. It was the kind of thing Jack had asked her to notice.

  “You didn’t even hesitate to send Gus,” Jack had said when the inning was over.

  Cassie had grinned. “She who hesitates ought to be coaching first,” she’d said.

  “Is that a thing?”

  “Now it is,” Cassie had said.

  But as well as Sam had been pitching, working quickly, getting the ball back from Teddy and throwing it, he lost it just as quickly in the top of the fifth: walk, walk, hard liner to Jack for the first out, deep fly ball to Gregg Leonard near the fence in right-center that allowed both runners to advance. Then another walk. Jack made a nice play in the hole to stop what should have been a single to left. But he had no play. The runner scored from third. The bases were still loaded.

  And now it was a one-run game.

  Jack called time, waved for Teddy to meet him at the mound. But while Sam waited for both of them, rubbing up the baseball almost as if he just wanted something to do, Cassie noticed Sam Anthony staring at something in the distance, where the playground was.

  Not something, as it turned out.

  Someone.

  His dad.

  Whose right arm was straight up in the air.

  • • •

  It wasn’t that Ken Anthony had been prohibited from attending Cubs games after he’d poked the umpire that day and gotten fired as coach. But according to Cassie’s dad the league’s board of directors had made it clear to him that he wasn’t supposed to be involved in the team in any way that could have been perceived as him still coaching them. Even though nobody associated with the Cubs—maybe even including Mr. Anthony’s own son—wanted him near the team.

  “What he did sent a pretty awful message,” Cassie’s dad had said. “So the board sent a pretty powerful message to him. I think he’s just stayed clear of the team more out of embarrassment than anything else.”

  This wasn’t the first time Cassie had seen him watching from a distance.

  But what was he doing?

  In the biggest moment of Sam’s season, was he trying to coach him?

  Sam finally turned away from him when Jack and Teddy got with him at the mound. Jack did all the talking, and was finished before the ump gave them any kind of signal to break it up. Jack ran back to shortstop. Teddy started back toward home plate. But then Sam followed him, tapped him on the shoulder, leaned close to his ear, and said one last thing to him. Teddy nodded. Then Teddy slapped Sam on the back. It had taken a long time, but they’d worked things out the way Cassie and Kathleen and the girls finally had.

  Better late than never for them, too, she thought.

  Charlie Flores, the Astros’ center fielder and their best hitter, dug in at the plate. This was the third game the Cubs had played against the Astros, so by now even Cassie knew how much Charlie loved hitting fastballs. High, low, inside, outside, he didn’t care. So in this moment it was Sam’s power against Charlie’s. Except Cassie was worried, because Sam had clearly lost a little off his fastball. Maybe a lot.

  The first pitch was a fastball too far outside for even Charlie to swing at. It was almost as if Teddy had been expecting it out there, because he slid out early to get himself in front of it.

  It was fine to waste a pitch. But Cassie couldn’t see Sam wasting another and going to 2–0 with the bases loaded. Sam didn’t want to walk home the tying run. If he did, Jack would surely call for J.B. Scarborough, even though it was still only the fifth, because the game was on the line right here.

  Game, and maybe season.

  Sam had been pitching out of the stretch when he’d thrown ball one. But he went into his windup now, and then threw the first slow curveball he’d thrown all day. A big lollipop of a curve that looked as if it took about ten seconds to get to home plate.

  Charlie Flores, sure he was going to see another fastball—all Sam had been throwing was fastballs—was completely off balance. But he couldn’t lay off a pitch that
had to look as fat to him as everybody else at Highland Park.

  He was lucky to get even a piece of it, hitting a weak roller to Jack at short. Cassie thought it was trouble when she saw it dying well short of the infield dirt. It should have been a tough play.

  Just not for Jack Callahan.

  He closed quickly on the ball, barehanded it, and threw almost in the same motion across to Gus at first. The throw beat Charlie by a step for the third out. The game was still 2–1. Gus Morales hit a home run in the bottom of the fifth to make it 3–1, which was the way it ended after J.B. pitched a perfect sixth and then a perfect seventh. The Cubs were in the championship game.

  The first chance Cassie got, she asked Sam what it had meant when his father had had his arm up in the air that way. Sam grinned. She’d found he was actually a good guy once you got to know him.

  “You only saw one arm up in the air,” Sam said. “I saw two fingers. He was telling me to throw my curve.”

  “How did you even know to look out there?”

  Sam Anthony lifted his shoulders, dropped them, and sighed.

  “It was like I could still hear him shouting,” Sam said. “Just inside my head.”

  He grinned again.

  “This time I was the only one who could hear him.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  They played both championship games on Saturday. Only, this time the Cubs played first, against Hollis Hills. Jack had been right. The Yankees had beaten Rawson in their semifinal. The Red Sox game against Greenacres, who had upset Clements and their star pitcher, Amy Lewis, was at three. Because the Sox were the highest seed left, the game was at Highland Park. The Cubs would play at eleven.

  So it was a big doubleheader Saturday for Cassie and Jack and Teddy and Gus. They all knew how special a day like this was, all of them playing with this much on the line. There was no way of knowing when there would be another one like it for them, or if there would ever be a day quite like it.

  “There was this great old baseball player, Ernie Banks, who was famous for saying ‘Let’s play two,’ ” Jack said, right before he was ready to throw his first pitch. “Guy knew what he was talking about.”