The Brooklyn Nine

by Alan Gratz

  He walked out to his position more slowly this time, trying to calm down and think about how he was going to get the next three batters out. It was the bottom three hitters again, but Michael didn’t want to fall asleep and let one of them sneak something by like the ninth batter almost had last time. Michael climbed the mound and took off his hat to wipe the sweat away. It was mid-morning now, and the summer sun was shining right down on him. He looked around at the bleachers to find his family and realized for the first time that the crowd was larger than it had been before. The stands were full, and there were people scattered up and down the foul lines.

  And they were all looking for perfection.

  Michael pulled his cap back down tight and looked in at Carlos. The first batter they worked up and in, up and in, and then down and away. Strikeout. The next batter swung at the first pitch and drove it to right. The crowd gasped and Michael’s heart skipped a beat, but then he saw it was routine and watched as Raul put it away. After his near heart attack, Michael vowed to put the last batter away without letting him make contact, and he struck him out on five pitches.

  The crowd burst into applause at the strikeout, surprising Michael and his teammates. There were even more people watching now, people who must have come from one of the other six Prospect Park fields where games were being played. Michael and his teammates stood at their positions for a few seconds, unsure of how to handle their newfound attention, then came to their senses and ran off the field.

  Michael now had no company at the end of the bench, silent or otherwise. Adam and Carlos found excuses to be at the far end of the dugout, and Michael sat all alone. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The dugout was as quiet as a classroom during a test.

  “All right, boys,” Coach Clemmons said, breaking the strange silence. “Top of the seventh. I don’t think I need to tell anyone how much we need a run right now, do I?”

  Nobody answered.

  “All right then. Let’s do it. And come on, I want to hear a little chatter in here. I want everybody to loosen up, all right? Who’s seen that new Clash of the Titans movie, huh?”

  Michael had seen it, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Neither did anybody else on the team, it seemed. All he could think about was the perfect game. Where was David? Had he gone to talk to Grandma Kat, or was he off at the concession stand again? Michael took off his hat and rubbed at his temples. He wanted this, wanted perfection more than anything. A perfect game, and he was three innings away. But how would he get through that lineup one more time?

  The Fulton Street Pawn and Loan lead-off hitter drew a walk, then stole second. It was the first runner they’d had in scoring position all game, but Michael was only half paying attention. In his mind, he was going over every pitch he had thrown that game to every batter. How had he gotten the number two batter out in the fourth? What had the number six hitter done with the off-speed pitch he’d thrown him in the second? Michael closed his eyes and tried to think. Think. What could he do to keep things perfect? He did not want to screw this up.

  A bunt got the runner to third as Michael hurried down the bench to Tim’s little brother, Chris, who kept score for the team.

  “I need to see the scorebook,” Michael told him.

  Chris was a few years younger than Michael, maybe nine like David, and he was usually quiet around the older kids on the team. Now a thirteen-year-old was talking to him, and Michael wasn’t just any thirteen-year-old: He was the one pitching a perfect game, the one nobody wanted to talk to.

  Chris looked to the other boys for help, but nobody would look at him.

  “I—I—” he started, then just handed Michael the book, despite the fact that he should be recording the run Fulton Street Pawn and Loan was scoring right then off a sacrifice fly.

  The crowd cheered the run but Michael ignored them, poring over the ledger for the other team. Strikeout, ground-out, pop foul, strikeout—the scorebook wouldn’t tell him the pitches he’d thrown, just the outcomes, but he could reconstruct the rest himself. As he stared at the boxes on the page, the impossibility of it all stood out even more. Out, out, out, out . . . eighteen boxes, eighteen hitters, eighteen outs. Not one person had reached first base. No hits, no errors, no walks. No hitter had even gotten to a full count. The enormity of it, the craziness of it, was almost overwhelming.

  The half inning ended without another run scoring, but Fulton Street Pawn and Loan now led one to nothing. Coach Clemmons came back into the dugout clapping.

  “All right,” he told his team. “All right!” He looked at Michael. “All right.”

  Any other day the boys would have been laughing, but not today. Michael understood what his coach meant. The team had gotten Michael his one run, the one run he needed to win, and that was all he was going to get.

  Now it was up to him to go out and be perfect.

  3

  Carlos put down two fingers, asking for the curveball. Michael wanted to call time-out and kill him.

  Instead he shook him off—vigorously this time, hoping he got the point. Carlos slouched again and went through the other signals, trying to find something they could both agree on. Michael already had two outs in the seventh inning. The last batter he had to retire was the big number three hitter, and they were running out of things to throw him. Michael took a deep breath, wishing he’d heard back from Grandma Kat before the start of the half inning.

  Carlos put down a single finger—a fastball—but didn’t indicate left or right. A fastball, right down the middle, to Bob Smith Ford’s best hitter. Well, it was something he certainly wouldn’t expect, but he was too good a hitter not to do something with it, even if he didn’t see it coming. No, Michael would nibble at the corners of the strike zone before he gave him a fat fastball to hit.

  He took a sign he liked from Carlos and pitched. He meant it to be low and inside, but it wasn’t perfect. The ball came back toward the plate more than he meant it to, and he watched in horror as the big hitter attacked it, driving the ball deep to right center. Raul broke right and Tim Clemmons in center broke left, and the big crowd sitting in the bleachers rose to their feet. All Michael could do was watch as the ball sailed farther and farther and Raul and Tim drew closer and closer—then Raul was sliding out of the way so he wouldn’t hit Tim, and Tim was reaching as high and far as he could, and both players went tumbling as the ball disappeared between them.

  And then Tim Clemmons popped up triumphantly with the ball clutched in his glove. The umpire, who’d run all the way out past second base to watch, signaled “out” with his fist. The audience cheered, and Michael waited on the infield to rub Tim’s hat around on his head in thanks.

  Twenty-one outs. Six more to go.

  Michael went to his solitary place at the end of the bench and the wall of silence descended again between him and his teammates. They sat so far away now Michael felt like he had some disease no one else wanted to get. No one but David, who stood behind him eating a snow cone.

  “There’s a reporter here,” David said. “From the Canarsie Courier. Somebody called him.”

  “David, what did Grandma Kat say? You talked to her, right?”

  David shrugged. “She said you had to just keep doing whatever it was you were doing.”

  Michael grabbed the chain-link fence in his fingers and rattled it. “That’s not good enough!” he said, drawing stares from a couple of his teammates, who just as quickly looked away. Michael lowered his voice. “David, I can’t just keep doing what I’ve been doing. They’ve seen it all before, and my arm is getting tired. What am I supposed to do?”

  “I dunno,” David said. He shrugged again and took a bite of his snow cone.

  If the chain-link fence hadn’t been there Michael would so have killed his brother. Instead he tried to calm himself down. He could kill David after the game.

  “Just . . . Look, tell her to come down here, all right? Tell her I need to talk to her.”

  David took another bite of his s
now cone and walked away.

  “Adopted. He has to be adopted,” Michael muttered.

  His turn to bat came up again that inning, but this time he didn’t care. He took his bat and his helmet and stood in the batter’s box, but he was hardly aware of the pitches coming his way. Instead he was looking at the players in the field he knew he had to face again. The third baseman, the shortstop, the pitcher, the left fielder, the right fielder, the second baseman. What did he know about each of them that he could use to get them out? And were they looking at him right now, trying to figure out how they were going to get a hit?

  The umpire called strike three and Michael walked back to the dugout, where Coach Clemmons was clapping and exhorting the next batter to get a hit, ignoring Michael completely. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to talk to anybody anyway.

  One out later Michael was back on the mound. Foul territory was now full of people, the crowd so large there was an audible murmur from them. The opposing coach clapped and urged his players to get a hit. Michael’s own teammates stood silently behind him, waiting for whatever would come.

  Michael squeezed the ball in his hand so tightly it hurt. He worried that he didn’t have enough gas left, that he didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve, that he’d make a mistake or somebody would get lucky. That he would be a failure in the eyes of however many hundreds of people were watching. He called time-out and walked around the mound once more, but Carlos didn’t run out to meet with him and none of the infielders came in to talk to him. He was in this alone.

  The ump gave him a moment, then Michael stepped back up and went at it. He got a fly ball to second from the first batter, a strikeout of the second, and a ground ball to third for the last hitter, and suddenly the inning was over, as easy as any he’d ever pitched.

  And he was three outs from perfection.

  The crowd cheered as he walked off the field, but he could sense the expectation in their voices. He went back and sat by himself at the end of the bench, wondering again if he had what it took to be perfect.

  David appeared again, eating a hot dog.

  “David! Where’s Grandma Kat?”

  “She won’t come.”

  “What!?”

  “She says you’re not supposed to talk to somebody with a perfect game. She won’t even say ‘perfect game.’ She just keeps working her way up and down the bleachers, touching all the wood.”

  Michael leaned close to the fence to whisper to his brother. “I’m running out of ideas here, David. I don’t know how I’m going to get the next three batters out. I don’t even know how I got the last three batters out. She didn’t say anything?”

  David took a bite of his hot dog and chewed on it, and Michael wished he could choke people with the Force like Darth Vader.

  David finally swallowed. “She said there’s a time and place for everything.”

  “That’s it? ‘There’s a time and place for everything’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  David shrugged. “So you think you’ll play Atari later?”

  Michael didn’t even bother to answer. On the field behind him, Adam grounded into the last out of the inning, and it was time for Michael to take the mound one last time. He looked around at the empty bench. The team had already left without him, none of them wanting to be the one to jinx it by jostling him or talking to him. Coach Clemmons opened his mouth to say something to him as he passed, but instead just nodded. Michael walked out to the mound.

  The crowd burst into applause as he came out of the dugout, and he wondered if he was supposed to tip his cap. That didn’t feel right, though, like he’d be thanking them for applause he hadn’t earned yet. Instead he went to the mound and took a few light tosses with Carlos. The umpire seemed ready to give Michael as much time as he needed, but Michael just wanted to get it over with. He signaled the umpire he was ready, and the ump called, “Play ball!”

  Michael Flint felt like the loneliest boy in all of Brooklyn. He scratched at the dirt of the mound with his cleat, raised his glove to just under his eyes, and stared in at his catcher’s signal. He turned, stepped, and threw, threw as hard as he possibly could, and the ball flashed, a brilliant white thing in the midday sun, rocketing toward the catcher’s mitt . . . and then over the catcher’s mitt, and over the umpire, and into the backstop behind, where it thwacked into a pole.

  The crowd murmured, and Michael could hear their words in his head. He’s cracking. He’s lost it. He can’t be perfect.

  Carlos threw him a new ball and Michael worked it over in his hands while trying to clear away the voices in his head. Those weren’t the voices of the crowd. He couldn’t really hear them. They were the voices inside him, telling him he couldn’t do it. But why couldn’t he? He didn’t know what he was doing that was different from any other time he’d pitched, but even so the magic had been there all day long. Why did it have to stop? He stepped off the mound, taking the time the umpire had been willing to give him before, and readjusted his hat while he gathered his thoughts. Maybe today was one of those days where everything just clicked. Maybe it had nothing to do with him at all.

  Maybe today was perfect.

  Michael climbed back up on the mound and shook off Carlos’s signals until he had the one he wanted. After the first blazing pitch into the backstop, the hitter was expecting more of the same, so Michael threw the next pitch as slow as he could, aiming it right for the middle of the plate. The batter whiffed on it early enough to swing twice if he wanted to, and the crowd oohed. One ball and one strike. Now that the batter was off balance, Michael gave him another changeup—strike two—and then the high heat to finish him off.

  Two outs to go.

  The next batter was a pinch hitter, somebody he hadn’t seen before, but the kind of guy who’s not a starter for a reason. He flailed at the first pitch, and Carlos wisely called for a pitch away and Michael got him fishing again for strike two. Ahead 0 and 2, Michael threw the kid an inside pitch that was impossible to hit but he swung at it anyway, strike three.

  One out to go. One batter left.

  Michael turned around on the mound, facing the outfield and his teammates. They watched him now, stared at him, and he could feel the eyes of everyone in Prospect Park. It was like they were holding their collective breath, waiting to see if perfection was possible. Michael couldn’t decide if he wanted to know the answer or not, but he couldn’t just walk away. He had to finish the game, one way or another. He turned and faced home plate and a new pinch hitter.

  His first pitch was a fastball, and the batter took it for strike one. Michael felt a surge of optimism. Maybe it was possible. Maybe he could be perfect. He just needed to push it that last little bit.

  He got the ball back and sent another fastball toward the plate, this one too high and too fast, so high and fast Carlos had to go up to get it. Michael lost his hat throwing it, and the batter didn’t bite. Michael was pressing now and he knew it, grabbing at the magic rather than letting it work on its own, but he was desperate.

  Michael got the ball back and picked up his hat, dusting it off. He pulled it back down over his mop of sweaty hair and took another deep breath, his grandmother’s lone piece of advice coming back to him.

  There’s a time and place for everything.

  Michael reached back, grabbed for some of that magic, but threw another fastball high. Ball two. He was going to be patient, this batter, make Michael work for it. The Bob Smith Ford coach had saved his best for last.

  Michael could feel the sweat running down his back. He had put everything he had into those last two pitches, and he didn’t have anything more. His fastballs were starting to feel like changeups, huge red and white targets that were as slow as Christmas coming. He couldn’t speed it up, and he couldn’t slow it down any further. This was it. This was all he had left.

  Two balls and one strike. Michael couldn’t afford another ball called here, so he took a little something off—though not so much as to make it a pro
per changeup—and aimed for the corner of the plate. A swing and a miss! He’d evened the count to two balls and two strikes.

  If ever there was a time to waste a pitch, this was it, but Michael still refused. If he threw a wide pitch well outside the strike zone, there was little chance this hitter would chase it, and all that would do would force the issue next pitch on a full count, where the batter knew he couldn’t make a mistake, wouldn’t throw a ball. Michael waved off the waste-pitch signal Carlos gave him and nodded for the inside fastball. He’d try to hit the corner, catch him looking.

  His arms like rubber, his legs like logs, Michael stepped into his windup and pitched it right where he wanted it, the magic back. The batter flinched but didn’t swing. The ball popped into Carlos’s mitt. Michael felt relief beyond relief, could see now what kind of day it was, a perfect day, and started to jump for joy—

  And the umpire called the pitch a ball.

  The crowd booed and hissed, but Michael knew it had been a close one. He’d put it out on the edge hoping for a strike, the kind of pitch that had to be perfect.

  But he wasn’t perfect. He was never going to be perfect. He had twenty-six outs, three balls, and two strikes, and he was as close to perfection—and imperfection—as he was ever going to get. If he could freeze that moment, preserve it, he could forever be one strike away from glory, the applause for what he was doing never-ending, the disappointment for what he had not done never felt.

  And that was when Michael Flint noticed what kind of day it was.

  He had glimpsed it a few seconds before when he’d thought the game was over, when he’d truly relaxed for the first time all day. He looked for it again now and there it was, all around him. The kind of day where a little dirt on his hands felt good, where the high blue sky was just right for catching fly balls, where grounders always bounced into his outstretched glove. It had been that way all along, but it hadn’t belonged to him or to anybody else. It was baseball’s day, a day when the Earth said, “Here’s the best I’ve got,” and baseball said, “That’s pretty good, Earth, but I’ll show you perfect.”