Baseball Genius

by Tim Green

  His father turned back toward the stove, and Jalen followed Yager out into the dining room, burning with embarrassment. He’d so wanted Yager to be impressed, because in the back of his mind—as long as he could remember—he’d dared to dream the ballplayer might have dinner there himself some night. Yager stopped at the table and looked down at the college kids with a smile.

  “Hey,” one of the kids said through a mouthful of cheeseburger, “JY!”

  They all stopped eating.

  Another one of them burped. “Naw, he looks like James Yager. JY wouldn’t be in this dump.” The kid slurped at his shake.

  “Yeah, I am James Yager,” the ballplayer said patiently. “I’m headed out, but if you guys want to do some selfies, we can—only outside, because see that woman over there?”

  “With the fat guy?” one kid slurred.

  “Yeah, that’s my sister and her husband. It’s their anniversary, so . . . you guys are a little . . . uh, you’re wrecking the mood of the whole thing.”

  “We’re wreckers,” a redheaded kid chirped with a happy nod. “But I’m up for a selfie with JY. Can we bring our burgers?”

  “Sure.” Yager nodded. “Let’s just keep it down, though, okay?”

  The whole crew got up, whispering loudly and barely suppressing their giggles at the sight of Jimmy with his mop, but leaving a pile of twenty-dollar bills on the table. Outside in the chilly air, JY stood beside each one of them, forcing smiles in the explosion of flashes as they snapped away, taking pictures until Yager held up both hands. “Okay, guys. Gotta go. You too. Time now.”

  “Aww,” they all said.

  “Yup, it’s time. No, not back inside. That would defeat the purpose.”

  “Like you defeated the Angels in the ALCS!”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know, you’re my hero. No lies.”

  “Wonderful. I appreciate that. Call a cab and head on home, okay? Good night, guys.” Yager turned without looking back and steered Jalen back inside, stopping at the door to make sure none of them followed.

  “Thanks.” Jalen felt a mixture of shame and gratefulness.

  “You just do your thing with me on Wednesday. That’s all the thanks I need. Come on, let’s talk to your dad.”

  Greta passed them on their way into the kitchen, composed, but with streaks of eye makeup on her face giving her a haunted look as she delivered the appetizers to table three. Jalen’s dad finally slowed down. Table three was having pasta for their dinner, and it required little work, so already his father had begun to scrape the surface of the stove, cleaning it for the night.

  “Dad, this is James Yager,” Jalen said.

  Jalen’s dad stopped to firmly shake Yager’s hand. “I know, I know. The shaving man from the TV. He’s famous, no?”

  “He’s famous for playing baseball, Dad. The Yankees?”

  “Ahh. The only famous athletes I know about, they are the football players. You know Ronaldo?”

  “That’s soccer, Dad.”

  “Yes, of course. Soccer. Mr. Yager, grazie. If I can do anything for you, you just tell me.” Jalen’s dad had his hands on his hips, and he wore an earnest smile.

  “That’s music to my ears, Mr. DeLuca.”

  “Please, Fabio to you.”

  “Great. So, Fabio, how can I say this?” The famous baseball player wore a nervous smile. “I’d actually like to borrow your son.”

  Jalen’s dad suddenly scowled, and he shook his head violently. “No, Mr. Yager. That I cannot let you do.”

  30

  THE NEXT DAY JALEN AND his two friends sat on bales of hay in the hideaway they’d made in the loft of the barn. It smelled like horses. Jalen was telling them the story of what had happened at the diner the night before.

  “But he’s letting you, right?” Daniel gripped Jalen’s arm when he heard the part about Jalen’s dad saying no to Yager borrowing him. “Your dad?”

  Jalen laughed. “Yes, he’s letting me. My dad thought he wanted to adopt me or something. I don’t know. You know my dad.”

  Cat laughed too. “Did your dad really think when he came here from Italy that he was going to California, but ended up in Florida?”

  “Couldn’t speak a word of English.” Jalen shook his head and sighed, because he’d told the story before. “The travel agent in this little seaside Italian town where he grew up took all his money and booked a ticket that would get him to Hollywood. Turns out there’s a Hollywood in Florida, though. Didn’t have a dime when he got there and figured it out. Hitchhiked to relatives in New York and found a job spinning pizzas in Bronxville. It’s funnier when he tells it, though.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” Daniel shook his head. “This is really unbelievable, right? And you’re going to Yankee Stadium later today to see everything? The locker room? The players’ lounge? I mean, everything?”

  “He wants to do a dry run when no one’s around,” Jalen said. “I guess he got some tickets lined up from the owner for Wednesday night. He said they’re right behind the on-deck circle.”

  Daniel stood up and waved his arms. “I mean, this is all really happening, it’s James Yager . . .”

  “Thanks to Cat.” Jalen looked her in the eyes until she blushed.

  “I think it just all worked out, right? Who knew my mom was even friends with him?” Cat said.

  “Do you think she likes him?” Daniel raised an eyebrow.

  Cat frowned. “I don’t know. She’s my mother, but she’s been married a couple times before, and I never got what she saw in Gary.”

  “You never saw someone wanting to live in Mount Tipton?” Daniel’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “My dad was a teacher and her last husband was a plumber. She’s not about that, I’m telling you both. Anyway, don’t talk like that about my mom.” Cat’s eyes blazed.

  “Okay,” Daniel muttered.

  “I didn’t even say anything,” Jalen complained.

  Cat calmed down and said, “I like James Yager, though.”

  Jalen picked a stalk of hay from a bale and bit on the end so its bristle tip swayed in front of his face like a pesky fly. “How many famous guys would’ve helped my dad like that last night?”

  “Well, you are about to save his career.” Cat paused, then asked, “Why the face?”

  Jalen removed the stem of hay. “Well, saving his career doesn’t do me any good at all if I can’t save my own.”

  “What do you mean?” Daniel asked.

  “We start Rockets practice tomorrow night, right?” Jalen asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the schedule after that?”

  Daniel shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll get it tomorrow.”

  “Right, but it’s going to include some other practice days this week, right?” Jalen bent the hay stem. “We’ve got a tournament this weekend, right?”

  “Sure, in White Plains.”

  “So, Yager wants me at the stadium Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I don’t see how I can do that without missing a practice, and I heard Coach Gamble doesn’t like it when you miss practice. I heard Mark Scofield missed a practice for Little League because he had to go to his brother’s wedding in Nashville, but that wasn’t a good enough excuse for Coach Gamble and he didn’t let Mark play for two games.”

  “Yeah, but this is for James Yager,” Cat said. “Even Gamble has to see that.”

  “When it comes to the Gambles,” Jalen said, “I think you throw the rule book out the window.”

  31

  LATER THAT SAME DAY, YAGER’S Lamborghini flew down the highway, passing cars like they were parked.

  “You always drive this fast?” Jalen felt surprisingly relaxed, like, how could James Yager ever get into a crash? Something told Jalen he couldn’t.

  “Pretty much.” Yager switched the radio to WFAN, a sports talk station.

  “. . . that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee.”

  “A dollar? You can’t get a coffee for a buck any
more, just like the Sox can’t get a relief pitcher who can hold a lead.”

  “Okay, a cup of hot water, for tea. And speaking of hot water, not for tea, but real hot water, let’s switch over to the Yankees’ one-time star second baseman, James Yager.”

  Jalen’s and Yager’s eyes met briefly.

  “Hot water, indeed. Word on the street is Cunningham gets the start against Chicago. Now, JY does have the ankle thing.”

  “He’s had the ankle thing since last season.”

  “But our sources tell us it’s more than the ankle, it’s the batting average that’s starting to look like my math average in high school.”

  “You passed math?”

  “Barely, and that’s where JY’s average is headed, so why not put him out of his misery?”

  “Like an old dog? You’d do that? To James Yager? The James Yager? Have you no heart?”

  “What heart I have—and it’s not very big—belongs to the Bronx Bombers. Great ones come and great ones go. Cunningham’s on the rise. Numbers don’t lie.”

  “I know one guy in the Yankees front office who’s so good at numbers, he probably knows what size underwear you’ve got on.”

  “Jeffrey Foxx would be offended by that comment. I think you should—”

  Yager flipped the radio off. “Idiots.”

  “My dad says they don’t talk like that in Italy about their sports teams. He says they respect their players.” Jalen hoped he was being helpful.

  “I’d head right over there—to Italy—if they had a baseball league. I can’t stand these mush brains.”

  Jalen nodded, and they rode in silence through the Bronx until they turned a corner, and there was Yankee Stadium, rising up from its surroundings like a cathedral.

  “Awesome.” Jalen held his breath as they turned into the tunnel leading beneath the magnificent structure.

  A guard saw Yager, smiled, opened the gate, and waved them on in. At first Jalen was confused because it was just like any other parking garage, maybe just a bit cleaner with white-painted walls, but the same cinder block and concrete you’d see in any garage. They got out, and his excitement began to fizzle at the plain blue metal door. They entered a bland stairwell and climbed up a level before Yager reached for the handle of another metal door that had a Yankees logo on it.

  When he opened that door, though, Jalen followed him down a short hallway, and it was like a thousand Christmas mornings and birthday parties rolled into one moment. It was the players’ lounge. Leather couches and flat-screen TVs, small round tables, drink machines, a snack bar, lush carpet, and mood lighting. Photos of old Yankees covered the walls. It felt rich . . . it felt famous . . . and Jalen was beside the James Yager, who walked right on through and into the locker room like it was no big deal. In the locker room, Jalen’s feet froze on the thick blue carpet.

  He had to stop and look around at the wide spaces carved into the walls and filled with all kinds of shoes and shirts and gloves and hats and anything you could imagine needing to wear on the diamond. Each had its own fancy leather swivel chair, and many of the players had photos of loved ones taped to the flat surfaces surrounding their personal mirrors. Above each space, he saw the names: Sabathia, Hutt, Tanaka, Tollerson, Joe Ros, and Gardner. All there.

  “I mean . . .” Jalen still couldn’t move. “Wow.”

  Yager grabbed a bat from his locker and looked back at him. “Come on. Out on the field.”

  Jalen followed him out the door, cutting through a concrete tunnel, then up some rubber-padded steps into the dugout.

  “Wow.” Jalen couldn’t help it. It was just what came out.

  Yager kept going, up the steps and out onto the grass. “I want to do a dry run to make sure we can see each other when I’m batting. Here’s where you’ll be.”

  Just over a low concrete wall, dark-blue seats with thick padding began the first row.

  “Me? Here?”

  “Sure,” Yager said. “Let me help you over.”

  It wasn’t hard, and in seconds Jalen was standing on the other side of the wall. Yager pointed with his bat to the third seat in from the dugout. “Try that. Sit.”

  Snuggling into the cushioned seat, Jalen watched the Yankees player walk out to home plate and circle it so he stood the way he would if he were facing a pitcher—the way he would be standing when he faced the White Sox pitcher Wednesday. Jalen looked up and around at the pennants snapping in the wind. Layer after layer of sweeping sections of empty seats jutted out and rose up toward the sky. His eyes traveled over the open end of the stadium, where scoreboards and billboards sprang up from behind the wall, blotting out the neighborhood beyond. If Jalen sat in this seat Wednesday, he’d be closer to the action than the players in the dugout. Jalen had never even known such a seat existed. On TV it didn’t look that close, and the one time his father had taken him to Yankee Stadium, they’d been so far away that the players on the field looked like punctuation marks.

  Out on the field JY got into his stance, glanced at Jalen, looked at the mound, stepped out of the box, and looked at Jalen again before shouting, “That’s the seat!”

  Yager was marching toward him with a grin.

  “Who sits here usually?” Jalen asked Yager, who now stood with his hand on the low concrete wall. Jalen was trying to imagine the kind of a life you’d have to lead to be able to watch a Yankees game from this spot.

  “Well, like I said, these are the owner’s seats, but he doesn’t sit here. Probably friends or business associates or big sponsors. You can see the pitcher well from here, right?” Yager asked.

  “Perfectly.”

  “Good.” Yager tapped the padding on the outside of the concrete wall with his bat. “Tell you what. You can wait here or in the locker room. I’m going upstairs to see if Mr. Brenneck is around and make sure he’s got these seats specifically set aside. We can’t afford for you not to be in this first row. You want to stay right here?”

  “Here is fine.” Jalen sat back down and took a deep breath, imagining what it might be like Wednesday during the game, hoping the thrill of it wouldn’t interfere with his ability to predict pitches. He felt light-headed with excitement.

  Aloud he said, “I’m in Yankee Stadium, right on the field.”

  Yager was gone for maybe ten minutes before Jalen grew restless. There wasn’t a soul around. He had Yankee Stadium to himself and he was struck by a brilliant idea. Remembering the brief discussion his friends had on the train back from selling Yager’s baseballs, Jalen hopped over the wall and crouched in the dirt. Using his house key, he dug a little hole and scooped up the dirt in his palm before standing and depositing it in his pocket.

  He looked around. No bells or alarms went off. He didn’t hear or see a thing except a handful of seagulls wheeling beyond the scoreboard. Jalen knew both Daniel and Cat would love a bit of the Yankees infield, so he crouched down again and dug a slightly bigger hole, scooping a much bigger handful of dirt.

  Jalen was focused on his pocket and getting all the dirt in there without making a total mess of his pants when he heard footsteps below him from the dugout. Before he could move, a sharp-faced man appeared and briskly climbed the stairs. Jalen felt the hair on his neck stand. He recognized Jeffrey Foxx from his picture, but the GM’s eyes were so pale they looked like bullet holes surrounded by perfect black circles, and they frightened Jalen even before he spoke. The GM’s blond hair was cut close. He wore a dark-gray pinstripe suit with a bright-yellow bow tie, round gold glasses, and a bitter scowl. He was tan and tall, and somehow made Jalen think of a tennis player.

  Jalen felt sick and certain he was somehow in the wrong place at the wrong time. He stopped loading the dirt into his pocket, but froze and clenched what remained in his fist.

  The GM looked at Jalen with disgust, and he wagged his head for someone behind him to hurry up. Two large city policemen marched up the stairs with hats pulled down tight and guns and handcuffs strapped to their hips.

  Jeffrey Fo
xx pointed at Jalen with lips compressed by anger. “Arrest this kid.”

  32

  THE POLICE HAD JALEN BY either arm.

  “Drop the dirt.” The GM pointed at Jalen’s tight fist.

  Jalen opened it, and a dusty stream dribbled to the ground.

  The police practically lifted him up before marching him down the concrete steps and through the dugout. Instead of taking a left to go through the locker room, they steered him to the right, past a batting cage and a garage-like area with some stationary bikes and a treadmill.

  The GM spoke to one of the policemen as they walked. “I look out my office window and I see him out there digging. You believe that?”

  “You want us to take him to the station?” the policeman asked as they took Jalen through a door and into a concrete hallway.

  “It’s trespassing, right?” Foxx glared at Jalen as they waited for an elevator. “We have to set an example. I have no idea how he got in, but I’m sure he’s got some buddies ready to pull the same stunt. We need to make it hurt.”

  “Breaking and entering?” the other policeman suggested.

  “That’d put him in juvie lockup for sure unless somebody’s got a good lawyer,” said his fellow officer with a chuckle.

  Jalen was paralyzed. He knew he had to talk and talk fast, but like in a bad dream, his mouth wouldn’t do what his brain was telling it to do. The elevator dinged and opened. They took a short ride up and stepped out into an enormous entryway where a long desk and a pair of security guards faced a statue of George Steinbrenner. Jalen couldn’t help looking all around. Above the bank of elevators behind him was a twenty-foot-high picture of Babe Ruth wearing the huge shiny crown of a king.

  Through the glass in front of him, he could see a police car rested outside on the curb, doors open and lights turning. The noise of the policemen’s feet, clapping on the shiny floor as they steered him toward it, increased his panic.

  “Wait!” Jalen resisted, trying to pull away. His shout echoed through the cavernous space. The security guards stared. Steinbrenner’s statue seemed to purse its lips. The Babe seemed to be frowning just for him.