The Batboy

by Mike Lupica

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd). Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2010 by Mike Lupica. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not

  be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. Philomel Books, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lupica, Mike. The batboy / Mike Lupica. p. cm. Summary: Even though his mother feels

  baseball ruined her marriage to his father, she allows fourteen-year-old Brian to become a

  batboy for the Detroit Tigers, who have just drafted his favorite player back onto the team.

  [1. Baseball—Fiction. 2. Batboys—Fiction. 3. Detroit Tigers (baseball team)—Fiction. 4. Detroit

  (Mich.)—Fiction. 5. Mothers and sons—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.L97914Bat 2010 [Fic]—dc22

  2009015067

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15988-0

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is for my mom and dad, who taught me to dream. And, as always, it is for my wife, Taylor, and my four children, Christopher, Alex, Zach, and Hannah, who prove that dreams come true.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Jim Schmakel, clubhouse manager for the Detroit Tigers: a true gentleman of the game.

  And the great Katy Dudley.

  And finally, my thanks to Michael Green, who kept saying I needed to tell one of my stories about a batboy. I’m just sayin’.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was one of those moments when Brian felt as if baseball was close enough for him to reach out and touch. Like his hands were around the handle of a bat. Or like he was on the mound, his fingers making sure the seams of the ball felt just right.

  One of those moments when he could close his eyes and imagine he was a big-leaguer himself.

  One of those moments, really, when he realized why his dad loved the game the way he did. Loved it too much, according to his mom.

  Loved it more than anything or anybody.

  Bottom of the ninth inning at Comerica Park, the Tigers having just scored to tie the game, Willie Vazquez, their shortstop, standing on third and representing the winning run.

  One out.

  And now came the fun part for Brian Dudley, not just because the Tigers had this kind of shot at a walk-off win, but because Brian got to think right along with Davey Schofield, the Tigers’ manager, who was perched on the top step of the dugout near the bat rack, on the home side, the third-base side, of Comerica. This was when baseball felt like the greatest reality show in the world.

  Willie, the fastest guy on the team and one of the fastest in the American League, was on third because the Tigers’ third baseman, Matt Holmes, had just singled him there, bringing home the tying run with the same swing of the bat.

  Curtis Keller, the Tigers’ center fielder, was at the plate. Curtis could fly, too. And he had some major pop in his bat for a little guy—a good thing, because now all his team needed was a fly ball deep enough to score Willie to win it.

  The scary part? For all of Curtis’ talent, and his ability to hit the ball hard from the right side against any kind of pitching, lefty or righty, he struck out a lot.

  Willie Vazquez liked to joke that Curtis Keller’s strike zone had its own area code. “Sometimes Curtis swings and misses when I’m at the plate.”

  If Curtis were to strike out here, then the Tigers would have two outs, the winning run still on third, a sacrifice fly no longer a possibility. And that would leave things up to Mike Parilli, the Tigers’ catcher, who was working on a seriously ugly 0-for-4 day.

  So what would Davey do?

  Brian knew all the stats on Curtis, inside and out, the way he knew the stats on all the Tigers players. Not because anybody had made him learn them. Not because it was some kind of course at school. Brian knew stats because he wanted to know. Because his head was full of the numbers of baseball, all the numbers that not only held the sport together, but connected one season to another, one era to another. Kenny Griffin, Brian’s best bud, liked to say that if you could ever crack Brian’s head open like a walnut, decimal points would come spilling out.

  Now, sitting here at Comerica, feeling like he had the best seat in the house, Brian tried to put those numbers to use the way he knew Davey Schofield would.

  They should squeeze, Brian decided.

  All Tigers fans knew how much Davey liked to play “small ball,” liked to bunt and move runners and steal bases, especially because this year’s Tigers didn’t have the kind of home-run power they’d had in the past. The only problem with playing small ball right now—and it was a big problem, actually—was that Brian knew that even he was a better bunter than Curtis Keller.

  More than two months into the season Curtis still didn’t have a single sacrifice bunt, even though he’d been batting number two in the order pretty much since Opening Day. He’d tried a few times. Six times to be exact, Brian knew, and he’d failed to advance the runner each time. Twice he’d even managed to strike out, which wasn’t easy when you were bunting.

  Yet Brian was sure the bunt was still the right play, especially against the Indians’ big right-handed closer, Rafael Fuentes.

  Because the other stat bouncing around inside Brian’s head like a pinball was that Curtis had never gotten a hit off Rafael Fuentes, was 0-for-14 lifetime. And Mike Parilli, kneeling there in the on-deck circle? He was 1-for-20 against the guy.

  If Curtis didn’t g
et the run home, and get it right now, they were as good as in extra innings already.

  “Lay one down,” Brian said out loud, almost like he couldn’t help himself.

  From where he sat he had a perfect view of Davey going through all his signals. Those signals went to the Tigers’ third-base coach, Nate Vinton, who then flashed them to Curtis. Willie didn’t need the middleman; he was staring into the dugout at Davey the same as Nate was. More baseball stuff that Brian loved, the play having this kind of drama even before Rafael Fuentes delivered the ball to the plate.

  Brian was never bored by any of it, whether he was at the ballpark or watching on television. He realized he wasn’t just thinking along with Davey, he was thinking along with the Indians’ manager at the same time as he brought his corner infielders in and left his shortstop and second baseman in their regular spots, knowing a ground-ball double play would get them out of the inning, provided they could double up a speed guy like Curtis.

  It was the first midweek afternoon game since school had let out, and for Brian, this felt like the real start of summer, no matter what the calendar said. Summer was something you could hear and feel all around you at Comerica, filled with all this noise and all these possibilities and all this baseball. Yeah, this was summer.

  Curtis got into the batter’s box. Rafael Fuentes was ready to pitch. This close to the field, Fuentes, at 6 foot 4 and 245 pounds, looked as big to Brian as Shaquille O’Neal. Fuentes liked to pitch from the stretch and was doing so now, eyeballing Willie Vazquez as he juked around off third base. One more drama, Brian knew, this one between pitcher and base runner.

  Fuentes stood there so long, as if frozen, that Curtis stepped out of the batter’s box and went through his whole routine of getting ready again—loosening and refastening his batting gloves, then taking a practice swing.

  Brian knew that some people hated all the starts and stops of baseball, all the breaks in the action. Not Brian Dudley. He wasn’t ever going to be somebody who came to the ballpark and as soon as he got there acted as if he had somewhere else to be.

  When he was at the ballpark, Brian was always where he wanted to be. Sometimes he felt more at home at Comerica than he did at his own home.

  Curtis dug back in. Fuentes began his pitching motion, checked quickly one more time on Willie, then blew strike one right past Curtis, high heat, pure cheese, Curtis swinging right through it. The pitch measured 97 mph on the huge scoreboard towering over left field at Comerica.

  Lay one down, Brian thought again.

  The first and third basemen were still in at the corners, had to be, just to make sure. But they had seen Curtis swing from his heels the way everybody in the ballpark had, like he was trying to hit one all the way to Canada.

  Fuentes’ right arm came forward again. Another fastball. But Curtis Keller had dropped the head of the bat.

  Bunt.

  Not the kind of bunt they taught you in Little League, where you squared for a straight sacrifice and practically made an announcement to the infielders that you were bunting. No, this was the way you bunted, even with the third baseman charging in, when you were bunting for a base hit, when you deadened the ball and came racing out of the batter’s box like a sprinter in track coming out of the blocks.

  Curtis actually laid down a beauty, the ball dying like a toy car that had run out of batteries as Willie Vazquez, coming the other way, blew right past it.

  Gus Howell, the Indians’ third baseman, made a great play on the ball, flung it sidearm, nearly underhanded, toward home plate. If the runner had been a slow one, the throw might have had a chance. But it was Willie who slid across home plate with the winning run and then bounced right up, clapping his hands, yelling, “Yeah! Yeah, baby!”

  You had to be close to the field to hear him because all around, from every corner of the ballpark, came the happy roar of Comerica, the sound baseball made when your team won.

  The Indians were already walking off the field. Game over. The Tigers in the dugout were pouring out onto the field. Even though it was only June, everybody already knew it was going to come down to the Tigers and the Indians in the American League Central this year. The Tigers had just swept the first series of the season between the two teams—their biggest wins of the young season.

  Brian was on his feet now.

  He saw Davey Schofield grinning at him from the other end of the dugout.

  “Lay one down?” Davey said.

  Brian said, “You heard?”

  Davey said, “Man, I think the peanut vendors heard. Now I even got a kid knowing all my brilliant moves before I make ’em. Must be because your father played.”

  “Must be,” Brian said, the sense of celebration suddenly leaving.

  “Where’s he now?”

  “Japan,” Brian said.

  Davey motioned to Brian, letting him know that it was all right for him to join the celebration on the field.

  “You wear the uniform, you’re part of the team now,” Davey said, putting an arm around Brian’s shoulders.

  Brian walked that way with the Tigers’ manager toward home plate, picking up Curtis Keller’s bat when he got there. Doing his job.

  As far as he was concerned, the best summer job ever invented by mortal minds.

  Batboy for the Detroit Tigers.

  He was part of the team now.

  CHAPTER 2

  He still couldn’t believe he’d gotten the job, over all the other kids in the Detroit area who wanted to spend their summer getting paid to be at Comerica for Tigers home games.

  Now that he’d been doing it for a week, Brian realized he’d never really understood as a fan what the job meant. The hours you had to put in every day—eight usually and sometimes nine. All the work you had to do in Equipment Room No. 3 next to the Tigers’ dugout before you ever got near the field. Before you could even wear your uniform with “Batboy” on the back instead of a number.

  He’d always just assumed that being a batboy meant collecting foul balls and handing players new bats if they broke one.

  He never knew how many pine tar rags were required for every game, how many rosin bags. He didn’t know that the Tigers actually employed four batboys: one for the Tigers’ dugout and clubhouse, one for the visitors’ side, one each to sit down near the stands behind first and third base to collect foul balls.

  Brian Dudley, rookie batboy, didn’t know that one of his most important jobs once the game was over would be shining shoes for the next game.

  He was the son of a pitcher, one who’d survived fourteen seasons pitching in the big leagues, and yet he didn’t have a clue what batboys actually did.

  And wouldn’t have cared a lick if he had.

  The way he didn’t care that he was being paid $7.50 an hour.

  Because the truth was, Brian would have paid them to have this job, if he’d had the money, paid them to be on the inside of what had once been his father’s world.

  Pretty much his father’s whole world.

  It was as if he’d climbed down out of the stands and into a dream, climbed down from where he used to sit with his dad for Tigers games before his dad had walked out on him and his mom for good.

  At fourteen, Brian was a decent enough ballplayer, good enough to be the last kid picked for All-Stars this summer from Bloomfield Hills, where he and his mom lived. He was a righty hitter who could hit to all fields, using the whole ballpark the way his dad had taught him, even if he still hadn’t hit a home run at any level he’d ever played. And he’d made himself into a solid outfielder even if what he really wanted to be was an infielder. Third base was his spot—the position his man Hank Bishop had played when Brian was old enough to first fall in love with the Detroit Tigers.

  But Brian was a realist. He knew he was never going to be an actual big-leaguer himself, and would probably be lucky to make the varsity in high school when the time came.

  So this summer was going to be his summer to be a big-leaguer, to be on the insid
e. Be a Tiger.

  It all happened because of a letter he wrote.

  Two, actually.

  He’d written the first one the summer he’d finished sixth grade. It was the summer his dad left them, even though it felt like his dad had been leaving them for a long time. Until then, baseball and the Tigers had been about the only thing he’d been able to share with Cole Dudley, who’d been one of those specialty left-handed relievers who seem to be able to find work in the big leagues until they finally had run out of arm or run out of stuff. Cole Dudley had pitched for ten different teams in ten different cities in his fourteen years before finally retiring—“about five minutes before baseball retired me”—when he was forty, after one last half season with the Seattle Mariners.

  He wasn’t bitter about his career ending, or about never having been a star. It was simply that he loved the game too much, and when he tried to live a life without it, with Brian and his mom in the house in Bloomfield, he just couldn’t do it.

  Brian was eight when his dad retired, and as sad as his dad was about it, Brian was happy, because he would have Cole around all the time then, or so he’d thought.

  And for a while, it was great for Brian, because baseball was finally something he could share with his dad in person. His dad bought them two season tickets up behind the Tigers’ dugout on the third-base side with amazing views. Yet for his dad, the seats never seemed close enough. He always looked uncomfortable being so near to the field yet not being on it. The game was all he’d known since he was a boy Brian’s age.

  Even now, Brian could remember the nights when it seemed like he could call every pitch the pitchers were going to throw.

  He didn’t know how to be a dad with anything else, didn’t know how to talk to Brian about anything else. But he could talk about baseball and talk about pitching, and when he was gone, it was as if those nights at the ballpark were all he left behind.

  That and the note he left on Brian’s desk, the one he found when he got home from school one day.