by Mike Lupica
But tonight he didn’t want to go stand at home plate or run around the bases.
Instead he stood on the dugout steps and turned around and looked up into the stands, and for the first time he could no longer imagine himself and his dad sitting there together. Tonight he had no desire, none, to go up and sit with his own memories up in Section 135.
Instead, Brian looked to his left, to Section 130.
The seats in Section 130 were all he could see and all he cared about. He just saw his dad in there with the other scouts, looking as happy as if he were at his own birthday party.
It was why the ballpark didn’t make things better for Brian tonight, why baseball couldn’t make things better. Or fix things with his dad. He wasn’t sure anything could.
He’d found out something tonight:
It didn’t matter to his dad who was sitting with him at a ballgame.
And no matter how much Brian loved baseball, it was never going to make his father love him more.
CHAPTER 21
It had been two weeks since Brian’s dad had left town, and the beginning of his last month on the job was coming up so fast he couldn’t believe it.
The first-place Tigers were at home for a weekend series against the second-place Indians, and all three games were at night, including another Sunday nighter on ESPN. It meant that Brian could play both games of a two-game series, Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, against Birmingham, always one of the best teams in their league.
But he would have been better off going to work early.
Both days.
The Sting won both games, no problem there. Just no thanks to him. He was 0-for-3 on Saturday with a walk. The only time he put the ball in play on Saturday was a ground ball to second off the end of his bat. When he finally did squeeze a walk out of one of the Birmingham relievers his last time up, he felt like asking the home-plate ump for the ball as a souvenir.
Sunday was even worse: three more strikeouts, and a foul-out to third. At least his mom didn’t try to give him any kind of pep talk on the ride to Comerica. He rode in the car in silence almost all of the way, not talking about the game at all, not opening up about it until he was changing into his batting-practice outfit in Equipment Room No. 3 with Finn.
“I’m thinking about quitting the team,” he said.
“Sure you are.”
“I mean it.
“Actually, you don’t,” Finn said. “I’ve known you only a few months, and I still know you well enough to know that’s not you.”
“I’m not me anymore when it comes to swinging a bat.”
“Your problem, far as I can tell, is that you don’t get enough swings.”
“That’s what my friend Kenny says.”
“Clearly a genius,” Finn said. “You just gotta take a chill pill.”
Brian made a sound like he was in pain. “Please don’t tell me I’ve just got to relax.”
They continued dressing in silence, and as they were about to leave, Finn said, “Wait, I am a genius.”
“Glad you think so.”
“Dude, I mean it, hear me out: Why don’t you use the batting cage here?”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Sick idea. I saw Curtis down there using it before. I’ll just run down and tell him he’s got to clear out for, wait, the batboy.”
“I don’t mean now,” Finn said. “After the game.”
“Tonight’s game?”
“Why not? We’ll work it out with Mr. S. and then I’ll just tell my mom to come a half hour later.”
“It doesn’t matter when your mom comes, Mr. S. isn’t going to go for this in like a million years.”
“We won’t know that until we ask,” Finn said. “Right?”
“Dubious,” Brian said. “Extremely dubious.”
Finn grinned at him. “See that, Debbie Downer? You didn’t tell me we weren’t going to ask, now, did you?”
They waited until they were finished with their pregame chores before taking the walk to Mr. Schenkel’s office as if walking to the principal’s office. When they got there, he was behind his desk, reading glasses on the end of his nose, going over the pregame media notes the way he did every day.
He looked up now over his glasses and said, “You two look like somebody just stole home plate. And I don’t mean because the pitcher didn’t check the runner at third.”
Brian and Finn both cleared their throats at the same time. The sound effect was funny enough in the office to get a laugh out of Mr. S.
“I know you guys have grown close,” he said, “but this is ridiculous.”
“We were just wondering . . . ,” Brian said. “Actually, the truth is, I was wondering . . .”
“No,” Finn said, “we both were, he was right the first time. . . .”
Brian said, “If it would be okay with you, I mean once everybody is gone, of course . . .”
Mr. S. smiled, nodded, like he understood what they were talking about.
“And if it’s not against team rules,” Brian said, “if nobody would get in trouble . . .”
Mr. Schenkel took off his glasses and said to Brian, “Son, it’s a good thing you write a letter of application better than you talk.”
Finn jumped in again, this time like he was trying to save Brian from drowning.
“The thing is,” he said, talking fast, “Brian is in a terrible slump with his travel team, can’t buy a hit, pretty much can’t remember the last time he got one, and he doesn’t get enough BP because of his job here, so basically we were wondering if after everybody clears out tonight, well, if we could use Iron Mike in the batting cage.”
All in one breath.
“Let me get this straight,” Mr. Schenkel said, looking at Brian again. “You want to take my pitching machine out for a spin?”
Brian cleared his throat again and said, “Pretty much. Yeah.”
The Tigers hitters didn’t use Iron Mike anymore. When they wanted to hit indoors, they generally just asked one of the coaches to pitch. Or they hit off a tee. Or worked with this gadget that had “ocular” in the name, one that fired tennis balls at them from close range to improve their hand-eye reaction time.
But when the Tigers had moved to Comerica from the old Tiger Stadium, Mr. S. couldn’t bear leaving Iron Mike behind. The machine wasn’t as old as the ballpark, was actually fairly new, but to him it was one more symbol of the team’s past and he wasn’t willing to leave it behind.
“My machine, our cage, your BP,” Mr. S. said.
“Something like that,” Brian said.
“You know this is something I’d have to clear with the manager?”
Now Brian was the one talking fast. “Mr. S., if it’s a problem, if even asking would be some kind of problem for you . . .”
“Hush now and get back to work and later on I’ll get back to you.”
He found them in the dugout a half hour later. Brian tried to read his face, couldn’t. “Well,” Mr. S. said. “At least I tried.”
“He said no?” Brian said.
“No.”
“Knew it.”
“Hush again,” Mr. S. said. “No, what he said was, and I quote, ‘I don’t want to know about this.’ End quote. Which is now my official position as well.”
Brian said, “So I can do it?”
Mr. Schenkel walked away, saying, “Do what? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Brian wasn’t kidding himself into thinking that a few minutes in the cage, or a lot of minutes in the cage, were going to fix a swing that was about as graceful lately as if he were swinging blindly at a piñata at a party.
And it wasn’t like he was going to be standing in there at Comerica in a real game, against real pitching.
Still.
For a little while tonight, he was going to get some hacks where they did.
But when the game was over, and the Tigers had lost 2-1 to the Indians, Brian had a thought:
He was going to take some hacks with wha
t?
As he and Finn were stacking the boxes of gum and sunflower seeds for the night, Brian said, “I don’t have a bat. Unless you’ve noticed a bunch of aluminum bats lying around here.”
“I got you,” Finn said. “I mean, I so got you. Willie said you could use one of his, that only chopsticks are lighter than his bats.”
“You told him?”
“Don’t worry, he says he won’t tell and he’s totally cool with it. Said if he didn’t have a date, he’d be your personal batting instructor.”
Brian stayed in his uniform when the game was over, figuring if he was going to take batting practice at Comerica, he would at least be dressed for the part. When they had finished all of their chores except shining shoes—which Finn said he’d take care of that night while Brian was hitting—Finn helped him wheel what was officially called the M6 Iron Mike out of the closet and down into the cage.
Brian already knew how to operate it because Mr. Schenkel had shown him and Finn how the first time he’d shown them Iron Mike. They knew that its hopper could handle up to 600 balls, but Brian figured a lot fewer than that would do tonight. He grabbed two bags of beat-up batting practice balls and fed them into the machine.
Finally he was in the cage, setting the speed at something he figured he could handle at the start—75 mph. Then he ran back and forth between Iron Mike and where home plate was in the cage a couple of times, to make sure the height of the pitches was set right.
When he had everything the way he wanted, he stood in there with Willie Vazquez’s bat and swung. He missed the first couple of pitches, but on the third pitch he connected, what would actually have been a nice shot up the middle in a real game, and he couldn’t believe how loud the sound of the ball on a wooden bat was in the quiet underneath Comerica. The sound jarred him and he grew nervous all over again.
He started thinking about his swing, and suddenly felt exactly the way he had with the Sting for the last month: lost. He began pulling off the ball, dropping his back shoulder no matter how hard he tried not to.
Before long he had gone through the first hopper of balls and decided he wasn’t going to waste his time much longer, he’d load Iron Mike up once more and then call it a night.
He always heard the Tigers’ hitters talking about how they had to make themselves wait at the plate. Yeah, Brian thought now, still flailing away at air, I’m waiting all right.
Waiting to feel like a hitter again.
He was about halfway through the last batch of balls when he heard somebody’s voice in the runway. All the players were gone, so it had to be Mr. S. or Finn, maybe Finn coming down to tell him his mom was here and it was time to go, wrap it up.
My pleasure, Brian thought. One more good swing, if I’ve got one in me, and then I’m gone. He watched the mechanical arm of Iron Mike come forward, watched the ball as if it were coming out of a pitcher’s hand, loaded up for a big swing.
And dropped his stupid shoulder again.
If this were a game, it would have been a straight-up-in-the-air pop-up.
“What kind of swing is that?”
No, Brian thought, the minute he heard the voice.
No no no.
He thought of the old John McEnroe line: You cannot be serious!
The voice belonged to Hank Bishop.
Not just the last guy in the world Brian wanted to see right now.
Hank was the last guy in the world he wanted to see him.
CHAPTER 22
The balls kept whizzing by Brian, one nearly clipping him before he realized he’d taken a step in Hank’s direction and jumped back.
“You’re . . . you’re not supposed to be here,” Brian said.
“Shouldn’t that be my line?”
Brian said, “I thought everybody . . . all the players . . . were gone.”
“Forgot my cell phone, then I heard somebody in here,” Hank said, showing it to Brian. Now he nodded at Iron Mike. “What’s your excuse?”
“My poor excuse for a swing.”
“Calling that a swing is pretty generous, kid,” he said, looking disgusted, like the batting cage was one more place where Brian came up short.
The hopper was empty by now. Brian thought, Just pick up the balls, wait for Finn to help you roll it back, and get out of here.
“Load it up and let me see it again,” Hank said.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re here to hit,” Hank said, snapping at him. “So let me see you hit.”
Brian filled up one of the bags, ran up and loaded up the ball hopper. Hank was still on the other side of the netting. Brian ran back to the plate. When the first pitch came at him, he didn’t even swing, he was too busy watching Hank instead of the ball.
“Don’t watch me, you idiot! Watch the ball!”
Brian swung and missed.
Then again.
And again.
Finally he made contact. He went through pitch after pitch, missing a lot more than he hit. And then finally Iron Mike was still and the cage was silent.
“I’m done,” Brian said, dropping the bat.
“No, you’re not,” Hank Bishop said. “Go load that sucker up again.” He shook his head. “If I left you here like this, with that swing, it would be like leaving the scene of a crime.”
Then, to Brian’s amazement, he stepped inside the cage.
Brian had no way of knowing if Finn might be watching from somewhere, probably as shocked as Brian at what was going on. Or if Mr. Schenkel might be taking in the show.
But he didn’t care. He didn’t have time to care because he was too busy listening to everything his new batting coach had to say.
Even if Hank Bishop was acting as if somebody was making him do this.
The first thing he’d done was order Brian to slow down the amount of time between pitches, so balls wouldn’t be flying past them while he was talking.
“Seriously?” he said to Brian. “Has anybody who actually knew what he was doing ever worked with you on hitting?”
“Some of my coaches.”
Hank shook his head. “Coaches in what sport?”
“I mean, my coach during the regular season this year a little bit . . . But there’s a lot of guys on the team, and he can’t—”
“More information than I was looking for. What about your dad?”
“Sure,” Brian said. “You know, the basics when I was first starting in T-Ball. But he sort of lost interest in my baseball career when he realized I couldn’t pitch.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way? But neither could he. At least not the way he seems to think he could.”
Maybe there was a time when he would have defended his dad. Not now. He just took his stance with Willie’s bat in his hands as he heard the balls in Iron Mike’s hopper start to move.
Hank came around behind him and jerked the bat down, startling him.
“Carry your hands lower,” Hank said. “You’ve developed this god-awful hitch when you drop them and it throws your timing completely off, not to mention your stride. The idea is to keep things level.”
“Feels weird.”
“Pity. Do it.”
A pitch came in. Brian swung and made contact. Not great contact. But he hadn’t swung through this one.
“Wait!” Hank said. “And that doesn’t just mean with your hands. Keep your weight back, too. That way, when everything comes through, it all comes through together: hands, shoulders, hips, all the torque in your lower body.” He put his hands on Brian’s shoulders and turned them hard toward Iron Mike, nearly knocking him over. “Theoretically, anyway.”
Hank was wearing jeans, a plain white T-shirt, plain white Nike sneakers. Now he took the bat out of Brian’s hands, stood in there himself, and showed him what he’d been trying to tell him. He seemed to hit the first ball he saw so hard Brian thought he could have split it in two.
The sound of the ball on Willie’s bat was a lot different, a lot louder, than it had been for Bri
an.
Hank handed him the bat. “And stop moving your feet all around, you look like you’re sliding around on ice,” he said. “Anchor that back foot, and when you stride with your front don’t act as if you’re trying to jump out of the stupid box.”
On the next pitch Brian didn’t stride at all, doing a terrible impression of Hank’s swing.
“What was that?”
“Tried to shorten my stride.”
Hank shook his head. “I said anchor the back foot.” Shaking his head again, he said, “Scrub.”
But he didn’t leave.
Before they were finished, he changed Brian’s hands again, pulling them back more. Kept telling him not to squeeze the handle so tight, like he was trying to grind it into sawdust. He had Brian open his stance slightly, moving his front foot back and pointing it more toward where third base would have been, as a way—he said—of getting Brian to clear his hips.
And more than anything he kept telling him—yelling at him—to keep his head on the ball.
“You know where it started with Ted Williams?” Hank said. “His eyes. His focus on the ball. They used to say he could read the words on a record going around at 78 rpm’s.”
“Seventy-eight . . . huh?”
Hank rubbed his face hard with both hands. “Never mind,” he said. “I have figured out something, though.”
“What?”
“You are your old man’s kid,” he said. “Because you hit exactly like a pitcher.” And for the first time that night, he smiled.
Brian didn’t know how long they’d been in there together, or how many times he’d refilled the hopper. He kept expecting Hank to kick him out. But as he stayed longer, no matter how sarcastic he got every time Brian did something wrong, an amazing thing began to happen:
Brian started to get it.
Started to feel as if he knew what he was doing and could have sworn he saw his bat on the ball a few times even though he’d been told that was impossible.