by Carl Deuker
Nobody suggested going out that Christmas Eve. By ten o'clock, Mom and Marian were in their room, asleep. I kicked around downstairs a little longer but finally gave up and went to bed.
Christmas Day wasn't much better, though Mom tried. She made us a big breakfast—sausage and eggs and muffins— and she wrapped everything she could think of, so that there were plenty of gifts under the tree. But Dad wasn't there making jokes and talking loud and fast, and there was nothing she could do about that.
CHAPTER 6
January was cold and rainy. The beginning of baseball season seemed as far off as the moon. Kraybill called my mom every week to check on me, and I think he called Whitman, too, though I'm not sure about that. If he did, he got good reports. I kept my head down and my mouth shut in the classroom, but I kept my ears open. I wouldn't say my grades soared, but by February, when the days started to grow a little longer and a little warmer, I was passing all my classes.
Finally the first day of tryouts rolled around. I packed my glove and cleats in my backpack and carried them from class to class. Every time I opened the backpack and saw them, a knot would form in my stomach. The prospect of joining a team made me go cold.
When the final bell rang, I thought about skipping practice entirely. Then I remembered Kraybill and his gray eyes, and I knew I didn't want to test him. I forced myself to take the long walk to the baseball field.
I'd never been back to that part of the campus. I figured it would be as run-down as the rest of the school. Surprisingly, the outfield grass was level, and somebody had filled the few holes with fresh dirt. They'd done a good job, too, as good a job as I'd done at the Boys' and Girls' Club. The infield was freshly raked, no rocks or holes anywhere. I stepped onto the pitcher's mound. It was better than the one at Shorelake. Firm, with a long gentle slope—not sticking up like a pimple the way some mounds do.
Somebody cared.
I sat down on the grass behind first base, took off my tennis shoes, and while lacing up my cleats, let my eyes wander. There were no more than twenty or twenty-five guys trying out. They were hanging out in groups of three or four, though a couple of guys were alone like me. Most of them seemed reasonably athletic, but two or three of them looked more like big-time pizza eaters than big-time ballplayers. One of the heavy guys was wearing sandals, and he didn't look as if he was going to change. There was nobody around who looked like a coach.
Once my shoes were laced up, I stretched. My hamstrings were incredibly tight, and my back was stiff. I've always been limber, so for a while I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then I realized that I'd done nothing for nine months.
I was still stretching when a beat-up blue van pulled up next to the field. I thought I'd seen that van before, but I couldn't remember where. The door opened and a huge black man got out.
Cornelius Grandison.
What was he doing there? Had Kraybill sent him? Was he checking on me? Then I remembered Kraybill's question: You don't know who the baseball coach at Whitman is, do you?
As soon as Grandison stepped out of his junky van, guys crowded around him. You could tell immediately that they liked him a lot and that he liked them. Others—newcomers like me, no doubt—hung back.
After a few minutes, Grandison broke free, blew his whistle, and waved for all of us to come closer. I moved forward, but not too far forward. His eye caught mine anyway and rested on me for a few seconds. He sort of nodded, and I nodded back.
When we were quiet, he introduced himself, then gave us the beginning-of-the-season pep talk. It was the same talk Coach Levine had given at Shorelake, only there was stuff about getting along with people of different races.
When Coach Grandison finished, he told us to play long toss to warm up. Guys partnered with friends; I stood around until the only person left was the heavyset guy wearing sandals.
If you'd asked me before practice began, I'd have told you I didn't care how I did. But once I saw that Grandison was the coach, I wanted him to know I could play.
The sandals guy was no ballplayer. He threw moon balls, high floaters that barely reached me. I threw him line drives that had so much zip they scared him. Grandison noticed. Toward the end of the warm-ups he came and stood next to me, not saying anything for a while. Then he blew his whistle and called the team together. "I want you to see something," he said. He turned to me. "Shane. Your name is Shane, isn't it?"
I nodded.
"Throw the ball to your buddy there. Just like you were doing."
I threw the ball, making the sandal guy's glove snap.
"Everybody see that?" He looked at me. "Keep throwing, Shane." I threw again; again the glove snapped. "See how he uses his legs, how he bends his back? He's not all arm like some of you. He uses the other muscles, and that takes the strain off his arm. That's good mechanics."
Next he had everyone run a lap, but he held me back for a moment. "Your Shorelake coach teach you to throw like that?" he asked.
"My dad taught me to throw."
"Well, your dad did a good job."
CHAPTER 7
Calling those four days tryouts was a joke. At Shorelake there'd been fifty guys fighting for eighteen spots. Coach Levine had assistant coaches and volunteers with clipboards all over the place. They timed and measured everything: our height, our weight, how long it took us to go from home to first, first to second, second to third. They noted how the outfielders tracked fly balls, how the infielders handled grounders. They put a speed gun on the pitchers, charted how every player did in every drill, and at the end of the day gave those pieces of paper to Coach Levine.
At Whitman it was just Coach Grandison with just one clipboard with just one piece of paper on it, and I never once saw him write anything down. Maybe that was because he didn't need to. On the second day four guys—including my sandals buddy—didn't return. On the third day five more guys quit, bringing us down to sixteen, and three of them couldn't hit the ball out of the infield to save their lives.
By Friday, the last day of tryouts, fifteen of us were left. At the end of our final drill, Grandison announced we were all on the team. The guys around me smiled and punched each other, acting as if making the team meant something. "We play hard; we play together," Grandison said, "and we'll win our share of games."
I didn't blame him for saying that. What else could he say? Grandison had turned that dump of a field into something the Mariners could have played on. But it would take more than a rake and a love of baseball to turn the team into winners. I started to trudge off the field, but Grandison called me back. "I want to talk to you, Shane. Wait a second, will you?"
He wanted to talk to about five other guys, too, so I ended up standing there for a good ten minutes. Finally it was only him and me.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You don't seem particularly happy about making the team."
"Come on," I said. "Everybody who tried out made the team."
He nodded. "I suppose tryouts are a little different at Shorelake."
I snorted in disbelief. "You could say that."
He looked at me quizzically. "Just how are they different, exactly?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yeah, I really do."
"Well, here it's you and that old pitching machine, and that's it. At Shorelake they have three pitching machines, a pop-fly machine, two speed guns, two enclosed batting cages, an assistant coach, and a bunch of parent volunteers." I stopped. "You want me to go on, or is that enough?"
He smiled. "No, no, don't stop. Go on. This is interesting."
"Besides all that, there are the guys. Last year fifty tried out, and most of them could play. Shorelake has a varsity, a junior varsity, and a freshman team. You don't even have enough guys to field a JV team."
Grandison squinted into the sun. "So it was a lot better there, is that what you're saying?"
"It was another world."
He nodded. "Tell me somethin
g, Shane. How far is it from the pitcher's mound to home plate over there at Shorelake?"
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Sixty feet six inches."
"And from base to base. Was it ninety feet at Shorelake?"
"Of course it was," I said, wondering if he'd lost his mind.
"And how many guys on the field at one time?"
Suddenly I understood what he was doing. "Look, you can stop. I get your point."
His eyes went fiery. "Do you? I wonder."
With that, he turned and walked away.
I had to skip my shower to catch the bus home. It was nearly empty, but I still went way to the back, hunched up in a corner, and looked out the window. I found myself wondering about Shorelake. How had tryouts gone? Had they found somebody to take my spot? Then I stopped myself. Better to think of nothing than to think of that.
CHAPTER 8
As it turned out, the Whitman team wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We had no bench at all, but the starting nine was solid. That was Coach Grandison's doing. He took the best three position players and put them right up the middle: Benny Gold behind the plate, Brian Fletcher at shortstop, and Jeff Walton in center field. If you're solid up the middle, you can generally get by.
The other position players were adequate, though Kenny Miller out in left field was about as slow an outfielder as you'll ever see. But Miller could hit a little, and Pedro Hernandez, our first baseman, could hit a ton.
The pitching wasn't bad either. The two starters had decent stuff. Hank Fowler, one of the few seniors on the team, was a big redheaded kid who threw nothing but fastballs. Cory Minton was smaller, with dark eyes, dark hair, and a body like a fireplug. He threw curves and changeups and an occasional fastball. That was the whole staff. There were no returning relief pitchers, not one. From what I picked up in practice, the year before those two guys had pitched every single inning.
Our opening game was on a Saturday. The Monday before, Coach Grandison took me off to the side and then called Gold over. "Get warm," Grandison said to me.
Gold crouched down, and I threw about fifteen warm-up tosses, picking up the speed on each just a little. When my arm felt loose, I looked at Grandison.
"All right," he said, "let it rip."
So I did, burning the ball in, throwing as if it were mid-season. After about ten fastballs, Gold popped up out of his stance and pulled his glove off. "That hurts," he said, smiling and blowing on his palm. "If you're going to throw like that, I've got to get a sponge."
Grandison turned to Gold. "Is he as fast as Fowler?"
"Faster."
Grandison nodded. "All right, Benny. That's enough. You go take some swings."
"Sure, Coach," Gold said, and he trotted off.
"You got anything other than that fastball?" Grandison asked when we were alone.
"Sometimes I throw a changeup."
"No curve?"
"My dad never let me throw one. He said it would ruin my arm."
Grandison nodded. "Good for him. How many pitches you good for?"
I shrugged. "Thirty, thirty-five."
"And then?"
"I lose speed and guys hit me."
Grandison looked across the field to where Minton and Fowler were tossing the ball around. "They're decent pitchers, both of them. But they don't have that closer's instinct. It gets tight late, and they want out of the game." He stopped. "What I'm saying here is between you and me. Understand?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I understand."
"You're going to be the key to our season, Shane. We went four and fourteen last year, but we lost eight of those fourteen in the last couple of innings. Win them all, and we go twelve and six. If you can throw that fastball over the plate in the late innings of a tight game and mix in the changeup to keep hitters off balance, we'll win them."
***
At the end of Tuesday's workout, Coach Grandison passed out a flyer about a team picnic. It was for that Friday, in place of practice. "You can bring your family," he said. "We'll have burgers and hot dogs and Wiffle balls and kites. I've arranged for the school van for those of you who need a ride, so I want to see everyone there. Understood?"
As we walked off the field, Minton sidled over to me and a couple of the other new guys. "You won't believe Grandison's daughter," he said. "But don't let him catch you checking her out, or you won't play for a month."
A dozen times that week I heard about how good the food was to eat and how good Grandison's daughter was to look at. But when Friday afternoon came, I didn't feel like going. So instead of piling into the school van, I went home. For the first time since baseball season had started, I was home before Mom had left for work. For a while I sat in the front room while she put together dinner for Marian and me. "Can I help with something?" I asked, feeling guilty that she was working and I was doing nothing.
We ate early—roasted chicken, rice, and French bread. While Mom got herself ready for work, Marian and I washed the dishes. "You want to do something?" I asked once Mom was gone. "Play Monopoly or Sorry or something like that?"
She shook her head. "I'm just going to watch TV."
The phone rang. "Aren't you going to answer it?" Marian asked, turning back.
"I want to hear who it is first," I said.
The answering machine clicked on. "Shane, you there? This is Coach Grandison. If you're there, pick up the phone." There was a long pause, followed by the dial tone.
"Why didn't you pick it up?" Marian asked.
"I didn't want to talk to him."
"Why not?"
"I just didn't want to."
CHAPTER 9
Opening game was Saturday at three at Rainier Beach High. Even back when we lived in Sound Ridge and my mom didn't have to work, she rarely went to my games. She wasn't coming to this one, either. "You know how I get, Shane. I feel sick to my stomach waiting for you to pitch. And then when you do pitch, I can't watch. Besides, I'd have to rush to make it to work."
At practice Grandison had told us that if we needed a ride, we were to meet him in front of the school at one-thirty. I figured I'd be the only person without a ride, but Miguel Alvarez, our backup catcher, was there before me. We hadn't waited for more than a few minutes before Grandison pulled up. When we'd loaded all the stuff—helmets, bats, catcher's gear—into the back, Grandison slammed the doors shut and then turned on me. "Where were you yesterday, Shane?"
"I had to look after my little sister," I said.
"Didn't you hear me say you could bring your family?"
"She didn't want to go."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. She just didn't."
He considered that for a moment. "Next time you don't want to do something, just say it. Don't blame it on your sister."
I felt myself flush. "I'm not lying. My sis—"
He stopped me cold. "The more you talk, the less I want to hear. Get in the back of the van and keep quiet."
That's what I did. And even though he didn't say anything else, I could feel his anger. Before the game, the guys talked about the Wiffle ball game and the tank top Grandison's daughter wore. From what I could tell, I was the only player who hadn't shown up, not that anybody other than Grandison seemed to have noticed.
When warm-ups were over, I took a seat at the end of the bench next to Alvarez. There weren't many parents or kids in the bleachers, but I could feel the buzz of opening day. Our leadoff hitter, Jim Wilson, nubbed a little roller down the third base line. Their guy got to the ball okay, but his throw was wild. By the time their right fielder ran it down, Wilson, who can fly, was standing at third. Kurt Lind, batting second, struck out. It didn't matter, though, because Pedro Hernandez unloaded a long home run to left field, giving us two quick runs. We scored twice more in the second inning on doubles by Jeff Walton and Benny Gold, and I thought we might blow them out. But after the second inning, the Rainier Beach pitcher settled down and our bats went quiet.
Cory M
inton was steady on the mound. He didn't overpower anyone, but he kept the ball low. In the early innings, the Rainier Beach hitters were overanxious, and they pounded those low pitches into the dirt for easy groundouts. But little by little they started to time Minton. They put together a couple of hits and a walk to push across one run in the fourth, and they scored another on a triple and a groundout in the fifth.
By the sixth, Minton was done. You could see it in his face and in the length of time he took between pitches. Rainier Beach's leadoff hitter smacked a single to left. "Hunter!" It was Grandison's voice. "Get warmed up. Fast." I nudged Alvarez. He grabbed his catcher's mitt, and the two of us hustled up the first base line.
As I warmed up, I kept one eye on the game. Minton threw one ball, then another. The hitter dug in and ripped the next pitch on a line, but right at Brian Fletcher for the first out. But the next batter laced a double down the right field line, putting runners at second and third. I speeded my warm-ups. Grandison looked down at me. I shook my head no. There was still some tightness in my shoulder. I'd need a few more throws to get loose.
Minton went into the stretch, delivered. The crack of the bat was so loud both Alvarez and I stopped to watch the flight of the ball.
It was a towering drive to left center. Walton broke on the ball, raced to the base of the fence. I was sure it was gone, but at the last second Walton leaped. His glove was about six inches over the top of the fence, but he pulled the ball back in. The runner at third tagged and scored, cutting our lead to 4–3, but without Walton's incredible play we would have been down 5–4.