by Carl Deuker
I walked across the infield to the pitcher's mound. It was the first time I'd been on a mound in six months. I stared at home plate, remembering how great it had felt to be on the mound with a baseball in my hand and a ball game on the line.
Suddenly I knew that there was something I had to do, something I should have done a long time ago. I walked home quickly. When I opened the front door, Marian, Kaitlin, and Laura Curtiss were on the floor, the Monopoly board spread between them. "Mom still asleep?" I asked.
"Yeah," Marian said. "Why is she so tired anyway?"
"Christmas is hard work," I said.
"You owe me eighteen dollars," Laura said, and Marian went back to her game.
I pulled out the phone book and flipped through it until I found the right page. We have a cordless phone, so I scribbled the number, took the handset to my room, closed the door, and punched in the digits.
"Reese?" I said when the voice at the other end said hello.
"Yeah, this is Reese."
"This is Shane. Shane Hunter."
Silence.
I swallowed. "I'll pitch to you."
More silence.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yeah, I heard you."
"Well, what do you say? Do you want me to or not?"
"You know I do," he said. "But only if you're going to throw your hardest."
"I will. Not right away, of course. But once my arm is loose."
"Fair enough."
"When do you want to start?"
Reese's red Beetle was already in the parking lot when I reached the baseball diamond an hour later. He was by first base, stretching.
We warmed up by playing catch. The tightness in my shoulder surprised me. The weightlifting had made me stronger, but those new muscles were going to take a while to loosen. Reese kept looking at me, waiting for me to say I was ready.
Finally my arm felt reasonably loose. "You want to hit?" I asked.
He nodded. "I've got a bucket of balls in the trunk."
He went to his car and came back a couple of minutes later. "Here's what I thought we'd do," he said. "There are ten baseballs in the bucket. You pitch them; I hit them. We shag them, then do it again. Okay?"
"Sounds good to me."
He picked up his bat, pulled on his batting gloves, headed toward home plate, then turned back. "I left something in the trunk." He dropped his bat and jogged to the parking lot. When he returned, he was wearing a batter's helmet.
I stepped up onto the mound. As I looked at Reese, all I could feel was the hardness of the ball. "Listen, Reese," I said. "I'm going to throw easy today. I haven't pitched in a long time."
"That's okay," he said. "I haven't hit in a long time either."
I rocked and came straight over the top. I was trying to groove a fastball right down the middle, but my pitch was about two feet outside and must have bounced five feet in front of the plate.
Reese started after it anyway, tried to hold up, then finished his swing so awkwardly he nearly fell down. The ball thudded into the wood boards of the backstop. He smiled. "We can only get better."
Again I went into my motion and delivered. The second pitch was a foot outside and a foot high. Reese flailed at it, nubbing the ball off the end of his bat down the first base line.
After that I reached in for another ball and then another. Sometimes I'd throw something resembling a strike. When I did, Reese would take a cut at it. Most of the time his left side flew open, making his swings awkward and ugly. But every once in a while he hung in, and when he did, the ball jumped off his bat into the alleys.
We went through two buckets, then a third bucket, and a fourth. He'd cream about every sixth pitch, his swing as sweet as ever. When the fifth bucket was empty, we picked up the balls and carried the stuff to his car. He opened the trunk, and I stuck the bucket inside. When he closed it, he turned to me. "You want a ride to Greenwood?"
"No," I said. "I feel like walking."
He headed toward the driver's door and opened it. Before he stepped into the car, I called out to him. "There's something I've got to tell you, Reese," I said, not sure what I was going to say.
He stood just outside his car. "What?"
"That pitch I hit you with?"
"What about it?"
"There was nothing accidental about it. I set you up with those outside pitches. When I saw you move closer to the plate, I came in high and tight trying to hit you, and I'm sorry."
You'd have thought I was telling him the weather report. His face didn't register anything.
"Aren't you going to say something?" I asked.
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know. Something."
He looked off to the side. "I always thought you were trying to hit me. In fact, I was ninety percent sure. So now I'm one hundred percent sure. It doesn't change much."
I waited, but he didn't say anything else. "So you still want me to pitch to you?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Even though I hit you on purpose?"
"What are you after, Shane? What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know. I guess I thought you'd tell me you hate me, or maybe take a swing at me."
His eyes flashed. "All right. You want me to say this stuff out loud, so I'll say it. Sometimes, after I take a terrible swing, I think of that pitch and what it did to me, and I hate you. I hate you so much I want to smash your face in. But then I stop myself from hating you, and I force myself to think about my swing. Hating you won't get me back to where I was. Standing in against that fastball of yours will. I need you to pitch to me. I need to be able to hit against you. I wish I didn't, but I do."
For a while I let his words hang there. Finally I spoke. "You'll hit again, Reese. By the time baseball season rolls around, you'll be as good as you ever were."
He frowned. "How do you know what I'm going to be able to do? You got a crystal ball or something?"
"I know because we'll work at it until you can. I'll pitch to you until my arm falls off if that's what it takes."
The anger slowly went out of his eyes. "Well, I hope you're right."
"I am right. You'll see."
He opened the door to his car and slid into the front seat.
"Tomorrow?" I said.
"Not tomorrow," he answered. "My grandparents are visiting. The day after?"
"Okay then. The day after."
He pulled the car door shut and drove away.
CHAPTER 9
Two days later I was back at the ball field. It was a raw, gray day. Even though I arrived twenty minutes early, Reese was already there. We played catch for a while, then I moved back fifty feet, and we played long toss. It takes a while to loosen up on cool days, and we weren't in any hurry anyway. "You want to hit?" I said after a while.
"Might as well."
I didn't worry about speed, only about mechanics. I tried to stay closed, to drive with my legs and the trunk of my body. The more you ask your arm to do, the more likely that you'll hurt yourself. Get power from your legs, and your arm will hold up.
I wasn't wild like I'd been the first day. Major leaguers paint the corners, working inside and out, up and down. But that's not me. I just fire pitch after pitch right down the middle and hope for some movement.
Maybe because I was in a better flow, Reese was driving my pitches to all fields, hard ground balls and line drives. I threw fifty pitches that day, and I'd guess he hit twenty of them on the button.
"One more bucket," he said when I told him I was done.
I shook my head. "I don't want to hurt my arm."
I helped him carry the stuff to his car.
"Your swing looked good," I said. "Real good."
He smiled. "Yeah, I'm terrific in batting practice."
"I was throwing pretty hard."
"Look, Shane. It went well. I hung in there and hit the ball solid. But that wasn't close to being your best stuff, and you know it."
"It was a step," I ins
isted. "For both of us."
Other than two days when the rain absolutely poured down, Reese and I met every afternoon for the rest of winter break. Each time, I threw the ball a little harder, and each time, Reese hit a little better. But I couldn't get myself to cut loose, not all the way.
The Wednesday after New Year's, I was back in the school cafeteria eating lunch with Miguel and Pedro Hernandez when Kurt Lind came over. "Did you hear about the new guy who just transferred in? The baseball player?"
"Is he a second baseman?" Pedro joked. "Because we sure could use a new second baseman."
Kurt ignored Pedro, focusing his eyes on Miguel and me. "He's a Korean guy, a center fielder. He just moved up here from Oregon. Kim something is his name. He's in my PE class. He runs like the wind. I mean faster than fast. He's hard to understand, but I think he said his team went to the Oregon state finals last year."
"That's good," Miguel said. "We can always use a fast guy."
"There's more," Kurt went on. "You know the McDermott twins—Jim and Tim—the wide receivers on the football team?"
"They're going to play second base," Pedro said.
"No," Kurt snapped. "They're both first basemen, and Grandison told me that you're going to be a ball boy."
Pedro laughed.
"I don't know the McDermotts," I said, "but I know who they are."
"Well, they're turning out for baseball too. They're great athletes. Big and strong." He paused. "I'm telling you, we could be really, really good."
"If those guys pan out," I said.
Kurt smiled. "I know, I know. But if you don't dream in the off-season, when do you dream?"
The weeks rolled by, one after the other. School in the day, study at night, baseball with Reese on the Saturdays and Sundays when it wasn't raining, and on some of the days when it was.
After school one Friday in mid-February, I walked out to take a look at the baseball diamond. The mound was in good shape, which surprised me. Then Grandison's blue van pulled up onto the field, rakes and shovels and bags of dirt in the back. He'd already been hard at work.
He got out, waved to me, and walked over. "Getting the itch?"
"Yeah, I guess I am."
He pulled one of the shovels out of the truck.
He looked at me. "How come you're up there on the mound? I thought you were an outfielder now."
I looked him in the eye. "I'm not an outfielder. I'm a pitcher. Or at least I'm going to try to be one, if you'll let me."
For a long moment his eyes stayed locked on mine. Then he nodded. "All right. If that's what you want. A team can never have too many pitchers." He held out a shovel. "I seem to recall you're pretty good at fixing up a field. Can you give me a hand?"
"Sure," I said, taking the shovel from him.
We worked for more than an hour. At first I was cold, but once I'd broken a sweat, I felt good. There's a pleasure in seeing something take form as you work. "That's enough," Grandison said as the twilight darkened. "Get in and I'll give you a ride home."
We packed up the tools and I hopped in the van. He pulled off the school grounds and into traffic. He had the radio tuned to a jazz station, but as we crawled along Greenwood he flicked it off. "Miguel says you've been working out with Reese Robertson," he said, his eyes fixed on the road. "Is that true?"
I felt the blood rush to my face. "Yeah. It's true."
Grandison nodded. "And how's Reese doing?"
I swallowed. "I don't know. Okay, I guess. He's afraid he won't be able to stand in against a really good fastball."
"You've got a really good fastball. Aren't you throwing it to him?"
"I've been holding back a little."
The traffic light at 130th turned red. Grandison slowed to a stop, then looked over at me. "Why? Something wrong with your arm?"
"Nothing's wrong with my arm."
The traffic started moving again. Grandison made a left turn, then pointed to the duplex. "That's where you live, right?"
"That's it," I said. He pulled into the driveway and I stepped out of the van. "Thanks, Coach."
He leaned across the seat toward me. "Pitch to him, Shane."
***
I saw Reese the next day. It was a bright, sunny day. Cold, but spring was in the air. We could both feel the baseball season sneaking up on us.
We went through our normal routine. A little catch, some fly balls, some grounders. Then I took the mound. The first couple of buckets were basically like the ones I'd thrown the week before. I was going maybe ninety percent. And he was tagging me.
His swing was pure, the prettiest swing I'd ever seen. He kept his arms in tight, bat just off his shoulder, and then—the explosion. Everything forward, everything smooth. Hips, legs, arms, all working together, almost perfectly. But only almost. Because he was still pulling off just a little. Someone who didn't know baseball wouldn't have noticed. But instead of driving inside pitches to straightaway left field, he was lifting them to center and right center. And instead of going 350 feet or more, those drives were carrying 280.
We finished shagging the second bucket and headed back toward the infield. "Baseball season starts pretty soon," he said as we reached the infield.
"Yeah," I said, "it does."
"Don't you think it's time to find out?"
I was as ready as I'd ever be. I was throwing free and easy. Two-seam fastballs, four-seam fastballs. Everything was over the plate or just off it. That shakiness, that roaring in the ears I'd felt last spring—none of that had come back.
"Yeah. I guess it is."
A steady breeze was coming from the west. But as I walked up onto the mound, I suddenly felt hot. For an instant I panicked. Was I losing it? But then a deep calm came over me. This wasn't fear; it was adrenaline. This was what I loved about pitching.
Reese stepped in and nodded to me. I rolled the ball around in my hand, getting the two-seam grip I wanted. When I had it, I nodded back. But the truth is I didn't see him. At least I didn't see him as Reese. He was a batter, my enemy, and all I wanted to do was to strike him out.
I could feel the power in my arm, waiting. For weeks I'd been throwing in the low eighties, effortlessly, the way I used to throw in the high seventies. I'd added five miles per hour on my fastball. Minimum. That would put my top speed near ninety. There were major leaguers who didn't throw that fast.
You hear about players getting in the zone. That's where I was. Totally focused on my own pitches. I'd reach into the bucket, pull out a ball, and fire it.
Those ten pitches were incredible. The ball seemed alive, that's how much it was moving. And it was late movement, the kind of movement that freezes hitters. Darting down and in, or down and away. I was unhittable. I could strike out the world.
I reached into the bucket for another ball, but it was empty. That's when I came out of it. I looked in to home plate, and I saw Reese. His face was blank. Behind him were all the baseballs. He hadn't managed so much as a foul tip.
He turned, started picking up the balls, and then tossed them to me. When they were all back in the bucket, he stepped back into the box. I throttled back, throwing him a batting practice fastball. He didn't even swing.
"Not like that," he said.
"Like what?"
"Don't cheat me, Shane."
So I focused on the plate, reached back for everything and something extra besides, and I let pitch after pitch fly. Knee-high, blazing fast, with movement. Nasty pitches. Nine straight swings. Nine straight misses.
"That's enough," Reese said after he'd waved weakly at the last ball.
I helped him put the balls back in the bucket. We walked to his car. He opened the trunk, stuck the bucket inside, then turned to me. "It's been good coming here, staying sharp. But this is it for me. I won't be coming anymore."
"You're not stopping because of today, are you?" I said. "One time doesn't prove anything. You'll catch up to good fastballs. You wait and see if you don't."
He slammed the trunk shu
t. "Sure I will," he said.
"Come on, Reese," I said. "Don't quit on me."
"I'm not quitting," he said, angry. "I'll play this year, but get the Hollywood ending out of your head, Shane, because it's not happening. Not for me, it isn't."
"But we could still—"
"We could still what?" he interrupted. "The season starts next week. It was a good try, but time's up."
I stood there, not knowing what to say.
"You want a ride home?" he said.
"No. I feel like walking."
"All right then. See you around."
"Yeah. See you around."
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 1
Ten days later, on a crisp February day, tryouts began. I stretched on the outfield grass, looking up at the big, puffy clouds flying across the sky. The grass was a solid green, with the smell of earth just below it. The players around me were talking of games yet to be played, while in the distance I could hear the clatter of bats as Grandison unloaded his van. I'd been crazy to think I could ever quit baseball.
Kim Seung, the transfer Kurt Lind had claimed was so good, turned out to be a skinny guy who couldn't have stood more than five feet five. The first few times he stepped into the batter's box, he didn't seem like much. A lefty, he'd slap a ball down the third base line, hit a ground ball back up the middle, then pull something to right.
It was what he didn't do that made him good. He never swung and missed, never popped anything up. Everything was either a hard ground ball or a line drive. He could move down the first base line more quickly than anyone on the team. In our practice games, he stole second base every time, sometimes going in standing up, which drove Benny Gold crazy. He played center field, and he ran down every fly ball that was near him. Try to take an extra base on him and he'd throw you out. I kept waiting to spot some flaw in his game, or at least something ordinary, but I never did.