by Carl Deuker
West Seattle was like us—a team on the rise. Their school had been rebuilt, and they had some dynamo principal whom everybody loved. The baseball field where they played had been remodeled, and the stands had a fair number of adults and kids.
Right from the start the game was close. Miguel was sharp, striking out half the guys he faced. The only hits West Seattle had were little infield squibbers that nobody could get to and a two-out double. After four innings, they didn't even have a base runner reach third.
West Seattle's starter was matching Miguel. Only Kim hit him hard. He'd lined a single to center his first time up and his next time up had crushed another line drive right past the third baseman for a double.
In the top of the sixth, the West Seattle pitcher struck Jason Crandle out on three pitches, and then got Dirk Becker to pop up. Two outs, nobody on—it looked like another dead inning. But then Pedro Hernandez smacked a fastball right back up the middle and into center field for a single. Benny Gold followed with another hard-hit ground ball, this one past the first baseman and into the right field corner, an easy double. If I'd been coaching at third, I'd have sent Hernandez to the plate. Grandison held him up, though, and it turned out to be the smart play. The throw from right field hit the cutoff man perfectly, and he fired a strike to the plate. Hernandez would have been out by twenty feet.
Two outs, runners on second and third, and Brian Fletcher—our number-nine hitter—stepped to the plate. From the bench we shouted encouragement, but Fletcher had never come through with a clutch hit in a close game.
The West Seattle pitcher bounced his first pitch up to the plate, and only a good block by the catcher prevented Hernandez from scoring. I knew the next pitch would be right down the middle. I hoped Fletcher knew it too and that he'd take a swing at it.
The pitcher checked the runners, then delivered. A fastball, right down the middle. Fletcher's bat whipped through the hitting zone and caught the pitch solid, sending a line shot to right center. For a split second I thought he'd hit it too hard, that it would hold up for the right fielder to catch. But then I saw the fielder pull up. The ball bounced once, and Fletcher was standing at first with two RBI and a huge grin on his face. A second later I heard the magic words from Grandison. "Hunter, get loose."
At least Kim gave me time to get warm. He fouled off about a half dozen pitches before finally lining out to deep center field—another great at bat, even if he did make an out. He had to have impressed Dravus.
I trotted out to the mound, bent over to stretch out my back, then made my final warm-up tosses to Gold. I stepped off the mound and rubbed up the baseball. This was it. This was my chance.
I climbed back onto the mound. The batter took a couple of practice swings, then stepped in. The umpire motioned for me to pitch. "Batter up," he called, and the game was on.
I knew the hitter. Miguel had handled him easily. He had a long swing that made it impossible for him to get around on a fastball like mine. Gold put down one finger. I nodded, went into my wind-up, and delivered. But instead of my good fastball, what came from my hand was a nothing pitch, a batting-practice fastball. The batter was all over it, sending a line shot whistling past my ear into center field.
I had to bear down.
The next hitter was a little guy, no more than five four or five five. He crouched at the plate, too, making his strike zone minute. I should have ignored him and thrown right at Gold's glove. Instead, I let his size get into my mind, and four pitches later he trotted to first base with a walk. Two on, nobody out. I looked up into the bleachers. Coach Dravus was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands.
I felt it then, the same dizziness that had come over me the year before, that same roaring in my head. It was as if I were about to topple into a huge hole. Grandison called time and trotted out. "You sick? Because if you are, tell me and I'll get you out of here."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I'm fine," I repeated.
"All right. Now listen. The next hitter is a lefty who likes the ball low and inside. So you keep it chest high and you keep it outside. Understand? He's not fast, so if you can get him to hit a grounder, we'll double him up."
I nodded. Grandison trotted off; Gold crouched down. I saw myself throwing the perfect pitch, the high strike on the outside corner. I knew I could do it. I checked both runners, but as I made my move to home plate, the roaring came back. Instead of finding the outside corner, I threw right into the hitter's wheelhouse, to the very spot Grandison had told me to stay away from. The batter took what looked like a golf swing at the ball, but he caught it solid. The ball rocketed down the right field line, high and deep, but hooking toward foul territory.
I looked to the umpire. No one breathed. Then came the call. "Fair ball!" He twirled his index finger to indicate a home run. Just like that, West Seattle was ahead 3–2.
I don't remember the rest of the inning. I got through it somehow, though West Seattle did score another run. We went down in order in the top of the seventh. The final score was 4–2.
I'd blown the game, blown my chance for a scholarship, blown everything.
As I stuffed my gear into my warm-up bag, one teammate after another came by. "It happens....Next time....Forget about it....Lucky swing."
I felt weak in the legs. I wanted to bury my head in my hands, but I forced myself to look them in the eye, to say something.
"You've got a nice, smooth delivery," Coach Dravus said in the car as we drove home. "I like the way you use your legs. You'll avoid injury that way."
"Thanks," I said, then I looked out the window. After that no one spoke.
When we reached our house, Mom invited him in. "I'd better get on the road," he said. "I'm driving back to Portland tonight."
"Can I at least make you a cup of coffee?"
"No, but thank you. The sooner I'm off, the sooner I'll be home." Then he turned to me. "Keep your chin up. Even the best closers blow a save now and then."
Inside the house I dropped onto the sofa. "I blew it. I'm sorry."
"You did your best," Mom said. "You can't do any more than that."
"That's just it. I didn't do my best. I choked."
I sat for a few minutes feeling sorry for myself. "I'm going to take a shower," I said and headed for the stairs.
"Wait a minute, Shane," Mom said. "There's something I want to say."
I turned back. "What?"
She paused. "Maybe you did lose your chance at a scholarship today. I don't really know. What I do know is that I saw something today that matters more than any scholarship. You're growing up, Shane. And I like the young man you're becoming, much more than I liked the boy you were."
I looked at her, confused. "What was wrong with me?"
"Nothing was wrong with you."
"Something must have been, or you wouldn't have said what you just said."
She paused. "Promise not to be hurt."
"I promise. Just tell me."
"Okay then. Until this year, I never liked the way you talked about your teammates. It was as if they were just sort of there as a backdrop for you and all the great pitches you made. Today I could see that those are your friends, that you care about them, and that they care about you. I liked seeing that."
CHAPTER 8
At the next practice, Miguel pulled me aside. "We need you to hang in there. There are still lots of games left."
For a while I was perplexed. What was he worried about? Then I knew. "Don't worry, Miguel. I won't quit. You might want me to, if I keep stinking it up, but I'll keep trying."
"You won't stink it up."
Grandison was worried too. He had me throw twenty-five pitches, at full speed. I smacked Benny Gold's glove with throw after throw, and a thin smile came to Grandison's face. "Looks good," he said. But he knew what I knew. The problem wasn't my arm.
Our next game was against Nathan Hale. Hale was a decent team, 5–5 or something like that. They came
out swinging, scoring twice off Cory Minton in the first inning, and they kept that two-run lead through the first four innings. But in the fifth their shortstop booted two ground balls in a row, and we jumped on them. Gold smacked a long double to tie the game, and he scored the lead run on a single by Jeff Walton.
In the sixth Grandison sidled over to me. "Minton can't make it, Shane."
"I can close it out," I said, hoping it was true. "Just give me the ball."
Warming up along the sidelines, I felt incredibly nervous. But was it the good nervousness, the nervousness that meant I'd be sharp? Or was it the first sign of disaster?
We went down in order in the top of the seventh. Grandison, trotting in from his third-base coach spot, pointed toward me. I nodded, then hustled to the mound.
Gold came out and handed me the ball. "Let's win this thing," he said. Then he returned behind the plate. As I took my warm-up tosses, waves of heat and cold took turns rolling through my body. The umpire called out: "One more." I threw a final pitch to Gold, who fired it down to second. The ball went around the infield, then came back to me.
Nathan Hale's batter stepped in. I stared at Gold's glove, then went into my wind-up. This was it. I rocked back, and suddenly all the tightness seemed to go away. My arm felt loose as a whip, and the ball came out of my hand with speed and accuracy.
Then something I wasn't ready for happened. The batter swung, sending a dribbler out in front of home plate. Instead of pouncing on the ball and firing to first, I stared at it as if it were a hand grenade. I'd been so focused on my pitch that I'd forgotten everything else, finally I broke for the ball. Picking it up on the run, I made an awkward throw toward first. The ball skipped wildly past Pedro Hernandez, and the runner cruised into second.
I looked at Grandison, at my infielders. They thought I was going to choke away another game. I rubbed up the baseball as the next batter adjusted his batting gloves and then stepped in. He was a little guy with a bit of a gut. I'd watched him take his cuts against Minton. His bat was slow; I could blow the ball right by him.
And that's what I did. He never even managed to swing at any of my pitches. But my fastball had so much movement that I ended up walking him on a 3–2 pitch that barely dipped outside.
I stepped off the mound and rubbed up the baseball. For a second I held the ball in my fingertips. My arm still felt loose. I climbed back onto the mound.
Behind me, the infielders were quiet, too tight to chirp at the batter. Gold put down one finger, then pointed to the ground. The low fastball. I nodded, checked both runners, and fired. I took something off it, hoping to get the batter to swing.
It worked. He went after the pitch, catching the top half of the ball and sending an easy two hopper to short. Brian Fletcher fielded it, tossed to second for the force. The relay back to first was in plenty of time to complete the double play.
From the bench Grandison called out, "That's it, Shane. Just like that." Behind me voices came alive. "You're the man, Shane."
All we needed was one more out.
I looked at the runner dancing off third, but that was only a habit. All my attention was on the hitter. Pure heat. That's all he was getting. I wasn't taking anything off my pitches.
"Strike one!" the umpire yelled as the first pitch blew past him. "Strike two!" he yelled when the second did the same. The batter stepped out and took two vicious practice swings as if there was no way in the world he was going to watch a third strike go by. But my third pitch was the fastest. The bat stayed glued to his shoulder. "Strike three!" the umpire yelled, and he peeled off his mask and headed off the field as my teammates rushed the mound.
CHAPTER 9
Before the next practice Coach Grandison called the team together. "I've got some good news. Kim Seung has accepted a scholarship to play baseball for the University of Southern California."
Immediately we let out a cheer, then crowded around Kim, patting him on the back, tousling his hair, and congratulating him. "Those USC pitchers are going to love having you in center field," I said when it was my turn. "You've made me look good." Kim, normally so stone-faced, couldn't keep from smiling.
After I did my usual throwing along the sidelines, I went to the outfield and ran and ran and ran, my mind churning. It was all over. With Kim committed to USC, no college coaches would bother with our games. I hadn't known I was still hoping for a scholarship until there was no hope.
After that, Kim was loose and happy, laughing all the time. It turned out that he knew more English than he'd let on. "Talk about pressure," Kurt Lind told me at one practice as we tossed the ball around. "His whole family was watching him. Aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, grandparents. They were all waiting for that scholarship. Even his relatives in Korea were waiting. He must feel a hundred pounds lighter now."
In a different way, Kim's scholarship took the pressure off me, too. I stopped peeking up into the stands to see if college recruiters were there. I just played.
And the team went on a roll. We steamrolled Redmond, Cleveland, and Eastside Catholic. We lost to Roosevelt when Miguel couldn't find the plate and walked seven batters in the first two innings, but then we got right back on track with two straight wins over Garfield to end the regular season. Whitman High hadn't won the Metro title in twenty-two years, but we won that year, and we won it easily.
"We're in the district tournament," Grandison said when he called us together. "I don't know how we'll do. Maybe we'll win the thing and make it into state. Maybe we'll lose two straight and go home. The main thing is, we're going."
The McDermott twins had filled a cooler with ice water. As Grandison was talking, they sneaked around behind him, each holding one end of the cooler. Benny Gold grinned. The idea was to dump the water over Grandison's head, but Gold's grin alerted him. Grandison turned to see what was going on behind him just as the McDermotts let the ice water fly. Instead of getting it over his back and neck, he took it right in the face. For a second, you could see his body tense with anger. But just for a second. When he turned back to the rest of us, a smile was on his face. Somebody started singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." It's got to be the world's dumbest song, but we all joined in at the top of our lungs.
CHAPTER 10
There was a buzz around school, but nobody expected us to go far in the tournament. The suburban schools and the private schools always crush the city teams. Still, you never know. After practice on Monday, Grandison led us into a meeting room in the gym. Posted on the wall was a chart of the tournament. At the far left were lots of lines with high schools' names on them. Explorer ... Juanita ... Overtake ... Kentridge ... Shorelake. I spotted our name about three-fourths of the way down. As games were played, teams would lose and be eliminated. At the far right of the chart there was only one line with room for the name of only one team. Underneath that line were the magic words "District Champion—to State Tournament." Grandison stood in front of the chart. He was barking at us. "Take it one game at a time, or you'll get your heads handed to you on a plate." But he couldn't keep us from dreaming.
When he finished explaining how the tournament worked, he dismissed us. I was almost out the door when he called my name. "Shane, stay here a minute."
Something in his voice made me nervous, and I grew more nervous when he closed the door behind the last guy to leave the room. Miguel looked back through the window at me. I shrugged.
Grandison sat in one of the blue plastic chairs. I did the same. "Coach Dravus is coming to Saturday's game."
"To see me?"
"Well, he's not coming to see me. I've been sending him regular reports on you. Strikes, balls, hits, runs, all that sort of stuff. His team is up here for games against UW this weekend." I must have gone pale. "You just keep pitching like you've been pitching, and everything will be fine. Okay?"
"Okay."
He looked at the clock. "Now get out of here. I've got things to do."
CHAPTER 11
Our first tournament ga
me was on Monday, against Woodinville at their field. The school sat on a hill, with the playing fields spread out below. It looked more like a college than a high school.
Miguel had been our best pitcher for weeks, so Grandison had everybody shaking their heads when he picked Cory Minton to start. It made no sense. Then, watching Minton warm up just before game time, I understood. Cory was a three-year letterman. He'd stuck with the team through tough times. He deserved the start, and Grandison was right to give it to him.
On the bench before the game, we were tight. If we could just get a run in the top of the first, everybody would relax. And it looked as if we would, too. Kim Seung hit the first pitch into right field, a sinking liner that seemed like a cinch base hit, maybe even a double. But Woodinville's right fielder made a sliding one-handed catch that brought their fans to their feet. After that, Kurt Lind and Tim McDermott went down on easy groundouts.
Minton took the mound. I watched his final warm-up tosses, but you can't really tell anything from warm-ups. I clapped my hands. "One, two, three," I shouted.
The Woodinville batter stepped in, a lefty with a short stroke. Minton threw a ball, then a strike. With the count 1–1, the hitter laid down a perfect drag bunt. Startled, Minton got a late break on the ball, and our second baseman was way too deep to come in and make the play. The Woodinville guy flew down the line, safe at first.
That bunt single rattled Minton. The next hitter was trying to bunt the runner to second, but Minton was so wild he couldn't do it. Four straight balls, none of them close, put runners at first and second.
Brian Fletcher did the right thing. He trotted in to talk to Minton. I could read his lips. "Keep the ball down," he was saying. "A ground ball, and we'll turn a double play and get out of this."