Play Ball!

by Matt Christopher

  “Remember that time we saw the bat hanging upside down from the rafters?”

  Liam broke up at the memory. “We thought it was a leftover Halloween decoration until it started flying around!”

  “Those girls from the softball team were so freaked out they started batting at the bat with their bats!”

  They were both laughing hard when Liam’s aunt appeared on the screen behind Carter.

  “Hi, Liam!” she said. “Sorry to interrupt the fun, but it’s dinnertime here. And Carter hasn’t finished his homework yet.”

  “Aww, Mom,” Carter started to complain.

  “We’re having chicken parmesan and garlic bread.”

  “Oooo, gotta go, Liam!”

  “Give everyone there my love and take some for yourself while you’re at it,” his aunt said.

  “Sure will, Aunt Cynthia. ’Bye, Carter.”

  “See you, and good luck at tryouts!”

  He held up a fist. Liam did the same. Together, they gently bumped their screens three times. Then Carter logged off.

  Liam sat back and looked at the one decoration he’d put up in his new room: the photo Carter had given him for Christmas. He imagined the snow falling on his old house. Then he looked out his window at the bright sunshine, sighed, and moved to put his computer into hibernation.

  His hand paused over the touchpad.

  Don’t watch it, he told himself.

  But his fingertip seemed to have a mind of its own. Three taps later, a video began to play on the screen. He fast-forwarded to the final seconds of the clip.

  “Bottom of the sixth inning of the United States Championship,” a voiceover intoned. “Two outs, tying run on third, Liam McGrath at the plate with a count of oh-and-two. Here’s the pitch and—ooohhh! McGrath has struck out! West wins the game and will move on to the title match of this year’s Little League Baseball World Series!”

  Liam rewound to the moment just before the announcer’s gasp. He watched as he missed Phillip DiMaggio’s pitch, spun around, and fell. In his head, he heard DiMaggio’s whisper: “Made you whiff!”

  He rewound again and watched a third time. Then a fourth and a fifth.

  “Turn that off right now!”

  Liam jumped at the sound of his father’s voice. He’d been so focused on the disaster replaying in front of him that he hadn’t heard his bedroom door open. Now his father strode into the room, reached over, and clicked the video closed.

  “I told you not to watch that,” he said. “One more time, and I’ll take your laptop away!”

  “Sorry,” Liam mumbled, hanging his head.

  “Don’t be sorry.” His father’s tone was gentler, but still firm. “Just stop torturing yourself, okay? It’s over, it’s done, and it’s time to move on. Right?”

  “But what if I can’t? You know how lousy I was during Fall Ball this year. I couldn’t hit anything!” He slumped in his chair. “And now I’ve got tryouts in two days. What if I completely embarrass myself there by missing every pitch?”

  He half-expected his father to tell him he was crazy, that he would do just fine on Saturday. But instead, Mr. McGrath nodded slowly and then asked, “What time do you get home from school tomorrow?”

  “Around two thirty, I guess,” Liam answered. “Why?”

  “You’ll see,” was the only reply he got.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  Carter rolled over and opened one eye. The alarm clock on his nightstand read eight thirty-seven.

  “Aaugh!” He shot out of bed and raced down the stairs to the kitchen. His parents were sitting at the table, sipping coffee.

  “Mom! I’m late for school! Why didn’t you get me up?”

  “Because it’s a snow day,” she said, nodding with her chin at the window.

  Carter spun around and stared. The landscape was indeed covered with a thick blanket of snow. “A snow day! Why didn’t you wake me up and tell me?”

  “Oh, yes, that would make sense,” his mother said, rolling her eyes. “I wake you up, just to tell you not to get up.”

  “Okay, okay,” Carter grumbled good-naturedly. He looked out the window again. “A snow day! Awesome!”

  “Mmmm,” his father said. “Won’t be that awesome in June when you’re making up the missed day.”

  “Sheesh, Dad,” Carter said, “how to suck the joy out of the room. I’m going to call the guys and see if they want to have a snowball fight!”

  “Shovel the driveway first,” Mr. Jones said as he got up to go to work.

  “Aw, Dad, do I have to?” Then he caught the look on his father’s face and said, “Right. Driveway first.”

  “Breakfast first,” his mother amended. “Then clothes, then driveway. Snowball fight after lunch.”

  Carter grinned at her. “You got it, Mom.”

  He ate two bowls of his favorite cereal in five minutes flat and then called his friends before getting dressed. Most responded that they’d meet him at the middle school after lunch. Two yelled at him for waking them up before noon, but then said they were in for the snowball fight, too.

  Ten minutes later, Carter was in the driveway with his shovel. The snow was wet and heavy, perfect for packing but difficult to push. He was glad when his mother came out to help. They had just finished clearing the last of it when she beckoned him to come over.

  “Look,” she said, “someone’s coming out of Liam’s house.”

  Carter glanced over. Sure enough, the garage door was opening and a boy about his age came out with a shovel. He looked at them, too, before beginning to push at the snow.

  “Why don’t you go offer to help him?”

  Carter dug his shovel into the snow again and pretended not to have heard her. It didn’t work.

  “Please, Carter. It would be a nice thing to do, and a good way to meet him,” she said quietly. “You could invite him to the snowball fight, too.”

  “I don’t know, Mom.”

  She sighed. “Carter, I know it’s not easy imagining someone else living in Liam’s house. Believe me, I know. But the sooner we get used to it, the better. Look, his mother came out, too. Now we can both go over. Come on.”

  Carter had no choice but to follow her. Mrs. Jones greeted the woman brightly and apologized for not having stopped by sooner. “This is my son, Carter,” she added.

  “Hi,” Carter mumbled.

  “Hello, Carter, I’m Mrs. LaBrie,” the woman said. Her voice had a soft southern accent that reminded Carter of a movie he’d once seen about the Civil War. “That’s my son, Ashley.”

  Ashley shot his mother a dark look and muttered, “Ash, Mom.”

  “Ash is in sixth grade,” Mrs. LaBrie continued. “He was supposed to start today, but…” She waved at the snow.

  “Carter is in the sixth grade, too,” his mom said to Ash. “I’m sure if you have any questions about the middle school, Carter would be happy to answer them. Wouldn’t you, Carter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And while we’re on the subject of helping, can we give you a hand with the driveway?”

  Mrs. LaBrie smiled. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you and I go inside for a get-acquainted cup of coffee and leave the boys to deal with the snow?”

  “Inside… your house? Of course. Why not?”

  Carter’s mother gave him a meaningful look—See, if I can do it, so can you, that look said—and then followed Mrs. LaBrie into the house.

  Carter and Ash regarded each other for a long moment. Ash was about Liam’s height, Carter noticed, and had brown eyes, too. But the resemblance stopped there. Liam’s hair was dark and covered his head like fuzz, it was cut so short. Ash’s was white-blond and long enough to touch his collarbone, even with a hat on. It was hard to tell because of his snow jacket, but he looked leaner than Liam, too.

  “Guess we should finish the shoveling,” Carter said finally. “I’ll take the end by the road.”

  As Carter began to work, he tried not to think abo
ut the last time he’d shoveled Liam’s driveway. Then, he and his cousin had raced side-by-side to see who could finish his row first. Whoever lost was treated to a fistful of snow down the back. By the time they were done, they were both soaked through to the skin and laughing so hard they could barely stand up.

  Now, he and Ash were at opposite ends and shoveling in complete silence. As he and Ash drew closer together to remove the final rows, Carter started working faster. He was dying to get the job done and go home. Finally, they were finished.

  “Thanks,” Ash said, taking off his ski hat and running his fingers through his hair. He looked at his house. “You want to come in?”

  Carter tightened his grip on his shovel. Being inside Liam’s house when it was stripped down to nothing had been bad enough. He didn’t think he could take seeing it filled with some other family’s belongings. “No, I don’t think I should. I—I suddenly feel like I’m coming down with something.” The lie burned in his throat, making his voice sound huskier than usual.

  “Yeah, you don’t sound so good,” Ash said.

  “I guess I’ll just go home and spend the rest of the day in bed.”

  With that, Carter shouldered his shovel and left.

  His mother returned home a few minutes later. “Well, Jeanne seems nice enough, but I must say it was odd being inside the house,” she said, taking her jacket off and hanging it on a hook in the hallway. “What did you and Ash talk about?”

  “Nothing,” Carter said, then, seeing the look on his mother’s face, quickly added, “We were too busy shoveling.”

  “Oh. Well, you’ll have more time to get to know each other this afternoon.”

  “Ummm…”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You did tell him about the snowball fight, didn’t you?” When he didn’t answer, she let out a huge sigh. “Oh, Carter. Put yourself in his shoes. Or Liam’s. They’re both in the same situation, after all, being the new kids in town. How would you feel if you found out no one was bothering to get to know Liam?

  “Besides,” she added with a mysterious gleam in her eye, “I have a feeling you and Ash have a lot in common.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Go ask him to the snowball fight, and maybe you’ll find out.”

  But Carter couldn’t have invited Ash even if he’d wanted to, for when he opened the door, Ash and his mother were driving away.

  Oh, well, he thought. I tried!

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  Come to the backyard.

  Liam stared at the text on his phone in confusion. The message was from his father. But his father was at work. So why the message?

  Only one way to find out, Liam thought. He headed down the stairs and opened the back door.

  “Smile, Liam!”

  Melanie appeared out of nowhere. She was aiming a video camera at him. The red light was on, indicating that she was recording.

  Liam ducked out of camera range and spotted his father at the far end of the yard. “Dad!” he bellowed. “What’s going on? What’re you doing home? And what’s she doing here and why does she have a camera? Or maybe I should ask why she’s pointing the camera at me and not at herself?”

  Their father jogged up. He handed Liam a wooden baseball bat.

  “Tryouts are tomorrow, and you haven’t hit at all since we got here. Well, now you will. I’ll pitch. You’ll hit.”

  “And Melanie?”

  “Melanie has agreed to film you as you hit,” his father said. “I’m hoping that when we watch the video, we’ll be able to see what’s going wrong with your swing. And then,” he finished, “we’ll fix it.”

  Liam loved playing ball with his father. A former player in high school, his dad still had a good arm and could swat a pitch farther into the outfield than any other father Liam knew, including Carter’s. Even though he’d never coached a Little League team, he’d taught Liam a lot about the game.

  But now, Liam wasn’t sure he wanted to play. The last time he’d batted was in October during Fall Ball. His stats then hadn’t been anything to write home about. And now, his sister was going to film his mistakes.

  He knew his father was only trying to help. But he wished he could just go back inside and forget the whole thing.

  Mr. McGrath had already put home plate in place. Now he counted out paces to where the pitching rubber would be in a Little League baseball diamond. He dumped out a bag of old baseballs, selected one, and then motioned for Liam to get ready.

  Liam put on his batting helmet and stepped up to the plate. He tried to ignore Melanie, who stood a few feet away with the camera.

  “Don’t foul one into me,” she warned. “This is brand-new equipment that I bought with my Christmas money.”

  Don’t worry, Liam thought dismally. I’ll be lucky if I even get a hit. But he just told his sister to take another step backward.

  “We’re just warming up here,” his father called, “so these first ones will come in nice and easy.” Then he wound up and threw. Liam swung and missed.

  “That’s okay, that’s okay!” Mr. McGrath said. “Get ready for the next one.”

  Liam returned to his stance. The second ball flew toward him. This time, he hit it, but the point of impact sent the ball drilling right down into the dirt a few feet in front of him.

  “Topped it that time,” his father commented.

  Liam bit his lip and readied himself again.

  Mr. McGrath threw pitch after pitch. Liam hit some of them, but none with much power. The rest he missed completely.

  “Want to keep trying?” Mr. McGrath asked when he ran out of baseballs.

  Liam swiped angrily at the sweat on his brow. “What’s the point?” he said, his voice thick with frustration. “I won’t get any better.”

  His father came to the plate. “Turn off the camera, Melanie, and upload the video onto my laptop, will you? Let me know when it’s done.”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  Mr. McGrath waited for her to leave and then turned to Liam. “You’re right. You won’t get better. Not with that attitude, anyway.”

  Liam hung his head. “I know. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong!”

  “Well, that’s why we’re trying this. I know it might not be fun for you to watch but—”

  “Ready!” Melanie shouted from the house.

  “Come on,” Mr. McGrath said to Liam.

  Liam didn’t budge.

  “You do know that professional athletes watch film of themselves all the time, right?”

  Liam sighed. “Okay, okay.” He fell in step with his father. “Let’s get this over with. Just tell Melanie to leave us alone!”

  “Like I’d want to stick around and watch!” she said, flicking her long black hair over her shoulder and turning on her heel. When she was gone, Liam and his father sat at the kitchen table and watched the video.

  “There’s a lot that’s right about what you’re doing,” Mr. McGrath commented after a few minutes. “Your stance is good, knees bent and body sideways to the pitch. Your grip looks right, firm but not clutching the handle. Your shoulders are level. From what I could tell when we were out back, your eyes were focused on me, so I’m pretty sure you were watching the ball all the way.”

  “I think I was,” Liam said. “So if I’m doing all that right, why can’t I hit like I used to?”

  His father scratched his head as if puzzled. “I can’t put my finger on it,” he admitted. “But something about your swing is off.”

  It was while viewing his tenth attempt that Liam spotted it. “Hang on.” He tapped the laptop’s touchpad to pause the video.

  Melanie had first started recording from a spot to the right of the plate. After the ninth pitch, she had shifted her position, switching to the opposite side on the left. They’d had a perfect view of his stance from her original position; now they could see what he did after his swing.

  “Look!” Liam pointed to the screen in disbelief. “I didn’t fol
low through.”

  “Let’s see if it was just this one time.”

  Liam started the video again. They watched the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteen swings. Each time, Liam brought the bat around to the ball, but ended his motion there.

  Liam’s father snapped his fingers. “Yes! That’s it!” he said, grinning. “You’re hitting at the ball, not through it.”

  “That’s why I’m not getting any power!” Liam finished excitedly.

  Mr. McGrath nodded, but then turned thoughtful. “Hang on. Are you sure you used to follow through?”

  Liam gave a short laugh. “Oh, yeah,” he said. He opened the laptop’s browser and typed in a website address. The video his father had insisted he never watch again popped up on the screen. Together, they relived the agonizing moment of his mighty World Series strikeout and his twisting fall to the ground.

  “That’s follow-through,” Liam said when the clip ended. “If I’d stopped short, I would have stayed on my feet.” Then he thought of something else. “I wonder if that’s why I stopped following through in the first place. Maybe I’ve been afraid that I’ll fall again.”

  “The mind is a pretty remarkable thing. Your subconscious could have taken over and prevented you from completing the swing,” his father agreed. “But whatever the case, this is for sure: you need to find your follow-through again.”

  “And leave the corkscrew behind!” Liam added.

  They grinned at each other. “You ready to give hitting another go?” Mr. McGrath asked.

  Liam stood up. “Absolutely!”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Piff!

  “Whoo hoo! Direct hit!” Jerry Tuckerman yelled.

  Carter wiped the snow from his coat sleeve and grinned. “Oh, yeah? Take that!”

  He hurled a snowball of his own at Jerry. Jerry ducked and the snowball flew over him.

  “What’s the matter, southpaw? Lost your aim or something?” Jerry taunted.

  Charging toward his foe, Carter scooped up another handful and packed a snowball. “Stop moving for a second and I’ll show you how good my aim is!”