by Tim Green
“You weren’t the one out there, Bella,” Brock replied, “with that guy screaming at me. Getting kicked out of the game! I didn’t even mean to hit him.”
“So, life’s not fair.” She gritted her teeth. “Newsflash . . . Coach, we need help. Think.”
Coach chuckled. “Bella, you’re a doll, but you can’t fight your way out of a corner if you’re facing the wall. I’ve been working with Brock as hard as I’ve ever worked with anyone. I’m doing everything I did with Barrett Malone. It worked for him. It should work for Brock too. I don’t know what else to say to you.”
“You can cut the ‘doll’ stuff, Unc. I’m not a party favor.” She scowled.
“Listen, young lady, I—”
“Young lady works for me, Coach.” Bella smiled and Coach couldn’t seem to help smiling back. “But think. There’s got to be something.”
“Well I . . .” Coach snapped his fingers and sat up a bit straighter. “Wait, you know, I do have an idea.”
76
Coach wouldn’t tell them what the idea was. No matter how hard Bella pestered him. He disappeared into his hotel room and didn’t come out until dinner time when he wore a big grin and kept looking at his watch.
“Coach, seriously.” Bella dropped her fork onto her plate and banged the table with her hand. “What is it?”
Brock chewed and waited patiently.
Coach looked over at Coach Centurelli. “Should I tell them, Dave, or surprise?”
“Surprise.” Coach Centurelli grinned mischievously.
“That’s what I thought.” Coach patted the table himself.
Bella clamped her mouth shut and shook with frustration.
Coach stood up and cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, your attention!”
The dining room grew quiet.
Coach looked at his watch, then up at them. “Team meeting in the Simms Room at eight o’clock. Coach Centurelli has a scouting report on these Philly guys I want to go over.”
The players wore blank expressions, but nodded their heads and began to murmur among themselves again after a few minutes. Coach sat back down and flashed Bella a grin.
“That’s the surprise?” Bella wrinkled her nose. “A scouting report? I don’t see how that helps Brock.”
“If I told you any more, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?” Coach bit into a bread stick and chewed.
Bella growled, but returned to her food. When she finished, she threw her napkin down and stood to go. “Come on, Brock. Let’s leave the coaches to their secret plans.”
Coach only laughed at her. “You’re mad now, but you’re gonna like it.”
Instead of returning to either of their rooms, Bella suggested going for a walk, and Brock was all for it. The evening air was just a bit cool and a breeze wafted off the lake. Directly behind the hotel was a path through the trees that led to a walkway circling the shoreline. The coming night bruised the bellies of the clouds above and the last rays of sun set the treetops ablaze with orange light. They passed people riding bikes and jogging. Finally, they reached the bridge crossing over into the college campus.
They worked their way down the bank to sit beneath the abutments, using an old stone column as a backrest.
“Quiet down here.” Bella tossed a stone into the water’s still dark surface. “I bet you like quiet, huh?”
Brock threw a stone of his own, then looked over at her. “I guess.”
“Guess?” She chuckled. “You’re like a black hole. Everything goes in, nothing comes out.”
“Well . . .” He threw another stone, enjoying the kerplunk sound.
“Is there anything?” She leaned over and touched the top of his head. “In there, I mean.”
“Lots,” he said. “Too much.”
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
Brock shook his head and looked down at his hands. “Do you think Coach and your aunt not telling people about their son is like a lie?”
“Of course not.” Bella snorted. “It’s personal stuff about their past.”
“Then,” Brock said, “when they get to know someone, maybe they talk about it.”
“Did he talk to you?” Bella asked.
“No. I’m not talking about Coach’s son, really.” Brock glanced up at her. “I have personal stuff . . . about my past.”
“Your past?” Bella leaned forward so she could look at his face. “Like what?”
77
Brock wanted to tell her everything, but it was like a logjam in his brain. Some things came out. Others were simply too stuck to move.
“My dad never coached my teams. He never really does much of anything with me,” Brock said.
“Some parents are like that,” Bella said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t love you. I do more with Coach and my aunt than my parents.”
“Then I met Coach, and he saw something in me.” Brock was about to throw another stone, but he stopped and looked over into her eyes. “Like I was special. Because of this gift I have. This arm. And it’s like baseball is suddenly something more to me. It’s like a part of me. Do you know how good that feels?”
“I guess,” she said.
“Usually, no one knows anything about me.” He looked back out at the water. “I’m never around for very long. I’m always the new kid.”
“Because of your dad’s job?”
Brock laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Yeah. You could say that. I mean he . . .”
“He what?” Bella leaned his way again.
Brock shook his head. “I just can’t help feeling there’s something different between me and you, and I barely know you.”
“You could know me more if you’d just talk,” she said. “Like this.”
“I don’t even know myself.” Brock dipped his chin.
“Hey . . . what’s that mean?” Bella touched his shoulder.
Brock sighed and shook his head and stood up in a way that ended the conversation. “We better get back for the big surprise. I have no idea what Coach has cooking, but . . . he’s the coach, right?”
Bella gave him a disappointed look, but Brock felt like he’d already gone too far, so he looked away. She got to her feet, and they walked together silently down the gloomy path.
They reached the lobby at five minutes before the hour. The place was crowded with adults and TV cameras and the undercurrent of conversation charged with excitement. A couple of grown-ups dragged kids along with them, kids in baseball caps carrying their gloves and staring wild-eyed like mice in a bathtub.
“What is going on?” Bella stopped in her tracks.
“Come on.” Brock took her arm and dragged her through the throng of people. He didn’t intend to be late.
They were the last ones in and sat in the front row. Coach stood before them with a huge grin. “As some of you may know . . . well, forget all that. I’ve got someone who wants to offer you fellas a little encouragement for tomorrow.”
Coach walked over to the door that led into the adjoining meeting room and swung it open.
His guest stepped into the Liverpool meeting room and the entire team gasped.
78
Everyone seemed to whisper at the same time.
“That’s Barrett Malone.”
“The lefty.”
“Two Cy Young awards.”
“Best pitcher in baseball.”
Brock just sat with his jaw slung low.
Bella nudged him. “Oh, my God.”
Barrett Malone gave Coach a hug, shook Coach Centurelli’s hand, then stepped up to the podium in front of the room.
“Guys. How you doing?”
The room erupted with mumbling and muttering about how everyone was good.
“Good.” Malone winked. “Well, we just finished a three-game series with the Yankees and I’m on my way down to Baltimore for a doubleheader tomorrow, and Coach shot me a text asking me to stop in. So . . . here I am. I guess you guys have a big game tomorrow, huh?”
Th
e team issued nods and grunts all around.
“And you lost a doozy today?”
Groans.
“Well, that happens. That’s baseball, right?” Malone pointed at Bella. “And I heard all about you, young lady. I like your style, playing some summer baseball with the boys to make that softball seem like you’re hitting a beach ball. I’ll be looking for you in college.”
“At Georgia.” Bella sat up straight, beaming. “That’s where I plan on going.”
“I bet you are.” Malone turned back to the team in general. “Listen, guys, you got a great coach here. Coach Hudgens put me where I am today. I wouldn’t have done any of what I did without Coach, so you all listen to him. If you follow his advice, you’ll get things turned around. A big part of this sport is mental. You’ve got to believe in yourselves because—trust me—you got the coach to take you to the finals and win the Princeton thing.”
“How about that, guys?” Coach stepped up next to Malone and kicked off a round of applause. The team was soon on its feet.
Barrett Malone gave them one last wave, then disappeared from the way he came, trailing Coach with him.
Coach Centurelli stepped up to the podium. “That’s it, guys. You heard him. Now, get yourselves to bed. You have a ten o’clock bed check and I don’t want a single one of you messing around. Tomorrow is a big day.”
The team broke up and filed out, but Coach Centurelli stopped Brock and Bella. “Coach said for you two to hang back. Barrett Malone wants to talk to you.”
79
The room off the meeting room was empty.
Brock gave Bella a puzzled look, and she only shrugged.
“This way.” Coach Centurelli kept moving through the room, out a back door, and into an enormous kitchen. Cooks and waiters stared at them, but kept to their work. A hotel security guard gave them a nod and pointed to another door in the back.
Coach led them out onto a loading dock and into the evening gloom. Down on the pavement two black Town Cars rumbled softly, filling the air with exhaust. Their taillights glowed like warning signs but the headlights were off. The back doors of each car swung open as if by magic. For a brief instant, Brock recalled the horror in his father’s voice when he asked Brock if he’d seen a black Town Car, but this couldn’t be his father’s bad guys.
Coach Centurelli pointed to the one in front. “Brock, that one’s for you. Bella, come with me.”
Brock watched the two of them climb into the car in back. Again, he was struck by a moment of panic. There was no reason he could think of to have his own car. He stood frozen outside the open door, peering into the backseat. But his heart leaped as his eyes adjusted to the dark and he realized Barrett Malone was sitting there, waiting for him.
Brock climbed in, grinning, and closed the door.
“Brock Nickerson. You’re the new kid.” Barrett Malone held out a hand for Brock to shake. “Nice to meet you, even though Coach says you’ve got more heat in your arm than I had at your age.”
“He did?” Brock felt his face in flames. “I can’t even . . . I’m a mess.”
“Ha! That’s just finding your sweet spot. Maybe I can help.” He leaned up toward the front seat. “Danny, let’s go. You know the way?”
“Yes, sir.”
Malone leaned back and took a deep breath. “Sorry for all the secrecy, but there’s a mob out front and I just don’t have time to start signing things and doing interviews. I wanna get to work and then get down to Baltimore.”
“Work?” Brock felt a jolt of excitement.
“Coach said you got all the talent in the world, just can’t get things going when there’s a batter in the box. A real batter. In a game. That right?” Barrett Malone wore a look of kindness, maybe even understanding.
Brock nodded.
Malone drew in a breath, nodding at the same time. “He give you the mental schmental talk?”
“He told you?”
Malone laughed. “He didn’t tell me. He gave it to me when I was your age. Coach, he knows a lot, but he’s old school. He thinks you tough it out through everything, and I mean everything. You heard about his son?”
“Yeah.” Brock mumbled.
Barrett Malone looked out the window for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. “Coach should have seen someone about that, a counselor or a shrink. It set him back. Nearly killed him if you ask me. But . . . not Coach. So when he says mental schmental? That part of things, he just has no clue.”
Brock nodded without saying anything. He wasn’t totally sure he understood.
“What do you look at when the batter steps into the box?”
“Look?”
“Where are your eyes?”
“Well, I’ve been pitching at a white chalk square on Coach’s fence. Then he had Coach Centurelli wear an umpire’s chest plate with a white square on it during practice.”
“No white square in a game.” Barrett Malone’s lower lip disappeared beneath his teeth and his eyes bored into Brock’s. “So, what do you look at then?”
Brock wrinkled his brow, thinking. “I . . . I don’t know what I look at.”
“Nothing?”
Brock shrugged.
“And your eyes are all over the map and so is the ball.” Barrett Malone offered a secretive smile. “And I know just how to fix that.”
80
To have Barrett Malone just watch you pitch would have been the thrill of a lifetime to Brock. To have the star baseball player watch him and work with him was something that left Brock breathless. Somehow, some way, Coach had gotten someone from the university to turn the lights on at the field. The stands and dugouts rested in the shadows, free from fans and players. Only the five of them disturbed the infield dirt, which had been raked out neat and clean for tomorrow’s games.
Coach Centurelli wore a catcher’s mask and mitt and squatted behind the plate. Bella stood at the plate, bat back, and a helmet on her head. Coach and Barrett Malone haunted the edge of the mound with arms folded tight across their chests, either to fend off the chilly night air, or to signal their intense concentration.
“Okay, let’s see it.” Barrett Malone spoke to Coach, and not Brock.
“Go ahead,” Coach said. “Show him. Full windup.”
Brock looked at Barrett Malone. “Should I watch the glove?”
Coach rolled his eyes. “Of course. Eyes on the catcher’s mitt, but focus on the windup, not that mental schmental stuff.”
Barrett Malone put an arm around Coach and hugged him with one arm, like the older man was a big stuffed animal. “Oh, come on, Coach. Stop grouching about it. You asked me what I thought, right?”
Coach grumbled.
Barrett Malone went over to Coach Centurelli and held out his hand. “This is his real catcher’s mitt, right?”
Coach Centurelli nodded and handed the glove over to the major league player. “Charlie Pellicer, yup.”
Barrett Malone took something out of his pocket, bent over the glove, and blew on it before giving it back. Next, he strode out to the mound and held out his hand to Brock. “Let me see your glove.”
Brock removed his glove and handed it over. He watched the pro player take a small bottle from his pocket—Wite-Out you use to cover up mistakes on paper—and dab it onto the outside thumb of his glove in the shape of a circle the size of a penny.
“See the dot?” The big dark sky beyond the haze of the lights seemed to gobble up Barrett Malone’s voice the instant it left his mouth.
“Sure.”
“You watch this dot. You stare at it, let it sink into your brain. When you go into your windup, you put your eyes on that dot.” Barrett Malone pointed at Coach Centurelli behind the plate and sure enough, even at this distance, he could see a matching white dot in the center of Charlie Pellicer’s mitt. “Trust me.”
Brock sucked air in through one side of his mouth and tried not to shake his head even though it made no sense. “Okay.”
He rested his heels on the
rubber and turned his attention to the dot on his glove, staring at it hard.
Brock went into his full windup, and as he did, he let his eyes find the dot in the center of the catcher’s mitt, slung his arm back behind his shoulder and whiplashed it out and down. With a final snap of his wrist, the ball left his hand, flying toward the plate.
81
SNAP.
The ball struck Coach Centurelli’s mitt dead center.
Bella grinned at him, and he turned and grinned at Coach and Barrett Malone.
“Just like that?” Barrett Malone raised an eyebrow and looked from Brock to Coach.
“I told you about him.” Coach beamed like the sun, his cheeks flushed with pleasure and pride.
“Again.” Barrett Malone folded his arms.
Brock wound up and threw another. SNAP.
Dead center.
Another.
SNAP.
Another.
They threw nearly a dozen pitches before Barrett Malone declared an end to their session. “You don’t need me anymore and I don’t want to wear out his arm. He’s got plenty of throwing to do this weekend, right, Coach?”
“You think I can do it with a batter?” Brock asked.
Barrett nodded at Bella. “You had a batter.”
“In a real game.”
“I know you can,” Barrett Malone said.
Together, they headed toward home plate where Bella and Coach Centurelli stood waiting. After some high fives and congratulations, they left the stadium passing through the side gate. Right before they got to the waiting cars, Barrett Malone stopped short. His eyes were on the parking lot and he straightened his back, pointing.
“Company.”
“Who is it?” Coach asked.
A white TV van screeched to a halt and a cameraman hopped out with a reporter close behind. The two men jogged up to Barrett Malone, blocking his path to the Town Car.
“Hello, Todd.” Barrett stopped and actually smiled at the reporter who wore an ESPN windbreaker.
“Just a couple questions, Barrett. Come on. Do you know how hard I worked to get here? What are you doing?” The reporter nodded at Brock without taking his eyes off Barrett Malone. “Are you training this kid?”