Batting Ninth Page 4

  “Well, I’m under contract with the White Sox, so I can’t say much about salary,” Mark said. “But I sure understand the long road trips.”

  “Why don’t you just fly?” I asked.

  “Some guys in my shoes would,” Mark said. “As far as the White Sox are concerned, I’m here to rehab my knee. But I’m also here to help the Colts win. I’m part of the team, and if I’m flying while the rest of the team is on the bus, it sends the wrong message.”

  This wasn’t the selfish Mark Wilcox that Dad had told me about.

  “Look, the Sox are coming back,” Mark said. Sure enough, in the bottom of the ninth inning, with two outs, the White Sox had loaded the bases, still trailing by two runs. Jacob Rawlings, the outfielder who had taken Mark’s place in the lineup, was at bat.

  “Jacob’s a good kid,” Mark said. “A little green and not really ready for the majors just yet, though. He’s probably still a year or two away. If I can just get back to Chicago, I still own left field, at least for a little while.”

  We watched as Jacob Rawlings took the first two pitches for a ball and a strike.

  “See, the way he’s holding the bat,” Mark said. “He’s doing the same thing you were earlier in the season. He needs to keep that left elbow up.”

  Just as Mark finished speaking, Rawlings hit a towering fly ball to deep center field. The Indians fielder raced back but stopped at the wall as the ball sailed into the bleachers for a game-winning home run.

  Jose and I raised our arms in triumph, coaxing Mark into high fives.

  “Well, every dog has his day,” Mark joked. “It’s been good visiting with you. Tell Matt I’ll catch up with him this weekend.”

  I watched Mark walk slowly to his car. His limp was back.

  Chapter Eight

  Warning Track

  Rain fell all day Tuesday and practice had been canceled. Mark was right. We had a lot of work to do, and this had been our last chance to practice. We wouldn’t be together again until warm-ups for Wednesday night’s game against the Panthers.

  “Just one week away, boys!” Zach Neal said as Jose and I pulled on our backpacks. “One week, and the Rangers will either be sitting at home or playing the mighty Red Sox for the championship.”

  “Actually,” Jose said, “The game is Saturday. That’s only four days.”

  “Whatever,” Zach said. “You’ve got to win two games in the next two days. Think you guys are up for it?”

  “I’d say we have a pretty good shot,” I said. “We have the Panthers tomorrow night, and we’ve already beaten them twice this season.”

  “Then we have the Astros again on Thursday,” Jose added. “We beat them Saturday, and they’ve still only won two games.”

  “But,” I reminded him, “this isn’t the time to take anyone lightly.”

  “Well, see you Saturday boys,” Zach said, heading for the exit door. He looked over his shoulder. “Maybe,” he added.

  “Did I ever mention that kid grates on my nerves?” Jose asked.

  I just stared and shook my head.

  By game time Wednesday, the ball field was dry. The Panthers players came from another school, so none of us knew any of the kids. But we were confident because we had already beaten them twice. Still, Coach Ramsey wasn’t about to let us look ahead.

  “The championship is Saturday,” he said. “We still have two games, and if we lose either one, we’ll be watching the Marlins play for the trophy.”

  “Listen up,” Mark added. “I’ve been in a lot of big games, and at this point, it’s all up here,” he said, pointing at his temple. “You know this team, and you know your abilities. Just go out there and get it done.”

  The game was tight from the beginning. Both teams scored single runs in the first three innings. I grounded out twice but drove in a run, so one of the at bats counted as a sacrifice. The fourth inning began with the score tied, 3–3.

  Danielle shouted as we came to bat to lead off the fourth. “I’m expectin’ to be pitching us to the championship tomorrow night,” she said. “Let’s put these pencil necks away right now!”

  We all rolled our eyes, but we knew she was right. Danielle got on everybody’s nerves, but she wanted to win. That was all any of us wanted at this point.

  Danielle’s enthusiasm sparked us, and we scored four runs in the inning to take a 7–3 lead. The lead held until the bottom of the sixth, when the Panthers came to bat.

  The first Panthers hitter drew a walk, but the second batter popped up, and I caught the ball for the first out.

  The Panthers shortstop, a fast kid who already had two hits in the game, came to bat. I took a few steps back toward the outfield grass to cut off a hard-hit ball. Jose slid a couple of feet toward second base, motioning that he’d be covering the base on a ground ball. The batter eyed the hole between Jose and the first baseman.

  After two quick strikes, the batter blasted a ground ball toward the hole. I realized I was out of position, and Jose was, too. Jose raced toward his left, diving in front of the ball to stop it from reaching the outfield. I charged hard for second base from my position at shortstop. If Jose could get me the ball, we’d at least get the force-out at second. With a hard throw and a little luck, we might be able to turn a double play.

  As Jose stopped the ball, it was clear he didn’t have time to pivot and get the ball to me. He fired to first base, easily throwing out the runner. I took up position on second base as the Panthers catcher lumbered toward me. Our first baseman threw a rocket, and I didn’t even have to move my mitt.

  “Double play!” the umpire shouted, throwing his fist in the air. I gave a fist pump of my own and met the rest of the swarming team at first base.

  “One more!” Coach Ramsey announced. “Tomorrow night, Danielle is pitching for us against the Astros.”

  “I’m gonna cream ’em,” Danielle said.

  Jose and I found Mom talking with Mark near the parking lot.

  “I asked your mom if you could meet me at the Colts stadium tomorrow after school,” Mark said. “I’d like to work with you a little more on your hitting.”

  I gave Mom a look with my most pleading eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I won’t be off work until five.”

  “No problem,” Mark said. “I’ll give him a ride from the stadium back here for the game.”

  I watched Mom. Dad was still out of town. He’d never know. Plus, we both knew that Mark wasn’t as bad as Dad had told us. Mom couldn’t deny his coaching had done me a lot of good.

  “Only if Jose can go with him,” she said reluctantly.

  “You bet he can,” Mark said. “You guys take the bus to the stadium after the game. I’ll leave your names with the security guard. He’ll let you onto the field, and I’ll meet you there after I soak my knee in the whirlpool.”

  Jose and I high-fived. Pregame batting practice in the Brightsport Colts Stadium—the Astros didn’t stand a chance.

  Chapter Nine

  Bases Loaded Jam

  The Jefferson Rangers!”

  A street vendor outside Colts Stadium shouted at me, apparently spotting the backpack I had slung over my shoulder when I got off the bus. I ignored him and trudged toward the stadium gate.

  “Hey, kid,” the vendor persisted, “Come over here a second.”

  I paused. Jose was stuck in detention for talking during social studies class, and I was already going to be in enough trouble for coming downtown alone. I didn’t need Mom to find out I had been talking to strangers.

  The vendor was a scraggly fellow, probably ten years older than Mom and Dad, and wore a badge that said his name was Bill. He pushed a cart with snow cones and baseball cards—an interesting combination, I thought.

  “Kid, you have to be from Jefferson,” Bill said, pointing at my backpack.

  “No,” I answered, keeping a safe distance. “I’ve been here in Brightsport my whole life.”

  “Well, only a person from Jefferson would
carry a backpack like that. The Rangers are positively the worst organization in baseball.”

  He was right. The Jefferson Rangers were an independent league team from upstate. They’d never won a championship and usually finished in last place.

  I shrugged and thought about telling him that I only wore the backpack because of my Bronco League team. But I didn’t need to give him that kind of information.

  “But, you stick with ’em,” Bill said as he reached into the cooler of his cart. “And maybe someday …x” he trailed off.

  Bill grinned, shook his head, and handed me a snow cone. “On the house,” he said.

  “Thanks!” I couldn’t resist a snow cone on a hot day. I lifted it to my lips. The coolness of the ice against my chin helped dry some of the sweat that had started streaming down my face. I broke into a jog and headed for the stadium entrance.

  Just inside the stadium gate, a security guard in a light blue uniform sat half asleep at a desk. A telephone and a pad of paper sat in front of him.

  “Chad Griffin. I’m here to see Mark Wilcox,” I announced.

  The security guard straightened his cap, tipped forward in his chair, and thumbed through his notepad.

  “Here you are,” he said, checking off my name with a short, yellow pencil like those usually handed out with a game program. “Says here there should be another kid with you, Jose Martiz?”

  “Just me today,” I said. “Jose’s … busy.”

  “Well, there aren’t many folks here. You can head down to the field,” the guard said. He led me to the top row of seats and pointed at a gate near the dugout. “I’ll tell Mr. Wilcox you’re here.”

  I ran down the aisle between seats, skipping every other step to the bottom of the grandstands. The press box, the roof covering the seats, and the scoreboard towered overhead. I walked through the gate to the third-base line, where a faint ribbon of white chalk had been brushed out and waited to be re-striped before the next Colts home game.

  I had been to the stadium before, but I’d never really stood on the field. Sometimes kids were allowed to run the bases after the game, but the stadium workers never let us stop to look around. “Keep ’em moving” was the name of that game.

  I dropped my backpack outside the foul line and trotted out to the shortstop position. The diamond seemed monstrous. Shoot, I thought. With that kind of distance between the batter and me, I’d never let a ground ball by me. Then I looked across the diamond to first base. But I’d never be able to throw anybody out either.

  “Hey!” a voice called from the dugout. “What are you doin’ out there?”

  A man in jeans and a Colts polo shirt and cap motioned for me to get off the field. “You can’t be out there. Lookin’ for somebody?”

  I decided he must be the groundskeeper.

  “Mark … uh, Wilcox,” I stammered. “The guard said he was gonna tell him I’m here.”

  “Well, no sense in you standing out here in the sun. Come on into the clubhouse,” he shouted.

  I could have stood on the diamond all day long, but seeing inside the Colts clubhouse wasn’t something I wanted to pass up. Jose won’t ever believe it, I thought, bounding down the steps leading into the dugout. The groundskeeper pointed down a wide hallway.

  “The locker room is down there on the left. Door’s open—just walk in,” he said.

  The hallway floor was concrete, with a rubber mat for the players to walk on. I reached down and ran the palm of my hand on the mat. It was full of holes from season after season of cleats scuffing along the path to the locker room. The walls were very worn too, smeared with mud and dented, undoubtedly by players dragging bats back to the clubhouse. Just like the groundskeeper had said, the locker room was at the end of the hall behind a red door labeled “PLAYERS ONLY.”

  Even though the groundskeeper told me to walk in, I tapped on the door and waited a few seconds before pushing it open. The locker room wasn’t anything like the one at school. The floor was carpeted. The lockers were actually small cubicles that lined the walls, each with a neatly pressed white and tan Colts uniform hanging inside. At one end of the room, there was a big-screen television along with a Ping-Pong table. It had to have been the tidiest room I had ever seen. Mom would have been proud.

  A row of dark offices lined the back wall, each with a removable nameplate on the door. “Lance Matlock, Manager,” I read. The other offices must be for the other coaches, I thought. In the far corner, a light shone from behind a doorway. I softly walked to that end of the room, still unsure I was even supposed to be there.

  I stuck my head through the door and saw Mark sitting on a bench with his back toward me. He wore a T-shirt and shorts and appeared to be massaging his knee.

  “Knee getting any better?” I asked, grinning widely at the thought of surprising Mark.

  Mark jumped, turned his head toward the door, and grabbed a towel from the bench.

  “How’d you get in here?” he asked, holding the towel against his kneecap.

  “The groundskeeper outside told me you were here,” I said. “I don’t think he wanted me to tear up the. …”

  I stopped, staring at a half-empty syringe in Mark’s hand. I quickly remembered Mom saying that baseball had taken a turn for the worst and how Jose and I joked about what made Zach Neal and Max Tisdale so good: steroids.

  Mark glanced down at the syringe.

  “Look,” he said, wrapping it in the towel and setting it on the bench. “I—”

  I turned and ran out the door, across the locker room, and up the hallway to the dugout. Jose and I might have joked about Zach and Max, but I knew that no kid was stupid enough to use steroids. Steroids were for losers. Maybe Dad was right about Mark.

  I heard Mark calling me, but I didn’t stop running until I sprinted out of the stadium. Two blocks away, I could see the bus pulling away from the bus stop. Another thirty minutes until the next bus, I thought. I saw the street vendor resting in the shade in front of the stadium.

  “Bill!” I shouted. He looked up and crushed a cigarette.

  “Whoa there, pal!” Bill said as I rushed toward him. “Get chased out of the stadium because of that backpack?”

  I remembered leaving my backpack on the field, but I wasn’t about to go back for it now.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” I stammered between breaths.

  “Sure. It ain’t long distance is it?” Bill asked with a smile as he pulled his phone from the holster.

  I quickly punched in Mom’s number.

  “I know you’re working, but I need you to come get me right now. Yeah, I know it’s early, but I need to go. That’s right. I’m in front of the stadium.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the stadium entrance.

  “Wait. There’s a baseball-card shop across the street. I’ll be there.”

  I hung up, handed Bill his phone, and darted across the street.

  “I told you not to go without Jose,” Mom said as we pulled into the driveway. “I suggest we don’t tell your father about what happened.”

  It didn’t matter at that point, though. The newspapers would eventually find out. Everyone would know what Dad had known for years. Mark Wilcox was a dirty player and a cheat.

  “You’d better get ready for the game,” Mom said as we walked in the door.

  The Astros! I had completely forgotten. A trip to the championship game on Saturday was on the line tonight. But I couldn’t face Mark. Everything that had just happened was making my head spin. I felt sick. I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  A half hour later, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.

  “No, Coach Ramsey,” Mom said into the phone. “He’s really sick. He can’t keep down anything. … No, not even water.” She stuck her head in my doorway.

  “They are about to start the game. Coach Ramsey really wants you to play,” Mom said.

  “I’m just not feeling good. I’ve already thrown up three times.”

  Mom walked to the bed and
felt my forehead.

  “You do look a little pale,” she said. “I’ll make you some soup.”

  She paused as she shut the door.

  “Coach says he doesn’t know how he’ll deal without having you and Jose on the field,” Mom said, pulling the door shut. I remembered Jose’s detention. I couldn’t believe his mom was making him miss the big game, but she was strict like that. If you messed up in school, no baseball—those were her rules.

  “Think you’ll be able to play Saturday?” Mom asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. But I almost hoped the Rangers would lose and end the season.

  When I woke up the next morning, a bowl of cold soup sat on my nightstand.

  Chapter Ten

  Long Relief

  Well, well, well,” Zach sneered. “If we don’t have a couple of Rangers, soon to be known as the second-best team in the league.”

  Jose clenched his fists, but I motioned for him to keep calm.

  “I see you guys won last night. Or maybe I should say the Rangers won. From what I hear, you two weren’t there.”

  Coach Ramsey had called Mom before school and told her we won, 5–3. It was a lot tighter than I’d thought, but we were in the championship. I still hadn’t decided if I wanted to play Saturday. But I didn’t want to risk Coach Ramsey hearing my story about Mark, so I wasn’t going to tell Jose the real reason I sat out. Plus, the sting of the previous afternoon had started to wear off, and I was excited about the opportunity to play in the championship.

  “Win or lose, Zach,” I said calmly, “we’ve had a great season. Second place sure isn’t anything to spit at.”

  I stuck out my hand to offer Zach a peace handshake.

  “You know what second place is, boys?” Zach asked. “First place LOSER!” He slapped my hand out of the way and wandered off, cackling like he always did when he got in the last word.