Fast Baller

by Lulu Pratt

  “They couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Just lob a bunch of balls at those losers,” said Oscar, explaining the Lehigh Valley Steel Hogs.

  “I’d say the name says it all.”

  “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” he said, looking at me seriously.

  “I know. We still gotta beat them.”

  “How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

  Again I smiled. “Not so good. I’ve been doing everything I can, but nothing works.”

  “You should try yoga. It’s really good.”

  “Yoga? Like that physical therapist’s thing?”

  “Yeah, why do you think we got her?”

  “To be honest, I was wondering that very thing.”

  “She’s good. Very good. Try it. It works,” Oscar said looking into my eyes.

  “Okay, but I gotta win this game first.”

  “That’s the spirit!” He patted me on the ass, and I turned to go to the mound. Nick lobbed me the ball, and I started mentally preparing. Everything was working, just a little rusty. I tested my shoulder — seemed okay.

  I guessed the game was on. I was on the mound, in my favorite place on earth, and Jimmy Johnson gave me the signal. One finger was a good hitter, two was mediocre and three was a loser. It was three fingers. I nodded. Then he gave me the signal for a strike, a fastball. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask for that. I tried to psych him out. I wanted this to look like I was going to throw a slow pitch lob to give him the ball, but at the last moment, I whipped a burning fastball that just wrenched my shoulder. I fooled the kid at bat, but I fooled my body too.

  The kid was obviously expecting a ball — even had his bat up in the bunt position. Rube!

  “Stee-rike!” said the umpire. Okay, that might have been worth it. Trouble was, I was ripping something in my shoulder every time I did that. Jimmy gave me the sign for another ripping fastball, because this dope couldn’t hit for beans. I winced. I knew Jimmy knew about my injury — I mean, everyone knew about my injury! But Jimmy more than most. I should have called him earlier instead of that jerk Clay. Oh well, next time.

  Jimmy interpreted my wince as ‘there’s trouble right here in River City’ and waved his hand to erase the last sign. He gave the sign for a screwball instead.

  I nodded. I was a southpaw, so the screwball for this right-handed batter would be a good idea. I decided to just lob it. I prepared, and I know he knew I was doing it. It was like a double-blind fool. I made it clear that I was doing this, and, I assumed, he thought I was going to switch it up, and so he prepared for a fastball. But I didn’t change. I actually pronated my thumb downward as I tossed it, and the screwball was a perfect pitch. It rocketed past him, and “stee-rike!” I hear the crowd cheer.

  Minor League crowds are a pale imitation of the Majors, and so I took it all in stride. They were on my side, I thought. I heard someone yell, “You’re all set, Harrison Brett!” over and over again, and I smiled. Cute little chant.

  I paused. The ball was returned. Jimmy wanted another screwball. If I had it in my arsenal. And I thought I did. I nodded. I decided to deke him out and try to make it look like it was going to be a ball, but then I changed at the last moment, and the poor dope fell for it, and I whipped the ball to him, and — boom! — he was out!

  One down, two to go. The question for me was, could I keep this up? The crowd was enjoying my work.

  I will spare you the next ten minutes, because I was not in the habit of explaining my faults. Suffice it to say that within ten minutes, the Steel Hogs were up by six runs. Why Oscar didn’t pull me was beyond my understanding. I threw, and they hit, they ran, and they ran home. It was horrible — horrible for my self-confidence, and horrible for team spirit. Nothing I threw was worth shit. My fastball was clocked at seventy-seven miles per hour. That was not a fastball. It practically hung there in the air like a cartoon.

  Finally, I got a break and they tagged one loose-cannon of a kid trying to steal home, and I struck the runt of the litter out. The horror of starting a first inning 6-0 was not a prospect this Minor League team was used to dealing with.

  Nobody spoke to me as we changed over. I knew why. And for whatever reason I was batting cleanup this time, so I had a few minutes to gather my thoughts.

  Chapter 9

  HARRISON

  HERE AT THE game, the batting line-up was still looking good. Our first couple of players — Theo Gray, then Clay Carter, then Jackson, then me, would have some hope of at least getting on base. And sure enough, Gray got up and swung like a maniac. I was never clear on why a guy playing lead-off would do that. Best strategy I could see would be to get a walk, but show-boaters like Gray needed to get the crowd going, and that was part of the strategy Oscar had in mind, since people were starting to leave already after that gong show I’d put on. And it was a good strategy, because he hit a pop fly high and into the stands. Some kid would want that ball autographed by a guy who has no hope of ever getting to the Major Leagues, but it would be sweet.

  “Why the hell doesn’t he just bunt?” I asked nobody in particular.

  “Well,” said Leduc Jackson, sitting beside me with one of those faces that seemed to find everything just fine. “You know Theo. He’s going to pop it out if he can.”

  “But all he needs to do is get on base. Everyone knows you’re gonna hit something, and he can likely steal home.”

  “You’re hopeful, aren’t you?” said Jackson, smiling like he swallowed the canary.

  “Not hopeful. I play the odds. He gets on base, then Carter strikes out, while Theo steals second, you go and score a double, he runs home, I get up there and score a double or a triple, and you run home. That’s my philosophy.”

  Leduc laughed that smile that lit up the dugout. He was from Mississippi, and his slow and measured way of speaking was very calming. I was being lulled by his plain-spoken intelligence.

  At least I was until Clay piped up. “I’m not strikin’ out. I’m gettin’ on base, bro, and nothing you or anyone else can say’s gonna stop me.”

  “That’s great,” said Leduc.

  I laughed. He was inscrutable. Hilarious. A sure antidote to the desperate cartoon dog that was Clay.

  Meanwhile, Theo was swinging like a gate, and missing like a carnival ring toss. But miracles do happen.

  “Give the boy a chance,” said Leduc. And so, we all just sort of prayed that something would start making sense, and sure enough, it did. He swung hard and it made contact. It was a triple, at least. The ball went straight down the center of the field, past the pitcher, past the shortstop, but it was traveling low, and so there was danger in every inch of forward momentum. Theo didn’t waste time, though — he was a nineteen-year-old who could probably outrun Usain Bolt in the hundred. He made it to the first base and rounded second, almost before the ball was outfield.

  “Damn!” said Leduc, smiling. His joy was infectious, and I started laughing. Theo made a fool of me and my Eeyore mentality. He had a way of making us all feel like old school cranks, and he just tore along to third. But he was not looking. The ball had bounced several times, and the outfielder for the Steel Hogs dove for it and… missed. Theo was booting it home, and the crowd was on its feet. Theo was in great shape. His accuracy was his issue, and he had clearly gotten past that.

  “Look at that kid run!” I said, excited as anyone. I was jumping up and down, and didn’t even notice it. Leduc was on his feet too, yelling at the top of his lungs. “Slide, Theo, slide!” He was kind of a mentor for Theo, I supposed, because Theo just buckled down and dove like Greg Louganis. Head-first into the home plate as the ball came hurtling to the shortstop. But he did it! He ran home.

  The score was 6-1. We were still not in the game, but we had the rolling motion of momentum on our side.

  And Clay Carter was touched by this sudden turn too. He bopped up to the plate like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, and started swinging wildly. The other pitcher must have wondered what was going in our locker
room. Theo Gray was high-fiving all of us, and jumping up and down, and the entire dugout was in an uproar. I love this part of baseball — the team was behind by five runs, but we still celebrated a home run. The home run — the Boston cream of hits.

  “Who’s the man? Who’s the man?” said Leduc, into Theo’s face.

  “I’m the man, boss!” he responded, laughing wildly.

  Meanwhile, nobody was paying attention to Clay, and that pissed him off. The pitcher for the Steel Hogs, a guy I’d never seen before, but a smart guy, started before anyone was paying attention and took Clay by surprise. Luckily, he didn’t swing and it was a ball.

  But Clay was not the kind of player who would let that happen. He got mad, not even. Next pitch was a nice strike, and Carter swung as though it were going to be a fastball, and he had a strike on his hands. The crowd started to calm down, realizing his best strategy would be a walk. But the ego of Carter would never allow that, and Oscar knew it. He hoped he would let it happen, but knew he’d pay later.

  Long story short — he walked. “That asshole is going to try to steal second!” said Leduc.

  “I know.”

  “Weeeeeeell, here we go,” said Leduc as he clapped his hands on his knees and rose. He may have been only thirty years old — and younger than me — but he had some kind of wisdom there, and I had all the faith in the world that he could hold on to this game.

  “You watch!” said Theo, who was still jumping up and down with excitement. “He going bang that out of the park!”

  As if it were simply following instructions from Theo Gray, Leduc popped the ball up and out by the third base line, and Clay tore like a bat out of hell for third base. If you asked me, it looked a heck of a lot like he didn’t touch second, but nobody called it, and I wasn’t going to call him out. Leduc made it to second.

  I was up. “You go get ‘em!” said Theo, clapping me on the back. A spasm went through my body. I know he didn’t mean a thing by that smack, but it reverberated through my aging body, and I remembered what had happened in the shower last week. I lost confidence, I guessed. I mean, I’d never been the most confident batter in any case, but for some reason the colors of the field kept changing and things were changing shape. I was out to lunch when that first ball came at me, and I didn’t even see it. It was like a replay of the pitch Clay lobbed at me, except that I jumped out of the way in time.

  “Easy there, old timer,” whispered the catcher, as I reeled backward.

  “Bite me,” I said, focusing on the game again. It was difficult, and my vision was tunneled, but I definitely was back. It was a ball. Good.

  Next pitch I was ready for. I swung at his Looney Tunes pitch. Don’t ask me why, but I did, and I even made contact. Pop! it went up, and I watched it go up. I honestly didn’t know what to do. My mind scrambled there as Carter ran me over and got home, while the crowd went wild, and I was still watching the ball hovering in mid-air like some crazy UFO, and I guess I started running. I know Leduc was going for it. And then it fell. I was hoofing it to first, and I believed, in my negative heart, that this guy was going to catch it, so I tried to distract him and lo and behold, the goober looked at me and dropped the ball. Leduc was on third, and I was safe. Unbelievably. Not through skill. Just through either blind luck or the stupidity of the other team. Either way, I took it.

  None of us ran home after that, in the inning. The next two batters were strikeouts, and then old Nick got up and lobbed a ball straight to the first baseman, who caught it like he was surprised he could catch, ending the inning.

  But the rest of the game was horrible for me. I asked to be excused from the pitching line-up because I was in too much pain, and Oscar looked at me and asked, “Hey, you need to go home?”

  “I’ll stay batting if I can,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. Then he turned away. I batted seven times, striking out five times, getting that base hit, and a walk.

  Chapter 10

  SCARLET

  LIFE IS A little like baseball. Or, to put it another way, baseball is a little like life. It was a journey, not a destination. I read that somewhere, and it struck me as very applicable for many of these players.

  I watched as Harrison, who obviously had talent and was a fan favorite, blew the game. Literally blew it. And I had a strong feeling I could have helped him, if only he would follow my suggestions. But, as I told myself every day, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

  And speaking of drinking, I was still feeling the effects of those margaritas I had had with Heidi at our now-weekly drinking date when I picked up the phone for my daily conversation with my mother.

  “Hello?” she said, as though she didn’t have caller ID. She knew it was me. She just wanted to hear me say who I am.

  “It’s me, Mom. Scarlet.”

  “Oh Scarlet! I was just thinking about you. You know, I was in the store today and I saw this thing called kale. I remember you talking about all the health benefits, so I got a bunch. Boiled it up and it tasted like dirt.”

  “There are better ways to prepare kale than boiling it. It isn’t spinach, Mom.”

  “Well, I have not lived long enough to want to taste that again. But enough about me. How are you doing? How’s that job at the baseball club?”

  “You know, sometimes I feel like I’m just wasting my time.”

  “No, you aren’t. I can see the team is improving. And you know, a job there can lead to one here. I would love that. How are the players treating you? You’re tough — I know that, but they are baseball players.”

  “Well, the thing is, nearly all of the players are somewhere on the road to somewhere. But some are going backward, like Nick Demetrios.”

  “He’s that tough old bird, right?”

  “Yes. Paunchy, hung-over. Demetrios is sliding backward against his will, but he is also helping himself do it. He drinks too much, I know that, and it can be the death of a player. Even a talented player. And he used to be quite talented.”

  “All that in just a few days?” she said.

  “Yeah. Demetrios only played for the Detroit Diamonds for a few games before being sent straight to the Minor Leagues. I think he came as part of a trade, one of those expendable players, and he knew it. He had a sense of himself as used up. I met with him a few times to try to see what I could do to help him, but I concluded there wasn’t much I could do for him. He just doesn’t want to help himself. I suggested the yoga class and he laughed in my face. Not much of a guy for new things.”

  My mom made a noise of agreement.

  “Demetrios had his way, and it had steered him wrong, but like a lot of people on the slide backwards, he’s not one to take advice. He doubles down on his own method which doesn’t work, and the slide continues. Even at practice he showed himself as inept and unpredictable. It’s like he had cobbled together some of the techniques of other players, and put them into some weird soup, and this is what he brings to the game.”

  “He hit a homer a few weeks ago…”

  “But not since, and even with his successes Demetrios seems to think of them as defeats. In fairness, he still has skills, and he could retire, but his recent work would not make him someone any team would want as a coach. He was probably going to go back to his hometown and talk about his glory days in the Majors. That would be it. Sad sack.”

  “That’s depressing,” said Mom. “You know, my life used to revolve around baseball. Many years ago, I had a boyfriend who just loved baseball. He lived, ate, and slept it.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes!” She thought she had hooked me, but I actually had heard this story a million times, and the plot holes in it are depressing. She never told me his name, and it made me wonder if something weird was going on.

  “Well, anyway,” I said. “I have to admit, there are more hopeful people too. The fact of the matter is the Minor Leagues are a place where some players go to die, and others try to pole vault past all the negativ
ity. Clay is one such person.”

  “The cricket.”

  “Pardon?”

  “He looks like a cricket. The way he stands, all that. He looks just like a cricket!”

  “Oh! Ha-ha. I never noticed. Anyway, he has a lot of talent there, and a lot of ambition. But I feel like he has a negative attitude to others, and I have been trying to instill in him the idea of working with someone. To date, I haven’t had much success, but he works hard, so who knows? He always shows up to the yoga class.”

  “Yoga class?”

  “I’ve started a yoga class here. For the players.”

  “Yoga? That seems a little far-fetched.”

  “It’s just stretching. Have you ever tried it?”

  “The church has a drop-in yoga class for seniors, but I’ve never been really comfortable thinking of myself as a senior. I picture all these walkers and wheelchairs piled in a corner and a bunch of people squirming all over the floor. Who will help them all get up afterwards? Seems weird. Not sure why the church is trying to make us do that.”

  “I really think you should give it a try, Mom.”

  “I guess. It might get me out of the house.” There was a pause. “Tell me more about your exciting life.”

  “Well, the real tough nut to crack is Harrison Brett.”

  “Did you say Harrison Brett?”

  “Yes. He’s the son of the owner of the team. Both the Detroit Diamonds and Toledo Spark Plugs.”

  “I see.” Another pause. I paused too, wondering what this all meant.

  “Anyway, something about him is golden, and I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “His father is a billionaire. Didn’t you know that?”

  “I did. I just never give it much thought. Not my business, and his dad might leave all his money to a bird sanctuary. My concern is getting him game-ready, and he is almost as resistant to my work as Nick Demetrios.”