Say It Ain't So

by Josh Berk

  Being amped up isn’t really a good frame of mind to enter a batter’s box in. Especially against Hunter. Hunter was the master at making the pitch look like it was going to be a million miles an hour but instead having it creep in as slow as a turtle. He threw his turtle ball three times against poor Trebor, and with each pitch Trebor swung earlier and earlier. Strike one, strike two, strike three. It looked like Trebor wanted to bend his aluminum bat in half, Superman-style, as he walked back to the dugout.

  The final batter was the other Fenner twin, Robert. Robert clearly didn’t want to repeat Trebor’s overanxious hacking. He took a long time walking to the plate. He tapped the dirt off his cleats. He spit into his gloves. He spit on the ground. He spit on the bat. He was running out of places to spit. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to psych Hunter out. He was trying to break his rhythm, mess up his concentration. I wanted so bad to yell something rude at him. And believe me, knowing I had a microphone in front of me did not make it easier to resist. But I was good. I said nothing other than “Now batting for Griffith, Robert Fenner.” Okay, I said it about four times, each time with more and more annoyance, but that was all I said. Eventually I was screaming “NOW BATTING FOR GRIFFITH, ROBERT FENNER!”

  Finally Robert stepped into the box. Then he held up his hand to call for time. There was a collective groan from the audience. There might have been one from the announcer’s booth too. He stepped out of the batter’s box and started messing with his gloves. Then the umpire got annoyed and screamed, “Quit farting around!” This got a good laugh from the crowd. Robert was not amused. Nor was the Griffith coach, who, if I wasn’t mistaken, had to be Mr. Fenner. He had the same intense eyes as the twins. And also he kept calling Robert “son.” I’m a really good detective.

  Robert narrowed his eyes and dug in at the plate. Mike gave the sign. Hunter went into his windup, and fired a fastball. Robert guessed correctly this time. He was swinging fastball all the way. The ball exploded off the bat, flying high and deep down the left-field line. But he was a fraction of a second too early and hooked it foul and out of play.

  “Just a long strike,” I could hear Mike say from behind the plate. “Long strike. Means nothing. We got this.”

  He gave the sign again, and again came the fastball. Robert didn’t see it coming this time and didn’t even get his bat off his shoulder. Right down the middle. Strike two. One out away from the promised land. Hunter had to be so full of adrenaline. Everyone in the stadium felt another fastball coming. Which was why it was the perfect time to call for the slow one. Hunter bore down like he wanted to throw the heater through Mike’s glove, through Mike’s body even. Through the umpire and through the backstop. But instead: the slowest slowball that ever slowed. Even time slowed. You could hear Robert blink a few times. And you could hear the air as he swung and missed. A big whiff for strike three! A perfect game! Six strikeouts in a row to end it!

  Mike caught the ball, threw his mask off, and charged the mound. It was a move I’d seen on TV many times. Every no-hitter and lots of big wins end with the catcher flipping off his mask and charging the mound. It was a baseball cliché. But still, it was awesome. Every single time. And this time it was Mike getting to be the catcher, holding the ball up like a trophy and charging the mound. He hugged Hunter, then the rest of the team swarmed in, a sea of maroon jerseys swamping the little pitcher.

  Everyone was cheering and having a good time. Well, not the guys on Griffith of course. And not one guy in the crowd on the Schwenkfelder side: Davis Gannett.

  As for me, I was pumped. I knew I was just supposed to announce the batters as they came up and give the info on new pitchers. But the game was officially over, wasn’t it? Couldn’t I add my own thoughts now that the game was over? I figured I could. I couldn’t resist anyway. I cleared my throat, grabbed the microphone, and boomed my voice with its most epic sound possible, saying whatever came to mind.

  “Star of the game is of course Hunter Ashwell, who pitched very well. That’s an understatement. Extremely well. Perfectly well. One for the record books. Perfection is not easy to do. That’s why they call it perfection, sports fans. Hunter, you struck out the last six consecutive batters and retired fifteen in a row from first man to last. Not a single player reached base. On the scoreboard in center field here in the city of Schwenk stands nothing but zeroes, like a half dozen eggs on the shelf. What a performance. You wrote your name in capital letters in the record books today, Hunter Ashwell. Yes, you did.”

  I didn’t add that Hunter only knew how to write in capital letters, never having mastered the intricacies of lowercase, much less cursive. I figured I’d leave that part out. It was a good place to end it. “Lenny Norbeck, signing off,” I said. Had to add that little bit there.

  Hunter then ran over to the announcer’s booth and climbed inside. I thought he was going to give me a high five, but he wanted the microphone. He grabbed it out of my hands and turned it on. He started talking about himself in the third person. “I can’t say enough about the great job Ashwell did out there,” he said, all out of breath. “I mean, did you see him out there, people of Schwenkfelder? He really threw a great game. He just took over out there. Hot diggity doggity dig, he did a great job. I mean a great job! Who is the greatest pitcher in the world, I ask you? The answer is a no-brainer. It is I, the destroyer of worlds! I just go out, see the glove, and hit it. Boom. Ashwell out.” He dropped the microphone.

  I didn’t add any commentary about every day being a no-brainer for Hunter. I just said, “And way to go, Newts, for calling a great game!” to much applause. There was applause for quite a while. Mike smiled and smiled. Hunter just looked annoyed and made a noise that sounded like ew. I was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t a great teammate. Then Coach Zo announced that we were all going out for pizza! I got really excited for a second and then remembered that I wasn’t on the team. Coach Zo saw me pump my fist and laughed.

  “Sure, Lenny,” he said. “Of course you can come too.” Good guy, that Coach Zo. I called my parents and told them I was going out with the team and that I’d be home late. Dad seemed surprisingly okay with it. He wasn’t too excited about my dream to be a baseball announcer, but I think it was starting to sink in that I’d never be a doctor.

  I rode to Ralph’s Pizza with the Newts family. Mike’s mom and dad were so proud. It made me a little jealous. I wished my parents were celebrating my excellent announcing.

  The pizza bash at Ralph’s was raucous and fun. The only bummer was that I sat next to Kyle Webb, who seemed depressed.

  “What’s wrong, dude?” I asked in between mouthfuls of pizza. “You guys won. Perfect game.”

  “My dad totally embarrassed me out there,” he said.

  “Nah,” I said. “No one even noticed. Besides, it was just a foul ball.”

  “See!” he said. “You did notice. That was a really bad lie, Lenny. You just pretended that you didn’t notice and then described the exact thing you were pretending not to notice.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, and shrugged. I didn’t want to get bummed down into Webb-land. It was not a fun time. But Kyle kept talking.

  “I wish my mom would have been there too. She’s the real baseball fan. But they’re divorced. They have to, like, take turns which one sees me when. My dad isn’t himself anymore. He used to be fun. Now he yells all the time. If you thought dropping a foul ball was bad, you should see him when I forget to feed the dog. I wish they never got divorced.”

  “Your dad got divorced from the dog?” I say. Trying to make a dumb joke. Keep it light.

  “I wish,” Kyle said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  Kyle continued. “It’s bad. My parents hate each other.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not sure what else to say at all. “Gotta be rough.”

  This conversation reminded me that I was lucky to have two parents who essentially did care about me. And who didn’t fight all the time.

  It was a
strange feeling, sitting there at Ralph’s Pizza watching the team have a good time. Hunter was living it up. Mike had a smile so wide it looked like it might break his face. So did his parents. Coach Zo was laughing and relaxing with Coach Moyer. And yet there was Kyle Webb, almost in tears.

  The world was a strange place sometimes.

  The next game was against Highland Middle School. Highland was farther away than Griffith, and too far to ride my bike. I wanted to go along, even though I wouldn’t be working. I thought it would be a good opportunity to scout out the other team and get a sense of what we were up against. Yes, I know it’s weird that sometimes I would say “we” when talking about the team. I knew I wasn’t on the team. But people around here pretend they’re on the Phillies all the time. You hear it on the radio constantly. It’s always “We need a better bullpen” or “We need to bunt more.” And at least I actually go to the school. And work for the team. Sort of.

  So I asked Coach Zo if I could ride on the bus. Games start at five-thirty and my parents never get home until after that. If it was up to my parents, I’d just come home from school on the bus and lock myself in the house alone, watching TV. Actually, they probably would prefer it if I was doing my homework, but we all know that isn’t going to happen!

  Coach Zo said it would be fine. Wonderful even. He said they would consider it an honor to have my presence and that I was the good-luck charm for the whole team. Actually, he said, “Sure, whatever, Lenny.” But we all know what he meant.

  The bus ride to Highland was fun. The team was feeling great. How could they not be? You literally could not ask for a better start to the season. A ten-to-nothing whoop of Griffith and a perfect game to boot. Pretty sweet. I sat in the middle of the bus, next to Mike. Hunter sat in the seat behind us. He kept wanting to talk about the game, over and over again. I could understand, sure, but he was getting so cocky it was hard to listen to.

  “I have an idea for a new nickname for myself,” he said.

  “Um, you’re not supposed to give yourself nicknames,” I said. “Duh. Everybody knows that.”

  Mike laughed, knowing my years-long track record of trying to get a cool nickname.

  “From here on out, I want to be called the Great Imperial Ashwell,” he said.

  Mike and I looked at each other, narrowing our eyes. “Um, I’m not sure the Great Imperial Ashwell is the kind of nickname you should give yourself,” Mike said.

  “It’s also not that catchy,” I added. “Hard to print on a T-shirt.”

  “Man, let the T-shirt makers figure that out their own selves. The Great Imperial Ashwell has more important things to worry about. Like what the name should be for my new pitch. I’m thinking about calling it the Great Imperial Ashwell’s Destroyer of Worlds.”

  “Definitely pretty catchy,” I said. “Do you really have a new pitch?”

  Hunter laughed. “Yeah, man, I got new pitches every day. I got the Bat Dodger, Midnight Rider, Midnight Creeper, Midnight Streaker, Midnight Weeper. I got the Jump Ball, Trouble Ball, and Bee-Bee Ball. That’s just getting started.”

  Mike rolled his eyes and whispered to me, “He really only has two pitches. Sometimes he throws his fastball extra hard, but I’m not really sure it deserves its own name.”

  “The Great Imperial Ashwell has hundreds of pitches!” Hunter roared. He cackled like a super-villain.

  Mike and I laughed. Everyone laughed. Well, not Kyle Webb, who was the world’s saddest first baseman. The divorce—or something else—really seemed to be bothering him.

  “Settle down,” Coach Zo said. “We got a game to think about. This team is no joke.”

  Highland Middle School actually was a joke. Everyone knew that. First of all, there were no highlands around it. It was just flat farm country. So it kind of was a joke. It was like the Pleasant Valley Mall in that regard, which was neither in a valley nor pleasant. It really was a mall, though. Sort of.

  More to the point, Highland’s baseball team wasn’t really great. Everyone knew that too. One year they managed to come in fourth in a three-team league. No one is quite sure how they pulled that off. It was a record of futility sure to stand the test of time. Kind of like my new favorite baseball player I read about in a library book: Bill Bergen. He was a catcher, mostly for the Reds and also the Superbas. That’s right, there was a team called “the Superbas.” They’re now the Dodgers, which is also a weird name if you think about it. Anyway, Bill Bergen played, like, a hundred years ago. And he got five hundred hits in his career. Which sounds like a lot, except for that he had a really long career. He had three thousand at bats! Five hundred hits over three thousand at bats is pretty bad. His batting average was about .170. Really bad.

  The entire Highland team was basically a bunch of Bill Bergens. Actually, they wished they were Bill Bergen. From where they sat, a batting average of a buck seventy was, like, all-star caliber.

  The energy was high and everyone was in great spirits as we rolled into the parking lot. The team went into the locker room to get dressed for the game and to warm up. I thought about finding the Highland PA announcer to introduce myself and talk about the tools of the trade. But they didn’t even have a PA booth. Losers! I realize that we didn’t have one until a week ago, but still, it made me feel superior to Highland. It also meant that I needed something else to do before the game began. I was all on my lonesome. Other Mike had not been in the least interested in making the trip, and everyone else here went to Highland (duh).

  Then I saw a familiar face trudging up the path toward the field. It was Davis Gannett.

  I tried to ignore Davis. I just pretended he wasn’t there. Like, I knew he saw me, and I knew he knew I saw him. I knew he knew that I saw him seeing me. And he knew that I was trying to pretend not to see him just as I knew he was pretending not to see me. It was very complicated. But the basic agreement was that we each pretend the other wasn’t there.

  The warm-ups were over and the team was getting ready for the game. Coach Zo was busy talking to the umpires and the coach for Highland, so there was a bit of a lull. Mike walked over to the bleachers where I was sitting and flipped up his catcher’s mask. I walked down to the chain-link fence to talk to him.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said. “Did you see who’s here? Don’t look.”

  “How am I supposed to see who is here without looking?”

  “I mean, look but don’t look. Fine, I’ll just tell you. It’s Davis Gannett.”

  “What?” Mike said, whipping his head around.

  “I told you not to look!”

  “What is he doing here?” Mike asked.

  “Beats me. I guess his mom dropped him off. Did you know that his dad’s in jail?”

  “Runs in the family, I guess,” Mike said. “Seriously, what is he doing here?”

  “Just watching the game, I guess,” I said.

  “Well, keep an eye on him,” Mike said.

  “I will,” I said. “I will.”

  The game was ready to start. There are rules in middle school about how many innings a pitcher can pitch, so Hunter wasn’t going to start this one. He was under his limit for the week because the game against the Griffith Griffins had ended early, and of course he insisted that he be allowed to throw. “The more I pitch, the stronger my arm gets!” he said. Which is totally not true. You need to rest your arm. Everyone knows that. In the old days, guys would throw five hundred innings. But then their shoulders would break and their arms would fall off. These days everyone is very concerned with pitch count. Especially for young guys. The limit was seven innings a week and even that was considered a stretch.

  So the starting pitcher for the Schwenkfelder Mustangs would be Byron Lucas. I knew Byron from a few of my classes. He was a tall kid known around here for being a great basketball player. He was a pretty good pitcher too, a hard-throwing lefty with a habit of pitching inside. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn’t. It worked, though. Guys were afraid to dig in
against him, not wanting to catch a heater in the ear. Can’t say that I blamed them. I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to call the game because “Byron Lucas” seemed like it would be a fun thing to yell into the microphone. I kept saying it in my head. Byrrrrrrrrron Luuuuuuuucas.

  I found a place on the small set of bleachers as far away from Davis as possible and watched the game. Schwenkfelder was the visiting team, of course, so we batted first. Cason Pearce, our center fielder, was first up. He lined a single to left-center but promptly got thrown out trying to stretch it to a double. The whole game was like that—back and forth. Something good would happen, then something bad would happen. Coach Zo looked like he wanted to tear out what little hair he had left on his head.

  Mike did a good job as catcher. Nothing got past him and he even got a hit. Of course, right after his hit, Kyle Webb grounded into a double play.

  I noticed that Kyle’s crazy dad wasn’t in the bleachers, so at least he didn’t have to deal with that. I did hear a loud cheer when he came up to bat, though, so it had to be his mom. That must be so weird, having your parents have to take turns. Like they can’t even be in the same room together. Same stadium. Whatever.

  Byron pitched pretty well. He was nothing like Hunter. He was hittable. Actually, the first batter got a hit, ruining the perfect game. There were a few more hits in there, and one monster blast. A huge kid on Highland named Chad Fine smacked a home run that might still be traveling to this day. It tied the game, where it remained going into the seventh.

  Middle school games only have seven innings. So it was tense. The Highland pitcher was still in there, going for the complete game. His seventh inning of the week. The more he pitched, the stronger he seemed to get. He was in a pretty good groove. So they left him in for the top of the seventh.

  Bad move on their part.

  The top of the seventh started with a walk. A walk is never a good way to start an inning, as the announcers always say. Cason Pearce walked on four pitches. The next batter, Reece Burns, tapped a grounder to first, which moved Cason to second. He moved to third on a wild pitch that squiggled away from the Highland catcher. (Mike totally would have blocked it.) Our number-three hitter, left fielder Wade Hartman, lifted a fly ball to center and Cason scored. A nice manufactured run. The team rejoiced in the dugout. The tide was turning. But the big pitcher from Highland seemed angered by it and promptly struck the next two batters out.