Perfect Game

by Matt Christopher

  “A southpaw who throws a killer knuckleball. That pitch of yours is our secret weapon, man. Now go to sleep.”

  Carter smiled in the dark. “Okay. And thanks.”

  “Shhhh,” Ash replied. “I’m sleeping.”

  The Pennsylvania State Tournament started the next day. The eight teams competing were divided into two pools, four in East and four in West. Unlike the Southern California Tournament, it was not a double-elimination format. Rather, each team played the others in its pool. After pool play, the top two teams in each pool advanced to the semifinals. The semifinal winners faced each other in a deciding championship game. The victors of that game were crowned the State champs and moved on to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament held in Bristol, Connecticut.

  Forest Park was in the West pool and scheduled to play its first game at seven that evening. That left the players free to relax in their dorms or with their families, swim in the university’s Olympic-size pool, or watch the other two games being played earlier in the day. Most of them chose to attend the games.

  “Gotta check out the competition,” Ash said as the players made their way into the stands.

  “Yeah,” Charlie S. agreed. “By the way, where’s your famous binder?”

  Ash took his role as catcher very seriously. Part of his duties, he believed, was to maintain scouting reports on every player of every team Forest Park might face. He kept those reports in a blue three-ring binder that he carried with him at all times. Seeing him without it now raised many eyebrows.

  Ash made a face. “You know that huge puddle outside our dorm? I dropped my binder in it when I was running to get out of the rain yesterday afternoon. The pages are currently spread around my mom’s hotel room, drying out. Not that I’ll be able to read them,” he added, shaking his head morosely. “The ink ran, and everything I wrote is one big smudge. Two years’ worth of scouting, pfft, down the drain.”

  Charlie S. patted his arm sympathetically. “Guess you’ll just have to rely on your instincts and reactions, like the rest of us.”

  Ash rolled his eyes. “Like that makes me feel better?”

  Charlie turned his pat into a shove and laughed.

  Ash laughed, too. “Ah, no worries, right?” he said. He elbowed Carter in the ribs. “After all, this guy’s on the mound today. I don’t need any notes to remember what happens when he pitches!”

  “Yeah,” the other players agreed enthusiastically. “We win!”

  Carter joined in the laughter that followed. But deep inside, he felt a twinge of anxiety. They all expect you to win, a little voice said. But what if you don’t?

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  Hey, Phillip, how’s it going?” When Liam caught up to the pitcher outside the ball fields Sunday morning, he had an eerie feeling of déjà vu, for once again he had something important he needed to say to Phillip.

  This time, though, he didn’t know quite how to say it.

  After he’d hung up with Carter the night before, he’d gone out to play Wiffle ball with his teammates. When the last guest departed, though, he grabbed Melanie’s arm and pulled her into the house.

  “Hey, what gives?” she protested. “We’re supposed to clean up!”

  Liam yelled to their folks that they’d be back out to help. Then he led Melanie to her computer. “Apparently, you sent Carter the wrong video,” he growled. “The one he got was a bunch of clips of Phillip pitching. I need to see it.”

  Melanie’s eyes widened. She sat down and began clicking through desktop icons. “I know the one he means.” She opened a folder marked PITCHING. “Voilà!”

  Liam leaned forward to get a better look at the images moving across the screen. “There!” he cried after a few moments. “Stop it there!”

  Melanie hit PAUSE. The video halted on a close-up of Phillip. He was tilting his head to one side, his cheek aimed at his right shoulder. “Can you play it in slow motion?” Liam asked.

  Melanie did as he requested. Liam watched as Phillip dragged his cheek across his shoulder and then went into his windup. The camera zoomed out at that point to show all of Phillip. Melanie must have been standing behind the backstop, because when Phillip lunged forward and released the pitch, the ball looked as if it were coming right at them.

  “That would be awesome in 3-D,” Melanie murmured.

  “Stop it again,” Liam ordered. “Now, can you back up the video until just before he lets go and then zoom in on his pitching hand?”

  A few clicks and finger swipes later, Liam could see how Phillip was gripping the ball.

  Phillip had three pitches in his arsenal: the two-seam fastball, the four-seam fastball, and the changeup. The delivery was basically the same for all three, but the grip was different for the changeup. With fastballs, the ball was gripped by the fingertips. With changeups, it was held deeper in the palm. That placement increased the amount of friction on the ball as it was thrown. The more friction, the slower the ball moved, which was why the changeup was also known as an off-speed pitch.

  The ball in Phillip’s hand was deep in the palm. He was throwing a changeup.

  Liam picked out the same pattern four more times. Then he saw something that made him suck in his breath: a clip of him fist-bumping Phillip three times. That fist-bump was his and Carter’s good-luck move. He had no recollection of doing it with Phillip. But there it was, plain as day—and if he’d seen it, Carter had, too.

  And knowing Carter, Liam thought, he won’t say anything about it unless I force him to. He promised himself that he’d do just that the next time he and Carter talked.

  After the video ended, Liam lay on the floor. “Carter was right,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Phillip has a ‘tell.’ ”

  “Like in a bluffing game, when someone is trying to hide something, but they do something that gives it away?” Melanie asked. She answered her own question. “Oh, I see it. Face-wipe and then that whatchamacallit pitch.”

  She spun in her chair to look at Liam. “Good thing I sent Carter the wrong video, huh?”

  Liam stared at her incredulously. “Why would you say that? Now everyone on the Forest Park team knows he does it! What if we face them? What if—”

  “Duh!” Melanie jabbed her bare toe into Liam’s stomach. “Earth to Liam! What if you told Phillip about it?”

  “Oh.” Liam shoved her foot aside and sat up. “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I’ll talk to him tomorrow before the game.”

  It wasn’t until he was in bed that night that he saw a possible flaw in the plan.

  Phillip didn’t like being talked about. He really didn’t like that Liam and Carter talked about him. So how would he react when he found out Carter had discovered his “tell”? Not well, that’s how.

  It took Liam a while to get to sleep that night. Luckily, he dozed in the car on the way to the game and woke up feeling more refreshed. And even better, he had woken up with a new plan.

  He put that plan in motion when he saw Phillip. After greeting him, he asked, “Would you answer a hypothetical question for me?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Say you noticed a pitcher doing this thing on the mound that advertises something important to batters,” Liam said. “Would you tell him?”

  Phillip gave Liam a knowing sidelong glance. “You’re talking about Carter, aren’t you?”

  Liam stopped dead in his tracks. “Carter?”

  “Oh, yeah. The way he hurls the ball into his glove over and over?” Phillip shook his head. “Dead giveaway that he’s tense. Tension can lead to lousy pitching. Lousy pitching means balls, not strikes. If I saw him doing this”—he did a perfect imitation of Carter’s ball-throwing habit—“then you better believe I’m going to let the first pitch go by.”

  Liam was dumbstruck. But after making a mental note to suggest to Carter that he stop his ball-hurling habit, he quickly pulled himself together. “Um, listen, that may be true—and I’m not saying it is—but he’s not the guy I’m
talking about. You are.”

  Now it was Phillip’s turn to stop in surprise. “Me?”

  Liam nodded. Then he told him everything, including that Carter was the one who passed along the information about the “tell” in the first place.

  Phillip’s jaw dropped. “No way! I didn’t think anyone would ever notice that!”

  Liam blinked. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you do that on purpose? Why?”

  “Dom jumps the foul line. You and Carter bump fists three times. I wipe my face on my shoulder before every changeup.”

  Comprehension flooded Liam’s brain. “It’s your superstitious ritual,” he said.

  “Correction,” Phillip said, his expression darkening. “It was my superstitious ritual. But now that Carter knows about it, I’ll have to give it up, won’t I?” He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Liam watched him for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Nope. Not going through this again.” He ran after the pitcher and caught him by the arm. “Listen, how about we come up with a new ritual, something no one would see or know about but me”—he touched his chest—“maybe Coach Driscoll”—and his nose—“and you?” He pointed at Phillip.

  For a long moment, Phillip didn’t say anything. Then he gave a half smile. “Okay,” he said.

  “Good. Now come on. We’ve got a game to play!”

  “Correction,” Phillip said again. “We’ve got a game to win!”

  Ravenna’s second game of the tournament was against Fair Valley. Players on each side looked determined to add another check mark in their win column.

  Because they had played more than half the game the day before, Liam and Phillip started on the bench this time. They subbed in at the fourth inning: Liam heading to left field and Phillip to third base. Ravenna was up 4–3, but Fair Valley had runners on first and second—and at the plate stood a batter with a reputation for hitting long balls.

  Sure enough, the batter clocked a zinger just out of Dom’s reach. Liam was already on the move. He couldn’t catch the ball before it hit the ground but stopped it after one bounce. He threw to Phillip. Phillip caught the ball seconds before the runner reached base.

  As the umpire called the out, Phillip hurled the ball to second. Matt Finch snared it, swept his glove down and onto the sliding runner, and then looked expectantly at the second-base umpire.

  “Yer out!” the man yelled.

  The Ravenna players and fans whooped and cheered.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Sean bellowed.

  Two innings later, Ravenna’s players jogged off the field with another victory in their pockets.

  And that’s what I’m talking about! Liam thought happily.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Okay, boys,” Coach Harrison said as he guided the Forest Park players onto the diamond, “you know the procedure. Caps off, stand up straight, and make sure I can hear you!”

  The teammates lined up along one side of the field, forest-green caps held against their green-and-white jerseys, and, when prompted, sang the national anthem and then recited the Little League pledge in unison. On the other side of the field, the Pine Ridge players in their bright red shirts with gold lettering did the same. Then the teams filed back to their dugouts.

  Forest Park had won the coin toss and elected to be the home team. At the umpire’s call, the players trotted out onto the field for a last warm-up.

  As Carter made his way to the mound, he mentally reviewed what Coach Harrison had told them about Pine Ridge during a team meeting that afternoon.

  “Obviously, they won their Section,” he’d said, running a hand through his thick black hair. “But, to put it bluntly, they won by the skin of their teeth. Each game was close, and most were won in their final at bat. So what does that tell you about them?”

  The players looked at one another. First baseman Keith O’Donnell raised his hand. “Um, that they don’t give up?” he ventured.

  Mr. Harrison jabbed a finger at him. “Exactly! They don’t give up!” His eyes twinkled. “But neither do we, right?”

  “Right!”

  Don’t give up, Carter thought as he threw a warm-up pitch.

  The game started a few minutes later. Three batters came up to the plate. Eleven pitches later, Carter had struck out each of them.

  “Thanks, Carter,” second baseman Freddie Detweiler said when they all reached the dugout. “I didn’t even have time to sweat!”

  “And he hasn’t even thrown the you-know-what yet,” Ash added. He pointed to his knuckles and gave an exaggerated wink. The other boys murmured their agreement, shooting Carter looks that spoke volumes about their confidence in his special pitch.

  The knot in Carter’s stomach gave a sharp twist. He had confidence in his knuckleball, too. But he had never pitched to these players before. Who knew what they could do?

  One of the assistant coaches seemed to agree.

  “It’s only the first inning,” Mr. Filbert warned. “Plenty of time for runs to be scored.” Then he smiled. “Let’s make sure we’re the ones scoring them, starting with you, Freddie. You’re up first. Then Keith, Craig, and Charlie M.”

  Freddie hopped up, stuck on a batting helmet, grabbed a bat, and headed to the plate. He must have liked the first pitch, because he swung hard. Ping! He connected, dropped the bat, and sprinted for first base.

  Unfortunately, his hit was a pop-up right to short. The Pine Ridge player just opened his glove and plop!—the ball landed right in the pocket.

  Keith fared better with a low-flying grounder that evaded the first and second basemen’s gloves. He made it safely to first and then reached second on Craig Ruckel’s sacrifice bunt.

  That brought up Charlie M.

  “Here we go, other Charlie, here we go!” Charlie Santiago yelled.

  Charlie M. let the first pitch go by. And the second. Both were called strikes. He stepped out of the box, tapped the bat against his cleats, and then stepped back in—and lifted the third pitch into shallow right field. For many batters, that hit would have been a single. But Charlie was faster than most kids. He flew to first, touched the bag, and kept going.

  Keith kept going, too, from second to third and then toward home. The spectators jumped to their feet and applauded madly. Players shouted instructions and encouragement.

  The Pine Ridge outfielder hurled the ball to the cutoff man, who spun and threw it to the catcher. Keith hit the dirt and slid feetfirst toward the plate.

  Carter held his breath. Keith had had trouble timing his slides. Coach Harrison had been working with him on it, though, so maybe this time—

  “Good! Good!” Coach Harrison cried, grinning broadly. Then he and everyone else quieted, waiting for the call.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  “Safe!” the umpire bellowed, fanning his arms out to either side.

  The Forest Park bench erupted in cheers. Keith got up and trotted toward his teammates, his expression nonchalant—until he entered the dugout. Then a huge smile broke across his face. “I did it!” he whooped.

  “Well done, Keith, well done,” Coach Harrison praised.

  “My turn,” Ash said. He chose a bat and hustled to the plate. But his turn, and Forest Park’s chance to add to the score, ended after just one pitch. He hit a weak grounder and was put out at first.

  Carter murmured his sympathy as he helped Ash with his catcher’s gear. Ash shrugged. “I’ll get one next time,” he said. “Now let’s focus on picking their guys apart!”

  They headed out onto the field. Carter sized up the first Pine Ridge batter. The boy was a lefty, like Carter, and of average build with a bit of black hair showing from beneath his batting helmet. He doesn’t look too intimidating, he thought. Still, he’s batting cleanup, so better be careful.

  He was glad when Ash signaled for a knuckleball. He scrunched up his hand so the tips of his index and middle fingers were touching the ball’s seam. He went through his windup, releasing
the ball with as little spin as possible.

  It was a near-perfect delivery; the ball practically fluttered as it headed toward the plate. Carter let out the breath he’d been holding.

  And then sucked it back in sharply.

  Pow! The batter connected. The ball soared into the air as if shot from a cannon. The outfielders raced back, then slowed and watched as the ball dropped behind the fence.

  The batter’s teammates went wild as he trotted around the bases. A man in the stands pumped his fist in the air and cried, “That’s my boy!”

  On the mound, Carter started throwing the ball into his glove. Over and over, and with so much force that his palm stung.

  Next time, he vowed as he followed the boy into the dugout with his eyes. I’ll get it next time.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Rodney shot Liam a look of sympathy. “Oh, man, that’s lousy,” he said. “Will he let it get to him, do you think?”

  Liam, Rodney, and Sean were seated at the Driscolls’ kitchen island. They were sharing a pepperoni pizza Coach Driscoll had bought them, ignoring a garden salad he had made them, and streaming Carter’s game live on Sean’s computer. They groaned as one when they saw the Pine Ridge cleanup batter clock his home run.

  Liam tossed a half-eaten slice onto his plate. He’d lost his appetite after seeing the telltale crack of the bat. “I sure hope not,” he said in reply to Rodney’s question. “But I don’t know. It’s gotta be pretty devastating to give up a homer with your first pitch at the start of an inning.”

  He knew if he were there, he’d be doing everything he could to reassure Carter that one run, even a homer, wasn’t the end of the world. He hoped Ash was doing the same.

  “Okay, Carter, here you go,” Liam murmured.

  An image of his cousin flashed on the screen. Carter stood on the mound, his green eyes narrowed at the batter, sandy hair stuck to his forehead under his cap. He leaned in. The ball was hidden behind his back, but Liam knew he was twirling it in his hand as he waited for the signal.

  “You can do it.”

  The boys watched and then broke into cheers when Carter fanned the batter on three straight pitches. The next two Pine Ridge players didn’t get on base, either.