Double Play

by Tim Green

  “Mom, can you go back?”

  The traffic in front of them was stopped completely.

  “Maybe I can back up.” Cat’s mom put the Range Rover into reverse and looked into the mirror before she stopped. “No. I can’t.”

  Jalen looked back. There were several cars stacked up behind them now on the ramp. In front of them some drivers had gotten out of their vehicles for what was apparently a total shutdown of traffic.

  “How far are we?” Jalen asked Cat.

  “Three miles straight up the river,” Cat said.

  Jalen swung open the door, the trees and the river and the skyline blurred by tears, because he did the math quickly. First, he’d never run three miles at one time. Second, even if he could make it without collapsing, it would take him at least forty minutes, and by then the game might just be over.

  “I’ll meet you guys there,” he said before he closed the door, thankful for the sunglasses that hid his watery eyes.

  Cat got out too, and followed him as he set off running down the ramp, his baseball cleats clacking against the pavement. They climbed the guardrail, stumbled down a grassy slope, and fell in with a throng of runners, walkers, and bikers along the wide riverside path.

  Cat was right there alongside him until she suddenly pulled up short and grabbed Jalen’s arm. “Wait.”

  Jalen looked toward the traffic, thinking that maybe it had begun to move, but Cat was looking the other way, toward the river, when she said, “I’ve got an idea.”

  78

  ONLY CAT WOULD HAVE HAD the nerve and the confidence to walk right up to the water’s edge and hail the Harvard women’s crew boat, waving with both hands and shouting, “Ahoy! Ahoy there! Yes! You! Please! We need your help!”

  Two female coaches in shorts, Harvard women’s crew T-shirts, and boat shoes looked at each other. Their expressions were a mystery beneath the shade of their visor brims, but they shrugged before steering closer.

  “Thank you! Thank you!”

  Jalen wasn’t sure how much the women planned on helping, or if they were just curious as their team rowed on without them toward the bridge, but Cat leaped onto the flat bow of the boat before they could protest, then turned immediately to Jalen, waving him on as well.

  He hesitated, but then jumped when Cat barked, “Jalen! Now!”

  He landed at the edge of the platform and wheeled his arms to try and keep from falling back. Cat grabbed his Bandits uniform and tugged him firmly aboard, then turned back to the amazed coaches and spoke like a machine gun. “We have to get to Harvard Stadium as fast as you can take us. Jalen needs to get to a championship game that’s more than halfway over. We just came from Fenway, where he was helping the Yankees—you might even recognize him, the Calamari Kid who helped save James Yager’s career—but there’s a traffic jam, and I could tell just looking at you two that you’d understand that burning desire that all athletes and coaches share to do everything you can to win . . . and I knew you’d help.”

  One of the coaches frowned and said, “You can’t just jump on our boat. We’ve got practice here. We—”

  But the other coach cut off her counterpart with a wave and a bubbly chuckle before she said, “Grab hold. We’ll have you there in just a few minutes. You’re right, I love a winner.”

  Off they went, surging up the river with a breeze in their faces.

  Jalen leaned close to Cat, and her hair tickled his face. “ ‘Ahoy there’? Where’d you get that? SpongeBob?”

  “It worked, right?” Cat shielded her face and smiled, her eyes sparkling almost as much as the sun on the water.

  Jalen laughed. “Yes, it did.”

  They passed the team’s boats, called shells, with the girls working arms and legs like the pistons of an engine and their coxswains’ steady chant through their megaphones. “Stroke, stroke, stroke . . .”

  The head coach raised her bullhorn and turned it toward her team. “We’ll be back, ladies! Chivalry is not dead!”

  Jalen hunched his shoulders. “Oh, brother. Chivalry? That’s for knights and maidens. Do I look like a maiden?”

  “Relax,” Cat said. “It’s a modern era. Women can be chivalrous too.”

  “If you say so, Cat. I know better than to argue with you, even though Daniel might.”

  “I wonder how he’s doing.” She pointed up ahead as they rounded the bend. “Look, the stadium.”

  The crew coach pulled up to shore well short of the stadium and said, “You’ll have to walk up the ramp there so you can cross the bridge. Good luck!”

  Cat shook the coach’s hand. “I’m a Harvard Crew fan for life.”

  The coach laughed and waved as they jumped ashore, then reversed the boat and headed downriver. Jalen and Cat took off, up and over, past the stadium built in the image of the Roman Coliseum, and skirted past the hedge that served as the outfield wall for the main field.

  The first thing Jalen saw was the Bandits’ black-and-gray uniforms in the home team dugout. The next thing he saw was the scoreboard out behind left field, just over the hedge and beneath the lowering sun. The Bandits were down 1–0, and it was the top of the sixth and final inning. Gertzy was on the mound with one out. Dirk Benning stood at the plate, looking serious and mean, with the scrunched-up face of a troll baby.

  As Jalen and Cat marched toward the dugout, Gertzy threw a high fastball that Dirk took a cut at. The Rockets player caught hold of it late, and the ball zinged foul, right over Jalen’s head. Because they were following the ball, Dirk, Chris, and the entire Rockets team saw his approach. They all seemed to snarl at once.

  “I’m going to sit in the stands. My mom just texted that it was an accident, but they cleared it and she’s on her way. JY’s on the way too, so I’ll sit with them.” Cat quickly walked away.

  Jalen didn’t have time to do anything but blush and keep going.

  Daniel was in right field, and when he saw Jalen, he shouted, “Yo! Rockets! Your powder’s gonna be wet now! Baseball Genius is in the house!”

  Jalen pulled his shoulders back and marched into the Bandits’ dugout.

  “Jalen, you decided to show up.” Coach Allen’s voice and face were hard to read.

  Jalen didn’t know if his coach was joking and happy to see him, or annoyed and bitter that he had arrived so late. He looked at the coach’s eyes for a hint and tried to communicate everything he’d done to get there without speaking.

  “This team has been playing its heart out,” Coach Allen said, “but your buddy Chris has been killing us. Look at him. See him grinning at us?”

  “He’s not my buddy.” Jalen gritted his teeth. “I busted my butt to get back here, Coach. I want a piece of him. I want to wipe that smile off his face.”

  “So, now you’re here, you want me to pull someone out of the lineup so you can get a piece of this guy?” Coach Allen frowned and tilted his head. “Because you’ve got his number. Yes?”

  Jalen held his chin high. “Yes.”

  79

  COACH ALLEN BROKE INTO A smile. “Well, that’s music to my ears, son. Get yourself warmed up. We’re at the bottom of the order, but I’ve got an idea.”

  Out on the field, Gertzy struck out Dirk, and the Rockets player pounded the ground with his bat and yelled at the umpire, “That was terrible. That was awful.”

  “Awful!” Coach Gamble ran out of his dugout and kicked the third base line, sending a puff of white chalk and dirt into the air before retreating back to the dugout without even looking at the umpire.

  “The worst call I’ve ever seen!” Dirk scowled at the umpire.

  “You want to finish this game, or hit the showers?” The ump glared at Dirk, who disrespectfully turned his back and walked away, cursing to himself.

  “Two outs.” Coach Allen pointed as Chris swaggered up into the box. “But your ‘not buddy’ was the one who got their run. Put one of Gertzy’s fastballs out of the park in the second inning. Practically hit that building.”

  Jalen l
ooked past the outfield hedge across the parking lot at the big brick building. “He’s big.”

  “And good, too.” Coach Allen looked at his score book. “He’s not afraid to use that curve, and we just can’t hit it. Fanny took a walk in the fourth, and Gertzy hit a single, but otherwise we haven’t had a sniff. When we do connect, they’re dribblers.”

  “Well, I hit him in Little League, and in practice, too,” Jalen said.

  “That’s what I’m hoping for.” Coach Allen put a hand on Jalen’s back. “We ended the last inning with our first two batters, so Fanny is up. He’s our number three, then Gertzy is cleanup. You’ll bat five. I figure if those two know the pitches, at least one of them can get on and then—if we hold here—you could get us on the board and win this thing. It’d be a good day for you to do it, because not only is the Harvard coach watching, someone said Yale and Princeton are here too, so . . . you can never start impressing people too soon.”

  Jalen looked into the stands and swallowed, thinking he’d probably rather not have known about the college coaches. He saw Cat sitting alone and gave her a little wave. The crack of a bat turned his attention to the field. Chris ripped a line drive over second base and stretched a single into a double when the center fielder bobbled it. Chris hopped up and down on the bag and hooted and hollered, pumping a fist at his teammates, who jeered at the center fielder, shouting, “Hey! Dribbles!”

  “These guys are pretty low on sportsmanship,” Coach Allen said with a frown.

  Jalen saw that the next batter was Caleb Paquet. He burned at the thought of how Caleb had thrown a beanball at him to get in with Chris and Dirk.

  “What do you think? Is Gertzy too worn down, or do you like him to finish this?” Coach Allen was talking, and Jalen wasn’t sure if it was to him.

  “Are you asking me?”

  “You’re the genius, right?”

  “He can get them,” Jalen said, knowing it was what he hoped, not what he knew.

  Caleb got behind on a 1–2 count before he blasted one of Gertzy’s fastballs toward the right-field hedge.

  Jalen’s stomach plunged.

  Daniel took off at a full sprint, hit the track that ran along the inside edge of the hedge, and leaped into the air, reminding Jalen of Reuben Hall’s amazing catch at Fenway. Daniel twisted in the air, stretching, and snagged the ball, but was immediately swallowed up by the hedge.

  80

  THE ONLY THING THEY COULD see was Daniel’s glove.

  He held it up high, even as the hedge trembled and shook while he wormed his way out. Once he was free from the greenery, he reached into his glove and held the ball up for everyone to see. The crowd broke out in applause. Daniel got halfway to the dugout before he bowed dramatically to the bleachers and the Rockets dugout, then tossed the ball to the umpire and joined his teammates.

  Daniel hugged Jalen. “You’re just in time, amigo. You must have carefully planned it this way.”

  Jalen could only laugh at that.

  “What?” Daniel squinted at him.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Jalen said before he turned to their coach and started to tell him about the signals he’d use to help his teammates.

  “All right, guys, listen up!” Coach Allen barked at the team, and they fell silent so everyone could watch Jalen, especially Gertzy and Fanny, who’d be up first.

  “Chris has only three pitches.” Jalen showed them the first sign, four fingers. “This is for his fastball; he uses that the most. Then this is for his curve—it’s a C. Two thumbs up is his changeup, because if he throws that and you know it’s coming, it’s a real meatball.”

  “Anything else you can tell us?” the coach asked Jalen.

  “Yeah.” Jalen nodded. “When it’s a curve, you’ll know it’s coming, so don’t get nervous. Just swing early on it—before it drops too far—and you’ll pull it into left field for a base hit. Don’t try to kill his curveball, just hit it.”

  “You guys got that?” Coach Allen stared around at his team’s faces. Many wore looks of disbelief. “This is the real deal, what he’s saying. Jalen can read the pitches. Now, everyone bring it in. We practice like champions, and we play like champions, because we are champions. Let me hear it, on three, champions, one, two, three . . .”

  “CHAMPIONS!”

  Their fists went up, and Fanny headed for the plate.

  “Let’s go, Fanny!” they shouted. “Fan-ny, Fan-ny, Fan-ny . . .”

  Chris looked over from the mound and patted his big butt. “I got your fanny right here.”

  “That’s enough!” the umpire shouted, then addressed Coach Allen. “Coach, come on. There’s kids in the stands.”

  “Ump, that’s his name. His name is Fanny.”

  The umpire shook his head like he didn’t quite believe it, but he put his mask down and shouted, “Okay, let’s play ball!”

  Jalen knew Chris well, and he didn’t hesitate to hold four fingers up for Fanny.

  Chris wound up and in it came, a fastball, low and down the middle. Fanny let it go.

  “Strike!” The ump turned and pointed to the side like a big leaguer.

  “What?” Fanny began to complain until Coach Allen shouted his name in a voice so stern it chilled Jalen’s backbone.

  Fanny looked at Jalen, and Jalen now wished he’d told Fanny not to be so obvious, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He shifted his attention to Chris. He saw the curveball and made a C with his hand. Fanny nodded and stepped into the box. Chris wound up and in it came.

  Fanny swung hard, missing it entirely.

  The Rockets players burst into cheers and jeers.

  Fanny’s face twisted up in rage. He bit his lower lip and stayed in the box.

  Jalen knew the fastball was coming, and he held up four fingers, but Fanny wasn’t looking. He was glaring hatefully at Chris and crowding the plate. Jalen knew what was going to happen before it happened.

  Without thinking, he shouted, “No!”

  But it was too late.

  81

  JALEN WASN’T SURE IF FANNY did it intentionally or not, but his fierce look and his toes touching the rubber of home plate sent Chris off the deep end.

  Enraged, the mini-ogre threw his fastball right at Fanny’s head.

  Instead of ducking, Fanny stood tall.

  The ball hit his helmet with a popping sound the crew coaches might have heard out on the river. Fanny went down like a sack of potatoes and the helmet rolled off his head. The Bandits players howled with rage. Coach Allen and Coach Miller—who was coaching third base—bolted toward home plate, crying foul as they went.

  Coach Gamble and Coach Benning were out of their dugout too, shouting their best excuses for Chris’s actions. “That kid crowded the plate! That was a good pitch!”

  The Bandits coaches dropped to their knees beside Fanny, who sat up shaking his head as if to shed a bad dream. He wasn’t staying down, even when his coaches tried to get him to relax. Fanny grabbed his helmet from the dirt and dusted it off as he jogged to first base.

  In the confusion, Jalen wasn’t sure how many people heard what Fanny said to Chris, but Jalen heard it clearly. “Thanks for the free ride, you meathead.”

  Chris growled and took two steps toward the baseline.

  Fanny held the helmet on his head and scooted the rest of the way to first, putting distance between himself and the giant pitcher.

  “Coach, your guy is okay, and he was crowding the plate,” said the ump in response to Coach Allen’s outcry.

  “You’re sanctioning a beanball?” Coach Allen’s face was bright red, and he stabbed his finger toward the pitcher’s mound. “That kid should be ejected!”

  Coach Gamble cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted from just outside his dugout. “Sit down, Coach! Let the umpire ump, you coach . . . if you know how.”

  “If I know how?” Coach Allen clenched his fists and took a step toward the other dugout.

  The umpire’s hands went up
. “Coach, get back to your dugout, or you’ll forfeit this game right now.”

  “I’ll forfeit?” Coach Allen wore a look of total disbelief, but he did as the umpire said and returned to the dugout.

  “Let’s go,” said the ump. “Batter up.”

  Jalen tugged on his batting gloves, picked up his bat, and went to the on-deck circle, where he could loosen up while he helped Gertzy.

  Gertzy walked to the plate and had a stare-down with Chris.

  Jalen signaled curveball, knowing that Chris wanted to show his rival pitcher all his stuff.

  It was a beautiful curveball; it came in low but dropped even lower and tailed off to the outside of the plate. Gertzy didn’t have to swing. He shouldn’t have, but he did.

  “Strike!”

  Jalen signaled four fingers next, and Gertzy nodded.

  The fastball came in way high, but Gertzy swung again, popping it foul up and over the backstop.

  Chris grinned. He had a huge advantage, and he had his batter swinging. Whatever pitch he threw, Jalen knew it wouldn’t be anything good. But then Chris did something probably no one but Jalen saw. He straightened his backbone and looked briefly into the stands and gave his cap the slightest of tips toward Cat. It was in that instant that Jalen knew Chris had changed his mind. He was like a tom turkey and he wanted to fan out all his pretty feathers on display.

  Jalen dropped his bat and signaled two thumbs up to Gertzy, a changeup, a meatball.

  Gertzy gritted his teeth and set his feet.

  Jalen’s heart galloped.

  Part of him wanted Gertzy to put one over the hedge and defeat the Rockets in grand style, but another part of him hoped for something less, because Jalen didn’t want to win the game just with his mind. He wanted to win it with his own arms and legs and bat, too.

  He could only watch as Chris wound up and threw with what looked like all his might. But Gertzy knew, and Jalen knew, the ball had been in the palm of Chris’s hand, and it had no spin, so it came in slow. Gertz swung big, but he topped it, sending a ground ball zipping through the gap between first and second. The right fielder moved up on it, but Fanny was already at second, and Gertzy was safe at first.