Mudville

by Kurtis Scaletta

  David rolls his eyes at me, but Anthony kind of gives him a look that says, “Cool it,” and he does. We huddle around where the mound ought to be.

  “First off,” I say, “no more throwing beanballs or names.” I remember how authoritatively Frank said practically those same words at the work site, but I don't get the same results.

  “You ain't the boss of me,” Anthony grumbles.

  “What are you going to do about it anyway?” David wants to know.

  “Kick you off the team.”

  “It's not your team,” he says. “It's not even a team, really.”

  “Second of all,” I continue, “Sturgis is right. You aren't really practicing. You're just waiting for your turn to bat and not trying to play defense.” I think P.J. set a bad example when he was here.

  Miggy shakes his head, and Carlos shakes his head in imitation.

  “Who died and made you coach?” David complains.

  “He's not the coach, he's the team captain,” says Steve.

  “Since when?”

  “Since he should be.”

  “For one thing, he actually knows how to play the game,” says Sturgis.

  “I know how to play, too,” David mutters. “It's not that hard.”

  “Let's vote,” says Kazuo seriously. “Baseball captains should be elected by the team.”

  “He's right,” I agree.

  “I'll nominate him,” says Steve.

  “Me too,” says Sturgis. “What's more, if you nimrods don't vote for him, I'm walking off right now.”

  “I nominate nobody.” David kicks at the infield dirt. “I don't want a captain.”

  “Me too,” says Miggy. “I just want to have fun, not get bossed around.”

  “Me too,” says Carlos.

  “All in favor of Roy as captain?” asks Steve.

  I don't like to vote for myself, but I know the numbers. I raise my hand, and so do Steve, Sturgis, and Kazuo. David glares at Kazuo, who's supposed to be his best friend.

  “I just want us to be good,” Kazuo explains.

  “All opposed?” Steve asks. David raises his hand, and so do Miggy and Carlos. Slowly, Anthony raises his own hand in agreement.

  “I guess we don't have a captain,” says David. “It's a tie. You need a majority.” At first I wish PJ. were still around to break the tie, but then, he'd probably vote against me.

  “This is stupid,” says Sturgis. “Go form your own team, you little snots. We don't need you dragging us down any-way.”

  “Take it easy, Sturgis,” I say. I don't want the team to break up before we even have a full practice.

  “Hey,” says Steve, pointing. “We have some new play-ers.”

  “Girls.” David rolls his eyes.

  That tall girl with brown hair I saw at the gym and again on the Fourth of July is walking across the field, carrying a new glove. With her—a little bit behind her, so I don't see her at first—is Rita. I feel a thrill go through me. She's even cuter than I remember.

  “I heard you were getting a baseball team together,” says the tall girl.

  I suddenly realize why she looks familiar. I've seen her on TV. She won some state tennis thing this spring.

  “You're Shannon, right?”

  “Right. We were wondering if you need any more players.”

  “Actually, we could use a good center fielder.” I think about how she ran all over the tennis court, getting to every-thing, and my hopes for the defense pick up.

  “I'm Rita,” Rita tells me, not knowing I've had her name bouncing around in my head for the last two weeks. “I've never played baseball,” she says apologetically. “I'd like to try, though.”

  “She's a good tennis player, too,” Shannon adds.

  “Says the girl who currently has an eighty-to-one record against me!” Rita protests.

  “Hey, you beat me once,” says Shannon. “That's more than my brother can say.”

  “We're happy to give you a tryout,” I tell them, or mean to say, but I think I switch a couple of words around. “By the way, I'm Roy,” I add (or maybe “By the Roy, I'm way”), and I go around the mound to introduce everyone else.

  “Hey,” Steve asks them, “how do you feel about Roy here as captain of the team?”

  “Sure,” says Rita.

  “Okay with me,” says Shannon.

  “Ha!” Sturgis pumps his fist. “Motion carries.”

  David's face falls. “I don't think their votes should count,” he says. “They came in after we already voted.”

  “So we'll just call another vote,” says Steve.

  “I change my vote anyway,” says Anthony. “I want Roy to be captain.”

  “Me too,” says Miggy.

  “Yeah,” says Carlos.

  “Fine,” says David, sighing in exasperation.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I won't make a victory speech. Let's just take a break, then practice some more.”

  “Thanks for your help,” I tell Sturgis when we break huddle.

  He shrugs it off like it's nothing. “We need someone to be in charge. Better you than some old guy making us run laps.”

  “What makes you think I won't make you run laps?”

  “’Cause you'd have to run them, too?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Seriously,” he says, almost in a whisper, “I want us to be good. That's all.”

  “I wonder why Anthony changed his mind so fast?”

  He laughs. “That girl. Shannon is, like, really beautiful. Anthony didn't care if you were captain or not. He just knew he was on her side, whatever it was.”

  “Oh yeah?” I check out Shannon again and can see that, yeah, she's a bit of a knockout, if that's your type. I can also see that Anthony is hovering around her, making small talk, trying to demonstrate what he knows about baseball.

  “Well, he seems to have a lot of pull with the other guys,” I say. “I'm glad he changed his mind.”

  “You crack me up,” he says. “You see that girl walk out here, and you just think about where to put her in the outfield.” He lets out a long breath and shakes his head. “Man, that's focus if I ever saw it. You so need to be captain of this team.”

  “Yeah, well, I'm kind of…” I don't finish the sentence because some of the other guys are walking by. I see a flicker of recognition in his face, though, when he realizes that Rita is my Rita.

  We run some fielding drills I know from camp. We aren't much better at the end of practice, but at least everyone is trying.

  The funny thing is, David is a pretty good player. He can read the ball right off the bat and makes clean catches. He can't throw hard, but he throws straight.

  “Hey, David,” I say, “let me see your glove.”

  He passes it to me with a curious look on his face.

  “It's not too used. See if you can still return it.”

  “Oh, shut up!” he says. “I don't want to play on your stupid team anyway. Not if you're captain!”

  He sprints off, and I have to chase him. He's fast, too, I think. Probably be a good base stealer.

  “Wait!” I holler.

  He gets winded pretty quickly, and I'm able to grab his shirt and spin him around.

  “You need to listen,” I tell him, panting. “I'm not kicking you off the team. I just want you to trade this glove for one of the really big ones. You might have seen the ones where the fingers look like a shovel?”

  “Sure,” he says, looking at me skeptically.

  “Those are first baseman's gloves. Get one of those. I want you to play first base.”

  “You're trying to stick me at first base? I thought I got to play left field!”

  “First base is the most important position, after the pitcher. You make eighty percent of the outs.” I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds good.

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Think about it. If you want to stay in the outfield, stay in the outfield. But if you want to play first, get a first baseman's
glove before that one's beat up.”

  “Okay. Hey, if a pitcher is most important and a first baseman is second most important, what's the catcher?”

  “The catcher is even more important than the pitcher. Without the catcher, the pitcher's nothing.”

  I get my signed baseball from Adam in the mail, and it comes with a letter of explanation.

  “Well, Roy,” it begins, “I really wanted to get you a signed ball. I brought three baseballs to the game with me, knowing we'd get to hang out in the dugout before the game. I had one for me, one for my little brother, and one for you.

  “As you know, the Royals have a catcher named John Buck, and he's no great shakes, but I thought he'd sign your ball. I couldn't find him, though, so I asked this bench coach, ‘Hey, where's John Buck?’ and he said, ‘He's in the bullpen warming up the pitcher.’ So I handed the guy your ball and asked him if he could go get Buck to sign it. I didn't care as much if he signed mine, since I had basically no room left for signatures after Graffanino and Grudzielanek and Mientkiewicz all signed it. Roy, when those guys turn a double play, the announcers usually take a commercial break in the middle of the call.”

  I snicker as I flip the page over to read the back. I realize I miss Adam's sense of humor.

  “Anyway, I gave the ball to the bench coach, and he gave it to a batboy, and that kid ran off to the clubhouse, even though John Buck was right over in the bullpen warming up Mike Wood (who stank to the tune of eight earned runs in four-plus innings, by the way).

  “We weren't allowed to hang out in the dugout much longer. They had good seats for us, but not on the bench, so I needed to get your ball back quick. So I asked another bat-boy about it, and he ran off to find the first batboy. Just as we were getting herded up and made to leave, the second kid ran back and handed me the ball.

  “I glanced at it and it looked wrong, so I asked him what was up, and he said, ‘It's signed by Buck liked you asked for,’ but it said ‘John “Buck” O'Neil,’ not ‘John Buck.’ We were shuttled off to our seats before I could get an explanation.”

  I shake my head in embarrassment, because Adam doesn't know who Buck O'Neil was, and keep reading.

  “All during the top half of the first inning, I just turned that ball over and over, looking at it. My coach saw it, and his jaw dropped open.

  “‘Don't you know who that is?’ he asked me.

  “‘Nope,’ I told him.

  “So he told me that Buck O'Neil played for the Kansas City Monarchs, and that he was the Negro Leagues’ batting champion a couple of times, and that he managed the team for years, and knew Jackie Robinson and signed Ernie Banks, and wound up being the first black coach in baseball. Buck's a local legend, he said, and one of the finest men ever to wear a baseball uniform. You can bet I looked him up later on the Web, and, wow, that was some misunderstanding the batboy made. You had a gem of a ball waiting for you, Roy.

  “The only problem was, the coach was all choked up, talking about Buck O'Neil and the KC Monarchs and everything. He went on to tell me about how his grandfather played in the Negro Leagues and everything Buck O'Neil has done to celebrate the history of those leagues and promote the Negro Leagues HOF. Mr. Daniels is a good guy, Roy. He's a barber most of the time, but he's also a pretty good coach.

  “Long story short, I told Coach to keep that baseball, and I got another ball signed for you.

  “Best wishes, Adam.

  “P.S. The Royals were playing the Cards. I got Pujols to sign a ball for my bro. He just about exploded. My brother, I mean. Pujols didn't explode.”

  My ball is signed by Montgomery Daniels, full-time barber and part-time baseball coach. I'm pretty happy with it and place it among my trophies and memorabilia.

  After a dinner of spinach surprise (the surprise part is Vienna sausages), Sturgis wants to practice his pitching.

  “Teach me that junkball again,” he says.

  “I thought you didn't like it.”

  “A couple of you guys nearly got decent hits,” he says. “I need to be better.”

  We go out in the yard and toss the ball back and forth. I show him how to hold the ball again, with the extra finger to slow it down.

  He tries a few. They're slow enough, but they don't look much like fastballs.

  “That's all?” he says. “Anyone can do that.”

  “You're not doing it,” I tell him. “You step off the wrong way and throw differently. I can see it coming a mile off. It has to be the same as your fastball or it's no good.”

  “I am doing it the same,” he protests.

  “No you're not,” I tell him. “I have another idea. Instead of using your finger to slow down the pitch, try just holding the ball further back in your hand.”

  He looks at me strangely and then throws a perfectly good change-of-pace pitch at me.

  “Like that?”

  “Yes!”

  “What's the big deal about that? That isn't hard.”

  I just shake my head and make him throw some more. He's got it working, all right. He couldn't figure out the three-finger changeup, but he's got big hands that are perfect for the palmball.

  “Let's call your fastest pitch a ten. Throw me a ten.”

  He rears back and throws. The ball stings my hand.

  “Now throw me that cookie.”

  He does, and a pretty slow pitch pops into my glove. It looks okay, sort of like a fastball, but there's no zip on it.

  “Try something right in between. Edge the ball back a bit in your hand.”

  He throws the hard one, then the soft one, and can't seem to find anything in between. I can see he's getting annoyed.

  “It just takes practice,” I tell him. I toss the ball back. He tries a few more, with different grips, until he can throw a nice in-betweener.

  “We'll call that one a five. Throw it again.”

  He finds that grip again a few pitches later and then throws three good ones, right in a row. He's a quick learner.

  “Now throw the ten again.”

  He rears back and throws wild.

  “Darn it,” he says, punching his glove.

  “That's what makes pitching hard.” I find the ball in a bunch of weeds that have all of a sudden sprung up near the back steps. “Being able to throw any pitch at any time. It just takes lots of practice.”

  “Maybe we can practice every evening, after dinner?” he asks.

  “Um, sure.” Day practices and evening drills are a lot of baseball, even for me, but I want Sturgis to master the changeup.

  “My dad hated junkball pitching. If he knew I was throwing junkballs, he'd kill me.”

  I shrug. “You can't get by on one pitch,” I tell him. “The fastball is only good for a few outs. Eventually, batters catch up to it and you're dead meat. You need another pitch.”

  “That explains my dad's career, right there,” he says.

  My dad gets the town to put up some money for materials for the ballpark, promising to match with in-kind contribution, which means his crew will do the work for free. His crew being Sturgis and me, for the most part.

  He can't even help that much himself because he has a new job.

  “Remember the home and garden store in Sutton?” he asks.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I'm the new manager in the lumber section. I start Mon-day.”

  “Wow. That's cool, I guess.” It's hard to imagine my dad taking orders from someone else.

  “Just until business picks up,” he says. “Hey, I also get an employee discount. That'll come in handy.”

  Among the great ironies of all times, Moundville is now having a minor drought. Sturgis and I have to go out early every day to water and tend to the field. My dad pays Peter to mow every third day, spinning around on one of those riding mowers. Sometimes P.J. gets to ride it, but never me or Sturgis. We just do the grunt work.

  When we see P.J., I ask him to take a few swings against Sturgis.

  “I don't know,” he say
s. “I'm supposed to be helping my dad.”

  “Just take a few swings,” I tell him, handing him a bat.

  It's a dirty trick. I know that once he's got a bat in his hand, he's going to want to swing it. Sturgis serves him nothing but flame and smoke, and eventually P.J. always catches up to it. Once he does, it's all over. Every pitch is jolted into the outfield, some of them rattling the wire fence. It seems like it would be stuff for a good rivalry, but Sturgis just tips his hat whenever a pitch is walloped.

  “We have to get him on our team,” he tells me.

  “What do you think I'm trying to do?”

  One Saturday, maybe two weeks after laying down the sod, we're back to shoveling. I didn't miss it one bit, but it's for a good cause, making way for a new diamond. We put down good infield dirt, real bases and a plate, and replace the backstop. We paint the white lines that mark off the baselines and install a pitcher's mound. With the three of us and the two Peters, we do it all in a day.

  My dad has also bought about a half dozen bats, a bag of balls, and other supplies, and a surprise for Sturgis. He just tosses it to him, like it's nothing. It's a brand-new mitt, big enough for Sturgis's large hands. He slides his hand in and flexes it in the stiff new leather.

  “It feels weird,” he says.

  “You just have to break it in,” I tell him. “You need to oil it a bit and use it for a few weeks.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Sturgis goes out on the new mound and stamps around a bit and takes a few warm-up tosses. His new glove fits him perfectly. Like a glove, in fact.

  “It's a lot better up there, isn't it?” I ask.

  He just nods.

  He looks at my dad. “Um,” he croaks. The words die before they can find their way out of his mouth. He just looks down at the new mound and punches the glove a couple of times.

  “It's nothing,” says my dad.

  My mom calls the same day, wondering if it's started raining yet. She sounds pretty sober, but rushed. In between flights or something. I tell her about the new infield.

  “Dad made it all happen,” I tell her.

  “He knows how to cut a deal,” she says. “Hey, how's Sturgis?”

  “He's fine,” I tell her. “Hey, how do you know about Sturgis?” My dad hardly talks to her, and I don't remember mentioning it myself. She blathers about running into so-and-so on a flight she was working and catching up on the latest Moundville gossip.