The Only Game

by Mike Lupica

  The real problem was that he was just so . . . soft. He wasn’t clumsy, and Jack knew from watching him in gym that he wasn’t as slow as someone his size should have been. But he didn’t try and he didn’t care, and when you’re like that, you have no chance in sports, or anything else.

  They had started class today shooting free throws at the side baskets. Mr. Archey put them in groups of five and used the big basketball scoreboard to time them. The guys on each team kept their own score before the buzzer sounded. Only the guys on the winning team didn’t have to run laps today.

  It was capture the flag after that. Everybody had a noisy good time with that, until Teddy, who was on Jack’s team, ran into T.W. Stanley, who Jack thought might have stuck out his hip just enough, the way you did when you were trying to get away with a foul in basketball. It tripped Teddy up and he went down, sliding into the padded walls on that side of the court.

  Teddy didn’t look hurt. It would have been worse if he’d fallen on the other side of the court, where the bleachers folded back against the wall.

  Jack ran over to help him up anyway.

  “Make sure to see if the wall’s okay, Teddy Bear,” Gus called out from behind him.

  The group of guys around him, including T.W., acted as if that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

  “And now you know why I hate sports,” Teddy said to Jack.

  Jack looked down at him. He knew it wasn’t the fall that was bothering Teddy. It was being made fun of. And right now it didn’t matter that he’d told Jack he was used to it.

  Jack pulled Teddy to his feet, thinking of an expression his dad liked to use. “It’s just dumb guy stuff,” he said.

  Gus, though, wouldn’t let up on Teddy, at least not yet.

  “C’mon, Teddy Bear, you’re fine,” he said. “And by the way, it’ll be time to eat soon!”

  Hawk was with Gus and Scott Sutter and T.W. Stanley, laughing their heads off again.

  Jack told himself they were all good guys. He didn’t know for sure whether T.W. had intentionally tripped Teddy. Not so long ago he’d have said Gus was only chirping this way to be funny. But it wasn’t funny today. It was mean.

  Maybe Jack just hadn’t been hearing it until now. Or maybe he was more aware of somebody being singled out this way because it had been happening to him the past few days.

  Mr. Archey was over with them, to check out Teddy.

  “You can’t hurt me, Mr. A,” Teddy said. “I’ve got all this padding.”

  Now Hawk wanted to get in on all the hilarity, saying, “Mr. Archey, that should be a penalty on the floor for tripping Teddy that way.”

  Gus added, “Maybe it would be safer for Teddy Bear to wait for the girls’ class.”

  Jack turned around and said, “Shut up.”

  Teddy said, “Let it go.”

  “No,” Jack said.

  He walked across the gym to where Gus and Hawk and Scott and T.W. were standing.

  “Somebody explain to me what’s so funny about a guy falling down,” Jack said.

  “Chill out,” Gus said. “You heard Teddy. Nobody means anything by it.”

  “You guys aren’t funny.”

  “What, now you’re Teddy’s bodyguard?” Gus said. “Like Cassie is yours?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “maybe I am.”

  “Here’s the deal, Jack,” Gus said. “You don’t get to be a team leader anymore. On account of you’re not part of the team.”

  Jack said, “How long are you going to keep acting like this?”

  Gus shrugged, then acted like he was talking to Hawk and Scott and T.W. and said, “How long does baseball season last?”

  From behind them Mr. Archey said, “How about everybody chills right now and we get back to class?”

  He gave them the option of finishing with dodgeball or kickball. He put it to a vote, the way he did sometimes. Dodgeball won. Mr. Archey agreed to play. He was really fast. He’d once been one of the best soccer players in the history of Walton. Everybody tried to nail him with the ball. Jack even succeeded a couple of times.

  The game continued. Somehow, right before the end of class, Teddy Madden was the one holding the ball.

  He looked to have Mr. Archey in his sights, right about midcourt. But then at the last second he wheeled and spotted Gus Morales on the far side of the court.

  When Gus saw Teddy eyeballing him, he didn’t even make an attempt to move. He just spread out his arms as if to say, Come on. Like there was no way that Teddy Bear Madden could hit him from that distance.

  Jack watched Teddy’s face now. He saw how determined he was in that moment, as if all of a sudden sports did matter to him. As if he did care. Then he stepped and threw a bullet that hit Gus in the stomach. The ball clearly knocked the air out of him and sat him down.

  There were a lot of surprised seventh-grade boys in the gym at Walton Middle in that moment, including Jack.

  None more surprised than Gus Morales, sucking wind.

  “C’mon, Gus,” Teddy called over to him. “Now it’s time to go eat.”

  Teddy turned and walked toward the boys’ locker room, looking a lot happier walking out of the gym than he had been walking into it.

  And that was when Jack realized that maybe he wasn’t as soft as he looked.

  NINE

  A couple of nights later Jack’s dad came home from work early and asked if he wanted to go throw the ball around in the backyard before supper.

  “A football?” Jack said, smiling at his dad.

  “C’mon,” his dad said. “Like we used to.” Then, before Jack could say anything, his dad added, “Maybe a game of catch can at least feel like it used to around here.”

  “Okay,” Jack said.

  His dad went upstairs to change into a T-shirt and shorts and sneakers. He came back with his own glove, what he called an antique. It was an old Cal Ripken Jr. model. To Jack it was one of the coolest things in the world.

  They began the way they always had, once Jack had started showing a talent for baseball. There were soft tosses at first. Then slowly they moved away from each other, until his dad was at the far end of the yard, by the small wooded area that led down to Running Brook.

  Jack was standing right in front of the back patio to the house.

  His dad said, “You better pay attention, because you miss one standing there and it might be a broken window.”

  It was the same thing he had been telling Jack since he was five years old.

  “I don’t miss,” Jack said.

  He didn’t miss now, even as the throws from his dad began to come back with some zip on them. Jack felt some sting in the pocket of his Pedroia, but he didn’t let on.

  He thought, Never let them see that you’re hurting, in baseball or anywhere else.

  What did they always teach you?

  Rub some dirt on it and walk it off.

  Jack loved watching his dad play ball. Loved watching the way he threw. Loved the way even a simple game of catch could make him look happy. Sometimes he’d take one of Jack’s throws, then make a sweep tag on an imaginary runner; or he’d tell Jack to throw him a hard ground ball, but not tell him whether it was going to be to his left or his right. Then his dad would be the one gliding to the ball, almost like he was floating across the grass. He’d glove the ball, plant his feet, and throw if it was on his backhand side. If the ball was to his left, he’d turn his body and flick the ball sidearm back to Jack.

  His dad made one perfect throw after another. Jack hardly ever had to move. There was no danger of broken windows, none at all, even when Jack backed up near the house.

  There wasn’t much conversation. Both of them were into the catch. His dad did what little talking there was. Usually just a “Good” or “Attaboy.” Or: “That’s my boy.”

  After about half an hour, his dad said, “I give up.”

  “We just started.”

  His dad was walking toward the house now, saying, “If even this
much baseball activity is tiring me out, I am officially out of shape.”

  “You looked good to me.”

  “You’re a good boy. Now go get us a couple of Arnie Palmers.”

  It was their favorite drink, half iced tea, half lemonade. Jack went inside, got two tall glasses, poured two over ice, and brought them back out. They sat in silence watching the sun set over the water they knew was beyond the trees.

  Through the open kitchen window they heard the news from the small television set on the counter, which usually meant his mom was starting to put together the salad that would go with their dinner.

  “So,” his dad said.

  “So.”

  “How’s it goin’?”

  “You mean since the last time we had the talk we’re about to have right now?”

  He knew his dad wouldn’t take offense, because he’d know that none was intended. Jack could talk to his dad in a way he couldn’t talk with his mom, at least not now. It had gotten harder for them, him and his mom, since Brad died.

  Jack was always afraid he was going to say the wrong thing and put that sad look back on her face.

  “Just keeping the old lines of communication open,” Tim Callahan said. “Like they tell you in the parents’ manual.”

  “They’ve never been closed, Dad.”

  “I know.”

  “Doin’ okay,” Jack said.

  “But you know why I keep asking, right? It was just that your mom and I were blindsided by this, even though you’re not required to tell us everything that’s going on.”

  “That’s in the kids’ manual,” Jack said. “Not telling your parents everything.”

  “But the thing is,” his dad said, “you’ve never kept the big stuff from us before. And this is big stuff.”

  Jack took a big swallow of his drink.

  “I know baseball is big stuff to me the way it’s always been big stuff to you,” he said. “But it’s like I said: I’m okay. And besides, it’s only been, what, three weeks?”

  “You had to take three days off last year when you jammed your thumb, and you told me it felt like three years.”

  “Baseball’s not my whole life,” Jack said, “even if I used to think it was. Before.”

  As soon as he heard the word—“before”—he wondered how many times that had been at the end of a sentence, or just a thought, since Brad had died.

  Before and after.

  “I get it, I do,” his dad said. He turned his chair, and it made a loud scraping sound on the patio. He was facing Jack full-on now. “I get it and I get you. It’s why I can’t shake the notion that you’re holding something back from us. From everybody.”

  Jack never lied to his dad. About big stuff or any stuff. But hadn’t his dad just said that he wasn’t required to tell everything that was going on inside his brain?

  And he wasn’t going to answer a question his dad hadn’t even asked him.

  “Dad,” he said, “my heart’s just not in it right now. It doesn’t mean I love baseball any less. Or love you and Mom any less.”

  Now his dad was the one with the sad look on his face.

  “We’re trying so hard,” he said, “your mom and me. Trying to be there for you. And at the same time trying not to try too hard to be there.”

  “You’re not.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “And you don’t mind us talking”—his dad grinned—“no matter how often we’ve had the same talk?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “I just know one thing for sure by now,” Jack said. “Talking doesn’t change stuff.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

  “Still doesn’t change stuff.”

  “It’s a variation of what my dad—your grandpa—used to say when I was your age. He’d tell me, ‘Sorry doesn’t fix the broken lamp.’”

  Jack said, “Tell me about it.”

  His dad stood up and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, almost like he was using Jack to prop him up. Then he gave his shoulder a good squeeze.

  “I understand if this is about Brad,” his dad said, his voice quiet. “But even if it is, I just want to make sure you’re doing what you’re doing for the right reasons.”

  “I am.”

  That was the whole truth, nothing but, in Jack’s mind. He’d thought things through the way his parents had taught him to. He was sure they were the right reasons.

  He was sure he was right, even if he couldn’t undo a wrong.

  Even if he couldn’t go back in time and fix the lamp.

  TEN

  It was the last Saturday before opening day for Walton Little League, baseball for the boys, softball for the girls. Cassie had finally worn Jack down enough to get him to come help with one of her practices.

  Her team was the Orioles and was as much a favorite to win its league as the Rays had been to win the Atlantic, at least when they still had Jack.

  The Orioles had Cassie, which meant they were the best.

  “Your teammates aren’t going to want to listen to me,” Jack said.

  “They will if I tell them to,” Cassie said.

  “Then you should be helping coach the team,” Jack said.

  “I’m not a coach,” she said, making her voice deep, like she was trying to sound like an actress. “I’m a star.”

  “I forget sometimes,” Jack said, and then Cassie was telling him to be at the school behind Walton Middle at ten o’clock and to bring his bat and glove.

  “Yes, Coach,” he said right before she hung up.

  Cassie’s dad was the coach of the Orioles. He’d played at Walton High School the same as Jack’s dad had, just a couple of years behind him.

  “Cassie tells me you’ve offered to help out,” Chris Bennett said when Jack got to the field.

  “It wasn’t exactly like that, Mr. Bennett,” Jack said. “I really didn’t have much of a choice.”

  Cassie was standing between them, trying to look innocent.

  Mr. Bennett nodded at his daughter and said, “Gee, that doesn’t sound anything like her. Her mom and I have worked so hard trying to get her to come out of her shell.”

  “I am doing you both a favor,” she said. “You can’t work with everybody at once, Dad. And Jack needs to be near the game, whether he’ll admit that or not.”

  “There you go, Jack,” Mr. Bennett said. “Neither one of us seems to realize how lucky we are to have her.”

  “Hey!” Cassie said.

  Mr. Bennett asked Jack if he could handle infield practice, while the coach worked the outfielders on catching fly balls, learning to hit the cutoff man, and knowing where to throw the ball when there were runners on the bases.

  “There’s this idea in Little League that your best fielders are in the infield,” Mr. Bennett said. “I keep telling the girls that a missed ball in the infield usually means somebody getting one extra base. You miss one in the outfield, it’s lots of extra bases.”

  “You go ahead, Dad,” Cassie said. “I’ll help Jack out with any stuff he’s forgotten.”

  “You wish,” Jack said.

  Cassie played shortstop when she wasn’t pitching, same as Jack. Angela Morales, Gus’s sister, played third, Katie Cummings was at first, Gracie Zaro was at second, and Brooke Connors was behind the plate.

  Before they started infield work, Jack pulled Cassie aside and asked if Angela was cool with him being here. There hadn’t been any further trouble between Jack and Gus over the past couple of weeks, but only because Gus was avoiding Jack as much as possible.

  Cassie said, “She thinks her twin brother is acting like an idiot too.”

  “He’s not an idiot,” Jack said. “He’s just hurt.”

  “So you’re not mad at him, even the way he’s been treating you?” Cassie said. “Or not treating you?”

  Jack shook his head. “Gus wants to play in the big leagues someday. That’s his dream. And part of it is that when he gets ther
e, they go back and show him playing in the Little League World Series. So in his mind, it’s like I’m messing with his dreams.”

  When he stopped talking, he saw Cassie staring at him, her face serious for a change.

  “You know who isn’t an idiot?” she said. “You.”

  Then she ran out to shortstop.

  Jack hadn’t been kidding with Mr. Bennett. He knew he was here today because Cassie really hadn’t given him much of a choice. But after a few minutes, he found himself getting into it. Being back on a ball field, with a bat in his hands and a beautiful Saturday morning spread out in front of him the way it used to be, felt good.

  Not only that, if he was here to coach, he was going to be the best coach he could be.

  When Cassie bobbled a ball after moving to her left, Jack called out to her, “You should have been in front of that ball.”

  “Oh,” she called back from shortstop, hands on her hips. “Is that the way this is going to go, Callahan?”

  Jack felt himself smiling.

  “That’s Coach Callahan,” he said.

  A few minutes later a ball went under Gracie Zaro’s glove at second base. Jack dropped his bat, jogged out to where she was standing, and showed her how to put her arm and her glove straight down, the glove right in the dirt. That way it was easier to have it already down there when the ball got to her.

  He reminded her to keep her head down. She needed to look the ball into her glove every single time one was hit to her.

  “It’s not just outfielders who need two eyes and two hands on the ball,” he said.

  He kept things moving, hard grounders and slow rollers, even calling out, “Let’s get two!” once in a while.

  “You really think we’re going to get double plays?” Cassie said.

  “I guarantee you and Gracie will turn one in a big spot this season,” Jack said.

  “In your dreams,” she said.

  But then she was the one gliding to her left, making a perfect underhand toss to Gracie, who made the transition from glove to ball and made a sweet throw to Katie Cummings at first.