Strike Three, You're Dead

by Josh Berk

  “You know it. We gotta find a clue. Plus, you know, I just love baseball.” She smiled weakly and spun the phone cord.

  “Me too,” I said. “Me too.”

  There was another pause. “Hey, that reminds me. I wanted to ask you: why don’t you play ball if you’re so into it?”

  Oh, Jesús Marte, I did not like it when people asked me this question. I tried to give my standard answer. “I did play once. I was the worst there ever was.…”

  “You keep saying that. What does that mean? You still play or what?”

  “Well, I used to play, but I, um, I got cut.”

  “Cut from the team?”

  “No, cut with a knife.”

  “Ooh, sounds dramatic!”

  “Actually, I quit. I thought that was obvious.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. Anyway, now you have to tell me.”

  She said I had to. I didn’t want to, but it was time. So now, my friends, it is time for me to finally regale you with the story of my baseball career. About how I was the worst player ever.

  My career officially ended two years ago. And I’m not proud of the reasons behind it, but in the interest of honesty, I guess now is the time to share.

  The pitcher was a huge fifth grader—a giant kid who made me think that Little League should start its own policy on steroid testing. This pitcher was an absolute monster—like, the C. C. Sabathia of Little League. With a curveball like Tim Lincecum. A fastball like Randy Johnson in his prime. A nasty snarl like the best big league closers. Oh, and a couple of cute blond pigtails. Her name was Kimberly Watson.

  There was a girls softball team, but Miss Watson wanted to play hardball, and they let her. They thought her parents would sue or whatever if they refused. But no one thought about my safety! And sanity!

  Do you know how it feels to be reduced to tears by a smoke-throwing girl? Truth is, I wasn’t the only guy to shed a tear after being whiffed by Watson. We even had a little club called “Whiffed by Watson.” It was ironic, I guess, and we usually laughed about it. But inside we weren’t laughing. She threw so hard! And sometimes she was wild. Once a guy named Spencer Perk thought he got a hit because he closed his eyes and swung, then heard a bong and opened his eyes. The ball was near third base so he started running. But really it was a wild pitch—the ball had rebounded off the bars on top of the batting cage and bounced all the way back in play! He missed making contact by literally twenty feet but thought he got a hit. When he realized what had happened—and why everyone was laughing—he was pretty embarrassed. He had to walk back from first to the batter’s box.

  It was an embarrassing thing for Spencer Perk, but I was in a class all my own. I wasn’t the only one whose career was ended by Miss Watson, but I had the most epic “Whiffed by Watson” tale of all. It was toward the end of a one-sided loss. We were behind, something like 6–0. A six-run deficit against Kimberly Watson was like being behind 100–0 against most pitchers, with two strikes and two outs in the bottom of the last at bat. Even still, I only got my one at bat and two innings in lonely right field. And of course when I came to bat against Watson, with nobody on and two outs in the last inning, everyone started heading home. Even my dad had his keys out. He was probably trying to beat traffic. No one had any hopes that I would start a rally.

  No one had any hopes that I would reach base. No one had any hopes that I would even manage a meager foul tip. But there are actually more than twenty different ways to reach first base. And number three on the list doesn’t require anything much from the batter. You don’t have to have the patience to work four balls. You don’t have to have a solid stroke to get a hit. You just have to stand there. Which is exactly what I did. I was terrified to be up there against Kimberly Watson. I didn’t want to end the game. I didn’t want to get whiffed by a girl. I decided that I wouldn’t swing. She could just groove three strikes down the middle and I could go home with whatever small dignity I could muster. “Come on now, Lenny!” I heard from the crowd as the first pitch zoomed right down the heart of the plate. It smacked the catcher’s mitt with a noise like a rifle shot.

  “Take a cut!” my coach yelled. No, I decided. I would not. I would not take a cut. And somehow I guess this offended Kimberly Watson.

  “Take a swing at this next one or pitch number three is in your ear!” she yelled. I heard laughter from the bleachers. This was funny? How was it not illegal? How was it okay to threaten a kid with a fastball to the ear? If a guy did it, they’d throw him out of the game for sure. But a girl? Somehow all bets were off. I called time.

  “You hear that, ump?” I asked. “She said she’s gonna hit me.” My heart was beating in my throat. I guess I said it pretty loud because she heard me from the pitcher’s mound.

  “I’m not really gonna hit you!” she shouted back. “I ain’t gonna hit him, ump,” she said.

  “Shut up and take a swing,” the ump said. But I did not. I let pitch two zoom over the plate for a second strike. Watson smiled. I grimaced. Of course she would tell the ump that she wasn’t going to hit me, but I didn’t believe her. That smile. So evil. I knew. I just knew she was going to put a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball in my ear. And I really did not like the idea of having to go to the emergency room with a Rawlings lodged in my ear canal. And what I liked least of all was the idea of having to explain to the doctor that the baseball got lodged in my ear by a girl.

  She stared at me with those evil eyes. She licked her evil lips. I heard the umpire giggle. I tried to call time-out again.

  “Get in there, kid,” he said. “I don’t want to crouch back here all day. My knees are killing me.” I tapped the plate with my bat. Tap, tap. I tapped my cleats with my bat. Tap, tap. I put the bat on my shoulder. Miss Watson reared back in that slow and crazy windup she has, and I closed my eyes. I saw the ball fly from her hand, and I hit the dirt. I mean, I dropped to the ground faster than the Cubs drop from the play-offs every year. I was so sure that the ball was going to hit me in the head that I actually felt a burn in my ear. And then I heard the ump scream, “Strike three!”

  It was a perfect strike. An eephus pitch. That’s like a soft lob. Slower than a changeup—the slowest pitch of all. An extremely slow, soft toss, nothing more than an arcing lob a baby could catch with a bare hand. An eephus. Right into the catcher’s mitt. But I didn’t know that yet. My eyes were squeezed shut. I was curled into a ball in the dirt. And all I could feel was wetness down my leg. Yes, sports fans, a girl pitcher made me pee my pants.

  It was then—yes—exactly then, that I decided to become an announcer. It was hard to imagine any scenario that ended in an announcer whizzing himself. Maybe an extra-inning game where you had too many sodas? Well, that’s probably why announcers always work in teams. In case someone needs to pee. Yeah, behind the microphone, behind the glass, in the booth. That was the place for me. This I knew, lying there pee-soaked in the dirt, hearing the roaring laughter of the crowd and the thwack of high fives as Kimberly Watson’s teammates smacked her victorious palm. Yeah.

  The Mikes knew about this event. Everyone at school knew about it. This was the type of thing that spreads faster than poison ivy at summer camp. But—and this is why they are the best friends in the history of the world—neither one of them ever mentioned it. Not once. I was the worst there ever was, and it was very humiliating.

  I told that to Maria, just, you know, in a slightly shortened version. I left out some of the details. I’m sure you can forgive me. Basically, she just shrugged.

  “You’re not the worst in my book,” she said, pausing as if about to say more.

  “I’m the best?” I offered hopefully.

  “Don’t push it, dork,” she said. “Don’t push it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The next red-letter day of the summer had arrived. Plans were made. Dad would drive. I think Courtney was a little bummed that she wouldn’t get to come to the game. But, no, sadly, she wouldn’t be using that fifth ticket. Who would? Jeff Norbeck,
of course. After all, it was a Mets game. He even took off from work early so we could get there early. After all, we had work to do.

  I was pacing around, waiting for him to come down from his room. He had rushed in and said he was going to get changed before we left to pick Maria and the Mikes up. I spent the time pretending to bunt for base hits with an imaginary bat and ball in the living room. Finally, he strolled downstairs, smiling.

  “You are not going to wear that!” I said. He was dressed head to toe in Mets gear. He was the Mets mascot, Mr. Met, come to life. I wanted to barf.

  “I most certainly am going to wear this,” he said. “Is the button too much?”

  “Which one?” I asked. He had about fifty Mets buttons on. “Please, Dad. Take that stuff off. I’d like to live to see my teenage years,” I said. “Find out what all the fuss is about.”

  “Oh, don’t overreact, Len,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror above the couch, grinning like a monkey.

  “People do get killed for wearing the wrong hat,” I said. “Or at least beat up. It happens all the time. I am not joking.”

  “No one will beat up a harmless cardiologist out for an evening ball game with his son and his friends,” he said. “This is America. We’re all going to be there because we love baseball!” He sang it like a Broadway show tune. All these years of holding in his baseball fandom was making him strange. It was pouring out, like a garden hose finally unkinked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Are you new to Philadelphia? You might get eaten alive. Literally.” He laughed. He really thought it was funny! “What happened to worrying about your job?” I asked. “What happened to caring about your reputation? What happened to worrying about making sure you had patients?”

  “Ah, I’ve been at that hospital forever by now. No one could take my job if they wanted to. I have more patients than I know what to do with.”

  “Philly is a good town for heart attacks, I guess. Probably all the lousy sports teams and cheesesteaks.”

  “You said it, kid!”

  “Hey, can we go?” It was still early, and the game was a late start due to it being the nationally televised game of the week. It started at eight. Actually, eight-oh-five. Ever notice how baseball games never start exactly on the hour? It’s always like seven-oh-five or one-thirty-five or something weird. I suspect some sort of conspiracy.

  We made our rounds and Dad was even cool about all the extra driving he had to do. Wearing that stupid Mets getup really put him in a good mood, I guess. I wasn’t in precisely such an excellent mood myself. Were we even going to have tickets? Was Famosa going to follow through with his promise for VIP tickets? (Man, I could really get used to all this very-important-Lenny stuff.)

  What if Famosa forgot? Or chose to ignore us? We were just a bunch of kids. But, no, we weren’t! We had the power to share his secret with the world. Bedrosian’s Beard had even been buzzing a bit about the scene at Franklin Mall. We were famous! Sort of. There were lots of rumors and inaccurate stories about what went down with Famosa. No one was close to guessing the truth, which was probably too unbelievable to accept. People mostly just thought that some insane kids off their meds jumped the line and caused a scene. No one deduced that it was a few kids investigating a crime who tried to pull off Famosa’s mustache and ended up figuring out his fake identity.

  But the truth of what went down in that mall hadn’t hit the media. I suspected that Don Guardo was good at his job. Maybe he was a fake interpreter, but he was very good at guarding Famosa—and his secrets. I didn’t know what magic he’d pulled to keep the story off TV and mostly hush-hush, but I was sure he did something.

  Dad turned on the radio and tuned in WPP without even being asked. “I know you kids like this sports radio guy,” he said. “So I’ll put him on for you.”

  “Meh. We don’t love the Philly Hillbilly anymore,” Maria said. She was slumped low in the seat in the back. “He was mean to me.”

  “Well, all right!” Dad said. “I hope you will accept a high five from a Mets fan. I mean, an imaginary high five because I do not want to take my hands off the wheel in this traffic.”

  We laughed. What a dork.

  The traffic really was bad as we drove away from the Schwenkfelder quiet into the city. Everyone seemed to be honking at once. We were moving at a slow crawl. I leaned back into my leather seat and nervously drummed my fingers on the armrest. Slowly, the city rose before us in the distance. Skyscrapers loomed. Soon we’d see the ballpark.

  My mind went back to the last time I was here. The night RJ died. The night RJ was killed. Was I returning this night to solve the murder? A theory had already started to loosely come together in my mind. Was I right? Was I going to be able to find proof? Or was another twist coming my way?

  We arrived at the park. It was about six o’clock. The sun still sat high on its perch, waiting patiently for its cue to descend. It was a warm evening, but not sweaty. The world felt like a loaf of freshly baked bread. It was beautiful. Dad parked the car and we weren’t outside in the parking lot for more than two seconds when we heard “Mets suck!” for the first time. We would hear it many more times. I thought I might die of embarrassment.

  Dad didn’t mind. He smiled. “I feel like a man liberated from a life of lies,” he said. He really honestly says stuff like that all the time.

  “How can people get so worked up about a hat?” Other Mike said. I tried to think up a warlock-related description that would work here but couldn’t. Mainly I wanted to slap him.

  “Dad, do you have to be the most embarrassing dad in the history of dads?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he sang. “Yes, I do!” Then he started a chant of “Let’s go, Mets!” that I was sure was going to get us killed. Most people took it pretty well, actually. There was some teasing and so forth, but I didn’t feel like I was going to be murdered. I suspected that might change by around the fifth inning, but so far, so good.

  “Dad, you are going to have to stay out of the dugout, though,” I said. “You know that, right? You cannot go into the Phils dugout wearing that hat.”

  “I don’t want to anyway,” he said. “I’ll stay in our seats to watch batting practice. You go gather clues. Make me proud.”

  As we walked toward the ticket window, a guy played the Rocky theme song on a saxophone. He probably did that before every game, hoping people would throw quarters in his case. But I felt like it was just for me. And I felt inspired.

  We walked up to the ticket booth and got in line. A few fans yelled at Dad. He ignored them. Finally, it was our turn. “There should be some tickets here for Norbeck,” Dad said to the lady behind the counter. And sure enough there were. We each got a ticket and a bright yellow VISITOR tag to wear around our necks. Famosa had come through for us! We took the tickets and walked into the park. I got that tight feeling in my chest I always get when I enter the ballpark. It’s my favorite place on earth.

  “I guess these visitor passes let us into the dugout?” I said.

  “Even the murderous PhilzFan1?” Mike said, teasing Maria.

  “I don’t know,” she said with a laugh. “He still might be out there, lurking among us. Ready to bite the heads off the team if they fail.”

  We walked farther into the ballpark. It was such a great feeling to be in a sea of fans, all dressed in red. (Except for, you know, a few weirdos and/or cardiologists.) The game was a while away, but the energy of the ballpark before game time was unmistakable. Plus, we had our own plans for the night. Or did we?

  “What’s the plan?” I said to Maria.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m thinking we should get Famosa’s attention and he’ll take us into the dugout to look for clues.”

  “I don’t know if security is that relaxed,” I said.

  Those yellow visitor passes were pretty amazing. No one stopped us no matter where we walked in the park. Maria led us down the aisle right up to the dugout where the Phils players were getting ready. She started yel
ling “Jesús!” then she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oops!” She corrected herself and said, “Ramon! Señor Famosa!”

  She yelled this a few dozen times. She really does have a loud voice. And sure enough, Famosa popped up. He looked like a turtle emerging from his shell as he stuck his head out of the dugout. “Hola, amiga,” he said. Even I knew what that meant. Then they started talking back and forth really quickly, a river of Spanish words I couldn’t hope to understand. He smiled, smoothed his mustache, and waved us over. It was like a dream come true!

  The usher at the end of the aisle stopped us as we headed toward the field, but those magical yellow passes did the trick. Famosa helped each of us clear the fence and hop onto the dirt track of the field.

  “Whoa!” Mike said. “This is awesome.”

  It really did feel awesome to be on the field. We walked toward the dugout. Arnie Mickel, the announcer, was standing nearby. He was holding a microphone and appeared to be getting ready to film something for the game. “Hey, Mick,” I said, as casually as I could.

  “Hey, kid,” he said. Then, watching us head toward the dugout, he yelled, “What the heck? They don’t even let us in the dugout before the game.”

  I laughed and tried to take it all in. The ballpark felt bigger than it ever had. And the ball moved so much faster. Even the slow batting-practice pitches seemed to be whizzing in at ninety miles an hour. And when the ball was hit, it flew like a bullet out of a rifle. The powerful hitter Rafael Boyar was taking his practice swings, hammering the ball into the seats. He was supposedly still recovering from an injury, but he looked pretty strong to me.

  Famosa gestured toward the dugout, indicating that we should come in. It was almost scary, being so close to the players I had spent so much time admiring from afar. I couldn’t think what to say to any of them. I just nodded and smiled. Mostly, they ignored us.

  “What are we doing?” I muttered to Maria.