The DH

by John Feinstein

  “I couldn’t read these people at all,” he continued. “Maybe it’s because I’ve never argued a case like this in the past. I have no experience to draw on.”

  He took a long sip of the coffee he’d ordered and for a moment said nothing. “And some of it, I honestly think, is that they really hadn’t decided, either. They’ve never had a case like this. I think it will come down to one thing in the end: Do they like Matt? I mean, do they think he’s a good kid who made a couple of bad mistakes, or do they think he’s just a bad kid?”

  “He’s not a bad kid,” Alex said.

  Their dad held up a hand. “I know that, Alex,” he said. “I wouldn’t be trying to help him if I didn’t think he was a good kid, and honestly, all I needed on that was your word. Having spent time with him, I know why you like him so much—in spite of his flaws.”

  “So,” Molly said finally. “Up or down tomorrow? Win or lose?”

  Their dad smiled. “If this was a baseball game,” he said, “I’d say we’re heading for extra innings.”

  He looked at Alex. “Should we order a small pizza? I’m still hungry.”

  That was the best idea Alex had heard in a good long while.

  Alex wasn’t usually one to break school rules—at least not knowingly. But he made an exception the next morning by slipping his cell phone into his pocket before heading for his first-period class. Jonas saw what he was doing and smiled.

  “When will you hear?” he asked.

  “They’re supposed to be there at ten,” Alex said. “Shouldn’t take them long to tell them what they’ve decided. There’s no formal appeal once they’ve ruled, but if it’s bad, my dad said he would ask to see a written verdict of some kind and would ask the panel what Matt might be able to do to soften the ruling, whatever it is.”

  “Sounds like a long shot,” Jonas said.

  “More like no shot,” Alex said. “But he’ll go down swinging.”

  “So to speak,” Jonas said as they headed down the hallway.

  “I should know by the end of third period,” Alex said.

  Third period ended at ten-thirty.

  “You have English third period, right?” Jonas said. “I’ll come find you right after. I’m just down the hall.”

  Alex nodded. He hadn’t seen Christine or Max yet, but he figured they’d want to know too. He kept his phone off for two periods, then ducked into a stall in the boys’ room en route to English and turned it on to silent mode. Even though he couldn’t look, a vibration in his pocket during class would tell him the verdict was in.

  He didn’t hear a word Mr. Conway was saying in English class. Then again, he rarely heard a word Mr. Conway was saying. Jonas, who had him for fifth period, had once said, “If Mr. Conway taught English in Shakespeare’s day, no one would ever have heard of Shakespeare.”

  Alex was vaguely aware of Mr. Conway trying to tell the class that Romeo and Juliet was not a good play—he had some weird theory about Mercutio being a more interesting character than Romeo—when he felt his pocket vibrate. He almost jumped out of his seat and was relieved to see that Mr. Conway was looking in the other direction. There was no clock in the classroom, but Alex was certain class was almost over. It had to be almost over.

  It didn’t end soon enough. Alex was trying to calculate how much time was left when he heard Mr. Conway say, “Mr. Myers, if you don’t mind taking part for a moment, can you tell me why this is a flawed play?”

  Alex had read the play. He loved it. He had envisioned himself as Romeo to Christine’s Juliet—except for the part where they both died.

  “I don’t think it’s flawed, Mr. Conway,” he said. “I think it’s great.”

  “Really?” Mr. Conway said, folding his arms. “Apparently, you haven’t been listening today. Can you explain to me why you disagree with what I’ve been saying?”

  Alex was about to answer that and get himself into trouble when the bell rang.

  “Well, Mr. Myers—saved by the bell,” Mr. Conway said. “I would advise you to be better prepared tomorrow.”

  Yeah, Alex thought, and I’d advise you to try another profession.

  He pushed those thoughts aside, packed up his backpack, and bolted for the door. Jonas, Christine, and Max were all waiting outside the room.

  “Do you guys have jetpacks or something?” Alex asked.

  “Forget that,” Jonas said. “Did you hear anything?”

  Alex didn’t want to take out his phone in the hallway.

  “Let’s go outside real quick,” he said, nodding in the direction of the door that led to the school’s backyard.

  “Hurry,” Christine said. “We’ve only got seven minutes.”

  They all walked briskly down the hall, Alex slipping the phone out of his pocket as they went outside. He opened his messages, and there it was. He read it aloud to the others: “ ‘Good news—and bad news. Good news: Matt is reinstated, effective right away.’ ”

  Jonas, Christine, and Max all let out yells of happiness.

  “What could possibly be bad news about any of that?” Christine asked.

  Alex had looked up for a second in response to their cheers. He looked back down at the screen and read: “ ‘Bad news: He can’t pitch or play the field for the rest of the season. He can be the designated hitter—but that’s it. They said this was their compromise—no negotiating. On our way back now. Matt will be at practice.’ ”

  Alex stopped reading and looked at his friends. They had gone from ecstatic to stunned in a matter of seconds.

  “Can’t pitch?” Jonas said finally. “That’s like saying Tom Brady can play football, only not at quarterback.”

  “Well, it is better than not playing at all,” Christine said.

  Alex was about to ask her if she was sure about that when the bell rang. He stuck his phone into his pocket. There was nothing to be done right now—except try to make it to fourth period without being late.

  Alex got another text from his dad during lunch: Coach Birdy asked that I come to practice and explain to everyone what’s going on. I’ll see you there.

  Matt wasn’t in the locker room when everyone arrived, but the word had spread about the decision made by the board. Alex was a little surprised at how mixed the reaction to it was from Matt’s teammates.

  “They’re like King Solomon,” said Brendan Chu, the one guy on the team with a 4.0 GPA. He was going to Yale in the fall.

  “Who’s King Solomon?” asked Jonas—a relief to Alex because he was too embarrassed to ask himself.

  Chu and the other seniors laughed. “You’ll find out next year,” Chu answered. “He was asked to resolve a dispute between two mothers over who a baby belonged to, and his solution was to cut the baby in half. That’s what this is—they just cut Matt in half.”

  “Actually, he’s lucky he can play at all,” said Jeff Cardillo, someone who never had anything bad to say about anyone. “He could have killed that kid. He’s lucky he didn’t. That’s the way I would have looked at it.”

  “Yeah, but we need him to pitch,” said Patton Gormley.

  They were still arguing as they walked across the soccer and lacrosse field. Matt, Alex’s dad, and Coach Birdy were waiting for them when they got to the dugout. It was spitting a little bit of rain—which, Alex thought, was appropriate under the circumstances.

  “Guys, I know you’ve all heard about the outcome in Harrisburg,” Coach Birdy said. “I thought it would be good to have Mr. Myers explain how the board reached its decision.”

  He looked at Alex’s dad, who had taken off his suit coat and his tie but still looked quite formal in his button-down shirt. Matt was still in his street clothes too—no jacket, no tie, but also a dress shirt.

  “I’m a believer, as I told Matt in the car coming back here, that you should try to look at the glass as half full,” he said. “That’s what this is. The board was very close to keeping the season-long suspension fully intact. Two board members were adamant about that.
Two others felt he deserved to play. The swing vote—the tiebreaker—was a man named Jonathan Showalter. If the last name sounds familiar, that’s because his cousin is Buck Showalter, the Orioles’ manager.

  “He gave us a rather lengthy speech about how he understood the emotion of competition and that pitching inside was, for better or worse, part of the game. But he went on to say he was also a parent who had two sons who played the game and he couldn’t imagine how Billy Twardzik’s parents felt that night when they had to go to the hospital because of Matt’s reckless action. That’s the phrase he used, ‘reckless action.’

  “He looked at Matt and said, ‘Young man, I simply can’t justify putting you back on a mound again this season. But I don’t think you threw that pitch with malice or intent to injure. So I have suggested the following compromise to the board.’

  “Then he told us what it was. Rather than vote on whether the penalty should be upheld or reduced, the board voted unanimously in favor of Mr. Showalter’s suggested compromise. So here we are. Matt can be your DH, but only your DH.”

  There was silence when he finished. “Any questions, guys?” Coach Birdy said.

  More silence.

  “Okay, then. Matt, go get dressed. The rest of you guys, warm up. Mr. Myers, on behalf of all of us, thank you for all the work you did. Can you guys give Mr. Myers a round of applause?”

  They did. As Matt jogged in the direction of the locker room, Alex walked over to his dad and gave him a hug.

  “I think you did a great job, Dad,” he said. “More important, thanks for just taking all the time to be here and to help Matt.”

  “Did the best I could,” his dad said. “I think Matt’s happy to be part of the team again. Maybe you guys won’t win the league this year, but you’ll be better with him in the lineup.”

  He looked at his watch. “I’m trying to catch a four-thirty flight. I have a lot of work to catch up on. But I’ll be back in two weekends.”

  “You will?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He didn’t say “I promise.” This time, though, Alex believed him.

  King of Prussia came to Chester Heights on Friday afternoon.

  Matt, having taken a lot of batting practice on Wednesday and Thursday, was back in the lineup, hitting third as the DH. Alex had pitched Tuesday, so Bailey Warner got the start. The bullpen was fresh, since Alex had gone six innings. Alex hoped they wouldn’t be needed too early. But KOP was a formidable team—especially those Herman brothers….

  The first hint of trouble came when the KOP players began taking the field to warm up. The Lions were stretching in front of their dugout, and Alex was standing next to Warner when he heard him say, “Oh my God!”

  For a split second, Alex thought Warner might’ve hurt himself again, but when he looked up, he saw that he was staring in the direction of the third base line, where the Chargers were starting to loosen up. Apparently he had just gotten his first look at the Herman brothers. Warner hadn’t made the trip the first time the two teams played.

  “You guys told me they were big, but…my God!”

  “Just keep the ball down and away from them and you’ll be fine,” Alex said. He was staring too. He’d seen the Hermans before and was still a little bit in awe of them.

  “How’d that work out for you?” Bailey asked.

  Alex didn’t answer because he knew Bailey already knew the answer: not so good.

  Coach Birdy gave them a quick pregame pep talk in the dugout, something he rarely did.

  “Bailey’s healthy and ready,” he said. “Think how well you guys played when Matt was out of the lineup—we didn’t lose a game. Now we have Matt back. We win today, we’re in a virtual first-place tie. We don’t need to score seven in the first. Just let the game come to you.”

  Actually, as it turned out, they could have used seven in the first, because by the time they got up to bat in the bottom of the first, KOP was up, 6–0.

  As experienced as he was, Bailey Warner looked like a scared freshman from the first pitch he threw—which went about two feet over Lucas Mann’s head to the backstop. He walked the leadoff hitter on four pitches, then walked the second hitter on five. Jake Herman came up, and Warner looked like he wanted to crawl under the fence and escape. His first pitch hit Herman in the arm, and Alex wondered if the baseball had been damaged. Herman dropped his bat, looking like he’d been hit by a feather, and jogged to first.

  Coach Birdy didn’t even bother to send Coach Bloom out. He sprinted to the mound to try to calm his pitcher down. Later, Bailey would tell Alex that the message was direct: “You gotta throw strikes. Find the plate. Make them earn it!”

  Warner followed the instructions—at least he tried to. His first pitch to Joey Herman was a strike—but it was right down the middle of the plate. Apparently figuring that Warner had been ordered to throw strike one, Herman was sitting on the fastball. Alex took one step as the ball soared over his head and stopped. If he had been playing somewhere close to the Delaware state line, he might have had a play on the ball. Otherwise, no chance.

  Bailey gave up two more runs before the inning was over and the Lions slumped into the dugout.

  “Hey!” Matt yelled. “We can score too, you know. It’s just the first inning!”

  He was right—they did score. Matt hit a long home run of his own in the fourth for the first run, and Cardillo singled in two runs in the sixth. But it wasn’t nearly enough. Each Herman hit another home run, and the final score was 13–3.

  “Guess we’re getting better,” Jonas said as everyone lined up for handshakes. “Last time, it was fourteen to two.”

  Alex was right behind Matt in the handshake line. He heard one of the Hermans—he thought it was Jake—say to Matt, “I wish we’d gotten a chance to hit against you. Least that would have been a challenge.”

  “Yup,” Matt said, “it would have been. Good luck in the playoffs. I hope you guys go far.”

  KOP hadn’t clinched anything yet—they were still just a game ahead of Chester. But Chester Heights’ chances had died a cruel death that afternoon. Not only was KOP two games in front of the Lions now, it also had the tiebreaker, since it had won both games between the two teams. Even counting the Haverford Station game as a win, the Lions were 7–2 in the conference, and KOP was 9–0. That meant even if Chester Heights won every game from now on and finished 14–2, KOP would have to go 4–3 the rest of the season for the Lions to catch and pass them in the standings.

  “They aren’t losing three games,” Matt said when Alex asked him about congratulating the Hermans on making the playoffs. “They aren’t losing any games. Their whole lineup is good, not just those guys, and their pitchers are pretty good—plenty good enough. Those two guys make them great. You might be able to pitch around one, but not both.”

  He sighed. “Still, I would like to have had the chance to pitch against them.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jonas said. “If you’d pitched, we probably would have only lost, like, six to three.”

  Matt smiled. “Probably right,” he said. “Those two guys will be pros someday.”

  Not surprisingly, Matt’s return had brought the media back in full force, although Alex also noticed quite a few cameras around the King of Prussia dugout—specifically, around the Herman brothers. Matt had told Alex that each of them now had fifteen home runs for the season—in seventeen games. KOP was undefeated and ranked number twelve in USA Today’s high school baseball poll.

  Even so, Matt still had a half dozen cameras around him. Alex could see that Christine, Dick Jerardi, and Stevie Thomas were also talking—or at least listening—to him. Alex knew that Matt had been prepared for this by his dad and that he would stick to the script: He was grateful to be playing again; he was pleased the board had understood that he’d made a mistake but that it wasn’t part of a pattern of any kind; he just wanted to help the team any way he could.

  “I told him it wouldn’t change anything for this season, but h
e has to think big picture,” Alex’s dad had said when he’d called after getting back to Boston. “College recruiters, pro scouts, even agents will be watching to see how he handles this.”

  While Alex was watching Matt handle it all, Steve Garland walked over.

  “What do you think?” Garland asked.

  “About the game?”

  Garland shook his head. “I don’t need to know what you thought about the game, Alex,” he said. “That was men against boys. Nothing to be ashamed of—they’re just way better than anyone else playing at this level. No, what do you think about Matt?”

  “I wish he could have pitched today,” Alex said. “But I’m glad we’ll have him in the lineup the rest of the season. We’re better with half of him than with none of him.”

  “Do you think the decision was fair?”

  Alex had thought about that long and hard. “I’m biased,” he said. “I wanted him back—period. But I’ll say this: I think the board tried really hard to be fair.”

  Garland nodded. “For the record, because I’m going to write it next week, I thought they were more than fair. I think your dad probably saved the day.”

  Alex knew there was truth to that. With a less competent lawyer, the initial suspension almost certainly would have been upheld. But Alex just said, “Matt said my dad was great. I know he’s a really good lawyer, so I’m not surprised.”

  “Matt said he did all the work pro bono,” Garland said.

  “True.”

  “How come? Matt may not be rich, but he’s not poor. Your dad must have lost a lot of hours just with the travel alone.”

  “He did,” Alex said.

  “So why’d he do it?”

  “Because,” Alex answered, breaking into a broad grin, “he loves me.”

  As he said it, it occurred to him that no matter where Chester Heights finished in the standings, the baseball season had not been a total loss. Far from it.

  The rematch with Haverford Station took place the following Tuesday. Billy Twardzik still wasn’t back in uniform, but Matt was—even if he wasn’t pitching. Coach Birdy warned Matt before his first at-bat to expect a pitch inside.