Baseball Great

by Tim Green

  “See?” Benji said. “Science. Genetics. That’s where I rule and you drool.”

  “Cool,” Josh said, tucking the phone under his chin so he could talk while he changed into a clean T-shirt and boxers.

  “So, give me the goods,” Benji said.

  Josh finished changing, then dug his math book out of his backpack and removed the homework sheet, reading off the steps to Benji.

  “Super,” Benji said. “Hey, did you text Sheila? Girls like to get text messages, especially at night. I figured I should remind you since girls are like science to you.”

  “Forget Sheila,” Josh said, putting away the math, grabbing his book, and sliding into bed.

  “Dude, my hearing must be haywire. I know you didn’t just say forget the goddess of Grant Middle.”

  “Forget her,” Josh said. “I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Before Benji could reply, Josh ended the call and opened his book. Before he started to read, he sent a text to Jaden that said “ANYTHING YET?”

  A minute later, the phone buzzed and he opened it for the reply.

  “NO.”

  Josh sighed and found his place in the book, losing himself in it and forgetting for a time about Rocky and Tucker and steroids and girls. At ten his mom popped her head in and, yawning, told him to turn off the light. Josh stashed the phone underneath his pillow, checking it one final time before he closed his eyes.

  He was just beginning to drift off when the phone buzzed under the pillow like a wet hornet.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “JADEN?” JOSH SAID, ANSWERING the phone and seeing that it wasn’t a text.

  “Josh,” she said in a whisper, “I didn’t want to send a text. It is steroids. Anadrol-17—an anabolic steroid. My God, this is insane.”

  Josh’s heart raced inside his chest. He bolted up out of bed and bumped his head on the slope of the ceiling.

  “Ow!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Hit my head,” he said, rubbing it and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I’m fine.”

  In the glow from the cell phone, he could see the dull glimmer of the Titans trophy on his dresser. His stomach tightened.

  “What are we going to do?” Jaden asked, hissing.

  “Nothing,” Josh said. “Not now.”

  “We have to tell.”

  “No,” Josh said. “Not that. We have to figure a way to stop him from doing it, but we can’t tell. I told you that.”

  “And I told you I wasn’t going to stop trying to convince you,” she said. “My dad’s coming! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The phone went dead. Josh stared at the numbers to convince himself that it hadn’t been a dream. Finally he closed the phone and stashed it back under his pillow.

  The night ran long, with sleep eluding him like an inside curveball. When he finally did nod off, his dreams were plagued with angry wasps, dark, empty locker rooms, and dugouts filled with pill-popping baseball players whose faces looked like monster fish. The hallway was still dark when Josh slipped across it and into the bathroom to get ready for school.

  He huddled with Jaden on the bus, the two of them arguing in whispers back and forth, listening to each other’s ideas and coming up with no real plan. During classes, Josh had a hard time listening, and he forgot all about Sheila until she sat down next to him at lunch.

  Jaden hadn’t arrived yet. Benji sat across the table from them, already munching on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and washing it down with a carton of milk.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, that seat is saved,” Josh said.

  Sheila looked at him, smiling uncertainly and waiting for the punch line to the joke.

  “For Jaden,” Josh said, quiet but firm.

  Sheila’s pretty face turned nasty. She stood fast, and her chair screeched across the floor.

  “You think I’m putting up with this?” she asked. “You think I need you?”

  “No,” Josh said.

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Okay,” Josh said softly.

  “Ha!” Benji cried out through a glob of half-chewed PBJ. “Girl, goddess or not…”

  Benji wiggled his neck so that his head bopped back and forth like a cobra. “You just got served!”

  Sheila clamped her lips tight, and her face turned red enough to explode.

  “You toad!” she said. She snatched up Benji’s milk and dumped it on his head. Then she spun and walked away while the kids around them burst out in a mixture of cheers and jeers.

  Benji blinked his eyes and sputtered and wiped them clear with his hands. Milk soaked his hair and discolored the Red Sox T-shirt he wore with a slow-growing dark stain.

  “Man,” Benji said, looking down at his shirt, “what is it with girls and dumping food on me?”

  Jaden walked up, trying not to giggle, and said, “Because you look so hungry?”

  “Funny,” Benji said, wiping his face with his hands.

  Benji sat looking at them as if someone hadn’t just dumped milk all over him. The cafeteria returned to normal, with the drone of everyone talking at the same time adding a buzz to the air. Josh stood and pushed Jaden’s chair in for her as she sat down.

  Benji stuffed another bite of sandwich into his mouth and said, “Dude, you are so lame. Helping her with her chair? You’re like my grandfather.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with nice manners,” Jaden said.

  Benji rolled his eyes.

  “Did you tell him?” Jaden asked.

  “Tell me what?” Benji said, leaning across the table.

  “Are you crazy?” Josh said to Jaden.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “CRAZY?” BENJI SAID, OUTRAGED. “You’re the crazy one. Dude, that is so wrong. I’m your best friend. You don’t have secrets from your best friend.”

  “You weren’t my best friend after I left for the Titans,” Josh said, taking out a turkey sandwich and biting into it.

  “What?” Benji said, widening his eyes.

  “The day you dug my oatmeal cookies out of the trash?” Josh said, chewing with his mouth half full.

  Benji swatted his hand at the air. “Dude, I was teaching you to respect the friendship, let you know how good of friends we really are. Now, what’s she talking about that you didn’t tell me?”

  Josh scowled at Jaden. She shrugged apologetically. Josh took a drink of milk, then sighed.

  “All right,” he said, leaning close and whispering. “Rocky’s dealing steroids.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Benji said in a voice loud enough to draw stares.

  Josh rolled his eyes, shot Jaden an angry look, and said, “See?”

  “Sorry. Sorry,” Benji said. “I’m quiet. I’m all quiet now. They don’t call me Johnny Tight-lips for nothing.”

  “Who calls you Johnny Tight-lips?” Josh asked, wrinkling his face.

  “No matter,” Benji said, holding his hand up like a traffic cop. “Tell me the deal. Are we calling the cops?”

  “No!” Josh said, grabbing a handful of Benji’s soaked T-shirt, pulling him even closer, and whispering. “We are not calling the police or anyone else.”

  Josh looked over at Jaden and asked, “Did you put him up to this?”

  Jaden shook her head and said, “Not me. I didn’t say anything.”

  “Dude,” Benji said, removing Josh’s hand from his shirt, “the merchandise, go easy.”

  “I want to stop him, and we will if we can, but we can’t call the police,” Josh said.

  “Josh doesn’t want his dad to lose his job,” Jaden said.

  “He’s dealing, too?” Benji said.

  “No!” Josh said. “My dad’s not dealing. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

  Josh explained the whole situation while trying to eat, not because he was all that hungry, but because he knew he’d need his energy for practice.

  When Josh finished, Benji said, “First, you need a sting. You get the goods on him, then you
call him and tell him you’ll bust him if he doesn’t stop. The dude will quit selling the juice before you get off the phone if you sting him.”

  “Sting?” Josh said.

  “Like cops,” Benji said, “when they go after someone. They set them up in a sting. They offer to buy drugs and put the whole thing on video from one of these cameras you can stick in a little nail hole in the wall. I saw it on America’s Most Wanted.”

  “Well, we can’t ask him to buy drugs,” Josh said. “He’s not selling these things on the street. He’s just giving them to his team. And we don’t have a camera you can stick in a nail hole.”

  “What’s in all this for him?” Benji asked. “Why would he do this?”

  “Money. My dad says Rocky has a sponsor package from Nike that might happen that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Josh said, “but they only do it for the top teams in the country. So if the team is great, he makes some pretty big money.”

  “What if we get him doing the buying?” Jaden asked.

  Josh stared at her.

  “At the hospital,” Jaden said, and she told Benji how they’d seen Rocky’s car outside the loading dock.

  “So, we need a stakeout,” Benji said, wadding up his sandwich wrapper and stuffing it into his lunch bag. “And we take a picture of the deal going down with a cell phone.”

  “My cell phone doesn’t have a camera,” Josh said.

  “Mine does,” Jaden said.

  “Mine, too,” Benji said. “Dude, you gotta get into the twenty-first century.”

  Josh shrugged.

  “Anyway,” Benji said, “we stake out the loading dock, wait for Rocky to come get the drop, take a picture of the exchange, and run like H-E-double hockey sticks.”

  “Then we call him anonymously,” Jaden said, “and tell him if he keeps doing it, we’ll send the picture to the New York Times.”

  “What about the Syracuse paper?” Josh asked.

  “Think big, dude,” Benji said. “That’s how you get the really big bad guys. You gotta think big.”

  “When do we start?” Josh asked.

  “Tonight,” Jaden said. “Why wait?”

  “I got my fantasy baseball draft tonight,” Benji said, “so I’m out.”

  “We’ll take turns,” Jaden said. “I’ll go first. Can you do tomorrow night? Tomorrow I’ve got to finish the paper and print it, so I’ll be at school until late.”

  “I got you tomorrow,” Benji said.

  “I’ll help,” Josh said. “I mean, I’ll go with you both.”

  They finished their lunch and kept discussing the plan. When the bell rang, Jaden gave Josh a pat on the back and said, “I’ll see you tonight.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  WHEN HIS DAD PICKED him up for practice after school, Josh waited until they were halfway there before he asked, “Dad, how’s that Nike deal working out?”

  His father gave him a quick glance and, scowling, said, “Did your mother tell you? I asked her not to say anything.”

  “She didn’t say anything,” Josh said. “I was just talking about it at lunch with my friends.”

  “I don’t want to give it a jinx,” Josh’s dad said, “but it looks like it’s going to happen. They’re going to have someone watching practice today.”

  Josh beamed at his dad and said, “That’s great. How come you don’t look happy?”

  His dad smiled, fought it back, then gave up and smiled again, shaking his head.

  “It’s just like it’s almost too good to be true,” his dad said. “When I got let go…well, it was like something inside me died, Josh. It’s hard to explain. I played baseball my whole life. It practically was my life, and I really didn’t know if I was ever going to be happy doing anything again. Now this. It’s still baseball; not playing, but everything I know about the game still matters. I just don’t want to give it a jinx.”

  “Being happy won’t jinx it,” Josh said. “I’m glad I know.”

  “Why’d you say it like that?” his father asked.

  “Like what?” Josh said, part of him wanting to cry out that he wouldn’t let the whole thing with Rocky ruin his father’s dream.

  “Like you can help make it happen?” his father said.

  Josh pressed his lips together, then said, “I’m just happy, Dad. That’s all. Maybe by doing good today I can help, right?”

  “Sounds good,” his father said, pulling into the sports complex. “You go work hard. I’ve got a meeting at the vitamin store for Rocky.”

  “You’re not meeting the Nike guys?” Josh asked.

  His father forced a smile and said, “That’s not my place yet. This is still Rocky’s deal. But I’ll be back to pick you up after practice.”

  Josh changed into his workout clothes and hit the weight room.

  As he finished a set of shoulder presses, Tucker sidled up to him and asked, “How you feeling?”

  “Still sore from yesterday,” Josh said, massaging his legs.

  “It’ll take a few weeks,” Tucker said, lowering his voice but grinning big. “Then, whoosh. I told you, you’ll take off like a rocket.”

  Tucker gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder along with a wink before he stalked away.

  At practice, Josh saw Rocky on the side, talking and joking with a man wearing a gold watch and a blue Nike sweat suit. But it was also Rocky who stopped practice, pulled on a glove, and walked out onto the field to instruct Josh on the way to drag his right foot across the bag on a double play.

  “Look,” Rocky said, stepping toward first with his left foot as he caught the ball Moose threw to him, then dragging the right foot across the bag as he threw it to first. “You make tagging the bag just part of the throw. It saves half a second, and that’s the difference between one out or making the double play. You try it.”

  Josh looked over at the Nike guy and bit his lip. He wanted to ask Rocky why he was all of a sudden giving tips out on the field when all he usually cared about was Super Stax and gym candy. Of course, he kept his mouth shut and did as Rocky told him.

  On the very next try, Rocky’s technique worked. Moose hit a grounder to the second baseman. Josh darted for the bag. The second baseman fumbled the scoop, and the ball came late. Josh snagged the ball, dragged his foot, and rocketed the ball to first, beating the runner by a step.

  Rocky stood with his thick arms folded across his chest, grinning. The Nike guy gave a low whistle, and Jonesy pulled his hand free from the glove, shaking it from the sting.

  “Now, that’s the way you play shortstop,” the Nike guy said.

  “You mean, that’s the way you coach a shortstop,” Rocky said, patting the Nike guy on the back until he returned Rocky’s grin.

  Josh walked back to his position, wondering if tonight would be the night he and Jaden wiped that grin right off of Rocky’s face.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  DURING DINNER LATER THAT evening, Josh’s father asked, “You take your Super Stax?”

  “Not yet,” Josh said.

  “What’s wrong?” his father asked. “You don’t like that banana, right?”

  “No, it’s okay,” Josh said.

  “Well, take it,” his father said. “You need to take that stuff, Josh. You need every edge you can get. We talked about that. You look tired.”

  “He’s wearing himself out,” Josh’s mom said. “He’ll get to bed early tonight.”

  “No!” Josh said, raising his voice more than he meant to and drawing stares from both his parents.

  Laurel banged her sip cup on her tray and shouted, “No. No! No! No!”

  “That’s enough,” his mom said, reaching for his little sister.

  “I just have a science project tonight I have to work on with Jaden, that’s all,” Josh said.

  “Science?” his dad said. “I’ve never seen so much science. What are they trying to do? Put a man on Mars?”

  “Genetic predispositions,” Josh said.

  “It’s all
the state testing,” his mom said to his dad.

  His dad grumbled and took a bite of pot roast before attacking his pile of mashed potatoes and gravy, then abruptly pushing back from the table and disappearing upstairs, mumbling something about the bathroom.

  “Just try to get done early,” his mom told him, getting up from the table and going to the counter where the can of Super Stax rested. “Here, I’ll mix in some vanilla and it’ll taste better.”

  “Gee, Mom,” Josh said in a soft voice, “you’re in on this, too? Do you really care about all this weight-lifting stuff?”

  “It’s important to your father, Josh,” she said, dumping a scoop of the powder into a big glass.

  After dinner, Josh helped clean up, then wheeled his bike out of the garage and headed for the hospital. He sent Jaden a text to let her know he was on his way, and she met him on a corner two blocks away from the hospital. The orange sun behind him stretched his shadow for nearly a block. Even though the evening started out warm enough, the shadows had a bite to them that made him think he should have worn more than just his navy blue Syracuse University sweatshirt and jeans. When he saw that Jaden was wearing a jeans jacket over her black hooded sweatshirt, he shivered, wishing he had worn one, too. She waved at him and swung the backpack off her shoulder. When Josh got down off his bike, she unzipped the backpack and removed the big red PDR.

  “I marked the page,” she said, touching a sticky note and flipping open the book. “Wanted you to see for yourself.”

  Josh followed Jaden’s finger down the page to a picture of a pill that looked exactly like the ones Tucker had given him.

  “Anadrol-17,” he said, reading it aloud, studying the picture. “That’s it.”

  “And here,” Jaden said, flipping to another section in the book and showing him where it said that Anadrol-17 was an anabolic steroid.

  “I believed you,” Josh said.

  “I know,” she said. “But sometimes I have a hard time believing it myself. I mean, this is the kind of stuff you read about but don’t think people would actually do.”

  “What about all those pro players?” Josh asked.