by Mike Lupica
Ben nodded.
Coop said, “Wasted a trip out here, didn’t I?”
“Kind of,” Ben said.
Coop took his place behind the plate. Kyle dug in. He looked like a right-handed version of Justin. Hands set just as high. Wide stance. Still as a statue once he was ready.
Ben threw a fastball right past him, Kyle taking a huge swing, trying to hit a home run, swinging so hard his helmet spun around on his head.
Ben waited for him to straighten it. Feeling his heart inside him but feeling calm at the same time. Knowing he had this guy. Going right after him. It was the funny thing about the season he’d had: Even as bad as he’d looked with a bat in his own hands until Justin had gotten him turned around, he was pitching better than he ever had in his life.
And harder.
Threw too hard now, way too hard, Coop having to come out of his crouch, nearly jumping to keep the ball from flying past him and going all the way to the screen and sending the kid at second to third base.
Coop came out in front of the plate, tossed the ball back to Ben, and smiled at him and said, “We’re sort of not going for distance here.”
“Got it,” Ben said.
Smiled back at him. Knowing this kind of moment, against a guy this good, game on the line — this was why you played.
This was sports right here between him and Kyle Rafalski of the Moreland Tigers. His best against Kyle’s best, just the air between them.
Ben took a deep breath, turned, and looked at the runner, thinking the guy wasn’t going to run, try to steal third, not with his team’s best hitter at the plate, Coop already having thrown out two guys trying to steal third in this game.
Ben poured strike two past Kyle Rafalski. More of a controlled swing this time than on strike one. Same result. Now he had gotten behind on him, now he was ahead in the count, now Ben threw him one more fastball, belt high, lit him up one last time, Kyle missing this one — by a lot — the way he’d missed the first two.
Ben ran off the field, drinking in great big gulps of that air.
Yeah, he thought.
Yeah.
This was why you played.
The Tigers brought in their left fielder, Ben had heard his teammates call him Brian, to pitch the bottom of the sixth, game still tied at 4–all.
Brian was the biggest player on their team. It didn’t mean he had a big arm. You could never tell by just looking at somebody. It was like trying to know the size of their heart.
Ben knew better than anybody. About arms and about heart.
Justin was leading off for the Rams, Sam having ended the bottom of the fifth with a monster fly ball to left that Brian had caught with his back brushing up against the left-field wall, Ben sure when Sam hit it that it was gone.
But it was all right.
Because Ben was sure Justin was about to do something great.
He wasn’t one of those guys who thought sports was always supposed to be fair, his dad was always explaining to him that there had never been any law passed saying that sports had to be fair, or that it ever owed you anything, or that it was supposed to come out a certain way so that the good guys always won.
But Ben wanted Justin to hit one about ten miles now and win the game as much as he wanted this game.
He wanted Justin to have this night.
Brian threw him two balls, Justin took strike one, went after the 2-1 pitch and just missed it, fouling it back into the parking lot.
It had been a night of good fastballs in this game, Sam’s and Kyle’s and Ben’s in the top of the sixth. But Brian had one, too, Ben could hear it just by the sound it had made in his catcher’s glove. And maybe after Justin had missed at 1-1, maybe Brian thought Justin couldn’t catch up with his best pitch.
And maybe he didn’t know how much stick Justin Bard really had.
But now he threw Justin a fastball between his belt and “Rams” on the front of his white home jersey. And this time when Ben heard the sound of the bat on the ball — and even after being wrong about Sam’s shot — he really was sure that he was hearing the sound of a home run being hit.
The Tigers’ center fielder heard what everybody else heard, saw the ball come off the bat, turned and started running, what would have been a terrific jump if the ball was going to stay in the park.
Only it wasn’t.
It was why the kid, tracking the ball with his eyes, stopped before he got to the warning track and then did what everybody else did, whether they were standing in front of the bench the way Ben and the Rams were, or in the top row of the bleachers:
Watched as the ball cleared the wall, cleared it by a lot, watched as long a home run as Ben had ever seen at Highland Park.
Justin didn’t sprint around the bases, because that was one way of showing up a pitcher. Didn’t take it real slow, because that was even a worse form of showboating. What Ben’s dad called Cadillac-ing back in the day.
He just ran at his normal home-run pace, as if hitting a rocket to the moon like that was the most normal thing in the world.
Ben watching him and thinking that for this one moment sports had worked out the way it was supposed to for Justin, for this one night things were the way he wanted them to be, and not just in baseball.
They were three games from the end of the regular season, a 12–3 record now the Rams’ winning streak having ended with a loss to Darby when Chase Braggs — loving every minute — retired the last nine Rams’ batters of the game, finally striking out Ben to end it.
After the game Chase, chirping as much as ever, said to Ben, “You guys do not want to see me in the playoffs.”
“Don’t you mean hear you?” Sam said.
“My dad says that if you don’t blow your horn, there isn’t any music,” Chase said.
When he was gone Ben grinned and said to Sam, “Well, that explains a lot!”
But as loud as Chase was, and as cocky as he was — he was the kind of kid Coop called a “foot long,” meaning foot-long hot dog — they knew he wasn’t the loudest and cockiest player in their league, because that title belonged to Kingsland’s best pitcher, Pat Seeley.
“Wow,” Shawn said when they were warming up on Kingsland’s field, playing them on a Sunday night, starting the last week of the regular season. “Seeley’s got to be the only guy in the league with shoes and a glove to match his hair.”
“The shoes are a much brighter red,” Sam said. “Totally.”
Ben said, “You think they glow in the dark?”
And Coop said, “He probably thinks the field is named after him and not his father.”
It really was called Seeley Field, and was probably the nicest field they played on all season, even nicer than Highland Park, even though Ben and Sam and the guys hated to admit that.
They knew by now that Pat Seeley’s dad wasn’t just his coach, he was the richest man in Kingsland, Ben’s dad saying one time that Mr. Seeley didn’t have to change the name of the town, because he just assumed people would know he was the king of it. Maybe that was why Pat Seeley acted the way he did, like he was some kind of prince.
The only time they had to play against him was in baseball every year. Pat Seeley played soccer in the fall and hockey in the winter, Kingsland being much more of a hockey town than basketball. But they saw him two times every summer and knew they would see him again if Kingsland made the playoffs, even though the Knights were in fifth place heading into the last week.
Coop always referred to their regular season games against Pat Seeley as the “two most obnoxious nights of summer.”
It was a weird schedule, because this was the first time they’d seen Pat or the Knights, and would play them against next Friday night at Highland Park, last game before the playoffs.
Across the field, they could see Pat Seeley talking to a couple of his teammates, laughing and pointing over to where the Rams were stretching, wagging a finger when he saw them watching him.
“Not in my house!” he
yelled across the field at them.
“Did he really just say that?” Coop said.
“I hate guys like that,” Sam said.
“I’ve noticed,” Ben said.
Ben and Sam, Shawn and Coop and Justin were in a circle, sitting in the grass near third base.
“You don’t hate guys like that as much as I do,” Justin said, eyeballing Pat Seeley. “My dad says it doesn’t matter how good you are — or think you are — there’s a way you’re supposed to act.”
Pat Seeley moved away from his teammates now, got with his dad, starting doing all these tricky stretches with his dad standing over him.
“The guy acts like there should be a camera watching every move he makes,” Ben said.
“There probably is,” Coop said, “we just can’t see it.”
They went back to their own stretching until Ben heard Sam say, “Look out, he’s coming over here.”
“He must think we missed him,” Coop said.
Pat Seeley was as tall as Sam and Justin, long arms and legs, long red hair, freckles.
“How’s the little fireballer?” he said to Ben, making no move to shake hands or bump fists.
Ben didn’t answer him.
“The way people are talking about you, you must have gotten a lot better at pitching since last year.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ben said finally. “Were you talking to me, Pat?”
Pat was smiling, but they both knew he didn’t mean it. This was part of his act, always had been, Ben was actually surprised it had taken this long for him to make his way across the field.
“Heard you got drilled by big fireballer, though, right?”
“Managed to survive,” Ben said.
“Barely,” Pat Seeley said, “is what I heard. Heard you went through a stretch when you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a boat.”
“I’m fine,” Ben said.
“Amazing,” Coop said.
“What?” Pat Seeley said.
“As much talking as you do, how do you ever have time to listen?”
“Still not funny, Manley,” he said.
“Still obnoxious, Seeley,” Coop said. Still grinning.
“You talking about me, or yourself?” Pat turned back to Ben. “Better stay loose tonight, I’ve gotten wild lately.” Then he laughed as if he’d said something funny, and said, “Just kidding, I actually have pinpoint control.”
“Perfect,” Coop said. “Goes with your pinhead!”
“Oh, man, I love listening to your chirp,” Pat said. “It’s going to make it so much sweeter when we knock you guys out of first place.”
Coop started to say something else, but Ben gave him a look, and he swallowed it, just let Pat turn and jog back across the field.
Justin never said a word the whole time Pat was standing there, just glared at him until he left.
“I’d forgotten how much of a jerk that guy is,” Justin said.
Ben said, “Hey, you know the deal. The only way to shut up guys like that is by beating them.”
Justin looked at Ben and Sam now and said, “At least one of you get on in the first, I don’t want to have to wait to get a swing off him.”
“He never got over me striking him out to win the championship game a couple of years ago,” Ben said. “Remember? They were undefeated until that game.”
“Called third strike,” Justin said.
“He’s been trying to get under my skin ever since,” Ben said. “I just don’t let him.”
“You’ve got thicker skin than I do,” Justin said.
“He’s not going to try anything tonight,” Ben said. “It’s too big a game for them to mess around.”
Then Pat Seeley threw the first pitch of the game over Ben’s head and put him on the ground.
* * *
The ball went over Ben and over the Knights’ catcher and over the home plate ump and hit the screen on the fly. When Ben got back up, right away, he saw Pat staring at his right hand, like the ball had slipped, and said, “Man, I am so sorry, I was trying to throw the first one way too hard.”
Then: “You okay?”
Ben didn’t say anything to him, just nodded, picked up his bat with his right hand, didn’t even make a move to brush dirt off himself.
The ump came up and cleaned home plate. While he did, Ben turned and looked at the Rams’ bench. Sam and Coop, Shawn and Justin, were still standing in front of it, staring out at the pitcher’s mound.
When Sam looked at Ben, Ben just smiled and mouthed, I’m fine.
Got back into the box. Maybe a couple of weeks ago he wouldn’t have been fine, wouldn’t have wanted to get right back in there. When he couldn’t hit the water if he fell out of a boat.
Now he couldn’t wait.
“You ready, son?” the ump said.
“Totally,” Ben said.
And hit the next pitch he saw so hard up the middle, the ball heading straight at Pat Seeley, it was Pat who ended up on the ground.
When Ben got to first base he thought about calling over to Pat and asking if he was okay. But didn’t. Wasn’t him. Wouldn’t ever be him. Sometimes Ben McBain thought there were more things he wasn’t in sports than he was.
For now he was exactly where he wanted to be:
On first, one-for-one against Pat Seeley, who’d told him to stay loose and hadn’t been joking.
Ben stole second, standing up.
Darrelle walked.
Then Sam hit one off the top of the wall in right at Seeley Field, missed a home run by a foot, scoring both Ben and Darrelle, Sam ending up on third with a triple.
Justin now, getting the top-of-the-first swing he wanted off Pat Seeley.
On the first pitch Pat came way inside on Justin, not knocking him down, but forcing him to snap his head back to get out of the way, stumbling back out of the box.
The ump stepped out from behind the plate and said, “Careful now, young man.”
Mr. Seeley jumped off the Knights’ bench and said, “What, you can’t pitch inside in this league?”
Loud as his son. Louder maybe.
In a quiet voice the ump turned and said, “You be careful, too, Coach.”
Justin took a strike from Pat, then a ball outside. Then hit the 2-1 pitch over the right-field wall, and just like that they had done what Ben said they needed to do, they had shut up Pat Seeley by putting four runs on him before he’d gotten anybody out.
When Justin got back to the bench, got high fives from all of the Rams, Coop said to him, “Oh, that’s what Mr. Pinhead meant by his pinpoint control. He puts the ball where J can hit one over the moon.”
Ben couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud.
When he sat down he saw Pat Seeley staring over at the Rams’ bench, his face as red as the rest of him, hair and gloves and bright red shoes.
Somehow Pat settled down after that, went through Shawn and Coop and Kevin Nolti in order, walked slowly back to the Knights’ bench, where Ben could see him getting an earful from his father, just the two of them, Pat’s dad taking him by the arm and walking him toward right field, talking the whole time, Pat’s head down.
Pat struck out the side in the top of the second, then Kevin, starting for the Rams on this night, walked four guys in the bottom of the second, and the Knights got enough clean hits around that to make it 4–2, Rams, going into the top of the third.
Ben leading off.
Before Ben got into the batter’s box, he heard Pat say, “You thought that home run was funny?”
“What?” Ben said.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Pat said.
Ben shrugged and took his stance and Pat Seeley hit him with the first pitch.
It wasn’t his hardest pitch of the night, not the kind of fastball Ben had ripped up the middle, right at him. But it was so far inside that it was actually behind Ben, so that when Ben tried to get out of the way, thinking he had plenty of time, he actually backed into the pitch, which caught him right b
elow his left shoulder.
No doubt in his mind that he’d been hit on purpose, the way there was no doubt in his mind that Pat had buzzed him on purpose when Ben was leading off the game.
Maybe he was dumb enough to think Ben had been laughing at him.
It didn’t hurt the way Robbie’s pitch had. Didn’t hurt at all, actually. Ben didn’t even have to go down this time. Just turned and looked at the third-base coaching box, ready to tell Mr. Brown he was fine, to stay where he was, he didn’t even want to give Pat Seeley the satisfaction of thinking he needed to be looked at by his coach.
Good thing.
Because he had a perfect look as Justin Bard came running from the Rams’ bench before anybody could stop him, came running right at Pat Seeley.
* * *
Sam would say later that what happened next was the best first step of Ben’s life, that none of them reacted quickly enough when Justin got up, having no idea what he was about to do.
It was Ben who got to him before he crossed the third-base line.
Coop would put it this way, being Coop: “You know how they talk about how fast guys go from home to first? I want to know what your time was from home to Justin.”
All Ben knew in the moment was that he couldn’t let Justin get to Pat. Not sure what the consequences would be if he did. Just knowing they would be bad. Remembering Mr. Brown telling them the first day of practice that their league had a “zero tolerance” policy on fights.
Pat Seeley had nearly hit Ben once already, had come high and inside on Justin, now had hit Ben. And Justin had snapped because of all that.
Or maybe because of everything.
So Ben dropped his bat and flew up the line and launched himself at his own teammate, doing the thing on a Little League ball field that Justin said Ben had never done:
Making a tackle.
Justin ended up on top of Ben, Ben taking the weight of him, feeling the pain of that at the same time but unable to do anything to get out from underneath him before he heard Justin say, “Let me up.”
Ben thinking he wasn’t doing very much to keep him down until he heard Sam say, “No.”
