Batting Ninth (6 page)

T
he Jefferson Rangers!”

A street vendor outside Colts Stadium shouted at me, apparently spotting the backpack I had slung over my shoulder when I got off the bus. I ignored him and trudged toward the stadium gate.

“Hey, kid,” the vendor persisted, “Come over here a second.”

I paused. Jose was stuck in detention for talking during social studies class, and I was already going to be in enough trouble for coming downtown alone. I didn’t need Mom to find out I had been talking to strangers.

The vendor was a scraggly fellow, probably ten years older than Mom and Dad, and wore a badge that said his name was Bill. He pushed a cart with snow cones and baseball cards—an interesting combination, I thought.

“Kid, you have to be from Jefferson,” Bill said, pointing at my backpack.

“No,” I answered, keeping a safe distance. “I’ve been here in Brightsport my whole life.”

“Well, only a person from Jefferson would carry a backpack like that. The Rangers are positively the worst organization in baseball.”

He was right. The Jefferson Rangers were an independent league team from upstate. They’d never won a championship and usually finished in last place.

I shrugged and thought about telling him that I only wore the backpack because of my Bronco League team. But I didn’t need to give him that kind of information.

“But, you stick with ’em,” Bill said as he reached into the cooler of his cart. “And maybe someday …x” he trailed off.

Bill grinned, shook his head, and handed me a snow cone. “On the house,” he said.

“Thanks!” I couldn’t resist a snow cone on a hot day. I lifted it to my lips. The coolness of the ice against my chin helped dry some of the sweat that had started streaming down my face. I broke into a jog and headed for the stadium entrance.

Just inside the stadium gate, a security guard in a light blue uniform sat half asleep at a desk. A telephone and a pad of paper sat in front of him.

“Chad Griffin. I’m here to see Mark Wilcox,” I announced.

The security guard straightened his cap, tipped forward in his chair, and thumbed through his notepad.

“Here you are,” he said, checking off my name with a short, yellow pencil like those usually handed out with a game program. “Says here there should be another kid with you, Jose Martiz?”

“Just me today,” I said. “Jose’s … busy.”

“Well, there aren’t many folks here. You can head down to the field,” the guard said. He led me to the top row of seats and pointed at a gate near the dugout. “I’ll tell Mr. Wilcox you’re here.”

I ran down the aisle between seats, skipping every other step to the bottom of the grandstands. The press box, the roof covering the seats, and the scoreboard towered overhead. I walked through the gate to the third-base line, where a faint ribbon of white chalk had been brushed out and waited to be re-striped before the next Colts home game.

I had been to the stadium before, but I’d never really stood on the field. Sometimes kids were allowed to run the bases after the game, but the stadium workers never let us stop to look around. “Keep ’em moving” was the name of that game.

I dropped my backpack outside the foul line and trotted out to the shortstop position. The diamond seemed monstrous. Shoot, I thought. With that kind of distance between the batter and me, I’d never let a ground ball by me. Then I looked across the diamond to first base. But I’d never be able to throw anybody out either.

“Hey!” a voice called from the dugout. “What are you doin’ out there?”

A man in jeans and a Colts polo shirt and cap motioned for me to get off the field. “You can’t be out there. Lookin’ for somebody?”

I decided he must be the groundskeeper.

“Mark … uh, Wilcox,” I stammered. “The guard said he was gonna tell him I’m here.”

“Well, no sense in you standing out here in the sun. Come on into the clubhouse,” he shouted.

I could have stood on the diamond all day long, but seeing inside the Colts clubhouse wasn’t something I wanted to pass up. Jose won’t ever believe it, I thought, bounding down the steps leading into the dugout. The groundskeeper pointed down a wide hallway.

“The locker room is down there on the left. Door’s open—just walk in,” he said.

The hallway floor was concrete, with a rubber mat for the players to walk on. I reached down and ran the palm of my hand on the mat. It was full of holes from season after season of cleats scuffing along the path to the locker room. The walls were very worn too, smeared with mud and dented, undoubtedly by players dragging bats back to the clubhouse. Just like the groundskeeper had said, the locker room was at the end of the hall behind a red door labeled “PLAYERS ONLY.”

Even though the groundskeeper told me to walk in, I tapped on the door and waited a few seconds before pushing it open. The locker room wasn’t anything like the one at school. The floor was carpeted. The lockers were actually small cubicles that lined the walls, each with a neatly pressed white and tan Colts uniform hanging inside. At one end of the room, there was a big-screen television along with a Ping-Pong table. It had to have been the tidiest room I had ever seen. Mom would have been proud.

A row of dark offices lined the back wall, each with a removable nameplate on the door. “Lance Matlock, Manager,” I read. The other offices must be for the other coaches, I thought. In the far corner, a light shone from behind a doorway. I softly walked to that end of the room, still unsure I was even supposed to be there.

I stuck my head through the door and saw Mark sitting on a bench with his back toward me. He wore a T-shirt and shorts and appeared to be massaging his knee.

“Knee getting any better?” I asked, grinning widely at the thought of surprising Mark.

Mark jumped, turned his head toward the door, and grabbed a towel from the bench.

“How’d you get in here?” he asked, holding the towel against his kneecap.

“The groundskeeper outside told me you were here,” I said. “I don’t think he wanted me to tear up the. …”

I stopped, staring at a half-empty syringe in Mark’s hand. I quickly remembered Mom saying that baseball had taken a turn for the worst and how Jose and I joked about what made Zach Neal and Max Tisdale so good: steroids.

Mark glanced down at the syringe.

“Look,” he said, wrapping it in the towel and setting it on the bench. “I—”

I turned and ran out the door, across the locker room, and up the hallway to the dugout. Jose and I might have joked about Zach and Max, but I knew that no kid was stupid enough to use steroids. Steroids were for losers. Maybe Dad was right about Mark.

I heard Mark calling me, but I didn’t stop running until I sprinted out of the stadium. Two blocks away, I could see the bus pulling away from the bus stop. Another thirty minutes until the next bus, I thought. I saw the street vendor resting in the shade in front of the stadium.

“Bill!” I shouted. He looked up and crushed a cigarette.

“Whoa there, pal!” Bill said as I rushed toward him. “Get chased out of the stadium because of that backpack?”

I remembered leaving my backpack on the field, but I wasn’t about to go back for it now.

“Do you have a cell phone?” I stammered between breaths.

“Sure. It ain’t long distance is it?” Bill asked with a smile as he pulled his phone from the holster.

I quickly punched in Mom’s number.

“I know you’re working, but I need you to come get me right now. Yeah, I know it’s early, but I need to go. That’s right. I’m in front of the stadium.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the stadium entrance.

“Wait. There’s a baseball-card shop across the street. I’ll be there.”

I hung up, handed Bill his phone, and darted across the street.

“I told you not to go without Jose,” Mom said as we pulled into the driveway. “I suggest we don’t tell your father about what happened.”

It didn’t matter at that point, though. The newspapers would eventually find out. Everyone would know what Dad had known for years. Mark Wilcox was a dirty player and a cheat.

“You’d better get ready for the game,” Mom said as we walked in the door.

The Astros! I had completely forgotten. A trip to the championship game on Saturday was on the line tonight. But I couldn’t face Mark. Everything that had just happened was making my head spin. I felt sick. I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

A half hour later, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.

“No, Coach Ramsey,” Mom said into the phone. “He’s really sick. He can’t keep down anything. … No, not even water.” She stuck her head in my doorway.

“They are about to start the game. Coach Ramsey really wants you to play,” Mom said.

“I’m just not feeling good. I’ve already thrown up three times.”

Mom walked to the bed and felt my forehead.

“You do look a little pale,” she said. “I’ll make you some soup.”

She paused as she shut the door.

“Coach says he doesn’t know how he’ll deal without having you and Jose on the field,” Mom said, pulling the door shut. I remembered Jose’s detention. I couldn’t believe his mom was making him miss the big game, but she was strict like that. If you messed up in school, no baseball—those were her rules.

“Think you’ll be able to play Saturday?” Mom asked.

“Maybe,” I said. But I almost hoped the Rangers would lose and end the season.

When I woke up the next morning, a bowl of cold soup sat on my nightstand.

W
ell, well, well,” Zach sneered. “If we don’t have a couple of Rangers, soon to be known as the second-best team in the league.”

Jose clenched his fists, but I motioned for him to keep calm.

“I see you guys won last night. Or maybe I should say the Rangers won. From what I hear, you two weren’t there.”

Coach Ramsey had called Mom before school and told her we won, 5–3. It was a lot tighter than I’d thought, but we were in the championship. I still hadn’t decided if I wanted to play Saturday. But I didn’t want to risk Coach Ramsey hearing my story about Mark, so I wasn’t going to tell Jose the real reason I sat out. Plus, the sting of the previous afternoon had started to wear off, and I was excited about the opportunity to play in the championship.

“Win or lose, Zach,” I said calmly, “we’ve had a great season. Second place sure isn’t anything to spit at.”

I stuck out my hand to offer Zach a peace handshake.

“You know what second place is, boys?” Zach asked. “First place LOSER!” He slapped my hand out of the way and wandered off, cackling like he always did when he got in the last word.

Jose ground his teeth.

“Did I ever mention—?”

“Yes. You did,” I said. “Let’s get to class.”

Even though I was a little more excited about baseball than I had been on Thursday, Mark Wilcox was helping coach our team, and he was a cheat. I rocked in my chair the entire final class period, wondering if Mark would have the nerve to come to the game.

There’s no way he’d show up, I tried to tell myself. Mark knew that I knew the truth. He probably thought Dad knew it, too.

When I got home, Dad’s car was in the garage. I knew he would be upset that I didn’t play the night before. He would be even more upset to find out that Mom had let Mark coach me behind his back. But it didn’t matter anymore. Dad had been right about Mark, and he’d be happy to know that I didn’t want anything to do with him.

“Well, I hear that someone is playing in the championship game,” Dad said as I set my books on the kitchen table. He ruffled my hair like he always did when he was proud of me.

“Yeah, we’re playing the Red Sox. Zach Neal. They’re gonna be tough,” I said.

“Ahh, the Rangers can do it. The Rangers can always do it.” Dad took a glass out of the cabinet and poured me some milk. “Are you feeling any better?”

I stuck my hand to my mouth to keep from gagging on the milk.

“Uhh … I guess so,” I said, looking at Mom. “I didn’t think I would make it all day at school, but I did.”

“That’s good. Coach Ramsey says they got by without you last night, but he didn’t know if they could do it again.”

Mom and Dad made eye contact and smiled.

“I hear he has a pretty good hitter batting ninth,” Dad added.

“I guess I’m doing a little better. I haven’t struck out in a while, and I’ve scored a few runs,” I said, cracking the tiniest smile.

“Don’t forget that double play you and Jose made to end the game against the Marlins,” Dad said. “Baseball is just as much defense as it is offense, you know. It helps being coached by a major-leaguer.”

My heart about stopped. Mom stood in the doorway holding a stack of towels. My eyes darted between her, Dad, and the floor.

“Uh, I guess so,” I stammered.

“Listen, sport,” Dad started. “I was wrong before. I should not have said that Mark was a dirty player. And I should not have told you to stay away from him. It wasn’t fair to you, and it wasn’t fair to Mark.”

I started to tell Dad about the steroids, but Mom gave me a knowing nod that told me I didn’t need to say a word. We were thinking the same thing.