I’m so caught up in the school’s worship of the baseball team that Thursday comes before I realize it. I try to focus all of my nervous energy on schoolwork. I finished my English paper and my Journalism article; I even took extra notes on the physics lab. Anything I can do to take my mind off of baseball. Baseball and James. Semi finals are too important to risk me panicking. If we win this game, we go to the State finals next week.
Our team is recognized for having one of the the biggest baseball powerhouses in Pennsylvania. Charter schools have a little advantage because once you get a good team going, people keep coming to school there for the team. Free tuition and good sports teams do a lot for attendance rates. I’m not saying I love the concept of charter schools. But, I mean, our school is community based, so we ended up on top, and baseball is too important to me and getting into college to let the opportunity slide.
At two o’clock, the whole baseball team gets out of classes to get ready for the game. My Journalism teacher wishes me good luck as I head out. I mutter a “thanks” before scrambling into the hallway. Some of my classmates wave as I leave. My teammate Sean’s fifth period is next to mine so we walk to the locker room together. I can tell he’s nervous, I mean he’s the team captain how could he not be nervous? But he holds himself confidently and strides down the hall. “You ready, Reyes?”
“Hell yeah.” He nods his head in approval, “Good. We need our best pitcher on his A game tonight.”
“Oh come on, I’m not all that.”
“Don’t be humble, you’re amazing. I bet you could even be captain.” I look at him in shock, “Captain?” I hadn’t even considered it. “If not you, then who?” I think about it. Kurt? Captain? I shudder at the thought. There are some other boys that would make good captains. Tim? Holland? Carter? They’d all be good. He smiles at me from the corner of his eye. “I don’t want to take someone else’s place though. I mean I’ve only been here for a year.”
“Well don’t add that to your list of things to stress out about. This game is enough.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say as Sean opens the door to the locker room. I follow him in.
By 3:30, a small crowd of people has gathered on the bleachers. Our school on the home side, and the opposing team, the Madison Barrons, on the right.James is there, talking to Emily. Marina’s staring at her phone. Even my parents took off work to make it to the game tonight because they wanted to be there. Allison Baretta is sitting contently with a huddle of girls with a sign saying “We <3 Kurt.” He waves to them and winks like the dream boy everyone thinks he is. He’d finalized his plans to ask Allison to prom on the bus here by wasting five poster boards to spell out “P-R-O-M-?” I get James’ attention and motion my head towards Kurt. He rolls his eyes back to me, and leans over to whisper something to Emily; an explanation, I presume. “Yo Allison!” Kurt shouts, making a “come”. Allison’s bouncy hair glimmers in the sunlight as she stands up to meet him at the dugout. Suddenly five of Kurt’s baseball buddies bring out giant posters, and he whips a bouquet of flowers out of seemingly nowhere. “Omgomgomg! Yes!” Allison screams. The crowd cheers wildly, and she runs past us in the dugout to leap into Kurt’s arms. Instantly I make eye contact with James and Marina, rolling my eyes in a totally sarcastic manner. I mean, come on. Prom is in actually two days. I guess I was late to ask but this has to be some sorta record. James shakes his head, but smiles before continuing his conversation with Emily.
“Alright, boys. Let's get it together now.” Coach says. “This game, it’s gonna be tough. Here’s how it’s gonna go; Meyers, you’re starting tonight. I need Reyes for later.”
“How much later?” I ask. “Shut up, Reyes” he responds. Kurt snickers at that. “Smith, you're starting shortstop, MacDonald, first, Wilcox, second...” he continues rattling off the order he wants us to field. For a championship-winning coach, you would think he’d let us know earlier, but with Flynn, you can never tell. “Okay boys, if you win tonight, I’ll go out and celebrate with vodka. And if you lose, well, I’ll still go out for vodka, but I will not be in a good mood.” He points to Sean to start the team cheer. “Take it away.” Sean pulls us into a huddle, and hops in the middle to start our cheer. “Alright guys, let’s do this thing. Are we gonna beat the Barrons tonight?” everyone screams in reply, “Yeah!”
“I said are we gonna win tonight?”
“Yeah!”
“PC!” He starts. In unison we all reply “CS!”
“PC!”
“CS!”
“Can you stop the blue machine?”
“Hell no!”
“Can you stop the blue machine?”
“Hell no!”
“Bucks on three, 1, 2, 3,”
“Bucks!” This is the same exact cheer that every single team at our school screams before their games. Soccer, lacrosse, swimming, track, football, you name it. According to Emily, the marching band even says it before their competitions. At the cheer’s conclusion, we throw our hands into the air like the imbecile athletes we are and get ready for the announcer to call the starting lineup.
The game is treacherous. Until the fourth inning, we’re down one to three. In the fifth, Coach finally puts me in. I have three innings to completely turn the game around. No pressure or anything. I look to my family and my friends in the bleachers. They’re all waving at me in support.
The Barron’s steal first in an incredibly lucky play that didn’t seem humanly possible. One kid gets to third, the runner moves to second. The next kid strikes out, the damn runner steals third. I focus every ounce of focus into striking the next kid out, but the universe conspires against me and sends the ball directly into the kid’s bat. Crack! It slams straight out to center field. The ball makes it three feet away from the fence before our centerfielder leaps into the air and catches it. He’s out, but stupid third-base-kid seems to think he can steal home. To his dismay, the centerfielder chucks the ball home, and our catcher slams it onto the plate before he can score. THREE OUTS! Aaaaaaand we’re up. “Way to hold ‘em Reyes!” Coach shouts. Our fans cheer in approval. The Baron’s small huddle of fans goes crazy too, for some reason, as both teams come back in. It almost feels like they’re cheering whenever anyone does anything, and somehow I find that intimidating.
We finally start catching up, scoring twice in the sixth inning. By the bottom of the seventh and final inning, we’re tied three to three. For some reason, Coach thought it would be genius to put the best batters at the beginning and end of the batting order and all of the bad kids in the middle with the sole exception of two good hitters in the midst of the bad ones, Kurt being one of the two. I don’t think I’ll ever understand his logic, or why he chooses to experiment in life or death situations, but at least, to my dismay, we have Kurt. However good of a pitcher I am compared to him, he’s the better batter by far, and he’s still not even the best our team has to offer. A small fact about baseball: the best pitchers are never the best batters. As a good pitcher, I can 100% confirm this.
Our first batter strikes out; strike one. There are only two more kids left until Kurt’s turn to bat. “Okay boys, listen up. Get Meyers on the bag. I don’t care what you do to make it happen, I don’t care if you break an arm. Get. Meyers. On. The. God. Damn. Bag.” Miraculously, one of the next two batters gets on base. Everyone starts screaming. “Let’s go Kurt, let’s go!” There’s a chorus of claps and cheers as everyone encourages Kurt. If this goes well, it will feed his ego like wildfire, but I’m willing to sacrifice that for this win. As soon as he steps up to the plate, it’s dead quiet. This is it. This is the moment. If Kurt doesn’t get a good hit, our chances of winning crumble, and over time is a guarantee. I look behind me to the crowd. James is staring with anticipation at Kurt. Emily’s biting her nails. Marina somehow remains sangfroid. She’s the only relaxed person in a miles’ radius, her arms folded across her chest, and glasses propped up on top of her head now the sun has set. Despite the terminally pouty look on her face, even she seems invested in the game.
The ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. Everyone ceases breathing. It’s so quiet that a pin could even reverberate against the grass of the baseball field. “Foul ball!” It flies behind him into the net. I pick at my lip, I can’t remember the last time that so much depended on one good swing. The pitcher gets another ball and lobs it straight home. It sails right above Kurt’s bat. “Strike!” Shit, mierda, shit, shit. It’s all I can think. Coach seems to be in the same mindset as he lets out a string of curse words while Kurt prepares for his next bat. “Come on Kurt! You got it!” I shout, joining the chorus of voices. I swear he turns around and scowls at me as he turns to nod at Coach. He exhales and lifts his bat again. This time it flies to the left of the foul line so it’s not in play, unless... the ball sails just above the glove of the left fielder and into the foul zone. Coach is almost in tears. “Damn it, Meyers. Come on son!” He says. He’s jumping up and down now, furiously waving at the poor kid at first. Kurt draws one final last breath. His eyes narrow with pure electric intensity, staring the pitcher down in a heated standoff. The ball leaves the pitcher's hand. Time stops. I watch it fly towards Kurt, every millisecond the feeling of doom planting itself farther into my chest. I’m preparing myself for a strike. That’s all they need to get us out. My teammates are literally watching through their fingers via the webs in their gloves, and Sean’s foot is jumping up and down tirelessly without making a sound. The ball comes closer, closer, closer. Then, crack! It flies straight into the air, over the pitcher, over the second fielder, over two outfielders, over the fence. It lands just in the neck of the woods behind our field. The ref calls it a fair ball. The crowd goes wild. Kids are jumping up and down, screaming, running. James is awkwardly clapping while Emily and Marina celebrate. The other team stares in disbelief. They were so close. But we won the game, it’s over now.
Before celebrating, we do our typical group huddle after the game. Coach pats Kurt on the back and says, “Guys. That was a tough game. We gotta double down if we’re gonna win next week, but thanks to Meyers we pulled it off tonight!” There’s a chorus of cheers. “Wilcox caught four balls,”
“Yeah, Wilcox!” Johnny Hudson shouts. “The out fielding was fantastic, Reyes only let one of those fuckers score, and Wolf, well, Wolf hit the ball for once.”
“Woo!” Jared Wolf is not the most renowned batter.
“I’m gonna go get my vodka now, you boys go home and get some rest. One, Two, Three, Break!” We leave the messy huddle, each heading our own directions with the light whimsicality of victory floating in our minds.
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