Chapter 25: Baseball Playoffs Begin

Sunday April 24

After my run, I went to the kitchen and found Peggy looking worn out.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Coby’s waking up every couple of hours and I’m not getting much sleep.”

“And you have finals coming up and your project. Do you need a break?”

“I wish, but I’ve got a job that puts a roof over David’s and my head. Don’t worry about it. I’m just feeling sorry for myself,” Peggy said.

“Tell you what, I’ll take them today, and you can catch up on your sleep and do whatever you want.”

“I know how much you bitch about people bringing crying babies to church,” she said.

“Think of it as payback time. I hope they both make a fuss,” I said, and then smiled. “I bet Grandma will be in heaven showing off her grandbabies.”

“I’m too young to be a grandma,” Mom said as she walked in.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Dad said, taking his life into his hands.

“What are you getting payback for?” Mom asked, obviously only hearing the last part of our conversation.

“We’re taking the little ones to church,” I said.

“Oh, joy,” she said in a deadpan voice, then turned to my dad. “You’re coming with us to help.”

I just raised my eyebrows when he was about to object. He was the one that called Mom old. He decided to ignore us and go make breakfast.

Mom was in heaven. Bringing Little David and Coby to church was a bigger deal than my winning state. That was when I realized that Greg had never brought his kids to church. This was the first time she was able to show off a grandchild. I was glad Dad came because he helped me keep the crowd back a little.

Reverend Jackson came out to the lobby to see what the commotion was all about.

“I wondered why no one was in their seats,” he said with a smile. Looking at our little guys, he asked, “Who might you be?”

“These are the newest members of your congregation: Jacob Jeffrey Dawson—we call him ‘Coby’—and this is David Pratt, Peggy Pratt’s son,” Mom said, making the introductions.

Reverend Jackson held out his hands and took Coby. He had four children, so he was comfortable with my son. I shook my head when he turned and took Coby into the church with him. I had Little David and Dad carried the two baby carriers. Reverend Jackson indicated that we were to sit in the first row that was normally empty.

“Come on, David. Let’s introduce our newest members.”

I followed Reverend Jackson up on stage. The choir sang Beautiful One as everyone made it to their seats. When the song ended, Reverend Jackson stepped up to the podium.

“Welcome. The choir is right; we have two new members of our congregation that are beautiful ones. Let me introduce you to David Pratt and Jacob Dawson, who they are calling ‘Coby.’”

He handed me Coby so I could take him to our seats. We were lucky there wasn’t any crying during the service. I think the boys liked the singing.

After lunch, Dad and I went to Caryn’s office. Dad was great about letting me bring the boys. They’d both eaten, so it was now nap time. Watching them made me sleepy.

Caryn and Megan came in and sat across from us.

“The first thing I want to talk to you about is the local farm. I talked to John and Mrs. Dawson, and they discovered that the acreage across the river has been in corn for the last several years. They plan to rotate crops and plant soybeans this year,” Caryn said.

“I thought we were going to lease that out until we built the bridge to move equipment across the river,” Dad said.

“I found a company that will plant and harvest. They’ll also spray for bugs and have the beans walked, whatever that means.”

I laughed. I sometimes forgot that she was a city girl. I think almost every kid I knew from Lincoln had walked beans for some extra cash at one time or another.

“It’s where you hand-weed the rows of soybeans. There was a time when they would just spray for weeds, but some weeds are becoming resistant, so walking them is the better solution,” Dad said.

Caryn showed the numbers for leasing the land versus planting it ourselves. There were risks either way. There was a bigger risk with planting because if something happened and we had a bad crop, we could lose money. The lease option seemed to guarantee at least some positive cash flow. Then Dad pointed out that if it flooded, the renter would just skip out. That decided it for me.

For the farm on this side of the river, the orchards and walnut trees had to be looked at by someone knowledgeable about tree health. Caryn had arranged for a professor from State to come out and look at them. Grandma was also preparing the fields to supply our produce stand. She had plans for several different vegetables. She already had some early lettuce started that we were enjoying. She was getting help from her Mennonite farmhands who had grown up helping with family gardens. She also had a surprise employee: Yuri’s grandmother. My grandma said she was a huge help. It didn’t hurt that the two women liked each other.

Halfway through our meeting, Coby woke up fussing. Megan got up, grabbed his diaper bag, and took him out of the room.

“She has five younger brothers,” Caryn said.

“She might be the solution to one of my problems,” I said. “Peggy is getting into crunch time at college and needs a break. Do you think Megan would be willing to sleep over for a couple of weeks? We have daycare during the day if both Mom and Peggy are tied up and can’t watch them. The problem is that Coby’s waking up every couple of hours,” I explained.

“We could just put them in your apartment and you could take care of them,” Dad suggested.

“So could you,” I shot back.

“Let’s ask Megan,” Dad said, warming to my idea.

Megan was a champ and agreed, as long as it wasn’t more than through Peggy’s finals. I planned to give her some kind of bonus for bailing us out. Heck, I still owed her for pointing out what Brandon had done. It would have to be something nice.

Caryn then took us down to the restaurant. I walked in and saw it was gutted. They’d gotten a lot of work done this week. We walked out back and she showed me the lots we’d bought to expand parking. The county had made us buy an extra lot. Caryn explained that because of the hard surfaces, they were worried about runoff into the neighbors’ when it rained. The extra lot was for a runoff pool. It was a dry lake that when it rained would catch the water from our parking lot.

“I think we should make it look nice,” Megan chimed in.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“We could make it into a kind of a wetlands area. We can plant some flowering bushes like lilacs to attract butterflies. I think it would also be nice to attract birds. We could put up some feeders and maybe some birdhouses for swallows and purple martins. They have the added benefit of eating bugs,” Megan said.

“I’ll leave it to you, then,” I said.

Monday April 25

Prom was in the air. It seemed Tracy was elected to talk to me about it.

“Who are you taking to Prom?” she asked.

“Kara Tasman. Why do you ask?”

“Halle, Brook, Zoe, and Pam wanted to know if they needed dates. Brook said there was a rumor that you might hook us up with your model and movie-actor friends.”

“Really?” I asked incredulously.

“Oh, and Jim, Wolf and Alan want you to get them dates also. Cassidy and I wouldn’t turn down a hot guy either.”

“So, I’m supposed to find nine celebrities for you dorks?” I asked.

“I have a list of who we want,” Tracy said helpfully.

I snatched it out of her hands. I don’t know why they even bothered to ask me. This should be good.

Halle – Ben Cowley
Zoe – Trip James
Pam – Craig Wild
Tracy – Ryan Barlow
Brook – Zak Verwood
Cassidy – John Phillips
Alan – Emma Stoned
Jim – Maria Dowe
Wolf – Sarah Spence

“Have you talked to them about this? Because I see one that’s an absolute no and another that needs to come with a warning label.”

“Which ones?” Tracy asked.

“Craig Wild is the no. I wouldn’t allow him within 500 miles of any of you. Zak Verwood is a complete horndog. I’m sure Brook can handle his come-ons, but just ask Halle, she can’t stand him. I personally like him, but he’s let his Hollywood celeb status rule his sex life, and he’s very happy with it. I think I saw him with a new girl at least once a day, if not two or three times. If Brook goes to the bathroom while she’s on a date with Zak, he might disappear with a waitress for a quickie.”

Halle and Ben would be fine. He was great to work with on Star Academy, and they already knew each other. Zoe had probably met Trip because I knew that the cheerleaders had all been to the James’ house. I smiled at the surprise that Tracy would find if she took Ryan to bed. From what I’d seen at the Abercrombie shoot, he might have the biggest cock I’d ever seen, including the porn I watched on the internet. Cassidy would be safe with my friend John. He currently had a serious girlfriend.

For the guys, I knew Alan had picked Emma because of the coverage of The Secret Circle and the rumors that she and I’d had sex on set. I had no idea how Jim had found out about Maria, porn-star wannabe. Halle, Brook or Pam must have let the cat out of the bag. Finally, Wolf had actually picked a local girl. Sarah was a model for Ford that I’d met at Model Camp in New York. She went to school at Wesleyan.

“I want to warn you about something. Have you heard the term ‘hung like a horse’?”

Tracy rolled her eyes at me.

“Yes, David, you have a big one,” Tracy almost moaned.

“Not me ... Ryan,” I shared.

“That sounds nice.”

“I bet you wouldn’t think so if you saw it. I’m not kidding. The boy has the biggest dick I’ve ever seen. He told me about the problems he has with it. Think in terms of a Coke bottle. Instead of using the neck for fun, turn it around, look at the base, and you get an idea of what I’m talking about.”

“I call bullshit,” Tracy said.

I pulled out my phone and called Adrienne’s partner, Tyler. She’d seen it with her own eyes.

“Hey, it’s David. I have a friend that wants to ask Ryan Barlow to our prom,” I said, and handed the phone to Tracy.

“David says that Ryan is ... uh ... hung,” Tracy stammered out.

“No shit!” she exclaimed.

She hung up, and I saw the look in her eyes. She planned to get Ryan here and make him show his dick to all the girls. Poor bastard.

“So who can you get to replace Craig Wild for Pam?” Tracy asked.

“How about Aden Reich? I met him in the UK, and I heard he got the young Han Solo role I tried out for,” I suggested.

“I’ll ask her. You don’t know Justin Bieber, do you?”

“Not just no but HELL NO!”

“Pam thinks he’s cute,” Tracy teased.

I was starting to hate that guy. I just threw my hands up and walked away before I said something rude.

At lunch, I received a call from my business manager, Caryn.

“I had an interesting call from our local television station. They’re required to do Public Service Announcements to maintain their license. They got a new manager and he wants to shoot new commercials. He asked if you would do them. I called Frank and he talked to them. They want to do things that are local in nature. They said they would be willing to let you do three of them to support your causes: the homeless, teen pregnancy, and support for cancer victims and their families.”

“I’d be willing to do it. Have them send over scripts and let everyone see them to make sure there isn’t something that’ll bite me in the butt. I don’t want to be the poster child for STD prevention.”

She just laughed, but said she would take care of it.

At the end of lunch, I helped Wolf and several of the guys set up the picnic tables. It was getting nice enough that people wanted to spend time outside. Everyone that was part of the junior class projects committee joined us outside.

“You did an amazing job with the three projects. They were all successful,” Ms. Jaroslav said. “Everyone is impressed with your work on this. If you need letters of recommendation for your college applications, let me know.”

“I hate to ask this, but when do we need to have those in?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

“You have time. You should have them completed by the end of October.”

“I’ve already sent a few in,” Brit said proudly.

“Brown-nose,” I mumbled.

She tried to hit me, but I grabbed her and tickled her.

“David!” she shrieked.

“Tim is going to kick your ass,” Wolf teased.

“More likely it’ll be her overprotective brothers,” Alan suggested.

Both were distinct possibilities.

“Cassidy will protect me,” I shot back.

“I can take care of myself,” Brit huffed, and then tickled me.

She was strong. I danced away, to the amusement of everyone.

It was nice to get the class projects behind us.

At baseball practice, Moose had the outfielders gather around for more coaching.

“We watched the film from the past couple of games, and we noticed a big difference in how David is getting to balls compared to the rest of you. At first, I chalked it up to his athletic ability, but Coach Haskins pointed out that it’s how you’re approaching the first step on balls hit behind you.

“Many times the initial move towards the ball will determine your success in fielding it. David, show them how you take your position in the outfield,” Moose said.

“I square my feet up, so I can go either direction. I assume that each ball will be hit to me. That means I’m on the balls of my feet, ready to go,” I explained.

“He makes an excellent point. If you anticipate that the ball will be hit to you, you’re always ready,” Moose said. “Now show them what you do if the ball’s hit over your right shoulder.”

“My first step is to whichever direction I’m going,” I explained as I demonstrated.

“Notice he’s taking an almost exaggerated first step. What this does is opens up his hips so he can get a better jump on the ball. If you take a half-step,” Moose said, and demonstrated, “it takes you longer to get moving in the right direction. This is called a ‘drop step.’ It also allows you to cross over hard with your trailing leg so you accelerate faster.”

“This is something I learned from my speed coach. What the initial drop step does is get my hips pointed in the right direction. If I’m going right, I drop my right foot back and then cross over to my left. It helps me get a better angle on the ball,” I explained.

“One important point is to turn and run to a spot. What I see some of you doing is looking over your shoulder and drifting almost sideways because you’re trying to watch the ball the entire way. I want you to concentrate on running to a spot. The only thing that should turn is your head as you look back to find the ball,” Moose coached.

“Something else is, don’t put your glove up too soon. Think about how you run,” I said. “You want to have both arms pumping as you sprint, not holding the glove up. You’ll get more speed that way.”

“Good point. Now I want you to watch David as he does it.”

Moose hit me fly balls over each shoulder until everyone felt they understood. The rest of practice was spent with Moose hitting and me coaching the other outfielders. Some of them got it right away. Others, it took a while, but they all seemed to finally get what Moose was telling them.

After baseball practice, I slipped into Coach Hope’s office and had a quick talk about Cassidy. He’d asked me earlier to help convince her that she should wait until she received her degree before she joined the Marines. With a degree, she would go in as an officer candidate. That wasn’t possible without it. He was aware that Uncle John and I had helped her with her goals. What I wanted him to help with was to allow her to start work with the trainers and possibly learn from Connor Fletcher, our outside strength and conditioning coach.

He thanked me and we packed up to go work at the dojo.

When I got there, I found they’d brought in a boxer from State who was smaller than I was.

“I wanted you to box against Jesús. He’s a middleweight or 160 pounds,” Coach Hope said.

He had a cocky grin on his face as we squared off. He was quick, I’ll give him that. I was used to quick sparring with Cassidy. Coach Hope’s bombs had me cautious, so at first, I tried to out-quick Jesús. In the first few minutes I discovered that Jesús didn’t hit nearly as hard as Coach did, but if we were scoring this as a fight, I would lose. He was very good at weaving in, hitting me with a quick jab, and then dancing out of my reach.

“Don’t let him dictate the fight,” Fritz coached.

I thought about what Fritz was trying to tell me and smiled. I had 45 pounds on the older boy and a reach advantage of at least three inches. Why was I trying to dance around and go speed-on-speed? I stepped forward and let him hit me, shrugged it off, and then used my power. The cocky grin left his face when I threw a right hook into his ribs that caused him to hunch over. Hunched over protecting his ribs didn’t give him a chance to dance away. He did try to lunge at me to tie me up, but I stood him up with a straight left and was about to finish him off with an overhand right when Coach Hope jumped between us.

“Where did that power come from?” Coach Hope asked.

“Cassidy said I couldn’t hurt you. She never said anything about him,” I said with a smile.

Fritz about doubled over laughing at the look on Coach Hope’s face. Cassidy just nodded at her dad to confirm what I said. Coach Hope shook his head as he realized I hadn’t been hitting him with full force. I only hit him hard enough to get the point across or keep him off me.

“Anyway, lesson learned. It’s sometimes okay to be hit. If you’d let Jesús snipe away at you, he would have cut you up,” Coach Hope said.

I should have let Jesús out-quick me. Cassidy decided that today she needed to teach me that she was still light years ahead of me as we sparred. I took my ass-kicking like a man and used it to motivate me to work harder. Brook’s class always loved to see Cassidy take me down. I guess I would too if I were them.

Hana made us a hot noodle dish called soba. It was a buckwheat noodle in a hot broth. Cassidy said there was also a cold version, which you dipped into a sauce, called zaru soba.

Shiggy announced that during dinner we had to speak Japanese only. What it showed me was I needed more work, because I understood about one in every six words. Today was my day to get my ass kicked. This just made the competitive side of me come out like it did when Cassidy took me down on the dojo mat.

When our lesson began after dinner, I was focused.

When I finally went home, I found Pam and Coby in my apartment. Pam was studying. She needed to make up for the week she was out of school, plus we had finals coming up. I’d gotten my test results from last week back, and I was on track to pull down all ‘A’s again.

This was really the first time in a while that Pam and I’d been alone. I picked Coby up out of the crib and sat down next to Pam on the couch.

“We need to make some decisions about Coby,” Pam said.

While my parents had the final say on what happened to Coby, they hadn’t stopped us from deciding what was best for him. We just had to run it by them. I liked that we had a safety net, so to speak. We’d decided two things. The first was not to have him circumcised. Both my brother and I’d been circumcised, and Greg had had both his boys done. When we talked to the doctor, there were pluses and minuses both ways.

The other thing we decided to do was delay the first hepatitis B shot. Normally they did it within a few days after birth. When we talked to the doctor, she explained that hepatitis B was spread by having sex with an infected partner, by sharing needles, by sharing razors or toothbrushes with an infected person, or by contact with blood or open sores of an infected person. Since we didn’t think Coby was going to have sex or share a needle, our doctor assured us that he didn’t need to have it right away. We planned it for his two-month checkup. Now if Pam had hepatitis B, our doctor would have told us to do it now.

“Have you talked to my parents?”

“I wanted to talk to you first.”

“I’m on board. You better explain it to my mom, because I’m sure she’ll have questions and I won’t have the answers. You’ll end up talking to her anyways,” I said.

“Sometimes you’re not really a ‘stupid boy.’ I’m an even smarter girl. My mom is having lunch with your mom tomorrow, so I don’t have to be grilled,” she said with a smile.

That was a better idea.

I was getting ready for bed when I received a group text from Moose. We’d been seeded second for Regionals and would be playing Lakeview. A minute later my phone rang, and it was Moose.

“Hope it’s not too late,” Moose said.

“No. I was just reading your text.”

“About that ... our first game is tomorrow. Normally I would pitch Brock or Bryan. My other choices are Bert or a couple of freshmen. Bert told me at practice he has some pain in his shoulder,” Moose told me.

Frick! Justin and his big mouth had really put us in a spot. I thought both freshman pitchers would be good in a year or so, but to start a Regional Playoff game was just too much to ask. The thing was, we needed Bryan and Brock if we got past this game. Moose had a firm rule that a pitcher had to have at least four days’ rest. If this were college or the pros, you wouldn’t hesitate to throw them out there on short rest.

“What do you plan to do?” I asked.

“I was thinking about starting you.”

“I haven’t even thrown batting practice.”

“I know that. I keep coming back to you’re our best athlete. I know you can pitch; you did it your freshman and sophomore years. Forget the stuff Shiggy taught you and just throw the heat and changeup to give them a variety. Lakeview won’t know what to do with you. If you can give me a couple or three innings, the freshmen can finish it off. I just can’t throw them out there to start,” he admitted.

“If you think I can do it, I’ll give it my best shot.”

“I know you will. Now get some sleep,” Moose ordered.

I logged onto Twitter and tweeted that I was pitching tomorrow. I figured it would give everyone a laugh and help loosen them up for the game.

Tuesday April 26

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Announcing I was pitching on Twitter was probably the worst idea I’d ever had. Tonight’s game was supposed to be a playoff game that featured two high school teams in the first round. Yes, it was a big deal for us, because if we won, we moved on. It was even a big deal for our schools and communities. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal nationally.

By noon, our high school had been contacted by numerous news organizations to receive access to both the game and me. Moose was about to pull out what was left of his hair. The school had also been told that twelve major league teams were sending scouts; representatives from the Under 18 USA Baseball would be here; and at last count 42 college recruiters from across the country would attend.

Frank had been notified by Caryn and was on the first flight he could get out of LA. His take was this was somewhat like when American Idol’s Scotty McCreery played high school baseball, except I was actually a top prospect.

Coach Hope grabbed me during last period and escorted me to the coaches’ conference room. When I saw two State Police officers standing at the door, I knew who was inside.

I walked in and saw the room was full. Governor Higgins stood up, smiled and shook his head.

“You are a dream come true for my political career.”

“As long as it’s all about you,” I shot back.

Vice Principal Palm and Mr. Hicks, our Athletic Director, both about fainted when they heard me talking like that to the governor of our great state.

I looked around the room, and I guess Moose caught on that I wasn’t sure why this was such a big deal.

“You look confused.”

“Why is everyone making such a fuss about me pitching?” I asked.

“That’s probably my fault,” Coach Haskins said with a weak smile.

“How could that be your fault?” I asked.

“I received a call from one of the baseball writers I used to be friendly with. He just wanted a comment on you hitting the mound for the first time this year. I might have oversold your abilities.”

I suddenly had a bad feeling.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“He said that you’d been asked to make a position change to the outfield so you could represent the United State of America on their Under 18 national team,” Governor Higgins said. “He said it was a shame because he thought you were a better pitching prospect than an outfielder.”

“So, I’m about to go out there and pitch for the first time this season and make a complete fool of myself,” I moaned.

“You are such a pussy sometimes,” Coach Hope said. “I’ve seen you throw a football and a baseball. How can you be so confident on a football field and not have that translate to baseball?”

I took a deep breath. I knew for a fact that confidence was one of the biggest reasons I dominated on a football field. I closed my eyes and took another deep cleansing breath. I let it out slowly and then did it again for good measure. I needed to find my center, my focus. I felt the tension leaving my body.

“Okay. I need to go get ready,” I said, and strode out of the room.

“He’s going to surprise a lot of people. Many of them are here to see him fail. They’ll be going home disappointed,” Moose said as I walked out.

I went to the locker room and got dressed for the game. I put in my earbuds and put on some rock music to help psych me up. I closed my eyes and just zoned out. I had this.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw it was Moose.

“Take them out and get them warmed up,” he ordered.

I looked around the room, and every eye was on me. We had plenty of time before the game started. Moose wanted us to go out early so we could get the jitters out of our systems. He planned to have me throw to Johan and see where I was, pitching-wise.

I took the team out and we stretched and then did some running drills to get the blood pumping. I took Jim out to the outfield and we slowly began to loosen up my arm with longer and longer tosses.

While we did that, the press was set up in the hospitality tent filming B-footage that could be used as filler during their report. Some tried to shout questions, but Moose walked out and put a stop to that.

Finally, it was time for me to go get ready with Johan, who would be catching me. In the bullpen, I did some easy tosses from the mound to get a feel for things. Coach Herndon, our pitching coach, stood behind me, out of my line of sight.

“Go ahead and put a little more on it. I want to watch your motion,” he instructed.

I got into my pitching stance and just threw. There was a satisfying pop in Johan’s glove.

“Not full out,” Coach Herndon complained.

“That wasn’t full out,” I said.

“That’s good enough for the game. Throw me ten pitches just like that one.”

So I did. The actual motion of throwing a pitch wasn’t hard. What I found was that my work with the Bo staff and the help from Connor Fletcher had made throwing easier for me. The hard part of pitching is the placement of the ball and changing speed, location, or type of pitch to fool the batter. The reason Moose had hoped that I could get through three innings was because he didn’t want me to have to face the Lakeview batters a second time. If they knew what to expect after seeing me once, they would zone in and rock me.

“Now give me ten changeups.”

I did that.

“How do you feel?”

“Good. Do you mind if I try some other pitches to see if I still have them?” I asked.

“By all means,” Coach Herndon said.

“I’m going to throw the split-finger. Protect yourself, because I don’t know if it’ll work,” I warned Johan.

The split-finger was thrown with the same motion as the fastball. It just dropped at the last moment if you threw it right. It dropped, but too soon. It hit the plate, skipped up off it, and hit Johan in the inner thigh. That had to smart.

“Dang it, you warned me.”

“Sorry about that,” I said, watching him try to walk it off.

I tried both my slider and curveball. They were nowhere near ready to use in a game. I went back to the split-finger and tried it a few more times. At least I could get that over the plate. It gave me a pitch that had some more movement.

“Okay, give me one as hard as you can,” Coach Herndon said.

I just reared back and cut loose. You could hear the air as the ball cut through it into Johan’s mitt. When the ball hit the mitt, it just sounded different. I smiled when I saw his look of disbelief.