Chapter 2

Wednesday afternoon I was at the baseball field in my PE clothes along with about thirty other kids. I’d let Chef know I was going to be late and Hanna had agreed to wait for me. Actually, both she and Kat had waited and were currently sitting up in the stands with a handful of other friends of people trying out, watching us.

I felt a little bad about having to constantly beg rides, but there didn’t seem to be much I could do about that any time soon. My birthday was coming up in two months, but even with the money I was making at the Blue Ridge, we weren’t going to afford a second car any time soon, let alone insurance on it.

We started with warm-ups and stretching before they had us run sprints and do several full laps of the field, I guess to see if we had any endurance. The sprints I did okay on. I was far from the fastest, but I felt like I held my own. The endurance part I was more than ready for, since Chef had already run me enough that I was able to treat it as almost a meditative experience. I found if I just ran but kept my mind calm, putting one foot in front of the other, I wouldn’t notice myself getting tired and could do more than if I just focused on the running all by itself.

I thought about Aaron and what to expect from him, since I knew he wasn’t over getting put down in the parking lot in an armbar at the end of last semester. I hadn’t seen him since, but I knew my luck wouldn’t hold there. I also thought about Hanna and how she seemed to avoid talking about college and Kat and what I was going to do about that whole situation. I probably took the whole thing too far, because I was in my head as we stopped and formed back up, lost in thought. It wasn’t until I heard my name called and shook myself back into focusing on the here and now.

“You’re with Coach Bryant,” Coach Dean said.

He’d called several other names, and those kids had already started to jog over to third base, where Coach Bryant was set up.

“Sorry, Coach,” I said, and hurried after them, feeling a knot in my stomach.

Had I known Coach Bryant was also a coach for the baseball team, I wouldn’t have agreed to try out. He was staring daggers at me as I ran up. To my joy, I also noticed Harry Torres was in my group.

“If you’re not going to pay attention then get off my field, Nelson,” Bryant said when I caught up.

I ignored him. I’d already learned from being in his history class that apologizing would just get me yelled at more, and the best thing to do was stay quiet until he went on to the next thing.

“This station is for fielding drills to see how you boys are at catching the ball. I won’t be hitting them all at you, and I won’t tell you if it’s a pop up or a grounder. I expect you to eye the ball coming off the bat and figure out where you need to be. Drop too many balls and we’ll drop you from tryouts. Got it?”

“Yes, Coach,” we all said in unison.

“Torres, you’re first.”

I was sure this was somehow a way to show Harry favoritism, since he was one of Coach Bryant’s golden boys on the football team, but I was happy Harry went first. Although I’d played plenty of ball over the years, they’d all been pickup games. I’d never been to a tryout before and had no idea what we were actually supposed to do. I got the gist, of course. He’d hit the ball at us and we were to catch it and throw it back, but it was still nice to be able to watch someone else do it.

To his credit, he didn’t seem to be taking it easy on Harry. He always placed the ball where Harry wasn’t, making him run every minute to get to the ball. He also kept a good variety of hits, with rolling grounders, bouncing grounders, pop-ups that dropped right down, line drives, and several that required Harry to run backward to get to them.

I watched each one and tried to think where I’d need to be to get to the ball, trying to use the time mentally going through the motions. It turned out, I’d have lots of time to prepare, as Coach Bryant called out other kids in my group, one after another, until I was the last one.

“Your turn, Nelson.”

It might have been my imagination, but it felt like he was almost grinning as I ran out into left field. Everyone else he’d let them get out there and get set before he hit the first ball. I already knew he was going to try and screw me over, so I wasn’t surprised when the first ball, a line drive far to my left, came my way before I was two-thirds of the way out.

I cut hard and ran towards the ball, leaping and extending my arm out as far as it could go, and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d placed it where, theoretically, it was within range to field, but just barely. He definitely hadn’t put the balls this far out for anyone else.

I threw it at the student he’d assigned to catch the returns, when he hit another ball, before the kid even caught the first one I threw back. It was like this for almost five minutes, longer than he’d kept anyone else at it. Every ball was hit far enough out that I had to leap or dive to get it. Everyone else had gotten a couple of bouncing grounders right at them, to see if they could get it on the hop, but mine were all so far out I’d had to track and snag those on the run.

The last one I was pretty sure he was trying to get me hurt. He hit it far back, and it looked to be headed for the waist-high fence that marked the edge of the field. I was almost certain he’d count it against me if I didn’t get it, even though it was outside the field. Thankfully, I was in the best shape I’d been in my life and the fence really wasn’t all that high and I was already near the fence after chasing the last ball he’d hit. I pushed off, running full out for the fence. I’d tracked its trajectory and felt I had a good sense of where it was going to go over, so I had my back to it for the moment to be able to cover as much ground as possible.

The fence was coming up fast, and even though Chef had been focusing on leg exercises for the last month, I didn’t think I could jump high enough to the ball or clear the fence, at least without snagging myself on the metal chain-link protrusions. Had I thought about what I was going to do, I probably would have second-guessed myself, but at the moment it seemed like a good idea to jump as I got close to the fence, pulling my legs up almost like a frog leap, which was one of the exercise Chef had me do most days.

Basically, you jump as high as you can and pull your legs up so your hands are near your feet. In this case, I didn’t lean forward to get my hands that low. Instead, I’d jumped forward and managed to get my hand and glove on the fence railing and pushed up hard. I didn’t get much height off that push, but with my legs pulled in, I got enough for my feet to clear the top of the railing, crouched down. I kicked off with my legs, turning around as I leapt back towards the field, looking for the ball. Thankfully, I’d judged its trajectory pretty close, otherwise, I would have looked the fool jumping past the ball as it went out of the park. It wasn’t dead-on, but it was enough that I could stretch my arm out and snag the ball before landing hard.

Once again, Chef’s training came in handy, since he believed in knowing how to fall. It wasn’t the somersault you might see in the movies. Rather, it was flopping over as my feet hit the ground and tumbling sideways, but it kept me from hurting my knees or spraining an ankle. I got my free hand and feet back under me and pushed back up into standing, rocketing the ball towards the helper, who almost didn’t get his hand up in time, since he was standing open-mouthed, looking at me.

The kids I didn’t know all cheered as I jogged back in while Coach Bryant stood there looking pissed, along with Harry and a few others I recognized as being part of the football team.

“All right, calm down,” Coach Bryant said as I reached the rest of them. “We’re here to play by the numbers baseball. That kind of showboating doesn’t fly here. If you can’t take this seriously Nelson, you’re welcome to leave.”

I hadn’t said or done anything but catch a ball he’d purposefully made impossible to catch, and hadn’t joined in the celebrating the other kids had done, but I knew that didn’t matter to Coach Bryant. He’d find some reason to take this out on me if he could, so I just ignored him.

“Go see Coach Dean for your batting rotation,” he said, still giving me the stink eye as I walked with the rest of my group towards home plate.

There were a few good-natured back slaps as I walked, although Harry and his friends kept their distance. I was just happy to be clear of Coach Bryant and on to the next thing.

“Good hustle out there guys,” Coach Dean said as we joined him, the group before us having already rotated to fielding. “Especially that last catch. You might not want to try that very often Nelson, since it’s a good way to get hurt, but it was a thing of beauty. Okay now, we’re here to see how you guys hit. We’re going to throw you a variety of pitches to see how you do with them. We play incremental baseball here, and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re not looking to see who can crush them out of the park or if you can hit to open field position, that’ll come once you’re on the team and we start practicing. What I want to know is who can make contact and hit the kinds of pitches you’re going to see this season. Getting on base is our number one concern. If we can get you on base, and then the guy after you, and keep it up, we’ll start putting up runs. That’s what we’re looking for here. Nelson, you’re up first.”

That was quite the change from Bryant. I would have preferred a bit of time to rest after hustling all over the outfield snagging balls, but I guess it was good to get it over with right away. Unlike with fielding practice, which I hadn’t done before, hitting the ball was hitting the ball, and I couldn’t imagine it’d be different than when playing a pickup game.

I found a good bat and a batter’s helmet and made my way to the plate. The first pitch was a fairly slow fastball which I got a solid piece of, sending it sailing out in a shallow arc into right field.

“Just starting you off with something simple. Now that you’ve got it, let’s get started.”

He wasn’t kidding. The next pitches were all over the place. A curveball, which I wasn’t used to, since most kids at pickup games didn’t have that kind of skill, followed by sinkers, fastballs that sailed over the plate faster than anything I’d seen in pickup games.

I’d like to say I blew them out of the water with my natural ability, but that’s a lie. I did think I held my own against everyone else, who were generally struggling too, which I think was the point. A lot of the guys were hard on themselves when they struck out, smacking their bats on the ground or stomping away from the plate, but I recognized what Coach Dean was doing since Chef often did the same thing. He wasn’t looking for everyone to pass some minimum qualification, if a kid hit two of this kind of pitch and one of that kind. He was looking to challenge everyone, putting stuff across the plate even the best hitter would have problems with and see how we adapted. Chef explained that the best way to see what someone was capable of was to get them to stretch for something just out of their reach. It showed them not just how close the student could get, but how willing they were to reach it and how they dealt with missing, giving the teacher three pieces of information instead of just one.