My best bud Jimmy and I just had a fight. Now, we’re not talking. That could be a really big problem because we have our last game in high school tomorrow afternoon at four. I’m supposed to pitch and Jimmy is catching. The problem is, we had a doozy of a fight. He hit me in my pitching arm, and I bloodied his nose. This is about the third time I have given him a bloody nose. The first time, I broke it.

Him and I have been best buds since we were six. The day I moved next door to him, he was skateboarding in the cul de sac. He asked me if I had a board, and I told him I did, but it was packed. He then asked me what I liked to do. I told him I really wanted to learn to be a pitcher. He asked, “Hardball or soft?”

I looked at him like he was crazy and snapped back, “Who pays sissy softball?

“Well,” he replied. “some parents won’t let their kids play hardball. They say it’s too dangerous.”

“That’s stupid! Playin’ softball and getting beat up for being a sissy is a lot more dangerous, ain’t it?”

Jimmy laughed and replied, “You got that right!”

My mom called me and told me to take my stuff up to my room, unbox it and put it all away. Jimmy asked me, “Need a hand? I ain’t doin’ anything.”

“Sure, why not?”

The following week, our dads took us to Henderson Field and signed us up for Little League.

At tryouts, Jimmy had a great glove and wasn’t scared of the ball like a lot of the guys. So, they put him behind the plate. Me? I had a fair glove, but I could really throw the ball. I got my wish, and Mr. Peterson started working with me to teach me the mechanics of pitching. Our season for the six-to-eight-year olds was split into two halves of eight games each. The winner of the first half played the winner of the second half. That was a looney tunes season. Our team, the Sandler Hardware Cubs, only won two games in the first half, but went undefeated in the second half. Crazy, huh? The championship game was a once in a lifetime event.

I came into my pitching grove in the second half. I had turned seven right when the season started. I was about four feet tall, skinny with long legs. Coach said I had the perfect body for pitching. And at seven years old, I was throwing a 45MPH fast ball! On nearly every batter, me and Jimmy used to bust a fastball tight inside and then throw the rest right down Broadway. Those chickens were so scared, they saw that ball whizzing towards them and backed out every time. Being left-handed, Mr. Peterson taught me a grip pitch that worked kinda like a curve ball and dropped and broke in on a rightie. Teaching a kid to throw a real curve ball is illegal and could get a coach sued, and the kid ends up with permanent elbow damage. I also have a killer change-up.

Anyway, we were playing the Cross Street Mart Tigers for the championship. They had this big fat kid named Tommy Finks pitching. He too had a good fastball but had some control issues.

Because of our age and the size of most of the kids in the 6 – 8 age bracket, we played six inning games on a sixty-foot softball diamond. It was 50 feet from the mound rubber to home plate. Anyway. I gave up a base hit at the beginning of the third inning, but they stranded him on third. Tommy pitched a no-hitter going into the sixth inning. The score was 0 - 0. I struck out the side 1, 2, 3. Tommy`s control left him and his fastball was slipping high.

Mr. Peterson was also a Babe Ruth League pitching coach. When Tommy walked the first batter on high fastballs, he told me, “It’s his landing. The landing can be influenced by the foot landing on the heel first, which tends to lock-up the front knee, which then leads to standing up and not following through. This causes a high pitch.”

He walked the next three batters in a row, walking in the winning run. He pitched a no hitter and lost to me, who pitched a one hitter and won 1 – 0. Never seen or heard of anything like that ever again.

Sorry to get sidetracked, but whenever I talk baseball, I digress to that once in a lifetime win.

The following year, we went undefeated. Having won 16 straight games, there was no championship game. The following year, me and Jimmy moved up to the 11 – 13 age bracket.

That year, we had a crazy team because the coach we got stuck with was a rookie and didn’t know squat about choosing players. He had no eye for kids.

Since baseball was a bust, Jimmy and I signed up for soccer [football for you snobby foreigners]. That fall, when he and I turned 11, our friendship changed. For one thing, I was always a better athlete. I had more stamina, and I could run a lot faster. That’s how I got my nickname: Scooter.

Every season in baseball, I always led the team in stolen bases. I even stole home a few times. But in soccer, because of my speed, I played both center forward and striker. Whenever I got a break away, the coach would always say. “Look at Park scoot down that field!”

Jimmy and I, it seemed, were like we were Siamese twins joined at the hip. Wherever one of us was the other one was right there with him. We were so different, but we seemed to complement each other. He was smarter than me, level-headed and even tempered. Me, I was the jock with the short fuse. I usually got into at least one fist fight every season. We did everything together. I ate at his house half the week and he at mine the other half. We used to have sleepovers, and, in the summer, we’d pitch a tent out in the back yard. Jimmy’s dad built a way cool tree house in their backyard, and we used to sleep out in that all the time.

We used to go to school together and had most of our classes together. He used to always bust on me because I would always copy his math homework, I was kinda stupid in math. When I turned twelve, things between him and me started to change. He started to get ... I don’t know, kinda goofy.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a girl.

My name is Jenny Park, and I’m Korean. I became a rabid baseball and soccer fan because of my dad. Ever since I was four, we used to watch the ball games together with me sitting on his lap as we cheered for “our” team. You see, I started to grow tits when I was twelve. Actually, I started when I was eleven, but they were just puffy nipples then and I could hide them under my shirts. Well, it was all my fault he found out. I guess because I played sports, I hadn’t gotten my period yet.

I was always one of the guys. I even learned to pee standing up. I’d just hold my lips open and pull up real hard at the top of my slit. I learned to go to a tree and water it while standing next to Jimmy. He’d laugh seeing a girl pee like a boy. We were having a sleepover in his treehouse one night in the summertime. Because of the heat and humidity, we always used to sleep shirtless. My nipples were just starting to pop off the plane of my chest and I whipped off my shirt and laid down so we could talk and then fall off to sleep.

As we lay in the dark, he said, “Jen, you’re starting to become a girl, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean you idiot, I’ve always been a girl. You’ve even seen my peach a couple of times. I know you’ve peeked, but we’re best buds and I ain’t got nothin’ to hide from you.”

“But you’re startin’ to become a real girl. A girl with boobs and all.”

“Oh ... yeah. You noticed. I forgot all about it beings I’m with you.”

“What’s gonna happen with us?”

“What the hell do you mean? You’re my best friend for life. We’re a team and inseparable. Me growing boobs has nothin’ to do with you and me. Why, does it bother you?”

Confused, Jimmy answered, “Yes ... I mean ... no.” He wanted to kick himself. He said, “Oh, shit! Everything is going to change. Your dad will say that we can’t have sleepovers anymore, and maybe he won’t let you play sports with the guys any longer. You’ll start wearin’ dresses and getting boyfriends and all...”

We were lying next to each other on our backs. I swung my arm at him and hit him in the chest with a WHAP!

“Don’t be an idiot! I will not start wearing dresses and if my pops tries to make me wear dresses, I’ll run away from home. I know my pops and he will not make me stop playing sports. I’m a prime athlete in this county and at school, he would never rip my heart out like that; he just wouldn’t.

Well, those puffy puppies on my chest took off and by the spring of my twelfth year, I was a 34B and stood 5’ 4” tall.

Two weeks into the preseason, right before our first game, we were all standing around in a loose huddle talking when this mouthy kid that played short name Paul Ruckus just blurted out, “Hey, Scooter, let us feel those tits of yours.”

CRUNCH!

I hit that kid square in the nose. Blood spurted everywhere but I didn’t care. I had him on the ground and sitting on his chest in a New York second. I started pummeling his face and calling him all kinds of unsavory names by the time the coach pulled me off him. Both he and I were a bloody mess. I had blood all over my uniform and my hands. He was bent over holding his nose. I knew when I hit him, I broke it; broke it real good!

His dad tried to get me banned from the league saying I was an uncontrollable psycho bitch and a danger to the kids. My dad threatened to sue Paul’s dad for sexual harassment. The league traded him to another team and life moved on. We faired out better because we got Steve Roberts a real crackerjack shortstop.

Well, things pretty much stayed the same with me and Jimmy. What brought about a change in things was when I got my period at 13½. It was fall and we were in full swing of the soccer season. My mom got all “Honey, she’s getting too delicate to be playing rough-house with the boys.”

My father laughed and said, “If you’d have seen what she did to that Ruckus boy, you’d shut your mouth. My baby girl is not going to give up sports. Period!”

You go Dad!

The summer of my fourteenth year was monumental for several reasons. First, I was now 5’6” tall and wore a size 34C bra. My dad took me out to Burger King one day after spring training. He would always take me there to give me his strategy talks. He said, “Scooter, what have I told you about using your gifts?”

“You always told me to use everything I have to my best advantage to win, right?”

“Right. Now, don’t go getting all sensitive about what I’m about to say. If you played in a girl’s league, we wouldn’t be having this talk, but you’re not. You’re playing with the big boys. What is a very noticeable asset you now have?”

“I don’t know. My killer change-up? I hide the ball well on my windup. What?”

“Your boobs, Scooter, your boobs.”

“What’s my boobs got to do with baseball?”

“Here’s what were gonna do. We’re gonna get you some tailored uniforms, they are more form fitting and show off your “assets.” Know what I mean?”

“Pops,” I said, “I don’t want to be lookin’ like some slutty pitcher out on the mound.”

“I don’t mean that tight. Just tight enough to have those boys looking at your chest and not the fastball or curve you’re throwing. Got it?”

“Yeah, I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. What happens if we catch some flack over my ‘tighter than usual’ uniforms?”

“You won’t. Do you think I’d dress my daughter like that? Looking a little sexy won’t hurt anything.”

“Okay. You’ve been my lifelong coach and I trust you, Pops. We’ll try it your way.”

Second, come to find out, Pops wasn’t the only one thinking of my perky “C’s.”

Jimmy and I were spending the night out in the treehouse again and he just blurted out. “Scooter, I can’t take this shit anymore.”

“What shit is that Jimmy?”

“You. I’m talking about you.”

“What about me? What have I done now to make you so angry for you to get your boxers in a bunch?”

“You. Just you. You’re so fucking beautiful; I can’t take it anymore.”

I knew this day would come. We could no longer be best buds in the sense that our bodies. whether we were fat, skinny, tall, short, or any other physical characteristic between males, had a bearing on our friendship. Now, physical attraction and nature clouded things. They say everyone has a day of reckoning. That day when they make the most life-changing decision they will ever make. Jimmy wasn’t the only one thinking of these things. I’d made a decision based on nearly eight years of experience that I wanted Jimmy in my life for the entirety of my life. If it meant giving up sports, I would, to have him in my life forever. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I was prepared for it.

I said, “Well, it’s about fucking time you noticed! I’ve been waiting for you to make your move. Now, what are you gonna do about it, James T. Pendleton?”

“I’m scared, Scooter. Scared of losing you. I wanna do things with you. I wanna kiss you and hold you. I wanna feel those luscious tits of yours and touch you places I can’t bring myself to say. But I don’t ever want to lose you as my best friend. I can’t fathom going through life without you in it.”

“Do you think of me and wank?”

“Two or three times a day! You’re the only girl I wank over.”

“I’d better be, or I’ll cut that thing off. But don’t be embarrassed, I jill off just about every day thinking of doing it with you also.”

I started to unbutton my baseball jersey and said, “Jimmy, you and I will always be together. You and I are gonna get married and have us a couple of kids, and we’ll play baseball and soccer with them. Tomorrow, even though you’ve seen and touched my tits and a few other places, we are gonna go out on the field and kick some Rocket ass tomorrow, aren’t we? And we will play ball both on the field and off together. You and me. Together. Forever. Right?”