Chapter 4

In late February, I took Jon and Adam’s advice and tried out to play baseball. Tryouts were at the practice field just past the senior parking lot. There were around one hundred boys all hoping for a spot on either the varsity, junior varsity, or the sophomore squads. There were eighteen spots on each team. The varsity team was all but finalized, but the coaches still needed to go through the process and see if someone was good enough to take someone else’s place.

We all started off with some basic stretches. It was still pretty cold, so we all needed to get the blood flowing. That way we would all loosen up and the cold wouldn’t be such a burden. The coach who was leading the stretches kept saying it would keep us from getting hurt. “Tight muscles turn into injured muscles,” the coach would call out. Once he was satisfied, we were all loosened up, it was time for testing. There was more to trying out for high school baseball than I ever imagined.

First up, sprints. One coach was at the starting line and there was another at the finish with a handheld stopwatch. We all ran two times. I wasn’t the fastest, not even close, but I was nowhere near the slowest. When we were done running, the coaches asked us what positions we played and separated us into smaller groups. There were about fifteen that wanted to pitch like me. I was still the shortest of the group, but not by much anymore.

My group were all ushered over to the pitching mound. We were paired up and told to play catch to warm up our arms. After about fifteen minutes of that, we were lined up and one by one we were to pitch for them. There was a catcher sitting behind home plate in his full-on catcher’s gear. I was the seventh kid to throw.

My first pitch hit the dirt in front of the plate. The ball bounced off the ground and then shot up to hit the catcher’s face mask dead in the middle. The catcher didn’t expect the throw to go that low, so he was slow to react and nearly fell over backwards as his arms flailed to try to stop the ball from going past him. I winced and looked sheepishly to the coach standing next to me. His face was like stone, not a single emotion on his face.

The next pitch went over the plate and the pop the ball made when it hit the mitt made the coach lift a single eyebrow. Thinking he was impressed, I tried to throw as hard as I could. The ball sailed way over the outstretched glove of the catcher as he tried to jump up to get it.

“Damnit,” I grumbled to myself and kicked my foot through the dirt.

“What was that?” the coach barked. His face looked neutral but far closer to pissed off then it was happy.

“Nothing, Coach.”

“I thought so. Don’t try to throw it as hard as you can. Get it over the plate. Hard doesn’t matter if you can’t throw strikes.”

“Okay, coach.”

My next ten pitches all were strikes, right over the middle of the plate.

“Better. Next!” the coach yelled for the guy behind me to take his turn.

“Go sit over there and wait for us to call your name,” the coach told me, pointing to the group of pitchers that went before me, all sitting together in the grass watching whoever was up pitching.

I sat down next to the other pitchers. None of them even said hi when I sat down. That was my life in a nutshell when it came to school. Most people didn’t even recognize me, which was fine with me. I didn’t want to be there anyway. I watched the rest of the pitchers who were still in line. Some of them were really good. Others couldn’t hit the ocean from the beach. Why they were trying out was beyond me. I thought I had a pretty good chance of making the Sophomore team, maybe the junior varsity. I had at least thrown strikes, like the coach asked. Next up for the pitchers, batting practice. Shit.

The coach that was watching the pitchers at the mound had a five-gallon bucket full of baseballs next to him as he stood on the mound.

“I need three or four of you to shag balls!” He yelled out to the group of us sitting down.

Four older kids I didn’t recognize jumped up and raced for the outfield before anyone else had a chance. I knew this was going to be my worst performance. I could field fine, and pitch even better. Hitting I was terrible at.

“Batter up!” The coach who was throwing batters practice called to those of us who were still sitting on the side.

There were six people up before it was my turn. I tried to wait to be last, but I was moved up by a couple of older kids, juniors if I had to guess. They laughed as I reluctantly made my way to the chalk lined batter’s box. The reason I sucked so bad at hitting was that I was scared of getting beaned. I got hit one time my first year of little league, and I’d dreaded it ever since. I quit playing baseball after that season. Dad was disappointed, but Mom sided with me.

So, when I stepped into the batter’s box, I was as far back and away as I could get. That way I had more time to duck for cover. Not like the coach was going to throw a pitch anywhere near me, but my subconscious didn’t listen to reason. The coach shook his head at me, his disappointment obvious in where I chose to stand in the box. He waited a minute before he threw the first pitch, giving me a chance to scoot forward. I didn’t, I stayed exactly where I was.

I saw ten pitches, and I didn’t make contact at all, not once. What made matters worse, every single one was straight and right down the middle. They weren’t thrown that hard. I could throw harder than what the coach was offering up for me to hit. After the last pitch and my swing and miss, I slumped my shoulders and hung my head. I dropped the bat in the batters’ box for the next hitter and walked back to where all the pitchers were sitting. Most were laughing at me. Some were asking me if I had ever swung a bat before and saying I swung like a girl. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to go home.

I stayed long enough to find out the results of the tryouts. I was a little disappointed but not surprised that I didn’t make any of the teams. My at bats would be a problem and I knew it. The head coach for the sophomore team told me I was going to be a reserve pitcher. If someone got hurt, he would ask me to play. I was okay with that.

When I got home from tryouts, it was nearly dark. Mom heard me come in the front door and peeked around the corner from the kitchen. She smiled when she saw me, but I was too busy looking at the floor feeling sorry for myself.

“What’s wrong, Sam?” Mom asked and she moved to greet me. “Tryouts didn’t go well?”

“Not really, no,” I said and shrugged like it didn’t matter. “I can’t hit at all. I know Dad was looking forward to watching me play again...”

“Don’t worry about your dad, he will be proud that you tried.”