Chapter 1: Eddie

My brother, David Hooks, is the starting catcher for the Frederick Keys. David is the best damned catcher in the Carolina League. I know what I'm talking about, 'cause I've seen every last one of them play! It's June when I'm writing all this down, and me 'n David have been around the league one and a half times, already. I've been to every ballpark in the League, all eight of 'em, and I've seen all the first-string and most of the second-string catchers. And my brother Dave is the best.

I'm Eddie Hooks, and David Hooks, my big brother, is my family. He's pretty much my whole family, if you don't count a few odd cousins back in Ohio. Dave's 22 years old, and in his second year now, playing pro ball. I'm only 13.

OK, so maybe Dave isn't the best hitting catcher in the Carolina League. That would be Clint Ramsey, with the Kinston Indians, down there in Eastern North Carolina. That Ramsey, he hits so good I expect he'll be in Double-A ball before the season's over, even.

But Ramsey ain't as good a catcher as David Hooks -- my brother. David's the best damned defensive catcher in the league!

This is Dave's second year in A Ball, but he's moving up. It's his first year in a "high-A" league, which is what the Carolina League is. Last year, after he graduated from college down in Alabama, Dave was assigned by the Orioles organization to play for the Delmarva Shorebirds, over in Salisbury, Maryland. Salisbury isn't all that far away from Frederick, really. Most of the Orioles' farm clubs are close by, here, in Maryland, and Maryland ain't a very big state, either, so it's all kinda cozy.

If Dave doesn't get traded, and if he gets promoted to Double-A next season, he'd be playin' over in Bowie. That's a town in Maryland, too.

'Course, if Dave were to get promoted up to Triple-A, and stayed with the Orioles' organization, that would mean we'd have to move all the way up to Ottawa, Ontario! That's the capital of the whole country of Canada, in case you didn't know it.

I don't know how I'll feel about livin' in Canada, like that. I've heard it's pretty cold up there in April. But if that's where Dave has to go, why, I reckon it's where I'll go, too. Dave's my big brother, and he's my guardian, too, ever since Mom and Dad died.

My momma died of lung cancer, just a little less than two years ago, and my daddy, well; Daddy was pretty down, afterwards, and he just went off, it was a year last May, on a fishin' trip, and took his shotgun along with him, and then he didn't come back.

Dave didn't try to keep nothin' from me. He just told me, straight out, soon as he heard it, that Daddy had committed suicide, because he had been heart-broke, about Mama dyin' and all.

I was twelve at the time. I'm 13 now. I'm in the eighth grade, at West Frederick Middle School. I stayed with the Pattersons -- neighbors of ours back in Coshocton, Ohio where we were from, until Dave graduated from college in June of last year. Ever since then, I've been with Dave, full-time. First over at Salisbury, then back in Coshocton for the winter, and now here, in Frederick.

I get kinda home-schooled at lot, by Dave, but he just supplements what I learn in the regular school. Dave's not about to let me drop out. My big brother is smart as hell, and a college graduate. He went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham -- they call it "UAB" -- on a baseball scholarship. He was there the whole four years, and played a lot of ball for them, too. UAB had some good teams while Dave was there, and he was one of their best players. He and another guy from UAB both got drafted by the pros after their senior year. The other guy, Charlie Farnsworth, went in the third round, and he's also playing in high-A ball this year, but he's with the Stockton Ports, out in California. They're an Oakland A's farm team.

I kinda wish Dave had gotten assigned to play somewhere out there in California. I hear it's pretty neat, way out West. But like I said, the Orioles drafted Dave -- in the fifth round, it was, of last year's draft -- and except for Ottawa, most of the Oriole farm teams are close to Baltimore.

Frederick, where me and Dave live now, is the second-largest city in Maryland. The city fathers are always kinda bragging about that, although Frederick really isn't all that big. Maybe 55,000 people live here. Something like that. 'S'funny, kinda, that Bowie is Baltimore's AA franchise, and, apparently, Bowie isn't as big a town as Frederick. But then I guess Bowie's in the middle of a big built-up area, there, so if you count all those other nearby towns, Bowie would be a more sensible place to put your higher-classification ball club.

Dave doesn't make hardly any money at all, playing ball in the low minors like he does. He doesn't tell me exactly what they pay him, but I know when we're on the road, he gets $22.50 a day for meal money. That pretty much has to cover us -- the both of us, when I'm traveling with Dave. But we don't go to McDonald's all the time. Dave knows a little bit about good nutrition and stuff, and he'll make sure me and him eat something decent. We'll load up at the little free breakfast places, there, at the motels where the team stays. I mean, they ain't got much, just cereal and them little bagels and maybe some sweet rolls, but Dave picks out the stuff he'll let me eat for breakfast, there, and I pretty much do what he says.

When the players are on the road, they clean out those free continental breakfast supplies pretty fast. Except for a couple of guys on the Keys who are bonus players, everybody is watching their pennies, trying to get to the next payday. It's a good thing almost all the guys are single, or, if they're married, they've mostly left their wives back where they come from, because money is awful tight, in Class A ball.

I'm 13 now, and Dave treats me pretty much like a grown-up, on most stuff. But when it comes to what I eat, and when I got to go to bed, and stuff like that, well, he makes the rules. I learned quite a while back -- not long after I come to live with Dave while he was playing ball -- that I'd better do things the way he said. Dave can be just as sweet-tempered as you'd want your big brother to be, as long as you don't cross him on the important stuff. The few times I got a little uppity with him, though, I found out, real quick, that compared to Dave, my Mom and Dad were a couple of creampuffs.

I generally don't get uppity anymore.

I talk better when Dave's around, too. I mean, I know all about how you shouldn't say "ain't" and you shouldn't use cuss-words and say "fuckin' this" and "fuckin' that" all the time, even though I hear an awful lot of that from the ballplayers, when we're on the road with the club and all. So I may say that kinda stuff, sometimes, telling you our story, here, and all, and I may say "ain't" now and again, when I should say "that's not," or "that isn't," -- whichever the case may be, y'know?... In the context of what I'm sayin' to you? I'm no dummy. My brother Dave is smart as a whip, and there never was any profit in it, for me, in being stupid, or pretending to be. If I want to keep up with my big brother, then I know I'd damned well better get myself an education, and learn now to talk right -- talk properly, I'm talkin' about -- and not cuss a blue streak all the time, thinkin' -- erroneously -- that saying "shit" and "fuck" all the time means you're a big man. Because it doesn't mean anything like that. It just means you're an asshole.

That's about the only bad word Dave ever uses -- asshole. He uses that one quite a lot, though. Oh, he'll call me on it, same as all the other bad words, if I start in to using it. But he doesn't really hold back, personally, on using that one. I reckon it's Dave's favorite word of disparagement. But he'll avoid cussing, most of the time, especially when I'm around.

Except for "asshole," that is. Now, Dave admits that it's a "vulgarism," and a really bad one, at that. 'Doesn't keep him from using it, though.