Chapter 17

Monday was the season opener against Park View, and we were all happy to find the bleachers full. Jeanne and Sammy were there, and Jill and Cammie and Tanya. Even my Aunt Ruth had come for the game.

I just hoped they would be able to see a good game. As I finished my warm-up throws before the first inning, and watched Tommy's peg to second go right through the second baseman's glove into centerfield, I began to realize that this might be a very long season. Coach had announced the starting lineup at Saturday's practice. Tommy would be catching, Mo would play first and Rabbit was the starting shortstop. Eddie Carper, a sophomore who had at least been on the JV team last year, was at second. Matt Denton was at third. He was a junior with a decent bat but suspect fielding skills. Jesse was in right field, because Coach wanted his bat in the lineup. Hal Stonerider, a senior who'd ridden the bench last year, was in center and my pal Bobby Bunt was in left.

My sense of unease only increased during the first inning. What looked to my untrained eye to be a fairly routine grounder by Park View's leadoff hitter went right through Matt's legs at third. I threw the next pitch right down the center of the plate, and their number two hitter sent it straight back at me. I snapped my glove out by instinct and the ball went right into it. It got a nice "Ooooh" from the crowd, and Matt yelled at me to throw it around the horn.

"Time," I asked the umpire.

He held his hands out for time, and I waved Tommy out and Matt over. Tommy was just my cover; it was Matt I needed to talk to.

"Mattie, you see that guy on first?"

"Yeah."

"See, when we got a guy on first, we don't throw it around the horn, on account of somebody might drop it, see? And then we got a guy on second."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. Now come on, let's get our head in the game."

I was very conscious that Coach wanted to limit my pitches in my first game. So I only used four more the first inning. One three-pitch strikeout and then a nice fat pitch to the cleanup hitter, who was so surprised at getting something he could hit that he popped it up to third base. He slammed the bat to the ground and walked back to the dugout, so that when Matt dropped the fly, he still had an easy throw over to Mo at first for the out. We were in real trouble.

We got three runs in the bottom of the first, on a slap single by Bobby, a sacrifice by Rabbit, an RBI double by me, and a homerun by Mo. Jesse, Matt, and Hal all grounded out to end the inning, but after that we got four more runs and put ourselves on a kind of on cruise control. There were a couple more errors by Matt and one by Eddie that let Park View close within five runs. We scored again, and by the time I came out of the game in the fifth, we were comfortably ahead by the score of 9-2. I was working on an earned run average of 0.00, and I gave Tanya a thumbs up when Coach came out to get me.

"So Coach," I slid over to sit next to him when we were out in the field in the eighth. "We don't have any other third basemen?"

"I'm open to suggestions," he said.

I had no idea who else would be a good third baseman, so I decided to offer another suggestion.

"How 'bout if Mattie takes some extra infield?"

"I think that's a great idea," he gave me a big smile. "But I can't do that as the coach, you understand? League rules and all."

"Okay," I nodded.

"Course, if the captain wanted to make that kind of suggestion..." his voice trailed off as he watched the action on the field.

I looked around the field and realized I had no idea who the captain was. Obviously we had one, but since I had no memory of ever playing baseball before, or any other sport for that matter, I had no idea how you were supposed to know who it was. Before I could figure it out, the game got interesting, thanks to our shaky relief pitching. It finally ended with a bases-loaded pop-up to short, which Rabbit had no trouble handling. A 9-5 win looked pretty good in the books, but it should have been a little less exciting than that.

Tanya was waiting outside the locker room afterward, but I was still surprised when she accepted my offer to take her out to dinner. After all, that would almost make it a date. As it turned out, she just wanted to tell me that she'd talked to Jeanne earlier in the day.

"About what?" I asked.

"About your memory, and your do-over."

"And?"

"Just that. And I believe you now. So when I'm married to a nice Jewish guy with a bunch of nice Jewish kids, and you're married to some —"

"Shiksa?" I asked.

"Exactly. You'll still be my best friend, Patrick Sterling."

"And you'll be mine," I lied. Right. Like I'd ever introduce my wife to a former girlfriend as hot as Tanya Szerchenko. Say, babe, this is my best friend, Tanya. You don't mind if we just hang out and talk, right? Well, yeah, she is attractive, now that you mention it, and we did do it a couple of times, but it didn't mean anything. You're the one I love. Yeah, I can see that happening.

"In the meantime, though," she interrupted my reverie. "I think I've figured out a plan for Friday night."

I managed not to spit out the food in my mouth, and calmly indicated that she should tell me more.

"Jeanne's going to be taking Jill on her chorus trip," she leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Seriously?" I said. "That's really neat of her."

"Yeah, so —"

"I really hope she can snap out of this funk, you know."

"Do you want to hear about the weekend or not?"

"Well, yeah, sorry. But I mean..."

"I know. She's your sister. Sometimes I so wish you were Jewish. I hope she's better, too. We had a nice time on Friday night. So anyway, if your Dad and Tiffany go bowling..."

"That still leaves Dave," I pointed out.

"I think I have just the thing for Dave," she leaned back in her chair.

"Which is?" I said after a long pause.

"You'll just have to trust me on this," she smiled.

"Tanya!"

"Patrick?"

I tried to calm myself with another bite of food. Women.

We had another game on Wednesday, at Bishop Connor, the Catholic school in the city. Cary was pitching, Jesse was catching, and I was in right field. We were doing our best to keep the game close on both sides. Mo and I had each homered with men on base for four quick runs, and our stellar rookies had committed four errors to account for three runs for Connor. I was sitting on the bench next to Rabbit in the top of the third. Coach had bumped him down in the order because Matt Denton had had a good practice yesterday, and Coach wanted to boost his confidence a little. Rabbit was a little bummed about it. I was about to tell him to suck it up and get over it when I looked up in the stands and saw a familiar baseball cap on a man sitting by himself taking notes.

"Rabbit," I hissed.

"What?"

"Look there, in the stands. See that guy in the green jacket?"

"Yeah?"

"What kind of cap is that?"

"University of Virginia, I think," he said. "Why?"

"Think Coach'll let me go talk to him?"

"During the game?"

"Yeah."

"No. We've already got two outs."

It was a good point. The next inning, though, after Cary had given up another run to even the score and we returned to the dugout, I asked Coach for permission to leave the dugout. Hal, our first batter, was still looking for his bat, so Rabbit was standing near us, waiting to take his place in the on deck circle.

"Why?" Coach asked.

"He might be a scout."

"Now you want to go to Virginia?"

"Yeah," I gave him a crooked grin. "Maybe."

"Who's coming up?" he looked at his card. "Hal, Rabbit, and Cary. Make sure you're back here when Cary starts hitting."

I took off at a jog, although Hal's first-pitch pop-up left me with grave doubts about my spending any quality time with the guy. I turned it into a sprint, and approached him with a breathless smile.

He folded up the notebook he was writing in and gave me a smile.

"Hello, son. What can I do for you?"

"Are you a scout, sir? For the Cavaliers?"

"In a manner of speaking, son," he held out his hand. "Buddy Rogers."

"Pat Sterling," I said, giving him as hearty a handshake as I could. "I was, uh, wondering, sir, if the school had any uncommitted scholarships for the coming year."

He shook his head. Oh, fuck.

"Although there is that one kid, out in California," he said, "who's probably gonna go to Stanford instead of here. But if he turns me down, there's a lefty down in Georgia that I have my eye on."

"I'm a lefty, sir," I said eagerly. "I was hoping you could save a scholarship for me."

"A left-handed pitcher, son," he said.

"Yes, sir, I'm a left-handed pitcher."

He gave me a patronizing smile.

"I'll tell you what, son," he said. "I'm actually here to look at this kid playing shortstop for Connor here, for the following year's team. But I've got my assistants' list of this year's prospects right here."
"You're not a scout, sir?"

"I'm the coach, son," he chuckled. "We have an off day, and I owe Connor's coach a favor, so I told him I'd take a look at his boy. Anyway, if your name's on the list, I'll be happy to give you a look-see."

I flipped the list over a number of times, trying to figure out different spellings for my name. I anxiously glanced out at the field, where Rabbit had run the count up to two balls and two strikes. I finally found my name, on a different list.

"Sir," I asked after a while, "what's the IYDB list?"

He laughed.

"That stands for 'In Your Dreams, Buddy, '" he said, taking it from me and skimming the list before he pointed to a name. "See, I ask my assistant, what about this Trick Sterling kid at Marshall? And they say in your dreams, buddy. There's no way that kid's not turning pro."

"Not if I get into UVA, sir," I said.

He stared at me for a couple of seconds.

Rabbit fouled off a pitch.

"I'm sorry, son, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That's me, sir, Patrick Sterling," I said. "Trick for short. From Marshall. This is Marshall. We're the visiting team."

He looked out onto the field and then back at me, and then down at his clipboard and then back at me.

"Son, are you seriously telling me that you want to attend the University of Virginia?"

"Yes, sir, my uncle Ted, Ted Clark, teaches history there."

"I know Ted," he said absent-mindedly. "Have you submitted an application?"

Rabbit fouled off another pitch.

"No, sir," I hung my head. "I've been kind of, um, just screwing around up until now. But I am serious, sir. Dead serious. Is that a really big problem, sir?"

"If I still have a scholarship, Trick, I'll have my secretary fill out the damn application. How are your grades?"

"Not too good, sir," I said. "Uncle Ted told me about your standards. I don't have the grades now, but I think I can get them by the end of the semester."

He thought about it for a minute as Rabbit took a third ball.

"And your SAT?"

"The last one was a bit low, sir, but I'll have a new score any day now."

"Let me tell you my problem here, Trick," he finally said after Rabbit had fouled off yet another pitch. "If I get to the end of the semester, and you decide you'd rather go pro, or you don't get the grades, it's going to be too late for me to find a top-quality recruit. You see my problem, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"How big a problem do you think that is?"

"The part about my deciding to go somewhere else, sir? That's not a problem. The grades? I'm working just as hard as I can on that, sir."

He gave me a long stare as Rabbit fouled off another pitch.

"Let me think about it, son. How do I get hold of you?"

I gave him my address, phone numbers, e-mail address, everything I could think of. He stopped me when I started to give him Tanya's contact information, in case I wasn't available.

Rabbit sent a foul ball screaming towards us. It hit the bleachers harmlessly a little to our right, but it was enough to make me look down at Rabbit in the batter's box. He was looking back up at me, his hands spread wide, as the pitcher paced around the back of the mound.

"Well?" he mouthed.

I nodded, and he sent the next pitch screaming into left field for a single.

Mr. Rogers shook my hand, and wished us good luck in the game today. I left him there in the bleachers and returned to my seat on the bench in time to see Cary ground into a double play.

"Thanks," I said to Rabbit as I tossed him his glove on my way to right field.

"Don't mention it," he smiled.

By the top of the final inning, we were back in the lead, although only by a single run. Cary had been taken out during the top of the fifth inning when he started to tire, and we were now in the hands of our relief pitchers. I sidled over next to Coach.

"I can give you an inning," I said.

"You threw enough on Monday," he shook his head.

"Nine pitches," I said. "Just nine pitches."

He looked back at me and up into the stands where Buddy Rogers was still sitting, and then nodded.

"Narburg!" he yelled. "Warm Trick up."

The bottom of the seventh — the last inning in high school baseball — actually took ten pitches, because their first baseman fouled off a wicked third strike on the outside corner. But when it was over, three strikeouts later, it was in the books as a 10-9 Marshall win. Coach Rogers was waiting for me at the door to the bus.

"I'll call you tomorrow, son," he said with a barely disguised smile.

"I'll look forward to it, sir."

Instead, I was summoned down to the office after fifth period by a very excited Rachel Carter, who practically shoved me into the vacant desk next to hers and threw a pen and a pad of paper at me. Then she just sat there smiling at me.

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