Die Like an Eagle

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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Acknowledgments

I continue to be grateful for all the great folks at St. Martin's/Minotaur, including (but not limited to) Hector DeJean, Melissa Hastings, Paul Hoch, Andrew Martin, Sarah Melnyk, Talia Sherer, Emma Stein, and especially my editor, Pete Wolverton. And thanks again to David Rotstein and the art department for another beautiful cover.

More thanks to my agent, Ellen Geiger, and the staff at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency for handling the boring (to me) practical stuff so I can focus on writing.

Many thanks to the friends—writers and readers alike—who brainstorm and critique with me, give me good ideas, or help keep me sane while I'm writing: Stuart, Elke, Aidan and Liam Andrews, Chris Cowan, Ellen Crosby, Kathy Deligianis, Suzanne Frisbee, John Gilstrap, Barb Goffman, David Niemi, Alan Orloff, Art Taylor, Robin Templeton, and Dina Willner. Thanks for all kinds of moral support and practical help to my blog sisters and brother at the Femmes Fatales: Dana Cameron, Charlaine Harris, Dean James, Toni L.P. Kelner, Catriona McPherson, Kris Neri, Hank Phillipi Ryan, Mary Saums, Marcia Talley, and Elaine Viets. And thanks to all the TeaBuds for years of friendship.

And of course, Meg's adventures would not continue without the support of many readers—thank you yet again!

Die Like an Eagle
was inspired by my nephews' many years of participation in youth baseball and basketball. They've learned so much about sportsmanship, teamwork, and the importance of hard work—if I'd known how good sports was at character-building, I wouldn't have neglected it in my own youth. The boys have also had many wonderful coaches and teammates over the years, nearly all of them much too nice to inspire any of the events in this book. In particular, I'd like to thank the Coker, Dornbusch, Griese, Hodinko, Jones, Kim, Kortum, Kupcis, Kramp, Neach, and Pierce families, who have come together to create a warm and supportive baseball family for the kids. Go Force!

 

Chapter 1

“Strike!”

“No fair! I wasn't ready!”

I glanced over at the field to see what was going on. My husband, Michael, in his role as assistant coach of the Caerphilly Eagles, was putting one of his players through batting practice. Probably seven-year-old Mason. They all looked alike with their baseball hats or batting helmets pulled low over their faces, but Mason was a good friend of Josh and Jamie, our twins, and I was pretty sure I recognized the voice.

“Mason, I asked if you were ready before I threw it,” Michael said. “You said you were ready.”

“But I wasn't really ready,” Mason said. “Not
ready
ready. I was getting ready to be ready.”

“In the game, you have to be ready when the umpire says ‘Play ball,'” Michael said. “Are you ready now?”

Mason nodded.

“Ready ready?”

Mason nodded, and hunched his body fiercely as if to indicate his complete readiness to slam the ball.

Michael tossed another ball gently across the base. Mason swung mightily and caught the ball with the end of his bat, sending it gently dribbling into foul territory.

“Foul ball!” Michael called. “Better!”

“Good contact!” I shouted.

Several of the half-dozen fathers sitting with me on the bleachers glanced over in apparent surprise. Didn't they realize how important it was to encourage the kids when they achieved a breakthrough, like actually fouling the ball instead of striking out swinging or, worse, looking?

Evidently not. The cluster of fathers fixed their gaze back on the outfield, where Chuck Davis, the head coach, was drilling the rest of the team on throwing and catching. If I tried, I could probably have figured out which father belonged to which kid, by watching who winced when one of the kids missed a particularly easy catch. Or made a more-than-usually-bad throw.

I observed the action in the outfield for a few moments, noting that Josh and Jamie were definitely above average in the throwing and catching department. Not surprising, since Michael loved baseball and had been playing catch with the boys since they were two or three.

“Wish Waterston would go out there and work on their form,” one of the fathers muttered. “Let Davis handle the batting practice.”

“Davis can't get the damned ball across the plate,” another father muttered back.

“Well, yeah,” the first father said.

“Damn,” another father exclaimed, as Chuck himself missed a pretty easy catch. “Has that man ever played baseball?”

“I doubt it,” another said, shaking his head.

I was losing patience with this particular collection of fathers. This was the third time I'd been to practice, and every time the same bunch were sitting there, glowering at the field while Michael and Chuck wrangled the dozen unruly little Eagles. If they had time to sit there in the bleachers, kibbitzing, why not help out?

And speaking of helping out …

I glanced down at my list and dialed another number. After four rings I got an answering machine. I was getting a lot of those today. Had I picked a busy time to call? Or were all the mothers of our players using their caller ID to dodge me?

“Hi,” I said, after the beep. “This is Meg Langslow, the Team Mom for the Eagles. I'm still looking for some volunteers to help run the Snack Shack tomorrow on Opening Day. If you can help out, please let me know.” I added my cell number and my e-mail address and hung up.

I glanced over at the posse of fathers. All of them had already either given me an excuse why neither they nor their wives could do Snack Shack duty tomorrow or said that they'd have to talk to their wives before committing.

“I give up.” I shoved the list back into my purse and dialed one of my speed-dial numbers.

“Meg, dear,” Mother said. “How is the boys' practice going?”

“Practice is going fine,” I said. “My efforts to recruit volunteers, not so fine. I know we have at least a dozen family members coming to see tomorrow's first game. Do you think you could recruit a couple of them to help out in the Snack Shack?”

“Of course, dear,” Mother said. “Nine to eleven, right? Leave it to me.”

I hung up feeling very relieved, and pulled out the five-by-eight-inch three-ring binder that held my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I called my giant to-do list. I flipped to the task section and pondered for a moment, my pen hovering over the item “Recruit Snack Shack volunteers.” Technically, it was merely delegated, not done. But I'd delegated it to Mother. Her ability to draft people for volunteer work was legendary. And she'd be pulling from our family members, not the feckless parents of the boys' teammates. So I crossed the item out and added a new item for this evening: “Call Mother to see who she recruited for the Snack Shack.”

I snapped the notebook closed, shoved it into my purse, and looked back at the field, feeling significantly less stressed. I took a deep breath and reminded myself to appreciate the day. The sun was warm, the sky was blue and cloudless—perfect baseball weather.

“Damn.”

One of the fathers was standing up, staring at the outfield, fists clenched. Out in the field, Chuck appeared to be comforting a player who'd been hit in the eye with a ball. Michael was loping out to help.

“He should be fine,” one of the other fathers said. The standing father nodded slightly, but his face was tense.

“I'm sure he'll be fine,” I said. “At this age, none of the kids can throw that hard. But your son would probably feel better if you went out to be with him.”

“I can't,” the standing father said.

“I'm sure Chuck and Michael wouldn't mind,” I said. “For that matter, I doubt if they'd mind if any of you wanted to help out with practices. The kids have a lot to learn, and it's hard for two coaches to do it all.”

“We can't,” another father said. The others all shook their heads, and their faces wore looks of shock and horror.

“Especially not with him standing right there,” another added. He pointed to center field, where a pudgy man in a too-tight brown t-shirt, a blue windbreaker, and a Yankees baseball cap was leaning over the fence, watching the action on the field.

“Who's that?” I asked.

“Biff,” one said.

“Who's Biff?” I asked. Until lately, the only Biff I knew was a character in
Death of a Salesman
—Michael's Introduction to Acting students were always doing scenes from it.

“Biff Brown,” one of them said. “The head of the league.”

“And coach of one of the other coach-pitch teams,” another said. “The Caerphilly Stoats.”

“And he also coaches the Caerphilly Yankees at the majors level,” the first one said. “You know, the eleven- to twelve-year-olds.”

Out on the field, Michael had picked up the crying player and was carrying him in our direction. The kid's father began scrambling down from the bleachers.

“There's a Summerball rule that no one but official team staff can be on the field,” another father said.

“During games,” I said. The men began shaking their heads, which annoyed me, because I was pretty sure I was right. At Michael's request, I'd read the official Summerball Youth Baseball League rule book cover to cover, to make sure we weren't blindsided by any differences between that and the Little League rules he'd grown up with. In fact, I'd read the rules multiple times, along with the Little League rules and the official Major League Baseball rules—they'd been helping me cope with a bad stretch of insomnia.

“Local rule,” one of the fathers explained.

“No one mentioned that there were special local rules,” I said. “Where can I get a copy?”

“Oh, none of them are actually written down anywhere,” one of the fathers said. “Biff just sends them out whenever he decides he needs them.”

Michael had reached the gate that separated the field from the bleachers and was holding the injured player while his waiting dad examined the affected eye. I grabbed my tote bag and hurried to meet them.