Thumb on a Diamond (8 page)

“You scared the batter. That's good,” I said.

I smiled and walked back to first base, putting my hands on my knees again.

Susan threw another curving pitch that quickly veered toward the batter. He ducked.

“Strike one!” yelled the umpire.

Susan looked back at me and wiggled her eyebrows.

She struck out the first three batters, and our team ran excitedly to the bench, hugging each other like we'd won the game.

“They didn't score one run,” said Robbie.

“They didn't even get a hit,” said Big Bette, grabbing a bat and a helmet and heading to the batter's box.

The Vancouver pitcher walked her, of course.

Dad came and sat beside me.

“Watch this,” he said. “She's going to steal second base on the second pitch.”

“But she's not that fast,” I said.

“She doesn't have to be,” said Dad. “Surprise. That's what we're after.”

Nick took the first pitch, a strike.

The Vancouver pitcher reared back and threw his second pitch. Big Bette ran toward second base. She galloped on all fours, like she did when she was pretending to be a horse.

The catcher caught the ball and just stood, watching. Everyone did. The stands were quiet.

The umpire stood watching, too. Big Bette stood on second base and brushed off her hands.

“Safe!” yelled the umpire.

Nick struck out and so did Little Liam.

I was the next batter and I got a hit. I'd love to say that there was some skill involved but the truth is that I closed my eyes when I swung the bat and was surprised when the bat sort of shuddered in my hands and made a noise that was the most wonderful sound I had ever heard.

I opened my eyes, wondering if the ball had gone fair or foul.

“Run,” yelled everyone on my team, so I did. And so did Big Bette. She ran to third like a normal person and then ran home on all fours. She was safe. We had scored our first run, and we were leading.

Robbie struck out. The bat never left his shoulder. Robbie said that he was afraid of swinging, afraid that he'd look silly, even though he didn't know anybody in Vancouver and knew that we wouldn't laugh at him. The inning was over. We were ahead, 1 to 0.

Susan stood on the pitcher's mound and faced the best hitter on the Vancouver team. Jack Sachmo had announced to anyone within hearing that he intended to be a big league baseball player. He was already deciding what products he wanted to endorse. Jack watched Susan throw two pitches, both strikes, without swinging his bat. He watched the way the pitch left her arm and the way it curved and where it passed over the plate.

He hit the third pitch so far that it may still be up in the sky. Jack rounded the bases and ran back to the Vancouver dugout. The game was tied.

Jack started talking to his teammates, pointing to Susan and to home plate. We knew what he was doing. Jack had figured out that all of Susan's pitches followed the same pattern. If the Vancouver batters knew the pattern, they could hit her pitch every time. I jogged over to the pitcher's mound and so did Dad.

“Good pitchers have more than one pitch,” said Dad.

“Well, I don't,” said Susan.

“Do your best,” said Dad and he trotted back to our dugout. The rest of us ran back to our positions, more attentive now. We knew balls would be hit to us. And they were. By the time we got the Vancouver team out, they were leading 5 to 1.

We didn't score any runs during our turn to bat.

“Well,” said Susan gloomily as another batter struck out. “We're not going to lose by the mercy rule. We have to play the whole seven innings.”

“That means we're playing better than we were yesterday,” I said.

“It won't look that way on paper,” said Susan. “The Vancouver players have figured out my pitch and they'll figure out that you're throwing pretty much the same way. They'll score so many runs that we'll wish the game could have stopped after two innings.”

“Actually,” I said softly, “maybe Dad is wrong. Maybe you don't need more than one pitch.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if you throw the same pitch but throw it in different places?”

“I don't get it.”

“What if you don't always try to throw strikes? The batters know where to swing. What if some of your pitches miss the plate on purpose? What if the ball is lower or higher or so close to them that they have to think about ducking? They think you only throw strikes, so they're swinging at everything.”

Susan looked at me and grinned.

Susan struck out all three Vancouver batters. When it was our turn to bat Nick hit a home run. The score was 5 to 2.

The Vancouver team did get three hits off Susan in the fourth inning but we stopped them from scoring. We didn't score any runs when it was our turn to bat.

“Fifth inning,” said Dad. “By the rules, we have to change pitchers. That means you, Thumb.”

A new pitcher gets eight warm-up pitches. I didn't throw any sidearm, rock-skipping pitches during my warm-up. All eight times I tried to throw like a normal pitcher, with a leg lift and a weight shift and an overhead, almost straight-arm toss of the baseball. None of my warm-up pitches were very good and I could see the Vancouver batters smile at each other. They figured they'd faced our one good pitcher and now they got to hit and hit and hit.

I pitch left-handed while Susan pitches right-handed. My curving, twisting, rock-skipping sidearm pitch seemed to come straight toward a right-handed batter and then to curve away at the last moment.

I struck out the first two batters I faced.

Then Jack Sachmo stepped up to the plate. He'd been watching, and he was ready, except I didn't throw him the same pitch. I didn't use the seams to make the ball spin. I just threw it sidearm so that it looked the same as all of my other pitches, but it didn't curve at all. It went straight, not even close to home plate. It wasn't a fast pitch, and Jack might have hit it if it had curved. Instead, he swung through the place he expected the ball to be and missed.

“Strike one,” yelled the umpire.

I threw my curve next but threw it low, so that it was barely above Jack's shins when it passed home plate. He swung and missed again.

“Strike two,” yelled the umpire.

I didn't even try to throw a strike with my third pitch. I threw a curve that would cross inside the plate, close to Jack. He ducked.

“Ball one,” said the umpire, holding up his fingers.

I struck Jack out with a regular curve, and he didn't even swing.

It was our turn to bat.

We scored a run, too. Little Liam hit a ball so far that I think he rounded the bases before it landed. The score was 5 to 3. Two more innings to play.

I struck out two batters and Big Bette actually caught a fly ball. Vancouver didn't score any runs.

We did. Big Bette walked. The pitcher was so worried that Big Bette might drop to all four legs and start running that he tossed a slow pitch to Nick who hit it solidly and managed a double. Big Bette had to stop at third base. Little Liam got a hit and Big Bette ran home. Nick ran to third. We were only one run behind.

I struck out.

Robbie came up to bat.

“Easy out,” shouted the Vancouver first baseman. Several Vancouver players picked up the chant. Robbie stepped out of the batter's box. Dad walked over and whispered something to him. Robbie nodded and stepped back into the batter's box, tapping his bat several times against the plate, hard.

The Vancouver pitcher almost lobbed the ball to Robbie, daring him to swing. Robbie leaned back on his right leg and swung the bat as he shifted his weight forward.

He hit the ball hard. It would not have been a home run if Little Liam or Nick had been at bat, since the fielders would have been playing deep. But every Vancouver outfielder was playing close, figuring that if Robbie did hit the ball then he wouldn't hit it very far.

They were wrong. The ball flew over the center fielder's head. Nick scored and so did Little Liam and Robbie. We all leaped off the bench and hugged Robbie as he crossed home plate, laughing.

“What did my dad say to you?” I asked him.

“He told me that I spent about a month every fall chopping firewood with an ax about the same size as a baseball bat, and that I could swing an ax as well as anybody. He said that I should just pretend that I was swinging an ax, but level, like when I chop down a tree. He's right. It's the same motion.”

We didn't score any more runs. One inning left to play, and we were leading by two. If we could get three Vancouver batters out before they could tie the game or take the lead, we'd win.

Dad handed me the ball as I slipped on my mitt.

Susan walked out to the pitcher's mound beside me.

“If we win then we have to play another game,” said Susan, reminding me.

“So?” I said. “Do you want me to throw soft pitches?”

“No. But I don't want to play again, either. Even if we lose we can go home proud. I just worry what might happen if we play another game.”

“If we lose, we lose, Susan. But we can win. Can you imagine? We can win. Sometimes, Susan, you think too much. Let's just enjoy what's happening right now.”

I checked my players and threw to the first batter, striking him out on four pitches. I looked over at the bleachers. Mr. Darling, the coach of the Kamloops team, stood up and clapped so that I'd see him. I tipped the brim of my hat, like I'd seen heroes do in western movies.

I threw a sidearm pitch to the next Vancouver batter, who got a hit and managed to make it to second base when Nick held the ball too long, not quite sure where to throw it.

The next batter struck out, but the Vancouver runner managed to steal third base.

I walked the next batter, and then Jack Sachmo came up to bat. If Jack got a hit, any kind of a hit, then two runners would score and Vancouver would tie the game. If he got a home run, Vancouver would win.

Jack watched the first pitch, a strike. I threw a ball that looked almost the same but was lower. Jack watched it and the umpire called out, “Ball one!”

Jack hit my third pitch, a soft, short hopper right to me. He ran toward first base. One Vancouver runner raced for home and the other ran toward third, ready to keep running. I caught the ball and turned toward Susan. I sidearm-tossed her the baseball. I knew when I threw it that the toss was fast enough and accurate enough to reach first base well before Jack. I knew that if Susan caught the ball then the game was over and we had won. I knew that nobody would blame Susan if she dropped the ball since we all dropped a lot of balls and none of us had ever tried to catch a ball with so much cheering and noise and pressure.

It seemed like the ball and Jack were both moving in slow motion. Susan reached out with her glove, staring at the ball as it came closer and closer. The ball hit her glove, and she squeezed tightly. She glanced down to make sure her foot was touching first base just as Jack ran past her.

“You're out!” yelled the first base umpire.

The New Auckland Beavers had defeated the Vancouver champs.

I jumped up and down and, with the rest of the team, I ran over to first base and hugged Susan.

“You caught it,” I whispered in her ear.

“Yeah,” she said. “We won, Thumb. We won.”

11
HOME

WE FORFEITED OUR LAST GAME.
I sat on the bed in Dad's room while he called the tournament organizers. He winked at me as he told them that three of our players had the flu.

It was the first time I'd ever heard Dad tell a lie.

“You told a lie,” I said, surprised.

“Just a little one.”

“It was still a lie.”

“It was a noble lie, like when you tell a proud mother that her ugly baby is beautiful. Mind you, if I ever catch you lying, I'll wash your mouth out with soap,” Dad said, laughing. “Now let's go downstairs and join our team.”

We didn't have to catch the tugboat heading north until late in the afternoon. Dad asked us what we wanted to do. I was tempted to say that I wanted to stay in the hotel room and watch television.

“I was going to ask if I could go to the miniatures store,” said Robbie, “but I'd rather do something with the whole team. Can we go to a movie? One in a theater with a huge screen and a good sound system.”

“Yeah,” said the rest of the team members.

“But don't you want to do something outside?” asked Dad.

“We've seen big tall buildings and lots of cars and roads and trains and things,” said Robbie. “Can we just go to a movie? Please? We've never seen a movie on a big screen.”

So we did. We went to see
The Knights of the Tower
. It was the most amazing thing I have ever watched in my life. I sat still for three hours as heroes and villains and battles and wars and dangers took place on a screen that was so big and bright and loud and alive that I knew that some day I would live in a city again.