The Mariners’ players took the field, leaving LC sitting on the bench with Mikey Thomas, who had played his mandatory two innings at second base, and Joey DiRusso, who would have been on first base had he not broken his elbow on the Tarzan swing. Boy, had Coach Kaplan turned red when he learned that news! “What were you doing on the Tarzan swing a week before the playoffs?” he had howled at poor Joey. Joey’s father had done little to protect his son from the coach’s outburst and, in watching that scene, perceptive LC got the feeling that the man considered Kaplan’s outrage a great compliment to his son’s baseball ability.
After all, Kaplan wouldn’t have yelled if he hadn’t cared, and he wouldn’t have cared, would even have been pleased, if Joey had not been an asset to the team.
LC had sighed then, and he sighed now, wishing that he could change places with Joey, wishing that it had been his father who had taken Kaplan’s outburst as a compliment.
And now Joey, wearing jeans and his Mariners shirt, got to watch the game from the bench, with no pressure. LC could see the combination of embarrassment and sheer frustration in the boy’s brown eyes. He wanted to tell Joey not to worry about it—he himself had long ago gotten over the embarrassment of sitting on the bench, but there was really very little that a sixty-five-pound fifth-grader could say to comfort a hundred-and-five-pound sixth-grader.
Very little.
So LC went back to watching the game, or to watching his feet, crossed at the ankles, as he swung them back and forth under the bench, just brushing the dusty dirt. He looked up in time to see the Panthers’ Ryan Braggio (boy, did the name fit!) strike out, and it wasn’t until the loudness of the cheers registered that he realized it was the third out of the inning. The Mariners had held, one, two, three, and LC’s trophy loomed a little bit closer.
Rusty’s home run, a hard ground ball that rocketed through the hole between first and second, then hopped the right fielder’s glove and rolled all the way to the rough at the base of the fence, put the Mariners up by two, had Coach Kaplan and Coach Tom hooting and backslapping, and had the parents in the stands on this side shouting with joy, while those fans across the way sat quietly, with only an occasional shout of encouragement for the despairing Panthers.
Momentum is a tentative thing in baseball, though, and it shifted dramatically when the next Mariners’ batter ripped a line drive that would likely have gone for at least a double, but for the marvelous diving grab by the Panthers’ shortstop.
Now the howls and cheers came from across the field.
“All right, keep up. Keep up!” Coach Kaplan implored his players even as the next batter took a called third strike.
“We need a hit now,” LC heard the oversize man whisper to Coach Tom. “We gotta get Matt up this inning.” Both men turned subtle glances LC’s way, and the boy understood what was happening. He hadn’t been in yet, and the rules said that he had to play in at least two innings, that he had to be on the field for at least six of the opposing team’s outs. And that meant he had to go into the game soon. He would go to right field, of course, replacing Matt Salvi, the on-deck hitter. Which meant that if Matt Leger didn’t get on base now, LC would have to lead off the sixth.
Matt Leger walked; Coach Kaplan breathed a sigh of relief. LC took the insult to heart. Why hadn’t the coach asked him to go in now, to bat for Matt Salvi? What difference did it make which of the two worst hitters on the team made the last out this inning? LC, too intelligent for his own good, understood the truth of it, and that hurt him even more. Kaplan hadn’t put him into the game because the coach simply hadn’t thought of it. The rules said that every player had to play for six of the opposing team’s outs. Period. And Kaplan would play by the letter of the rule, whatever the intention of the rule, to avoid a forfeit. Other than that, he never gave LC a moment’s consideration.
“Give it your best swing, Matt!” Coach Tom said as Salvi approached the plate. Kaplan snorted. He wasn’t expecting much, LC realized, and was probably glad when Matt Salvi struck out. Kaplan’s team was leading by two runs going into the bottom of the fifth, and they would have their leadoff hitter, who almost always got on base, starting the sixth.
Coach Kaplan didn’t even have to say it. He just looked at LC and nodded. They both knew where he was going.
LC heard Kaplan tell Rusty to “keep it in on the righties and out on the lefties.” It made sense; a right-handed batter would likely pull an inside pitch to left field, and a left-handed batter would have a hard time getting the bat around fast enough to hit an outside pitch into right field. Coach Kaplan was trying hard to keep the ball away from LC.
LC could accept that. He just wanted the trophy, the validation, and for this season to be over, to be the stuff of proud talk and not terrifying reality. He could live out the big play in his fantasies, could hit the last-inning homer, or make the game-saving catch doing a somersault over the outfield fence. He wanted that, like any kid would, but the greater probability of his making an error was simply too frightening.
“Keep it in on the righties, out on the lefties,” he mumbled under his breath as he crossed the infield stone dust to the thick grass of the outfield. “Or better still, Rusty, strike them all out.”