Extra Innings (2 page)

“Jase, it's not about the glory,” Ronde said, shaking his head.

“Oh, no? Really? It's not?” Jason shot back. “Who are you kidding, dude?”

“No, you're the one who doesn't get it. It's about the
team
!” Tiki said. “Working together, standing or falling together!”

“He's right,” Ronde agreed.

“Whatever. Forget I even said anything,” Jason said, waving off the whole conversation. “Let me tell you, though, I was fourth in the state last year in the half mile, and I'm going to do even better this year. Maybe you don't think much of that, but I feel really good about it. And there'll be no teammates to screw me up with their mistakes. Just me against everyone else, plain and simple. It could be you guys too. You'd kill in the sprints, like I said.”

Tiki was about to respond when Jason put a hand up to stop him. “I know. I know what you're going to say. Don't even bother; I get it. But if by some chance either of you doesn't make the baseball team—or if you do make it and live to regret it—remember there's always a spot for you on the track team. In fact, Coach Arkin said last year, ‘Those Barber kids could run the hundred for me tomorrow.' ”

Tiki squinted. “He actually said that?”

“Well . . . something like that. Something good about the two of you. I forget the exact words. Anyway, here we are.”

The bus pulled to a stop in front of the school, and they all filed out. “Later,” Jason said, waving good-bye and going up the steps to the front door of the building.

Tiki and Ronde watched him go. “Man,” said Ronde. “He is a piece of work, isn't he?”

Tiki laughed. “Yeah. You've gotta say, though—he did do what he said he was going to do. He became a track star.”

“Yeah. . . . Well, you ready?”

As they hitched up their book bags and headed for the door, Tiki kept hearing Jason's words in his head. That small, nagging seed of doubt kept growing inside him all day during his classes. Again and again he wondered if he and Ronde were doing the right thing by trying out for baseball.

“Mr. Barber? Are you with us?
Or perhaps you're meditating on the fate of the universe?”

Ronde snapped to. “Uh, no, ma'am,” he said, feeling the blood rush to his face as his classmates laughed at Mrs. Green's little joke at his expense. “I was just . . . um . . .”

“Yes, um indeed,” said Mrs. Green with a smirk. “Would you like me to repeat the question?”

“Uh, yes, ma'am,” Ronde said, which made everyone laugh again.

“Very well. The question was, who was the greatest philosopher of Athens during its golden age?”

History was usually one of Ronde's favorite subjects—even with Mrs. Green teaching it—but today his mind was on baseball tryouts, not ancient Greece. It was eighth period. In another five . . . no, four minutes the bell
would ring, and Ronde would be on his way out to the field, where he always felt at home and fully alive. In the classroom it wasn't always that way—particularly if his mind was otherwise engaged.

“Um, Socrates?”

“That's right!” Mrs. Green said, surprised. She clapped for Ronde, which prompted everyone else in class to do the same.

Ronde heaved a huge sigh of relief when she went on to the next question and called upon the next innocent victim to answer. With some teachers nothing was ever fun.
Why was that?
he wondered.

The bell rang, mercifully, and Ronde felt his heart pounding with anxiety as he made his way downstairs and out the back doors to the playing fields behind the school. Several kids were already out there, throwing baseballs around or swinging bats to get warmed up. A lot of them looked really good—strong arms, soft hands with the glove, easy pivots at second base. . . . He nodded to himself, thinking that his competition looked pretty tough.

Ronde was surprised to find himself so nervous. He wondered if Tiki was feeling the same way, but he guessed that Tiki was—since the twins so often shared the same outlook about things. Looking around for him, he saw Tiki coming out the double steel doors, his glove already on his hand.

“Yo, yo!” he called out to Ronde.

Ronde waved, and tossed his book bag onto one of the bleachers. After fishing out his glove, he ran out onto the field, just in time to catch Tiki's toss. Soon the two brothers were warming each other up, playing catch, increasing the distance between them every few throws, waiting for things to begin.

After a few minutes they heard a shrill whistle. Ronde stopped midtoss and turned to see Coach Elliott Raines, his fingers in his mouth (that's what had made that earsplitting sound!), an Eagles baseball cap on his head. Coach Raines also taught phys ed, and Ronde'd had him back in eighth grade. He was a tough, demanding teacher who was sure to be the same way as a coach.

“Okay!” Raines began, clapping his hands. “Everybody gather round!”

When all the kids were assembled—around fifty of them, it seemed to Ronde—the coach began his welcome speech. “Glad to see so many new faces this year. Of course, we've got about half of last year's guys coming back, so there are only a few slots available except for reserves. If you don't make the team, it doesn't mean you stink, okay? So don't let it get you down. It's just the reality of the situation.

Ronde looked over at Tiki, who returned his gaze with a worried look of his own.

“To start with,” Raines went on, “I'm going to split
you kids into two groups. So start counting off!”

Ronde was number five, and Tiki number six. Ronde knew what that meant. When they separated odds and evens, he and Tiki would not be in the same group.

Sure enough, Ronde and the “odds” went out into the field to do drills with Mr. Barrett, the school guidance counselor and assistant coach, while Tiki followed Coach Raines as he led the “evens” to the batting cages for hitting tryouts.

If Ronde had felt nervous before, he was even more anxious without Tiki by his side.
This is crazy!
he told himself, trying to breathe deeply and slow his pounding heart.
I'm a good athlete. So is Tiki. We're gonna be okay. We're gonna make this team.

A little voice in his head reminded him,
Not if you mess up.

First Coach Barrett paired them off and watched them play long-toss. Ronde had a strong arm and could throw the ball a long way, but he had trouble controlling his throws. They went wild as often as not, out of reach of the kid who was supposed to catch them.

Not a good beginning,
Ronde realized with a growing sense of dread.

Luckily, he did much better when it came to taking grounders, line drives, and pop-ups. Coach Barrett would hit the balls, fungo-style, to the two or three kids gathered at each position in the field. Each kid would
take a turn fielding the ball, then give over to the next. After five or six rotations Coach Barrett switched the infielders with the outfielders.

Ronde aced these drills, even making one diving catch of a line drive that had the other kids saying, “Whoa!”

Next it was time for baserunning. Each kid did a circuit around the bases while Coach Barrett timed them with a stopwatch and wrote down their times in a ledger attached to a clipboard. Ronde clocked the fastest time in his whole group.

Still, they hadn't hit yet, and that was half the tryout. But before that happened, the hitting group came back from the cages. Now, with Coach Barrett pitching batting practice, Tiki's group got a chance to hit to Ronde's group as they took turns at their positions.

Ronde was anxious to see how his brother did at the plate, but in their bulky Eagle batting helmets, he couldn't tell one kid from the other.

That was probably because he was way out in center field, far, far away from the plate. Why had the coach stuck him way out here, along with a couple other kids who didn't look like they would make this team or any other? He sure hoped it didn't mean that the coaches were going to make him play the outfield—not before he had a chance to show them what he could do at short or second, or even on the mound!

Just as he was getting lost in these thoughts, the kid at
the plate launched a long, screaming fly ball in Ronde's general direction. Awakened by the crack of the bat, Ronde misjudged the ball at first, taking a step in before realizing it was going to be over his head. After reversing direction, he sped back toward the fence. Taking his eye off the ball just long enough to see where the fence was, he headed straight for the spot where he thought the ball would land.

It was almost out of his reach. But with one last lunge Ronde launched himself into the air, and felt his mitt touch the ball. With a quick flip of his mitt in midair, he shifted the ball from the edge of the glove into the pocket, where he squeezed it tight just an instant before he crashed to the ground.

Pain shot through his ribs and hip, but he held on to the ball, got up in one fluid motion, and fired it back to the infield, while everyone watching applauded and whooped in tribute to a truly great catch.

Ronde couldn't help smiling as the kid at the plate smacked his bat on home plate in frustration.

Then, on the very next pitch, the same batter cracked a line drive to Ronde's left. Ronde ran it down and snared it, ending his dive with a long slide across the slippery outfield grass.

As he held his glove up to show the ball, the batter slammed his bat on home plate again. Ronde could hear the boy's cry of frustration, but the kid, to his credit,
didn't let it beat him. He smacked the next three pitches so far, even Ronde couldn't catch up to them!

As the other kids applauded, the kid at the plate took off his helmet and tossed it to the side. That's when Ronde realized exactly who had hit all those monster shots.

It was Tiki!

Dang!
Tiki said to himself
as he high-fived the kids waiting for their turn at the plate.
Why didn't I think of playing baseball way back in seventh grade? I really like this!

Truth was, he hadn't been expecting this level of instant success. But it had all been so easy. Somehow the baseballs the coach had thrown at him had seemed as big as grapefruits. He'd put everything he had into each swing, and hit the ball on the nose every time.

Tiki felt so good about his tryout so far, he wasn't even mad at Ronde for snaring two of his best shots. He was happy for his twin, who looked every bit like a starting center fielder out there.

Tiki was still half on a cloud when the two groups finally switched. It was time for his bunch to take the field.

He did fine on drills, showing good reaction time and soft hands on grounders in the infield, although some of the pop-ups did give him trouble. They were way up there, higher than any of the kids around Amherst Street had ever hit them. As he shielded his eyes from the bright sun, the first one hit the heel of his glove and bounced away. He had to duck out of the way of the second, just before it would have hit him in the noggin.

Whoa,
he thought.
Getting hit with a baseball is much worse than a football!

The near miss made Tiki a little gun-shy, which made tracking flies in the outfield even harder. The balls hit right at him confused him most—it was hard to tell at first if they were going to be long blasts or shallow pop-ups. This brief indecision made him break late, and miss one over his head, then another in front of him. Then he threw one in wildly on a deep fly, and missed the cutoff man he was supposed to throw it to.

And just like that, there went his good mood, and his high opinion of his own baseball skills.

Still, once they'd run the bases, he felt much better. Tiki posted the fastest time in his group, drawing oohs and aahs from the other kids, and meaningful, wide-eyed looks between the coaches.

Next it was time for Ronde's group to hit. Tiki watched for his twin and spotted him putting on his helmet. Stationed at second base, Tiki got down into his crouch.
“Come on, Bro,” he said under his breath. “Hit it right here. Riiiight here,” he repeated, smacking the pocket of his glove with his fist.

But Ronde didn't hit it to him. He didn't hit it much of anywhere. Although he was swinging for the fences, the farthest he got it was just past the mound. When his turn was done, Ronde took off his helmet and threw it to the ground.

“Hey! Hey! Respect for the equipment!” Tiki heard one of the coaches say. Ronde kicked the dirt on his way back to the bench.

Hmm,
thought Tiki. It looked like he wasn't the only one named Barber having trouble at this tryout.

• • •

On their way home, taking the late bus, the twins had time to go over how things had gone for them. “I stunk up the joint,” Ronde said.

“No, you did not! You made those great catches on me! Man, those would have been inside-the-park home runs!”

That got a smile out of Ronde. “Yeah, I kind of robbed you, didn't I?”

“No duh!
I
was the one who messed everything up.”

“You? You hit it better than anybody, in your group or mine!”

And that made
Tiki
smile. “I did, didn't I? You know, I never felt that good at the plate before. . . . Course, it
was only batting practice. He was throwing it so we could hit it.”

“Dude, nobody else was creaming it like that. Batting practice or not, that was impressive.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Tiki had to agree. He settled back into his seat and thought about it for a moment. “So, you think we made the team?”

“I hope so,” Ronde said. “I
think
so, but . . .”

“I know. You never know, right?”

“Right.”

“I mean, we weren't perfect, but neither was anybody else, right?”