Extra Innings (7 page)

Tiki had no problem admitting he wasn't perfect. Still, it was hard to hear it from your coach. Worse, Coach Raines had asked to see them in front of everyone. If Tiki or Ronde came into practice tomorrow with a long face, everyone would know they'd been chewed out.

He couldn't get over it—in his whole athletic career, this was the first time he'd ever gotten a “talking to” by any coach. It still stung, but Tiki was a team player at heart, and he knew he needed to use criticism to improve, not to get more negative in his thinking.

Besides, he had to admit that what he'd been trying so far hadn't been working. In spite of all the homers
he'd hit in practice, he'd had only one that counted in a game. Aside from that he'd gotten only on base one other time.

“We need to take charge of this team winning,” he finally said out loud.

Ronde looked over at him. The two were riding side by side now, on the empty side streets of their neighborhood. “He tell you to just get on base too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We're gonna do it, right?”

“Uh-huh. I'm gonna make it my business to get on base every time.”

“Me too.”

“Gimme five!”

They reached out and slapped five, their bikes wobbling until they regained control. “Last one home's a rotten egg!” Ronde shouted, and they were off and riding, feeling better again.

Two days later the news
was all over the school. Jason Rossini had won the half mile race in the big track meet against archrival Pulaski and was in position to compete for the state title. Everyone was talking about the school's newest sports hero—Jason—and Ronde, while he was happy for his old friend, still felt a tug in his gut that it wasn't him or Tiki being celebrated.

The twins had gotten used to being sports heroes at Hidden Valley. At the end of June they would be gone. Would anyone even remember them next September?

Here came Jason down the hall, with his books under one arm and a gigantic trophy under the other. His grin stretched from ear to ear, and he laughed as one kid after another patted him on the back and congratulated him.

Ronde, too, joined the line of kids paying tribute. “Good going, dude,” he told Jason.

“Thanks,” Jason replied with a one-sided grin. “Bet you're sorry now you didn't sign up for track, huh?” It wasn't even really a question.

Ronde sighed. “You know, we're gonna be okay. I'll bet you right now we finish with a winning record.”

“Taken,” Jason agreed, shaking pinkies with Ronde to seal the bet. “Anyhow, who cares? What's a winning record mean—you don't even necessarily make the play-offs. Even if you did, what are your odds of ending up with one of these?” He held up his trophy for effect, but he needn't have bothered. Ronde knew exactly where he was coming from.

“Later, man,” he told Jason, and headed for practice with a big chip on his shoulder.

Ronde was as determined to lift his team to a winning season as he'd ever been about anything. Even if just to show Jason that it wasn't all about individual glory. Sometimes it was all about the team and your contribution to it. That was something Jason couldn't understand, and nothing Ronde could say to him was going to change that.

“Hey, it's still not too late!” Jason called after him. “You two could probably edge out some of our weaker sprinters!”

Ronde shook his head as he kept walking. He wasn't about to show up and take some kid's place who'd worked hard all year at improving. How would that kid feel,
getting shoved aside midseason for a pair of newbies? Besides, even if he and Tiki were faster than the kids they replaced, neither of them would have felt right about it.

Ronde suddenly realized that, just by thinking so hard about it, he was actually considering Jason's suggestion.
Well, that's okay
, he figured. It was okay to imagine every possibility that came along in life, so long as he stood by his basic principles in the end.

No, he would stay on the baseball team and make it work. He thought back to what Coach Raines had told him the other day. He'd told Ronde that he'd been helping the team in the field and on the bases but hurting them at the plate.

Coach had told him to be more selective about which pitches he swung at, especially with fewer than two strikes. “Go for pitches down in the zone,” he'd said, “so you can hit the ball on the ground. Even if an infielder gets to it, half the time you're going to beat it out for a hit. If you hit it in the air, even if you hit it as far as you can, it's not leaving the park, understand? Your odds of getting on base go way down.”

Coach had also told him to stop trying to pull everything. “Especially outside pitches, because if you try to pull them, you'll just roll over the ball and hit a dribbler. Better to swing less hard, go to the opposite field. You're much more likely to make solid contact that way.” Last but not least, Coach had told him to learn how to bunt.

• • •

At practice Ronde noticed that Coach Raines gave both him and Tiki extra swings in the batting cage. He saw that Tiki was practicing the same sorts of things the coach had prescribed for Ronde. Bunting, going the other way, hitting the ball on the ground, laying off bad pitches.

Ronde wondered where the home runs would come from. If Tiki wasn't hitting homers for them, who would?

But he'd been on enough teams to know that because coaches saw everything that was going on, they usually knew best.

Taking his turn in the cage, it felt strange to see the ball coming toward him and not trying to hit it as hard as he could. He found himself swinging late, or waving at pitches. The longer he hit, the more confused he got. Even bunting, he found himself stabbing at the ball instead of “catching it” with the bat.

As the twins rode home afterward, Ronde was even quieter than usual. All he could think about was Jason Rossini and what he'd said.

Maybe he was right
, Ronde thought.
Maybe I should quit this game and go out for track. . . .

Even though it was midseason, even though he'd be costing some other kid a spot, what was the use of staying on the baseball team and failing miserably game after game after game?

• • •

The East Side Mountaineers were 3–0 so far and were the Eagles' stiffest challenge yet. They had a pitcher who was six feet tall and threw the ball faster than anyone else in the league. Kids who had been on the team the year before said he was wild, too. You had to be ready to duck at any time.

Great,
thought Ronde.
Just what I need.

He watched as Tiki stepped up to the plate to start the game. Tiki watched one pitch go by for a strike.

Ronde hadn't even been able to see the ball! He wondered how Tiki, or any of them, were ever going to get on base against this pitcher.

But then Tiki found the answer. On the second pitch he squared to bunt, and laid a beauty down the third base line. He made it to first without even a throw! Ronde glanced over at Coach Raines, who was clapping hard and giving Tiki the thumbs-up sign.

With Lenny Klein at the plate, Tiki took off for second. The pitch was in the dirt, and when Tiki got up, he saw that the catcher hadn't caught up to the ball—so he took off for third!

The throw there was high, and the third baseman leapt to catch it but couldn't come down with the ball. By the time he retrieved it, Tiki was crossing home plate with the game's first run!

“That's how we do it!” Coach Raines hollered. “Attaboy, Tiki!”

The next three Eagles hitters went down without even making contact, but it didn't matter. For now they still had the lead—if only they could keep it.

Tiki fielded two sharp grounders for the first two outs of the next half inning. Then a screaming liner came Ronde's way. He reached for it, and the ball went off the end of his glove and landed a few feet away. He ran to get it and, seeing that the hitter was heading for second, threw a bullet to the bag that nailed the runner midslide!

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Coach Raines bellowed. “That's keeping your head in the game! Great play!” He was more excited than Ronde had ever seen him!

Ronde came to bat in the second inning with two men on and two down. He knew enough not to try to bunt with two outs, and a ground ball would mean a force at any base but home. So he knew the coach's advice didn't apply to this situation. He either had to walk and leave it up to Tiki, who was on deck, or somehow get a ball through the infield and drive in the runs himself.

The first pitch whizzed by his ear, and Ronde threw himself to the ground to avoid it. The second pitch froze him as it dropped over the plate—a changeup!

Wasn't this guy's fastball hard enough to hit? He had to have a changeup, too?

Ronde saw another changeup coming and lunged at it, but he was too quick and the ball plopped into the catcher's mitt for strike two.

Now he had to protect the plate, he knew. The fastball screamed toward his head, and he ducked again—but it wasn't a fastball after all. It was a curve, and it dropped across the plate while Ronde cowered with his hand across his face.

“Stee-rike three! Yer out!” the umpire called.

Ronde, more frustrated than ever, headed back to the bench and grabbed his mitt. Next time up, he swore to himself, he'd be ready to swing at any pitch that was close.

John Benson, the Eagles' pitcher, settled into a good groove and kept the Mountaineers scoreless for the next two innings. Meanwhile Tiki bunted his way on for a second straight time—and this time Ian Lloyd, the new cleanup man, hit a double to drive him in for the second Eagles run.

Ronde got another chance at the plate in the top of the fourth, with a man on third and two out. This time he swung blindly at two straight pitches, hitting nothing but air. On the third pitch he took a ball in the dirt. The man on third almost came home but thought better of it, and a good thing too. The catcher retrieved the ball and would have had him dead to rights.

The next pitch looked inviting to Ronde, and he swung at it, trying only to make contact. But he'd misread the pitch. It was a changeup not a fastball, and Ronde was way ahead of it.

“Stee-rike three!” the ump yelled, and once again Ronde went back to the bench, defeated. “I stink at this game!” he muttered to himself as he grabbed his mitt.

In the bottom of the fourth, East Side came back to score two runs and tie it up. But in the fifth, Tiki got an infield hit leading off. He stole second, and came home with two outs on an error by the Mountaineers' first baseman, as the Eagles regained the lead, 3–2.

The score stayed that way until the top of the sixth, when Ronde came to the plate with two out and a man on third. After swinging and missing twice, he was so frustrated that he nearly threw his bat at the backstop fence. Luckily, he stopped himself, or he might have been thrown out of the game!

As he tried to get ahold of his emotions, a wild idea came into his head. If he couldn't hit a lick right-handed, he might as well give it a go
from the left side
!

As he crossed into the other batter's box, a chorus of shocked comments serenaded him from the Eagles' bench.

“What are you doing?”

“Ronde, no!”

“Are you nuts?”

“Hey, quit fooling around!”

Ronde was in a world of his own. He stared out at the pitcher, who wore a look of utter shock on his face. Standing in the left-handed batter's box, Ronde tapped the plate with his bat and waited.

The pitch came in—a searing fastball. And Ronde, who had no experience batting lefty—
ever
—simply reached out and let the bat touch the ball. It skittered down the third base line, staying just fair.

Ronde shot out of the box like a rocket, streaking toward first. The crowd was roaring, but Ronde saw nothing but the bag ahead of him. He crossed it just ahead of the throw, and kept on running down the baseline, clapping his hands because he knew the run had scored from third.

Tiki followed with a ground ball out, but the damage was done. “Man, what did you think you were doing?” he asked Ronde as they both ran to the bench to get their gloves.

“I have no clue,” Ronde admitted with a laugh. “But I'm gonna try it again next time!”

In the bottom of the sixth, the Mountaineers came back against Ian Lloyd, the Eagles' relief pitcher, tying the game on three straight hits. The Eagles did not score in the seventh, and neither did East Side, so the game then went into extra innings.

And it kept on going. For two more straight innings nobody scored. But both relief pitchers were getting tired. In the top of the tenth, John Benson led off by grounding to short for the first out. Then Ronde came to the plate. Hitting lefty, he swung at the first pitch—and to everyone's amazement, including his own, he hit it sharply down the third base line for a double!

Now up came Tiki, Ronde took a big lead and gave Tiki a little nod as a signal that he was going.

On the first pitch Ronde took off for third. The throw came in a second too late—and now the Eagles were only ninety feet away from grabbing the lead.

Ronde glanced at the third base coach for the sign, and saw him touch his left ear, the sign for a safety squeeze play!

Ronde got ready. He knew Tiki would try to bunt the ball. Ronde's job was to take off for home on contact. He crossed his fingers, hoping that Tiki would indeed make contact. If not, there would be two strikes on him, and Coach would have to take off the squeeze.

Tiki's bat met the ball, and the ball dribbled right in front of the plate. The catcher got after it quickly and swung around to tag Ronde—but Ronde was too fast for him! He slid under the tag and his foot touched home!

Now it was 5–4, Eagles. But they still had three outs to get to nail down the victory. And both their pitchers were spent. Ronde saw Coach Raines tap Tiki on the shoulder. “You're on the mound,” he said. “Let's go.”