Matt hustled upstairs to his room to put away his gear and get cleaned up. It was nice to go to the lake but he always enjoyed taking a long, hot shower when he got back.
As he washed his hair, Matt wondered how he should handle the situation with Jake. Would his friend think he was a baby because he hadn't tried the joint? Matt didn't think Jake would be like that, but he wasn't absolutely sure.
Then a thought came to him. Mark was here. It was perfect. He'd probably know how to handle this.
Matt, Mark and Mom spent the day catching up, snacking on crackers, chips, cheese, cold meats and vegetables that she had laid out on the dining room table and playing a lengthy game of Monopoly which, as usual, Mark won. Just before dinnertime, Matt asked Mark if he wanted to go for a walk.
“Sure, Mats,” his brother replied. “Let's go check out Anderson Park. I haven't been down there forever.”
Matt grabbed his outdoor basketball. “Let's play some ones,” he said. “Maybe I'll beat you this time.”
“Doubt it,” Mark said as the two headed out the door.
It was just a few blocks to Anderson, the park where Matt played most of his outdoor hoops. It was late Sunday afternoon and the court was empty. So he and Mark began a loose game of one-on-one. It wasn't a fair matchup, since Mark was much taller, stronger and older, but the gap between the brothers was closing slowly. Mark sunk a fifteen-foot jumper to end the game, but his winning margin of 11-8 was the closest yet.
“Man, you're getting betterâand bigger,” Mark said. “Not bad for a seventh-grader.”
“Not bad yourself, for an old geezer,” Matt laughed.
Now seemed like the perfect time to bring up the situation with Jake. So he just blurted it out. “Hey, Mark, can I ask you something, you know, privately? I don't want Mom to know about this.”
“Sure. What's up?”
Matt proceeded to tell his brother all about the previous night, about how Vance had pulled out the joint and about how Jake had smoked it too. He told Mark that he had felt pretty weird and had basically ducked out by saying he had to go to the bathroom.
“What would you have done?” he asked his older brother.
“That's a tough one,” Mark admitted. “I probably would have done the same thing you did. You shouldn't get pressured into trying anything you don't want to do. And you're only in the seventh grade. When I was your age, I'd never even heard of a joint.”
“I think you were right to stay away from it,” Mark continued. “If Jake tried it, that's on him. You have to make up your own mind. Don't let anybody push you into anything.”
“But I felt like such a loser,” Matt said. “Those other guys probably thought I was a baby.”
“Let them think what they want,” Mark replied. “You're the one who's got to live with whatever you do or don't do.”
The advice made sense to Matt and it made him feel better too. As he and Mark walked down Anderson Crescent on their way to a delicious Sunday roast beef dinner with Mom, Matt found himself feeling quite a bit better about how the weekend had gone.
Matt Hill felt excited and nervous on his way to school Monday morning. The thoughts of the lake and what had happened with Jake and his cousins had faded to the background. In the forefront was today's game against the North Vale Nuggetsâthe first game of the season and the first of his entire middle school baseball career.
In his black equipment bag was his South Side uniformâwhite button-up baseball jersey with maroon letters spelling out
STINGERS
across the chest, white pants and maroon- and white-striped socks. Matt was also carrying his black three-quarter-cut Easton cleats, his nicely worn-in brown leather Rawlings mitt and his black batting glove.
Matt could see Jake and Phil waiting for him as he approached the big oak at Anderson and Seventh. It was a beautiful, crisp spring morning, an absolutely perfect day for baseball. The three friends walked the rest of the way to South Side together, just as they had almost every day of their first year at the middle school and for several years at Glenview Elementary before that.
At this time of year, it was difficult to concentrate on school. The weather was so nice, all most of the kids could think about was summer and vacation. And Matt was pretty sure most teachers at South Side felt the same way.
That Monday at school dragged a little more than usual for Matt. It seemed that was always the case when he had a big game to look forward to. And this afternoon, his debut as a Stingers varsity baseball team member, was a very big game for sure.
When the 3:35 bell finally rang, Matt eagerly scooped up his backpack and headed for the South Side locker room, which was in one corner of the gymnasium. It was the same locker room that he had used with the Stingers basketball team earlier that school year but now it felt and sounded much different. The squeak of sneakers and the bouncing of balls had been replaced by the sounds of cleats clattering across the tiled floor and aluminum bats clanking in the equipment bags being hauled by Charlie, the Stingers' manager.
Although he had tried on his South Side baseball uniform when he first received it, Matt was excited pulling on his gear for an actual game. He tucked in his jersey and pulled up his baseball socks. He carefully took his maroon South Side ball cap, with the stylized
S
on the front and adjusted it on his head so that it fit just so.
The Stingers were home to North Vale for this game, so they took infield practice first. Matt and an eighth-grader named Kevin Archibald alternated at second base for the warm-up, each fielding sharply hit grounders from Coach Stephens and delivering them on a straight line to Dave Tanner, the Stingers' towering ninth-grade first baseman.
“Take two,” Coach Stephens yelled, hitting the ball toward Jake at shortstop.
Jake expertly fielded the grounder, pivoted and flipped the ball to Matt, who was covering second. Matt stepped and threw to first for the double play. It felt good to play with such precision, even if it was just warm-ups.
“Okay, guys, bring it in,” Coach Stephens said, calling his team to the dugout. Matt noticed the white lineup board hanging on the wire fence that separated the dugout from the playing field. Written in large capital letters were the starters for South Side. Phil's name was written in at catcher. Jake was the starting shortstop. Matt looked at second, but he already knew what the board would say. Kevin Archibald's name was penciled in at that position rather than his own.
It was disappointing. Matt had started for the varsity basketball team for most of his seventh-grade season, and the Stingers had won the city championship. Now he was merely a bench player. But at the same time, he couldn't blame the coach. Archibald was a pretty decent second baseman and when it came time to bat he wasn't afraid of the ball.
“Okay, everybody knows where they're playing,” Coach Stephens barked from the top of the dugout stairs. “I know this is our first game, but I want us to get it right from the start this season. I want to see hustle on and off the field. Run to and from your positions. Pick up the bats and help Charlie out with the equipment. Let's play heads-up baseball when we're on the field and let's get behind our teammates when we're not. Okay?”
Heads nodded all around. The coach moved down into the dugout. He stuck his right hand out in front of his players and they placed theirs on top. “One, two, three! Stingers!” they chanted.
The South Side starters trotted out to the field. Matt watched from his seat in the dugout.
“Hill!” Matt was snapped out of his thoughts by Coach Stephens. “Take this. I want you to score for us when you're not out there. They'll be keeping an official score sheet upstairs, but I want you to keep one for the team. It'll help Charlie put the stats together later.”
Matt nodded. But he didn't feel good about this. He hadn't practiced hard every day for the last month to be the stats boy. This is what happens, he thought to himself, when you are scared of the ball.
The self-pity faded as the game began, though. Steve White was on the mound for the Stingers and he had good stuff. He retired the first three North Vale batters without any of them touching the ball. Three strikeouts. White had only thrown two balls.
The South Side players trotted off the field in high spirits. The chatter began in the dugout as Phil started to remove his catching equipment, and Howard Berger, the third baseman with the wide sloping shoulders and close-cropped, flaming red hair, made his way up to the plate.
It wouldn't be easy for South Side to hit in this game, either, as it turned out. Throwing for North Vale was Kenny Lemay, a raw-boned eighth-grader who had starred for the Nuggets in basketball that winter. Lemay wasn't quite as fast as White, the South Side starter, but he had better control. As Coach liked to say, he could “paint the corners.”
Howard found that out the hard way, going down swinging in just four Lemay pitches. Next up was Phil, who worked the count to three-and-two but then watched as Lemay found the outside corner for a third strike.
That brought up Jake, with two out and nobody on. Everybody in the South Side dugout leaned forward in anticipation. Matt watched intently with his fingers hooking through the mesh of the dugout fence.
Lemay knew that Jake was the best hitter on the South Side team. They had faced each other several times in Little League games over the years. The North Vale pitcher bore down, and Jake stood in the box, ready for the challenge.
The first pitch was a fastball, slightly inside and high. Jake fouled it off into the left-field stands. Lemay then missed with two balls before coming back with a strike that caught the outside corner.
With the count two-and-two, Lemay opted for the fastball. Jake was ready with a powerful swing. With a loud crack, the line drive shot toward third. But North Vale's third baseman leapt and snagged it in the air. Jake's first at-bat was over and he was out.
Although the Stingers all knew Jake had been unlucky not to hit safely, that at-bat seemed to set the tone for most of the game. Both White and Lemay settled into grooves on the mound and neither let a base runner get past second.
Going into the seventh and final inning, the game was still scoreless. Matt hadn't gotten off the bench, except to keep the score sheet. And nobody else on the South Side squad was exactly tearing it up. Jake had touched Lemay for a pair of singles, but not one other Stinger had hit safely.
“Hill, you're going to second,” Coach Stephens said as his team headed out to the field for the top of the last inning. “Take Archibald's place.”
Matt grabbed his glove and trotted out to the infield. First baseman Dave Tanner tossed some grounders to him so he could warm up. He fielded them cleanly but still felt nervous as the first North Vale batter came to the plate.
White was still pitching well. He had given up four hits, but hadn't run into any serious trouble during the game. The way the ball zipped into Phil's catching mitt, Matt could tell he was throwing hard despite the fact it was the top of the seventh.
The first North Vale batter got caught looking at a third strike. But the Stingers' ace walked the next man up, leaving a runner on first with ninth-grade standout John Trimble coming to the plate.
Matt remembered Trimble well from basketball too. He had been a talented guard on the North Vale team that had played South Side in the city championship game. He was also an outstanding shortstop and a good hitter. The Stingers were in trouble with him at the plate.
Matt readied himself as White reared back to deliver the first pitch against Trimble. It was another fastball, but the Nugget infielder was primed for it. The ball leapt off his bat, heading straight for Matt in the gap between first and second. Matt lunged for the baseball, stabbing it backhanded with his glove. Instinctively he flipped the ball to second base where Jake was covering. Jake relayed the ball to Tanner at first. It was a double play, just like they had worked on in warm-ups.
The Stingers cheered as they headed for the dugout with the last bat to come and still no score. Matt felt warm inside. He had made a nice catch and started the double play. It felt good to do something right for a change.
Matt glanced at the batting order in the dugout. Jake was up first, followed by Tanner and then him. He would have to face Lemay, who looked at least as fast as White. Matt's heart raced on the bench. Part of him wanted to step in there and smack the ball. But he knew another part of him was afraid.
“Stewart,” Coach Stephens called, motioning for Paul Stewart, a squat muscular ninth-grader who hadn't been in the game yet. “You're going to bat in Hill's spot.”
Matt was stunned. He hadn't even got to the plate and coach was already pinch-hitting for him. This was embarrassing. But somehow, Matt also realized that he probably would have done the same thing in the coach's position. Matt had been hitting awful against fast pitchers throughout practice sessions. The game was on the line, and Coach didn't want to let it slip away.
As Lemay took his warm-up pitches on the North Vale mound, Coach Stephens motioned for Matt to come talk to him in the corner of the dugout. “Don't take this the wrong way, Matt,” he said gently. “I put you in the top of the seventh for your defense and you did great. That was a tough catch and a nice double play. But Paul's been hitting better against the fast stuff. Don't worry, we can work on your hitting in practice.”
“Sure, Coach,” Matt said, managing a weak smile. Maybe it was better to be pinch-hit for rather than have everybody in the park discover he was afraid of the ball.
Jake was the first batter of the inning. He stood in strong against Lemay, ripping a two-one pitch into right-center field. The Stingers had the winning run on base with nobody out and Dave Tanner, one of their best hitters, at the plate.