Say It Ain't So (5 page)

“Then bring the high cheese,” he said.

I started my windup, announcing the whole time in my head.
Now entering the game is number thirty-three for the Philadelphia Phillies: Lenny Norbeck! Norbeck is known for his searing high cheese, of course, as well as leading the league in wild pitches by a wide margin. Here's the windup, and the pitch!

I uncorked a heater so wild that Mike didn't even have a chance. I'm pretty sure Ramon Famosa, or any major-league catcher, wouldn't have had a chance. Pretty sure Plastic Man wouldn't have been able to snag it, and I don't know if you know this about him, but his arms are made out of plastic. It bounced about one-third of the way to home plate and came to a stop somewhere between the neighbor's yard and western Antarctica.

“Just getting warmed up,” I said. “Keeping you on your toes.”

Mike nodded his head and adjusted his mask. I grabbed another ball. I concentrated less on throwing it hard and more on just getting it near Mike. I took a deep breath and let it fly. It still hit the dirt, but only a few feet in front of the dish. Mike
dropped from his crouch to his knees, and smothered the ball with his shin guards.

“Nice one!” I said.

He just nodded that helmet again and threw the ball back to me. I missed it, of course, and not only because my glove had a nail hole in it. But it didn't matter. I had a whole bucket of balls. I picked up another and another and another. We did this for what seemed like hours. Pitch by pitch. Some were so high Mike had to jump like a basketball player leaping for a rebound. Some so low they kicked up tornadoes of dirt at his feet. Many flew past Mike altogether and slapped into the backstop with a thud. A few joined their friend in the neighbor's yard. I really was the master of the wild pitch. But, hey, one or two even hit his glove. What's the expression? Even a blind squirrel finds a nut some days. I really was about as good a pitcher as a blind squirrel would be. But as the day went on and my arm grew sore, it was clear Mike was going to be a pretty good catcher. A
great
catcher.

As April drew closer, fewer and fewer pitches made that awful backstop-hitting sound. More and more smacked Mike's glove. It wasn't that my pitches ever became straight as arrows. It was just that Mike became crazy-good at blocking them. He'd leap to his left, dive to his right. He'd throw out a backhand to pick a pitch on the bounce. He'd kick out a leg to deaden a bouncer with his shin guards like a hockey goalie. He was ready. And okay, I did get better at pitching. My arm got stronger and my aim wasn't quite so wild. It was fun. I was proud. Who would have guessed that being a terrible pitcher would come in so handy? I felt happy that I could help. Sure, I still felt a little jealous that Mike was going to end up making the team and living the good life.

Yeah, I
was
sure that Mike was going to make the team. He was, you could say, not so sure. When
the day of the Schwenkfelder Middle School baseball tryouts arrived, Mike was just about nuts. It was a Monday. Mike was so nervous he could hardly sit still all day. He was so twitchy and fidgety you would have thought he was
Other
Mike. He invited me to come to the tryouts, but I thought that would just be weird.

We had spent the day before practicing—one last Sunday of wild pitches and impressive blocks. Every once in a while, I'd even throw a strike. Or, you know, something close enough to a strike that Mike could catch it without sprawling or diving like a fish. It made me feel good and it was good practice too. Mike wouldn't only need to catch wild pitches. That night, Mike had called, and I knew what he was going to say so well that I could mouth the words along with him into the phone.

“Lenny, think I'll make the team?”

“Of course,” I said. “You're the best.”

“Well, I'm not the best. I don't even need to be the best, not really. I just need to be the second best. I know the starting catcher's spot is Davis's—I know that. I just want to make it as a backup catcher. Is that too much to ask?”

I assured him that no, that was not too much to ask. It was a perfectly reasonable wish.

“Good luck,” I said for the nine millionth time. “Break a mitt.”

I decided to hang out with Other Mike after school during the tryouts. Our trio had been disrupted a little bit since I was spending so much time throwing wild pitches to Mike. I sort of missed Other Mike. He was never into baseball, but he was part of our crew since the beginning. He moved to Schwenkfelder from an even smaller town, if you can believe that. He was from the kind of place where a trip to a fast-food restaurant was a two-hour drive and a fancy night on the town. Mainly just farmland, I guess. I think his kindergarten class was mostly made up of cattle. So when he moved into our little neighborhood, he was thrilled to be in a place where, like, stuff existed. Where there were other kids around. It's just a little suburban neighborhood, but to Other Mike it was like moving to New York City.

I remember it well, the first day I met Other Mike. I don't know how he even found out where we lived—little-kid radar, I guess. Or maybe our moms talked. We were, like, in second grade. Anyway, there he was, walking up the street, just thrilled beyond belief to see me and Mike on the
lawn. We were, of course, playing catch. We had our baseball gloves on and were hurling a ball back and forth. I was not catching it most times. I was not doing a good job throwing it most times either. Enough about that. So Other Mike ran up to us.

“Hi!” he said.

“Hey,” Mike and I said in unison. We kept throwing the ball back and forth. We were too cool to stop. Except, you know, to pick up the ball because we were not catching it.

“I just moved here! My name is Mike!” Other Mike said.

“No it isn't,” Mike said.

“Yeah, it is!” Other Mike was standing on the curb, still grinning.

“Nope,” I said. We thought we were so funny.

“Okay, really it's Michael, but—”

“My name is Mike,” Mike said. “There can't be two.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You're Other Mike.” (Note: If you hear Mike tell this story, he'll try to take credit for being the one to make up “Other Mike,” but it was totally me.)

Other Mike laughed. No one said anything else for a minute. “So are you into baseball?” he asked.

“What tipped you off?” Mike asked. We were such jerks!

“Yeah, we
are
into baseball,” I said. “How about you?”

“Uh, sure,” he said.

“Where did you move from?” Mike said. “What team are you into?”

Other Mike looked stumped for a minute. Stunned even. I saw him glance down at my Little League shirt. It had the team name on the front. That was the (one) year the coach let us pick our own name. We were the “Smashers.” I don't know—it seemed cool at the time.

“Um, I'm into the … Smashers.”

“Really?” Mike broke up laughing but wanted to keep the joke going. “Who is your favorite player on the Smashers?”

I doubled over with laughter.

Other Mike read the back of my shirt. “Norbeck?” he said.

“I like this kid already,” I said.

He took it well. He admitted that he didn't like baseball. And we didn't care. He was fun, he was nice, and he was a good friend. Right from the beginning. He was
Other
Mike, but he was always himself. Can't beat that.

I was thinking about all this as I rode my bike over to Other Mike's house after school. Plus the fact that there were no video games at my house, of course, and I really wanted to play some.

Other Mike already was on the video-game machine. Before long we were having an epic battle in this really cool game Other Mike has where you're a ninja. I was climbing walls and stabbing dudes and chucking throwing stars. I lost track of time. When you don't play video games for a while, when you finally do it's like the greatest thing ever. It's like how when you're really hungry, even the cafeteria food tastes great. Just kidding. That never happened. The cafeteria food
always
stinks. But my point is, I was totally in the ninja zone and totally forgot what was going on in the real world. So when my phone beeped and I saw it was a text from Mike, I was sort of confused.

“Dude,” I said to Other Mike. “Pause it.” He paused the game. “And answer me this: Does ‘zo sez i'm a bench' mean anything to you?”

“Oh, it means
everything
to me,” he said.

“Really?”

“No, I have no idea what that means,” he said.
“I always thought Mike was more of a table than a bench.”

Other Mike is annoying sometimes. He shook his hair out of his face and unpaused the game. “Stop it!” I said. “I'm not ready.” I was about to text Mike back like “???” but then I figured it out. “Zo” is Coach Hinzo. Saying Mike is a “bench” means “Johnny Bench,” one of the greatest catchers ever. He was the guy on the cover of Mike's weird
Become a Star Catcher!
book.

Did I feel my heart sink a little? Did I feel some sadness creeping in, there on the floor of Other Mike's living room? Maybe, sports fans. Just maybe. But I am a good friend. No matter what you've heard
—or what you will hear later
—don't ever forget that. I am a good friend.

I texted him back.

And then resumed stabbing Other Mike with a samurai sword over and over and over again.

Let's just cut the suspense right here. I know it's killing you. So I'll get straight to it. Mike made the team. Davis Gannett was good and would start, but Coach Zo saw that Mike had the perfect skills to be a backup catcher. He could block every wild pitch, was an okay hitter, and could give Davis a break sometimes. It's hard catching every inning of every game, even if it's a pretty short season.

The list was posted outside the locker room on Friday. Tryouts were every day for that week, and every day was just about the same. I'd go over to Other Mike's house and spend a few hours killing people with swords. He'd talk about warlocks, I'd smile politely. I'd sort of hope that Mike would call or text with bad news—like he dropped forty-five pop-ups and had seven hundred passed balls—and
then I'd feel bad about hoping for that. And that particular text never came. Each one was a glowing report by Coach Zo. There was no chance Mike wasn't going to make that team.

Still, he was so nervous you would have thought the odds were a million to one. You would have thought he was the Warlock Lontano attempting to remove the Sacred Ax of Daxeel from the Stone of Nevercede. Man, I might be hanging out with Other Mike too much.

“Dude,” Mike said as we walked toward the gym that Friday afternoon. “Dude.” It was basically all he could say. “Dude. Dude. Dude.” He sounded like someone trying to start a lawn mower but it just wouldn't catch. I knew better than to try to talk too much. I simply walked along behind him. A good friend.

Then all of a sudden he started talking. “You know, Len, I really want to thank you for all that time pitching to me. No matter what happens. Just thanks.”

“You're welcome, dude,” I said.

Then he surprised me.

“You know, you should have gone out for the team too.”

“What?” I said. “Remember who you're talking
to here. Lenny Norbeck. Old Norbs. The Human Rain Delay. Secretary of Being the Worst at Baseball in the History of the Known Universe.”

“You were getting pretty good at pitching. And plus, you're pretty quick. You could pinch-run. Steal a few bases. Maybe come in to throw at guys we hate.”

It is true. I
am
very fast. I have defeated my father in approximately eight hundred consecutive races. My exact record is eight hundred wins to three losses. But now that I think of it, he might have been letting me win at least a few of those. But what was up with those three? Was Dad just mad at me those days? I made a mental note to ask him.