“Class, come to order,” said Ms. Fein, clapping her hands to get her students’ attention. When they’d calmed down, she said, “I’m going to assign a final work project in math for the year. You’ll have two weeks to turn it in, and it will count for twenty percent of your grade. I want five pages of explanation, along with charts, illustrations, whatever you can come up with to help us understand your thesis. It should have to do with any topic we’ve dealt with this year in school. That would include fractions, percentages, long division, etc. I leave the rest up to you. Be creative.”
Groans went up from several kids in class who obviously preferred multiple-choice tests to creative math projects. And no wonder, thought Derek. Projects were a whole lot more work. That was obviously why it was going to count for so much of their grade.
Derek liked math. It was pretty much his favorite subject, because he was naturally good at it. But he liked it a whole lot less after Ms. Fein added, “I’m going to assign you each a partner for this project. Let’s start with Vijay. You and Christine pair up. Dave, you and Teresa. Josh, you and Monica. Derek, you and . . . Gary.”
Yeesh. Stuck with him again! Derek thought, wincing. Looking over at Gary, he saw that his new partner was just as unhappy.
“I will expect a proposed topic from each team by tomorrow,” their teacher concluded. “You can start discussing it right now, since we have only five more minutes in the period. But softly!” she added when the class burst into an instant uproar. “This is math class, not the debate team!”
Gary turned to Derek, who occupied the desk right next to him, which was probably why the teacher had paired them up. “I have a great idea.”
“Oh, goodie,” said Derek without enthusiasm.
“Get this. We develop an algorithm to predict chess moves!”
“A what?”
“An algo— Oh, never mind. If you don’t even know what one is, you sure aren’t going to be any help coming up with one. Okay, Mr. Know-It-All, let’s hear your great ideas.”
“Um . . .” Derek thought for a moment. “I’ve got one! How about we do a project on baseball statistics!”
Gary rolled his eyes and pretended to choke himself. “That,” he finally said, “is the worst idea I have ever heard in my entire life. Talk about two weeks of torture!”
“How can you say that?” Derek asked. “Sports has so much math in it—especially baseball!”
“Yeah, right,” Gary said, and snorted.
“I’m telling you, it’s even more mathified than chess.”
“No way.”
“Yes way!” Derek insisted. “Check this out. There’s batting averages, slugging percentages, ERAs, OBPs, games behind—and that’s just for starters!”
Gary’s eyes widened as Derek laid out what his mom, the accountant, had shown him a couple of years earlier, when he and his parents had been putting together his contract. His mom and dad had been trying to show him why school was important, even if you wanted to become a professional ballplayer.
“You know,” said Gary when Derek had finished, “I hate to admit this, but for once in your life, you’ve actually got a point. Baseball’s got a lot more math in it than I gave it credit for—almost enough for me to have a teensy-weensy bit of respect for it. Too bad it’s such a dumb game otherwise. But at least now it won’t be a complete waste of my time.”
“You mean you’ll do it?” Derek asked.
“Mmmm. . . . Okay, why not?” said Gary with a shrug. “We’ll have to spend a lot of time working out everyone’s average on our team, of course. And there’ll have to be charts, spreadsheets . . .”
“I can do that part,” said Derek excitedly. “You can look up the averages of the major-league Indians and see how the two match up!”
“Sounds like a plan,” Gary said. “And what’s our thesis?”
Derek grinned. “That’s easy—that we’re better than they are, at least for our age!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Gary said, surprised. “We stink. We haven’t even won one stupid game yet.”
“Hey, have you checked out the real Indians this season?” Derek asked with a grin. “They’re in last place by a lot! We might wind up being better, especially if we start winning games.”
“Hah! Like that’ll ever happen,” said Gary as the bell rang. “I might be hitting the ball better now, but I’ll never figure out how to operate a baseball glove. It’s such a stupid piece of equipment, it’s ridiculous. Deformed, even. All you have to do is look at it to see that.” He shook his head. “Well, partner, see you in study period tomorrow.”
• • •
“I’ve got to admit,” Derek said as the two sat together at a long table in the cafeteria for their first work session, “I’m amazed you agreed to do this project on baseball stats.”
“Yeah, well,” Gary said with a shrug. “I figure it this way. You and I are the two best math brains in the class.”
“Eehhhhh . . . ,” Gary said, unimpressed, holding one hand palm-down and shaking it, to indicate that he thought Vijay’s math chops were just so-so.
“But to go along with a project on baseball . . . ,” Derek said. “That’s surprising to me.”
Gary clucked his tongue and shook his head dismissively. “It almost doesn’t matter what we do it on, so long as we beat the pants off all those other teams.”
Derek had to laugh. Gary was the only kid he’d ever met who was as competitive as he was! His mom had been right all along. They did have something in common, something huge.
“And trust me, Jeter, we will be victorious—if you take on your half of the responsibility.”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?” Derek asked, taking offense.
Gary put a hand on one hip and looked over at the chart Derek had been trying without success to put together for the past half hour. “I mean that. That mess you’ve got there. What exactly is that supposed to be, anyway?”
“It’s our team’s batting averages, game to game. I tried putting it in crosswise, but I think I did it wrong.”
“You did do it wrong, of course,” said Gary, as obnoxious as ever.
“Well, I don’t really get how it’s supposed to look. It’s not my fault. We haven’t really done graphs.”
“What are you talking about? We did them back in November, remember?”
“I was sick with chicken pox those two weeks, remember?” Derek shot back smartly.
Gary sighed as if he were carrying a sack of heavy stones. “I can tell I’m going to have to get this team across the finish line by myself. Here, let me show you how it’s done.”
Derek wanted to argue, but he wanted even more to let Gary make the chart for him. Five minutes later it was done, and perfectly.
“Thanks, Gary,” said Derek sincerely. “I appreciate the help. Now if you could just take five more minutes to explain it to me, so I can understand it.”
“Why should I waste five precious minutes of my life to teach you what you should have learned yourself months ago?”
“Just because . . . because we’re friends.”
“Friends?” Gary could not have looked more stunned.
Derek suddenly had a great idea. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t occurred to him before.
“And because we’re friends now, if you help me out and explain graphs to me so I can ace that part of the math final, I’ll help you with your fielding!”
“Huh?”
“Your fielding, man! Now that you can hit, it’s the only thing keeping you from being a decent ballplayer. Just think, you might even shut those kids up who’ve been making fun of you all this time! And we might just start winning some ball games.”
“In your dreams.”
“Come on!” Derek said, getting excited about the idea of coaching Gary and improving his game. “All you have to do is show up at the Hill after school tomorrow. I’ll get Vijay and Dave out there to help us too. It’ll take only an hour or so. Come on, trust me. I can help you! I mean, it’s only fair, after how you’re about to help me.”
“I am? Who says I am?” But then he grinned, showing Derek he was only joking. “Okay, okay, I’ll help you out, Jeter. But forget about paying me back like that. Extra time playing sports? It’s bad enough I already have to show up for the games. Besides, there are always a ton of kids over there at the Hill. I don’t need to get made fun of any more than I already have been.”
“That’s just it! Once I get through with you, you won’t be getting made fun of anymore, because you’ll be as good with a glove as any of them!”
Gary gave him a doubtful look.
“Well . . . at least you won’t be embarrassing,” Derek corrected himself.
Gary seemed to be about to relent. “Well . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Besides, you’re already hitting the ball okay, thanks to my dad. Believe me, I may not know how to draw a chart, but I know stuff about fielding that’ll make you better, and quick.”
Gary sighed again, as if the weight of the whole world were on his shoulders. “Oh, okay,” he said, sounding completely defeated. “But just this one time, and for one hour max.”
“Done!” Derek said, clapping his hands in triumph. “We can do it right after school tomorrow—before Vijay, Dave, and the rest of the kids even get there. That way you won’t have to get made fun of.”
“Good idea.”
Seeing the relieved look on Gary’s face, Derek realized just how much all the teasing must have gotten to him. Beneath his hardened exterior, Gary actually had feelings, just like anybody else!
Unbelievable, but true.
“And I promise I’m going to work hard on this project next session,” Derek said. Smiling, he added, “That is, if you’ll get a better attitude about sports.”
Gary gave him a sickly smile in return. “You first, smarty-pants.”
• • •
Derek couldn’t get the grin off his face as he headed to the Hill the next day after school. He wasn’t technically allowed to play ball until he’d done that day’s homework, but this one time he had talked his dad into letting him go, saying that coaching Gary in fielding was part of their project about baseball stats and math.
When Mr. Jeter saw what Derek was trying to do, he smiled and gave his permission, provided Derek came right back home afterward and did his homework.
Now for the hard part. Teaching Gary to field was going to be a challenge. He had no natural instincts for the game, no athleticism, and no interest in improving. But Derek had lured him by promising he could stop the others from teasing him. Now Derek had to come through.
Yikes.
Gary was there, right on time. “Okay, let’s get this torture session over with so I can go home and have fun doing homework.” He checked his watch. “One hour. No, wait. . . . Fifty-nine minutes left. Go!”
Derek went into a momentary panic. Here he was, face-to-face with the biggest challenge he could think of. His mind actually went totally blank for a moment.
Then he saw Gary’s baseball mitt.
“That thing looks like it’s never been worn!” he said, taking it from Gary and examining it. He put it on his hand and tried to clamp it shut—unsuccessfully.
“It’s as hard as a rock!” he said. “No wonder you can’t catch anything with it.”
“Huh? I thought that was how it was supposed to be.”
“No!”
“But all the other gloves in the store were the same way.”
“Because they’ve never been used! Gary, didn’t anyone ever tell you you have to break a glove in?”
“Break it what?”
“Oh boy,” Derek said, realizing just how much Gary had to learn about baseball. “Look, feel my glove. Go ahead, try it on.”
Gary did. “Ooohhh. Wow, this thing is just about worn to shreds. It feels like a glove.”
“It is a glove, for goodness’ sake! Don’t you get it? You’ve got to stomp on your glove, have your mom run over it with the car, rub it down with saddle soap or grease, kick it around!”
“Hey, this glove cost thirty dollars!”
“Gary, it’s no good if you don’t break it in somehow, and it never will be. Here, let’s try playing catch, except you wear my glove.”
He positioned Gary about fifty feet away so that they could toss the ball back and forth. Right away Derek noticed an improvement in Gary’s ability to get and keep the ball in his mitt.
“Two hands!” Derek reminded him when a ball or two dropped from Gary’s grasp. “Catch it in the webbing, not in the pocket. That’s it! Next time clamp it shut—with both hands.”
Little by little Gary seemed to get more comfortable catching the ball. And with that comfort, his fear of the baseball hitting him in the face seemed to lessen.
“This is actually sort of cool,” Gary had to admit after about fifteen minutes. “I feel like I almost, kind of, sort of know what I’m doing.”
“I’m telling you, man, the better you get at baseball, the more you’re going to love it.”
“Gag me with a spoon,” said Gary, making a nice one-handed grab of a ball Derek had thrown too high.
“Nice one!”
“Thanks!” Gary said, tossing it back wildly. “Ha! You missed it!”
“This glove’s pretty impossible,” Derek admitted. “You’re going to go home and mess with it, right?”
“I like the part about my mom running it over with the car,” Gary said with a grin. “Yaaaaa! Take that, stupid baseball!”
Derek laughed, and then proceeded to show Gary some of the finer points of fielding—how to shield his eyes from the sun with his mitt, how to run back on a ball over his head, how to know where to throw it after he caught it when there were men on base.
Derek might have been an infielder, but his dad had trained him well, putting him in different positions early in the season, so that he knew a little about outfielding from actual experience. All of that helped Derek now as he tried to help Gary with his game.
Had his dad seen all this coming? Was that why he’d insisted that Derek play those other positions? Derek wouldn’t have been surprised. His dad sometimes seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, and a periscope into the future, too.
Vijay and Dave arrived, along with a couple of other kids. “Nice catching!” Vijay exulted when he saw how much improved Gary’s glove work was.
“Amazing!” Dave agreed. “Hey, man, you do that in the game, and we’re gonna be a better team!”
After throwing it around for a while, Gary remembered to check his watch. “Hour’s up!” he announced. “Thank goodness that’s over.”
Derek felt hurt. Even after their session Gary was still putting down sports. But then, when he and Gary were exchanging gloves, he saw from Gary’s wristwatch what time it actually was. Gary had been playing for an hour and a half, without even realizing it!
“Hey, time flies when you’re having fun,” Derek said with a twinkle in his eye.
“Very funny,” said Gary.
“You know what?” Derek asked. “I know you think we make each other better in school by competing. But I think we do even better when we cooperate and act like we’re on the same team.”
“Hmm. You might actually have something there, Jeter. Oh, by the way . . .”
Gary reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here are your statistics for the season so far, complete with the graphs that were supposed to be your job to make.”
“Thanks!” Derek said, unfolding the paper and looking at his stats come to life in charts and graphs, perfectly done in easy-to-decipher colors. “You’re going to do this up bigger, right?”
“And I’ve got the charts and graphs for every member of our team, and for the team as a whole, and for the major-league Indians, too.” Gary stuck his chin out proudly. “And I’ve already designed a system to keep it up to date.”
“Wow!” Derek said. “Okay, I admit it. You are smarter than me.”
“Smarter than I, not me.”
“Whatever. I’m just glad we’re on the same team.”
Frankly, Derek was totally floored. Gary had outdone himself, and Derek was sure to profit from it. On top of everything else, it seemed like Gary had finally found a way to get excited about baseball!
Now, if the work they’d done on Gary’s fielding translated into better play on the field, things might actually turn around for the Indians!