12

 

I’m not really sure why they call the Little League championship game in my town the “World Series,” unless you think the entire world consists of approximately sixteen thousand people.

But that’s what they called it: the World Series, and it’s surprising how many people go to watch this game. Even people who have no immediate family connection to anyone involved. Which is just kind of weird, if you ask me.

Anyway, my team—the Pirates—was playing the Astros. Baxter Billows was our pitcher, and he was mowing them down, like usual. But so was Kevin Kessler, the pitcher for the Astros. See, the thing about Little League is that on every team, there are always four or five kids who are way better than everyone else, and they’re always pitchers, and they always strike out everyone who bats sixth in the order and below. That’s just the way the world works. But these two guys, Baxter and Kevin, they were so good they were striking everyone out.

After about forty-five minutes, we were already into the fifth inning, because nothing was happening except for strikeouts. The score was 0–0, and I was due up next inning for my one and only at-bat (everyone had to bat at least once). I glanced over to the bleachers where I saw Cathy Billows playing with a dog. My dog. Maddie was wagging her tail, and Cathy was laughing. Sometimes I wished I were a dog.

Then I saw my parents sitting one row over. My mom was talking with somebody—I would say she watched about one pitch per game, the rest of the time she was yakking—and my dad was fiddling with the video camera, getting ready for my big plate appearance. In front of them sat Nana, who was wearing a big hat and reading the New York Times. It was adorable, how she still read the actual newspaper. Who does that?

It was still 0–0 in the bottom of the sixth. I was due up fourth. The good thing was that Kevin Kessler had pitched an inning in his last game—and a kid can only pitch six innings a week—so they had to bring in a new pitcher.

Who turned out to be Alex Mutchnik.

As he took his warm-up pitches, he looked over at me and grinned. “You’re up this inning?”

I ignored him, so he tried again. “I am so scared.”

“Shut up, Alex,” I said.

“That’s enough out of both of you,” barked the first base umpire, a scary old guy appropriately named Mr. Barker.

We were toward the bottom of the order, where the lame kids bat, so nobody was expecting much. Sure enough, the first kid, Sherman Wexler, struck out on three pitches. The second kid, Pete Coluski, struck out on four pitches. But then Jeffrey Siffriani, who was famous for not having swung at a single pitch during the entire season, walked on a full count. The dugout stirred. The bleachers took notice. Even Nana looked up from her newspaper. Everyone seemed to realize that if I could somehow get on base, our lead-off hitter—the one and only Baxter Billows—would have a chance to win the game.

I stepped up to the plate. Alex stared in at me and fired. The pitch was wild, but I swung at it anyway. Ugh. But the good news was that the ball got by the catcher, so Jeffrey was able to go to second.

“Come on, Jack!” I heard my dad holler from behind his camera. “Only the good ones! Only the good ones!” Thanks, Dad. Easy for you to say.

The second pitch was about a foot over my head, and I almost swung at it, but I managed to stop myself. Alex was getting wild, I thought to myself. Maybe if I just hang on I can work out a walk like Jeffrey did. How great would that be? To not make the third out would be so awesome—

The next pitch was right down the middle and the bat didn’t budge from my shoulder.

One ball, two strikes. Oh, great. Strikeout, here we come. So typical.

But then the next two pitches were balls. Full count. I began to hope for a walk again.

Alex wound up and threw. The pitch came, a little high, quite possibly ball four, but for some crazy reason I decided to swing anyway. I probably closed my eyes, because according to Dad’s pictures I always close my eyes when I swing. So I never saw the bat hit the ball.

PING!!

The sound of the aluminum bat hitting the ball may have been the most awesome sound I’d ever heard in my life.

I opened my eyes. At first I couldn’t locate the ball, but suddenly there it was, on a high arc, soaring, flying, a towering shot heading right for … the second baseman.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a monster home run.

But here’s a little secret I’ll let you in on. A lot of little leaguers can’t catch a high pop. Especially during the last inning of a World Series game, when everyone is screaming “RUN!” and “GO!” and “OH MY GOD!!!”

So poor little Michael Bostwick dropped the ball. Well, to be technical about it, it dropped about two feet behind him.

After that, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I stood on first base and watched relatively chunky Jeffrey Siffriani motor around third and chug for home. It took Michael Bostwick a couple of seconds to retrieve the ball, and that was all the time Jeffrey needed. He slid … the ball came in … a cloud of dust …

“SAFE!” hollered the umpire, a pimply tenth grader named Clay McLeod, who probably just wanted to go home.

Game over. We won the World Series, 1–0. And I was the hero, thanks to my pop-up to second base.

All of a sudden I was totally mobbed. A chant went up: “Jack! Jack! Jack!” Alex Mutchnik angrily threw his glove on the ground. Baxter Billows lifted me up and gave me a hug that may have broken several ribs. Cathy Billows was jumping up and down. My mom was jumping up and down. Nana was jumping up and down. Maddie was under the bleachers, scavenging for scraps. And my dad was filming it all.

As I stood there, soaking it all in, I thought to myself: I could get used to this whole hero thing.