when we circled around him. “Five minutes to loosen muscles, and then we play.”
I’ve never needed more than a dozen throws to get warm. With the adrenaline rush from seeing Ian Thurman, I was ready after six.
We were the visitors, so we batted first. Dawit, who’d come to Seattle from Ethiopia, led off. He had long arms, long legs, and a mischievous gleam in his eyes. Soccer was his passion; baseball was strictly for fun. That made him fearless at the plate. When your bat is loose and quick and you’re an athlete, good things can happen.
The Marauders pitcher went into his wind-up and delivered. Dawit swung and missed, taking such a huge cut that he did a complete three-sixty and fell down, landing on home plate. When he got back to his feet, he raised the bat above his head like some kind of warrior, and everybody laughed, including the Marauders guys.
Dawit got set in the batter’s box; the pitcher delivered. Again Dawit swung, but this time he caught the ball square, rocketing a line drive over the first baseman’s head that landed just fair. Dawit stood at home plate for a beat, watching in delight before he took off.
He should have stopped at second, but we hadn’t thought about base coaches, so he just kept running. The third baseman had the tag down in time, but Dawit’s hard slide caused the ball to pop out of his glove. “Safe!” the umpire yelled, and Dawit stood on the base clapping his hands together as we all cheered like madmen.
Tory Nelson, our catcher, was batting second. He was a stocky guy with good hands and a good eye. Their pitcher, rattled by Dawit’s surprise triple, threw his first two pitches a foot outside. The next two were closer, but they weren’t strikes. Tory trotted down to first as I stepped up to the plate.
Their third baseman was playing back. I wanted to make sure we scored at least one run, so when I got a low fastball on the outside corner, I pushed a bunt past the mound toward second. The second baseman charged, fielded the ball, and threw me out, but Dawit came flying down the line. He didn’t need to slide, but he did, kicking up another cloud of dust and then shouting for joy as he leaped to his feet.
The poor kids in the stupid orange shirts were ahead, 1–0.
The Marauders coach—a tall man with wavy gray-black hair who looked as if he belonged on a yacht—marched out to the mound, said something to the pitcher, and then retreated to the sidelines.
Their pitcher—I learned later his name was Kevin Griffith—rubbed up the baseball and looked toward center field. I knew what he was thinking—that he hadn’t given up anything. A lucky triple on a wild swing, a walk, and a bunt.
Antonio stepped to the plate and took a couple of smooth practice swings. The pitcher stretched, looked back at Tory Nelson leading from second base, and delivered—a fastball right down the middle.
Hit it if you can.
And Antonio could.
He unleashed his short, powerful swing, catching the ball in the sweet spot and driving it into the left center field gap. Nelson scored easily. Antonio wanted the glory of an inside-the-park home run, but the relays from the outfielder to the shortstop and from the shortstop to the catcher were perfect. The catcher put the tag on Antonio, and the umpire’s thumb went up.
After our next hitter, Rafael Rodriguez, struck out to end the inning, the Marauders players charged in, faces set, eager to pound out a bunch of hits, score a slew of runs, and put us in our places.
Their leadoff hitter took slow, measured practice swings, but I could feel his impatience. I started him off with a changeup, and his swing was early. He tried to check, but instead tapped a slow roller toward first. Ivan Burgos, our first baseman, fielded it and stepped on the bag. One pitch; one out.
As the hitter walked back to his dugout, he shook his head, as if his out had been a fluke. His teammates on the bench nodded. But when I struck out the next batter on three pitches, I saw worry on their faces.
Ian Thurman, batting third, strode into the batter’s box. All the Marauders players and coaches were up, expectant. I took a deep breath, exhaled. The matchup I’d wanted had finally come my way.
I rubbed up the baseball as Antonio started the regular chatter: “No hitter. No hitter.” From center field Dawit, picking up on the idea, screamed, “Loser! Loser! Ugly, ugly loser!”
Dawit had had his crazy moments on the school team, so the guys on my team laughed, but the Marauders didn’t think it was funny. Thurman stepped out of the batter’s box, disbelief in his eyes. The umpire—one of the Laurelhurst coaches—came out from behind home plate and glared out to center field. Antonio motioned for Dawit to stop. Dawit shrugged and went quiet.
The weirdness of it all calmed me. I went into my wind-up and threw. Thurman swung from the heels, fouling the pitch straight back.
I thought about throwing a changeup for the second pitch, but I didn’t want to get Thurman out by fooling him. So my second pitch was another fastball; this one he popped down the first base line, out of play.
He stepped out to adjust his batting gloves. When he stepped back in, I made sure he was set, and then delivered. This fastball had late movement, jamming him. For a second I didn’t see the ball, but there it was—a soft liner toward first. Burgos made the easy catch for the third out.
Thurman slammed his helmet down. It bounced straight back up, hitting him in the face. Antonio, jogging in from shortstop, saw it and laughed. “Sweet! Do that again!”
Thurman, fuming, took a step toward Antonio, trying to intimidate him. It was a mistake because, though my brother never looks for a fight, he never backs down either. Antonio dropped his glove, his hands balling into fists, his whole body screaming Let’s go! Before anything stupid happened, their first base coach jumped between them and led Thurman back to the Marauders sideline. As he walked off the field, Thurman pretended he wanted a piece of Antonio, but you could see in his eyes it was all show.