Connor fed four tokens into the batting machine and picked up his thirty-one-inch Rawlings bat. He took his usual stance: slightly open, close to the plate, feet shoulder-width apart, weight balanced—and waited for the silver arm to uncoil and snap forward with the pitch.
It was quiet inside the cavernous Sports arcade, especially for a Saturday afternoon. A few kids and their parents played mini-golf, and three bored-looking teenagers were winning at Skee-Ball, collecting fistfuls of red tickets to exchange for fistfuls of cheap trinkets. Only one other batting cage was occupied, with a chubby little kid, maybe ten years old, getting tips from his dad—if you could call them tips.
“Level swing!” the dad barked. “Don’t be afraid of the ball! No! Step into the pitch!”
Connor shook his head sadly. Over the years he’d seen lots of kids quit baseball because their moms and dads pressured them and over-instructed them and took all the fun out of the game. This kid looked so nervous, he was probably dreaming about swim team tryouts already.
“Get that bat ready!” the dad shouted as the kid whiffed on yet another cut. “No, too slow! Try it again!”
Hoo boy, Connor thought. Bet the kid wishes Dad was on a nice long out-of-town business trip about now.
The fact that Sports was nearly empty suited Connor just fine. Right now he was focusing on what a mess he’d made of his life just twenty-four hours earlier. The way he saw it, his latest stupid blowup had succeeded in causing four disastrous consequences:
- After Connor left, the Orioles had gone on to lose to the Yankees, 8–5. It was their first loss of the season. And if anyone was voting on the goat of the game, Connor knew he’d win it hands down. In fact, he could almost feel the horns growing out of his head right now.
- In a brief phone call earlier that morning, Coach Hammond had informed Connor that his ejection from the Yankee game also carried with it an automatic one-game suspension from the league. Which meant the Orioles would be without him when they faced the Tigers next week, potentially setting the stage for—ta-da!—their second loss of the season. And that was assuming Coach hadn’t already kicked him off the team and was just waiting for the right time to tell him.
- He had succeeded in seriously hurting the feelings of his best friend in the whole world, Jordy Marsh.
- Connor wondered if he would ever get over the look on Jordy’s face after he had snarled and accused him of not jumping high enough for that terrible throw. Jordy had looked like a friendly golden retriever that had just been bopped on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper for no reason.
- His latest eruption and ejection had been observed and captured in its full glove-tossing, bat-throwing, crybaby glory by one Melissa Morrow, who was probably feeding a video clip of the whole thing to YouTube right now and planning a headline in the York Tattler that read: “Youth Baseball Star Really Is Nuts!”
Connor could imagine the photo spread that would accompany that story, too. It would be a montage of all his on-field eruptions that would eventually be posted on Facebook, so that young ballplayers all over the world could comment and make fun of him.
“Justin, do you want to get better or not?!” the chubby kid’s dad yelled now. “Then let’s go! Take a good hack at it!”
Connor tried to block out the dad’s ridiculous instructions. It reminded him how lucky he was to have a dad who was patient and made learning baseball fun.
Before he lost his job, Bill Sullivan had always come with Connor to these Saturday batting sessions. Connor missed having him at the back of the cage, quietly offering tips. Now that his dad was spending so much time looking for work, he hadn’t come to Sports in weeks.
Connor was working on hitting curveballs today—this was one of the few places that had a pitching machine that threw breaking balls. He held his hands high, moving the bat in small circles, trying for a sense of rhythm and timing and the short, compact swing Coach Hammond recommended for his players.
Of course, that was assuming he still was one of Coach’s players. The odds were great that that was no longer the case. Coach was a patient man. But how many of Connor’s crazy tantrums could he reasonably be expected to endure?
And who knew if any of Connor’s Orioles teammates wanted him back, either? He’d seen the embarrassed looks on their faces when he’d slammed the glove down, stomped back to the dugout, and thrown the bat, accidentally hitting Robbie. And they were definitely ticked at the way he’d exploded at Jordy.
After hitting some fifty balls in the cage and concentrating on driving the ball to all fields, Connor’s whole body was tired. Unfortunately, the chubby kid was still being tortured by his dad. The dad had jumped in the cage now and was demonstrating possibly the ugliest baseball swing Connor had ever seen. He looked like a man trying to beat a snake off a tree branch with a hoe. Justin, the chubby kid, was trying hard not to laugh. So was Connor.
Now Justin was taking some cuts, but still without much luck. Finally the dad gave up in disgust.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” he said with a wave of his hand as he stormed out.
Connor watched the boy throw the bat down and slump dejectedly in a chair.
He walked over and said gently, “Hey, Justin.”
The boy looked up warily.
“You don’t know me—my name’s Connor. I overheard your dad….”
Justin didn’t answer; but his face said it all: he was mortified.
“I was wondering…” Connor went on. “Could I show you something that might help? My treat.”
Justin just sat there, watching suspiciously as Connor fed some tokens into the batting machine and borrowed the boy’s bat.
“Keep your head still when you swing,” Connor said, taking his stance as the machine whirred to life. “You’re doing this.” He took a big cut and missed, pulling his head off the ball with an exaggerated motion.
Justin winced.
“Hey, don’t worry about it—you’re still learning. I just don’t agree with your dad’s teaching technique.” Connor chuckled a little, and Justin cracked a smile.
“What you want to do is this,” Connor continued. This time he kept his head still and his eyes locked on the ball and hit a sharp line drive. “Now you try it.”
The boy hesitated a moment, then took the bat and got in his stance.
He did as Connor instructed and, after a couple of misses, hit a shot up the middle. His eyes widened and he turned to Connor, laughing with delight.
“Try it again,” Connor said. And again the boy hit it solidly, a shot to left field.
“Wow!” the kid said. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Keep it up, and you’ll give your dad the surprise of his life.”
Justin nodded, his face beaming.
My work here is done, Connor thought. Why can’t everything in life be this easy to fix?
Justin was now happily taking more swings, so Connor went off to buy a drink from the vending machine. Helping the kid had taken his mind off his own troubles for a few minutes. But now he was back to full-time brooding.
He’d been too ashamed that morning to tell his mom and dad about his latest blowup with the Orioles—not that they would have had time to listen.
His mom had gone off to work early, saying all the ER nurses were taking a special training course that would probably last up until her regular work shift. And his dad had left right after, bound for a job interview with a car dealership on the other side of town.
Brianna had been home. She’d even gotten out of bed before her customary Saturday rise-and-shine time of noon. But this wasn’t the kind of thing you talked over with your big sister.
Connor knew how she would react: a dramatic shake of her head, the requisite rolling of her eyes, followed by her standard advice to “just grow up!”
So Connor had spent a sleepless night and now an anxious day with dozens of questions running through his head. Why did he keep losing his temper? It was getting scary now, this feeling that he couldn’t control himself whenever he screwed up on the ball field.
What was Coach going to do? Would he give him one more chance? Or was he just waiting for him to chill for a day or two before dropping the hammer and kicking him off the team?
Connor couldn’t imagine a spring without baseball, the game he had loved since he was a little kid. He couldn’t imagine the Orioles going to the championship game—they were 12–1 now, almost sure to make it—and him not being a part of it.
Draining the last of his Snapple, he stared out the window. The sky was as gray as dishwater. Low clouds hung as far as the eye could see, and a steady rain had begun to fall. The ride home on his bike would be a wet one.
A thought popped into his head, and he smiled ruefully: Maybe I’ll catch pneumonia and not have to worry about baseball for a while.
Then he caught himself and shook his head softly.
Nah, I don’t have that kind of luck.