After everyone had gone through the various drills at their respective positions, Coach Birdy put the players through a couple of rounds of batting practice. He did the pitching himself, not wanting any of the pitchers to throw any more than they already had.
The pitchers went last and, not surprisingly, all were pretty good hitters. At the high school level, pitchers were often the best athletes on a team, and it wasn’t uncommon for the starting pitcher to hit third or fourth in the batting order.
Only one of the pitchers wasn’t a pretty good hitter: Matt Gordon. He was a great hitter. For one thing, he was a switch-hitter. When he stepped into the batter’s box, Coach Birdy stepped back for a moment, surprised.
“You hit lefty, Gordon?” he asked.
“Switch-hitter,” Matt answered. “You’re throwing righty, so I’m hitting lefty.”
Coach Birdy nodded and threw a batting-practice fastball—straight and without a lot of steam on it—right down the middle. Matt swung and hit the ball about 900 feet over the right field fence. At least it seemed like 900 feet to Alex. The fence was 300 feet away, and the ball was still going in an upward arc when it cleared the fence.
Most of the other players waiting their turn to hit were either loosening up with bats or playing catch along the sidelines. But everyone and everything stopped as the ball exploded off of Matt’s bat.
“This one’s coming in a little bit faster,” Coach Birdy said.
Matt nodded. The next pitch didn’t go over the right field fence—it went over the center field fence, which was 340 feet away.
Each hitter was supposed to get eight swings and then lay down a bunt. Seven of Matt’s swings produced drives over the fence. The eighth was a screaming line drive that one-hopped the wall in right-center.
“Think you can keep a bunt in the ballpark?” Coach Birdy joked before his ninth pitch.
Matt smiled but said nothing—just laid the bunt down and sprinted to first base.
Jonas was standing next to Alex, watching Matt’s hitting display. “His father didn’t let him play baseball?” he said quietly. “What was he thinking?”
Alex had been wondering the exact same thing. Matt Gordon was a very good football player. But it seemed like he was a great baseball player.
Matt jogged over to join them while Patton Gormley stepped in to hit and fouled the first two pitches off.
“Mr. Ruth, I presume?” Alex joked.
Matt shrugged and grinned. “Well, Babe Ruth was a great pitcher who could hit, so that’s about right.”
“Babe Ruth was a pitcher?” Jonas said.
“He came up that way,” Matt said. “Pitched for the Red Sox when they won the World Series in 1918. He was a twenty-game winner twice in the major leagues. Had an ERA of something like two-point-three. The Yankees decided he was too good a hitter not to be in the lineup every day, and, well, you know the rest.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Seven hundred and fourteen home runs later, he retired.”
“Yup,” Matt said. “There’s a reason people talk about ‘Ruthian feats.’ ”
“That was pretty Ruthian right there,” Alex said.
“Just batting practice,” Matt said.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t see anyone else hitting balls nine hundred feet,” Alex said.
“Maybe four hundred,” Matt answered, grinning broadly now.
“Myers!”
It was Coach Birdy. He was pointing at the batter’s box. Alex was up.
He stepped in and took a Ruthian swing at Coach Birdy’s first pitch, but he got on top of it and hit a meek ground ball toward second base.
“Easy, Myers,” Birdy said. “Just meet the ball.”
Alex took a deep breath, relaxed his grip, and focused. He hit the next pitch hard—a line drive into right field for what would be a solid single.
Seven pitches later, he laid down his bunt and sprinted to first. He had hit the last six pitches solidly, with one going to the warning track. None had left the ballpark. There was only one Babe Ruth at Chester Heights.
Coach Birdy had them all run three laps of the field after two rounds of batting practice, then sent them home after telling everyone there would be an intrasquad scrimmage the next afternoon.
“When you get to the locker room tomorrow, I’ll have the teams posted,” he said. “We’ve only got twenty guys, so everyone will play throughout. Everyone hits each time through the lineup.
“We open Friday, fellas, so we need to figure out who’s starting pretty quickly. Let’s get it in.”
They circled Coach Birdy, and Jeff Cardillo, who was the team captain and shortstop, held his arm up and said, “Beat the Statesmen!”
They all repeated after Cardillo and headed for the locker room.
“Who’re the Statesmen?” Alex asked.
“The team we’re playing Friday,” Matt said. “Wilmington South—the Statesmen.”
Alex hadn’t even thought about which school the opener might be against.
They all dressed and headed for home. Matt hadn’t been quite as prodigious at the plate during the second hitting rotation, but he’d been close. Alex had finally hit a ball out of the park, but he guessed the pitch had come in at about 70 miles an hour.
Riding home on his bike, he wondered what it was going to be like to play with the “new” Matt Gordon. During football season, even while his insecurities about his play at quarterback were driving him to take steroids, Matt had never appeared to lack confidence, and he had been steadfastly supportive of Alex.
That wasn’t the Matt he had seen today. This Matt wanted to show everyone he was better than they were every time he threw a pitch or took a swing. His presence would undoubtedly make the Lions a better team, but Alex wondered if it would be much fun being around him. Then again, maybe Matt would relax once he’d proved how good he was.
Wheeling his bicycle into the driveway, Alex saw that there was company for dinner. Evan Archer’s car was parked in front of the garage. Archer was Chester Heights’ basketball coach. He was also—for lack of a better term—Alex’s mother’s boyfriend. Alex had trouble using the word “boyfriend” to describe someone who was dating his mom, but what else would you call him? Man friend? Nope. Friend? No, that didn’t get the job done, either. He usually avoided it or said, “Yes, my mom is still dating Coach Archer,” when the subject came up. He even had trouble with that: Moms weren’t supposed to date.
On the other hand, dads weren’t supposed to be engaged when they weren’t yet divorced. Alex’s dad had announced to Alex and his twelve-year-old sister, Molly, that he was engaged when they visited him in Boston over Christmas. He had explained that there would be no wedding until he and their mom were legally divorced—if only to avoid jail, Alex figured. The worst part was that he and Molly had both hated their dad’s fiancée at first sight.
At least he liked Coach Archer. They’d gotten off to a rocky start, but he’d proved to be a good guy—and a good coach. And it was pretty clear that his mom, unlike his father, wasn’t rushing into anything.
Coach Archer was standing in the kitchen, glass of wine in hand, when Alex walked in through the garage door. “Your mom’s upstairs changing,” he said. “She spilled some wine on her pants.” He smiled. “Actually, I spilled the wine on her.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Clumsy, I guess,” he said. “How’d the first day of baseball go? Hope the coach didn’t give you a hard time for being a week late.”
Alex laughed. “No, I gave myself a hard time,” he said. “I showed up without my glove, so I had to go back and get it. I was late in the first place for our meeting, then even later because of the glove.”
“Good start,” Coach Archer said. “Two laps around or three?”
“Two,” Alex said.
“I’d have given you five,” Coach Archer said.
“I know,” Alex answered.
Alex’s mom walked into the kitchen. She was thirty-nine and, Alex knew, quite pretty. Molly looked more and more like her every day. Some of Alex’s friends had started to ask about Molly—which horrified him. They were in the ninth grade, and Molly was in the seventh. But she looked older because she was tall, about five foot seven, and his buddies had begun to notice.
“How’d it go?” his mom asked.
“He was late and got into trouble,” Evan Archer answered, grinning wickedly.
Linda Myers glared at him for a second. “Well, if anyone should know about getting into trouble today, it’s you,” she said—but she was fighting a grin.
She looked at Alex. “Chicken, rice, and asparagus for dinner,” she said. “That work?”
“Absolutely,” Alex said.
He filled her in on Glove-gate and then told them both about Matt Gordon.
“Al told me this morning that he’d been cleared to play,” Coach Archer said. “He said he had no idea if he was any good. I guess that question got answered.”
“I just hope he calms down a little once he settles in,” Alex said. “He wasn’t Matt today.”
“Give him some time,” his mother said. “You didn’t like Evan at first, either—remember?”
“That was different,” Coach Archer said. “I was being a jerk. Gordon’s a good kid who made a bad mistake. He’ll be fine.”
“I hope you’re right,” Alex said. “I hope you’re right.”
Alex’s mom picked up her wineglass and pointed at the bottle of wine sitting on the kitchen island.
“Think you can pour me a glass without ruining another pair of pants?” she said to Coach Archer.
“I’ll give it one hundred and ten percent effort,” Coach Archer said, picking up the bottle.