Matt was jarred awake by the obnoxious alarm of his bedside clock radio. It was 9:15 AM on Saturday, and he had been sleeping for ten hours. But still he felt groggy.
No time to dawdle, though. This was the morning Coach Stephens had asked him to report for extra batting practice. Matt didn’t know what good taking more swings was going to do. His problem wasn’t hitting. It was being able to stand in there when the ball was coming at high speeds.
It wasn’t like Matt was afraid of getting hurt, at least no more afraid than anybody else his age. He had taken plenty of elbows in basketball and hard tackles in soccer. It was different with a baseball, though. Something about a small, hard ball coming at him in such unpredictable fashion out of a pitcher’s hand was scary. He wasn’t afraid of charging a hard grounder, and he had even taken a couple of those in the face. But when a tall fourteen-year-old kid with sinewy arms was winding up to throw, Matt couldn’t resist the urge to jump back. And like Coach said, it was pretty hard to take a decent swing at the baseball when you were jumping away from it.
After wolfing down some toast and orange juice for breakfast, Matt threw on a sweatshirt, his maroon Stingers cap and some sweatpants, hopped on his bike and pedaled the six blocks to South Side Middle School. The campus was empty, and Matt hoped he had got the day right because there was no sign of Coach Stephens’ car. He wheeled around back by the locker room door. Charlie was there, waiting with an equipment bag and a set of keys.
“Where’s Coach?” Matt asked.
“Can’t make it today,” Charlie replied. “He told me to help you out.”
Matt was irritated. He looked at Charlie, with his huge leg brace and his ever-present limp. The manager’s disability prevented him from running at even quarter-speed. That kept Charlie from playing any sports competitively. So how, exactly, was he going to help out Matt?
“Maybe we should just wait for a day when Coach can be here,” Matt said, eying Charlie.
“Nope,” the manager replied, shaking his head back and forth. “We’ve got everything we need, and Coach told me what drills to run. I didn’t waste my Saturday morning so you could just go home. Let’s get started.”
Charlie’s serious manner took Matt by surprise. “Okay,” Matt said. “What do we do, then?”
Charlie found the key that opened the locker room door and headed over to the equipment storage area. “Come over and give me a hand,” he said. It wasn’t so much a request as a command, Matt thought to himself.
“We’re going to take the pitching machine out to the field,” Charlie said. “You grab that end.”
Matt and Charlie wheeled the machine out the locker room door and down the path to the empty baseball field. They set it up on the mound and, using a yellow extension cord, plugged it into a power outlet in the home dugout.
“You know how to work this thing?” Matt asked.
“Sure,” Charlie replied with a confident grin. “It’s not exactly rocket science. You go back to the locker room and get the bag of soft practice balls. I’ll get it going.”
Matt returned with the black bag filled with at least fifty yellow balls. They were shaped like a baseball but made out of a soft synthetic material that didn’t hurt half as hard if they hit you.
“We’ll use these today,” Charlie said. “Maybe next time, we’ll use real baseballs.”
Next time? Matt was wondering what he had got himself into. It was kind of embarrassing being out here on a Saturday, taking orders from a student manager. What would his teammates say about it? They already thought he was enough of a wuss being afraid of the baseball.
Charlie had the pitching machine whirring, the wheel turning and spitting out balls toward the plate as the manager fed them through the top of the apparatus. He was busy adjusting the height and speed so that the ball would come across the plate every time.
“We’re going to start at forty miles an hour,” Charlie said. “Grab a bat and we’ll try a few.”
Matt settled in on the right side of the plate. Charlie began feeding balls into the machine. The balls came across the plate in roughly the same spot every time, right across the heart. Matt was taking healthy cuts, hitting at least three out of five pitches, most of them to the outfield. He was beginning to feel warmed up.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Charlie said. “Now comes the fun part.”
Matt had no idea what Charlie meant. He stood back from the plate as the manager bent over the side of the machine and adjusted it. Suddenly the ball was coming across the plate, but high and inside, just the kind of pitches that scared the daylights out of Matt.
“Go ahead, get in your stance,” Charlie said. Matt complied, lining up slightly farther away from the plate than he had before.
“Get closer,” Charlie said. “You can’t hit from the warm-up circle.”
Matt felt a twitch of anger. Charlie was now making jokes at his expense. The manager, who didn’t even play the game. Nice.
“Okay, Matt,” Charlie continued. “I just want you to stand there for about twenty pitches. Don’t move back at all, unless you think the ball is going to hit you.”
Matt nodded. He stood inside the batter’s box as Charlie began dropping balls into the top of the machine. They were whizzing within six inches of his batting helmet. Initially he flinched and moved backward. But over the last ten pitches, Matt stood his ground.
“I’m going to turn up the speed now,” Charlie said. The balls began whirring faster past his batting helmet. It was more difficult to stay in there and Matt felt himself instinctively sliding backward a couple of times. But for the most part, he stayed in the box.
“Good stuff,” Charlie said, looking impressed. “Now comes the tough part. This machine has an alternate switch on it. I’m going to set it up for a strike, a ball inside high and a ball inside low. Then I’m going to mix them up. I want you to hit the good pitches and leave the bad ones, okay? But don’t jump out of the box unless you think it’s going to hit you.”
Matt stepped back in the batter’s box. The first pitch was clearly a ball, low and inside. He left it alone. The second was a strike and he took a cut at it, hitting it foul. The third pitch was high and inside and he couldn’t help himself. He jumped back from the plate.
“Come on, Matt,” Charlie exclaimed. “It’s only going fifty and it’s a soft ball. It’s not going to hurt you even if it does hit you.”
Matt was burning inside again. What did Charlie know about anything? When had he ever played ball? Matt focused again and stepped back into the box. He would show Charlie.
Matt gradually began making the right decision on almost every pitch. Charlie put up his hand. “Last drill for today,” he said authoritatively. “I’m turning up the speed to seventy.”
Matt realized it would get tougher, but he jumped back in the box. After struggling through the first few pitches adjusting to the higher speed, he began to relax and find the groove again. Soon he was standing in there and not swinging at the faster, inside pitches. And he was smacking the ball into the outfield on the strikes.
“That’s enough for today,” Charlie barked. “Good job, Hill.”
Matt glanced at the clock on the outside of the school. It was already noon. He had been taking batting practice for two hours. He was sweating heavily from all the swings.
“We’ll do this again next week, okay?” Charlie said. “We’ll have you hitting like A-Rod in no time.”
Matt groaned inside. Charlie was doing his best Coach Stephens impersonation. It made him feel a little funny taking orders from a manager. But at the same time, Matt had to admit that Charlie seemed to know a thing or two about batting. A couple of tips he had given Matt about his swing had been bang-on. And it was nice of the manager to give up his Saturday morning to help him out. After all, it wasn’t Charlie who was afraid of the ball.
“Thanks, Chucky,” Matt said, using the nickname many of the players substituted for the manager’s real name.
“Can you just call me Charlie, or even Charles?” he replied. “I hate Chucky. It makes me think of that puppet from those horror flicks.”
Matt and Charlie shared a laugh. Then they wheeled the pitching machine back into the locker room and stored the practice balls away.
“Thanks, man,” Matt said, giving Charlie a high five.
Matt noticed a satisfied look in the manager’s eyes.
“No problem,” Charlie said. “It’s all about helping the team, right?”