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Authors: Tim Green

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BOOK: Baseball Great
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“NO,” JADEN AND JOSH
said at the same time.

Josh looked at her, and she said to Benji, “A supplement. Like food. Some people don't even think they do anything. There've been studies that show placebos to be just as effective.”

“What's a placebo?” Benji asked.

Jaden sighed and said, “They tell people they're getting a supplement, but they just give them sugar pills with nothing in them. In some tests it works just as well. People think they're going to get stronger, and they do.”

“Maybe I should be using that Stax stuff,” Benji said.

“They probably just work harder,” Jaden said. “Now, can we do this poster?”

“Bite my head off,” Benji said.

“Well, first we're doing a math tutorial,” Jaden said, “and now we're doing the ESPN
Sports Reporters
.”

“I'm a man of many interests and many talents,” Benji said, placing a hand over his heart. “That's how you get
personality
.”

“Last I checked, that wasn't a college major,” Jaden said, picking up a chart and beginning to snip away the edges with a pair of scissors.

“Major?” Benji said. “I'm majoring in baseball—that's if I don't go straight to the pros.”

“Then how come you're not the one with the Titans?” Jaden asked, coating the back of the chart with a glue stick.

“When I'm developed, that's all,” Benji said. “So I'm not a behemoth like my buddy here. I'll grow, and when I do, I'll be right there next to him, leading off.”

“I won't be there myself if we don't get this done and I get some sleep,” Josh said.

They got to work, and at 9:07, Josh's friends walked out together. He got ready for bed and went down into the TV room to kiss his parents good-night. His mom worked on a Sudoku puzzle from the couch while his dad sat stretched back in his recliner, watching a Yankees game.

“Bed already?” his mom asked.

“We find out tomorrow who gets cut,” Josh said. He watched his dad but got no reaction until cheers came
from the TV.

“You see that double play?” his father asked.

Josh turned and watched the replay.

“That'll be you,” his dad said.

“So, you think I'll make it?” Josh asked.

His dad clicked the remote, muting the TV, and said, “I don't know, Josh.”

“You're kidding, right?” Josh said. “I mean, you work with Rocky, right?”

His father shook his head and said, “It doesn't work that way. Rocky's not going to keep you unless he and his coaches think you're better than someone else. You probably have to be a lot better than the older kids for them to keep you, Josh.”

Josh felt pressure build up in his face, and before he could stop himself he shouted, “Then why did I do all this?”

Josh's mother put aside her puzzle and glanced nervously between Josh and his father. Josh's father reached down and cranked on the lever of his chair, bringing it upright and sitting tall.

“You did it to be the best,” his father said. “You did it because if you make this team, you're on your way. If you make it, everyone will be talking about you. Twelve-year-olds just can't play with fourteen-year-olds, everyone knows that.”

“You didn't!” Josh said.

His father stared at him for a minute, then in a low,
tight voice said, “I knew exactly what I was doing. I wanted to see if you've got what it takes, not just hitting and fielding, but mentally, see if you're tough enough to make it. Part of that is facing facts. If you're good enough, you'll make the cut. If you're not, then you go back to the drawing board and start over.”

“But I can't go back to the drawing board, Dad,” Josh said, his voice still raised. “I quit the school team, and I can't go back now. They made their cuts.”

His father flicked his hand and said, “School team. That's crap. Mount Olympus is going to have a U12 travel team put together in a week or so. We got Dickie Woodridge lined up as batting coach, and if it goes good with the Nike people, Rocky might even let me manage the whole thing, so you can play there.”

Josh thought about Benji and Esch and the other kids he had looked forward to becoming friends with by playing together, being the team's baseball great. Then he thought about the older kids he'd spent every afternoon with, the kids who made fun of him if they talked to him at all, the kids who didn't even want him to be there. Josh's vision blurred, and he turned away so his dad wouldn't see his eyes. He wiped them on his sleeve as he left the room, mumbling his good-nights.

The sleep he wanted so badly wouldn't come. The sloped ceiling above the head of his bed never seemed so close, and his tiny room never seemed so small. The
dresser and fully stuffed bookshelf that stood shoulder to shoulder alongside his bed seemed to press in on him. Clothes bulged from the narrow closet, forcing its single door open to bump against the bed's footboard. Sports posters hung crowded together on what little wall space he had, and the players seemed to pile out of them into the room and breathe up all the dusty air. Around and around his mind went, half of him hoping he'd make the Titans, the other half hoping he'd be cut and the whole thing could finally be over.

AT LUNCH THE NEXT
day, Josh got his milks lined up and looked around for Jaden. If anyone could cheer him up, it was her. Her knowledge of the game and about everything else made her praise of his baseball skills twice as meaningful as anyone else's outside his dad's. He didn't see her, though, and he started in on his first sandwich, not wanting to get behind.

When Benji arrived with a tray of pizza and carrot sticks, Josh asked, “You seen Jaden?”

Benji set down his tray and said, “Who cares?”

“Come on, Lido,” Josh said. “She helped you with math, right? You got something like an eighty-one on the quiz? You're out of the woods now. You're going to pass.”

Benji puffed out his cheeks and blew air through a
small hole between his lips. “You think that's 'cause of
her
? I got brains just like the rest of you.”

“Man, sometimes you really get to me, Lido,” Josh said.

“So, you're got,” Lido said, picking up his tray and walking away.

“Where you going?” Josh asked.

Benji turned and said, “To sit with some of my
teammates
—the ones who are still left, anyway. Some people around here appreciate me, dude.”

Josh watched him go, gulped down the rest of a roast beef sandwich, and searched the lunchroom for Jaden. When he spotted her over by the stage underneath the flag, sitting and eating in the midst of a big group of brainy girls, he balanced his three remaining milks on his lunch bag and crossed the cafeteria.

“Hey,” Josh said, nudging Jaden with his hip. “Can you ask someone to make room?”

Jaden looked up at him with a deadpan face.

“No,” she said in her southern drawl, “I don't think that's nice.”

Josh snorted at the joke and said, “C'mon, Jaden. Stop it. It's me, not Benji. He's mad because I stuck up for you. He's not even sitting with me.”

Without looking up at him, Jaden said, “I got to believe that anyone who cares about this school isn't going to be lining up to sit with
you
.”

“Hey, easy,” Josh said, touching her shoulder. “C'mon, Jaden. It's not funny anymore.”

Jaden shrugged his hand off her shoulder and turned. “I know it's not funny. No one's laughing but you.”

“What are you talking about?” Josh asked.

Jaden looked around at her wide-eyed classmates and said, “Fine, you don't care if other people know?”

“Know what? I don't care.”

“It was bad enough when your father took you off our baseball team for some pack of muscle-bound all-stars,” she said in her drawl, clutching a pretzel so tight it broke into pieces. “I tried to be fair. I tried to be understanding, but I realize now that I did it because of how I feel—how I
felt
—about you. I compromised my journalistic integrity, and I should have known better. Well, fool me once, shame on you. You won't do it twice.”

“Twice, how?” Josh asked, his jaw falling.

“Oh, you're going to pretend you don't know?” Jaden said. “Okay, Josh. I believe you. Duh. I'm stupid. You didn't know your dad recruited Kerry Eschelman for the U12 Titans. Sure, I believe you.”

Josh stood for a minute, staring at Jaden, then looking around at the other girls' faces and the faces of the kids at the nearby tables staring at him.

“I didn't,” he said quietly. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Right,” Jaden said. “I wouldn't want to know either
if me and my dad were killing the entire baseball season for the whole school.”

“My dad never said anything about Kerry,” Josh said, still softly.

“You didn't know he was putting together a U12 travel team?” Jaden asked accusingly. “And he called Kerry's dad, like, twenty times?”

“I…” Josh said, not wanting to lie. “I knew about the team, but not Kerry.”

“He's only the best seventh-grade pitcher around,” Jaden said, slapping the crumbs of her pretzel down on the table in front of her and jumping up so she could stick her face in his. “Only a
moron
wouldn't think they'd go after him. Are you a moron, Josh, or just a liar?”

JOSH COULDN'T SPEAK. HE
clamped his mouth shut, glaring at Jaden, humiliated in front of half the school.

“You're some friend,” he said in a mutter. “Benji was right all along. Girls are nothing but trouble.”

“Moron it is,” Jaden said, the word coming out “MOE-ron,” and she turned away and sat back down.

Josh walked away, his ears burning. As he approached the doorway out, his stomach did a backward roll. He dumped the remainder of his lunch, bag and all, into the big trash can.

“Hey,” someone behind him said.

Josh turned and frowned when he saw Benji standing there with his tray of garbage.

“Hey,” Josh said.

“Your mom give you any of those cookies she
makes?” Benji asked.

“I guess so,” Josh said. “Why?”

Benji nodded and dug into the trash can, coming up with Josh's half-empty lunch bag. He fished inside and removed a small Baggie containing three oatmeal-raisin cookies. He took one out and jammed the whole thing into his mouth.

“No sense wasting them,” Benji said, chewing as he spoke so it came out half garbled.

Without another word, Benji turned and walked back into the lunchroom. Josh hung his head and made his way toward seventh-period English class.

To make matters worse, his English teacher called on him twice and his social studies teacher three times. He had no idea what to say any of the times. He lost interest in his lessons and could only think about one thing: making the Titans. The half of him that had wanted to return to his friends now knew that he had no friends. The best thing that could happen to Josh would be to make the Mount Olympus Titans and travel the country, honing his skills and letting the world see that no matter what else, he would be a baseball great.

THE LAST BELL FINALLY
rang, and Josh sprinted for the school's main entrance. Outside, clouds surged overhead, and the warm breeze smelled of spring rain. His father waited, as usual, just beyond the buses. After Josh climbed into the car and slammed the door, he slumped down in the seat and stared straight ahead. His father said nothing and put the car into gear, driving off toward the Mount Olympus Sports Complex.

After a time his father said, “Would you really want me to force you onto this team? Have them keep you because I'm your dad?”

Josh kept his lips rolled tight against his teeth.

“Tell me,” his father said. “I doubt Rocky will do it, but I can sure try. If it means that much to you, Josh, I'll do it.”

Josh let his face relax. He sighed deeply and shook his head.

“No,” he said, then let silence have its way again.

“Because—” his dad began to say.

“Dad, did you recruit Kerry Eschelman away from the school team?” Josh said, blurting out the question.

His father glanced at him and nodded his head. “Of course I did. I told you Rocky had me working on putting a team together. I got Silven from Liverpool and Macauly from Solvay, too. Supposedly the three best twelve-year-old pitchers in the city. Why?”

“You ruined the Grant team,” Josh said, his eyes on the road straight ahead.

“What about Eschelman?” his father asked. “You think about him? His talent? He could be a college player with the right development.”

“Weight lifting and Super Stax?” Josh asked.

“In a couple years, if he's still there. When the time is right,” his father said. “I told you—you're different. You're way more advanced.”

“Well, we'll see if I am, right?” Josh said, looking over at his father. “And if I'm not, I'm going to play Titans U12.”

“And they'd be damn lucky to have you, Josh,” his father said.

“'Cause I can't play with the school team anymore.”

“You think Coach Miller knows a bat from a bunt?”
his dad said.

Josh clamped his mouth shut and looked out the window.

“Looks like rain,” Josh said.

“Another good thing about practicing in the bubble,” his dad said as they pulled into the circle. “You see that limo?”

Josh looked at the Cadillac stretch limo, so clean it reflected the trees and the cloudy sky above.

“What's that?” Josh asked.

“Sponsors,” his father said. “From Nike.”

“Nike sneakers?” Josh asked.

“And cleats, and sportswear,” his father said. “They're breaking into baseball equipment—gloves, balls, maybe even bats. They're sponsoring five travel teams across the country at every level. Rocky's signing the contract with them today. If I get this U12 thing put together and looking good, he says we might get them to do that deal, too.”

“What kind of deal?” Josh asked.

“They pay Rocky a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year to manage it, plus the team's expenses, coaches, practice facility—the entire budget,” his father said. “That means Rocky gets to pay himself for having the team practice at Olympus.”

“Wow,” Josh said.

“Not a bad business, huh?” his father said. “All right,
you get going. And Josh?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“You're my boy. Be great.”

Josh jumped out and scooted inside with the rest of the players. If he didn't make it, it wouldn't be because he didn't try. He growled and yelled his way through his weight workout in a way that made the other kids steal glances at him. When they hit the field, he blew everyone away in the agilities and fired his throws to first so hard, he saw Jones wince at least twice. When he got into the batting cage, he attacked the ball, smashing it wildly around without concern for where it went, only wanting to bust its yellow rubber seams.

Sprints came, and Josh blew their doors in. No one bothered griping at him because no one could catch their breath to do it. Rocky came out of his office as they finished running. When he called them in, Josh gasped for breath himself but kept his head high. He watched as Rocky huddled up outside the half circle of players with his three assistant coaches, whispering among themselves. If Josh didn't make it, he wasn't going to have anything to be ashamed of. Still, his stomach jumped when Rocky cleared his throat.

“As I said a couple weeks ago,” Rocky said, “we only keep eighteen. That's all we have room for, and that's the way it is. The other coaches and I got together on this, and we all agree. We also think it's important to
make this announcement as a team. For the guy who didn't make it, well, I hope you'll use it as a valuable lesson when you're trying to do it to it in other areas of life. I know you'll have other opportunities to do things down the road, and it's important that you use this experience as a lesson to motivate you to work even harder.”

Rocky looked Josh directly in the eye, and Josh stopped breathing.

“The guy who didn't make it is…” Rocky said, and cleared his throat.

Josh closed his eyes.

BOOK: Baseball Great
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