Curveball (2 page)

E
ddie was taking his books out of his locker the next morning when Calvin Tait walked up and grabbed his arm.

“What's up, Tait?” Eddie asked.

“I need a favor, Ventura. I need an article on yesterday's baseball game by this afternoon, and I don't have time to write it. I still have to write up Monday's softball game, and I've got a track meet of my own right after school.”

“So?”

“So Mr. Lobianco says you're an awesome writer. Plus you're on the team. Can you give me three hundred words by one o'clock?”

“I never wrote a sports article before,” Eddie mumbled.

“No time like now to start. You guys won yesterday, right? It'll be easy.”

Calvin was the newly appointed sports editor of the school paper,
The Hornet Highlights
. In fact, he was the entire staff of the sports department. Every week he wrote short articles about each team's results. The paper was usually just four pages, with one page devoted to sports. It was printed right from a computer at the school and was distributed on Wednesday mornings.

Eddie thought it over for a moment. He loved reading
Sports Illustrated
and the coverage of the Yankees and Knicks and Giants in the
New York Post
. This might be fun. And he could probably get some free time to write at the end of English class, especially since Mr. Lobianco was the adviser to the newspaper. He could finish the article at lunch.

“All right, I'll do it,” Eddie said.

“You're the man,” Calvin said. “I'll make sure you get a byline.”

“No. I don't want one,” Eddie said.

A byline would identify him as the writer of the article: “By Eddie Ventura.” Spencer and the others would get on him about that for sure.

“I'd rather nobody knew who wrote it,” Eddie said. “Keep it a secret. Or even better, just let them think you wrote it. You write everything else in that section.”

“Whatever you want,” Calvin said. “I'll owe you one.”

Eddie made some notes about the game during math class, jotting down the name of the winning pitcher, the team's record, a few things Coach Wimmer had said after the game. When he reached the classroom for English, Mr. Lobianco was waiting for him at the doorway.

“Calvin told me you're going to help us out,” the teacher said. “Tell you what: how about if I write you a pass to the computer lab and you can work on the article now?”

“Sounds great.”

So Eddie walked to the computer lab and took a seat at one of the terminals.

He'd read hundreds of sports articles in the past few years, but that didn't seem to make it any easier to get started on one.

What was the most important thing about that game?
he wondered.
That should be my lead.

Eddie started typing:

Okay,
Eddie thought.
So much for the basics
. Now he needed to insert some play-by-play excitement into the article. Mr. Lobianco always said, “Write what you know best.” So Eddie thought hard about what he'd been feeling in that final inning.

Eddie stopped typing and looked around the lab. A copy of that day's
New York Times
newspaper was sitting on a table. He grabbed it and turned to the sports section.

He read through an article on yesterday's Yankees-Tigers game, then glanced at an interview with the Knicks' coach.

Quotes,
Eddie told himself.
All of these articles include comments from the key players.

He could interview Spencer or Ramiro, perhaps, but he was running out of time. So he decided to quote himself. He started typing again.

Eddie looked at the clock. He'd been writing for nearly an hour! He was already late for his next class.

He quickly e-mailed the article to Calvin and gathered his books. Fortunately his next class was history—taught by Coach Wimmer.

Coach was standing in front of the class talking as Eddie quietly slipped into the room.

Coach raised his eyebrows, and his fat, pink face stretched into a grin. “Nice of you to show up, Eddie,” he said. “You're only fifteen minutes late.”

Eddie blushed. “I was, um, doing something for Mr. Lobianco,” he said.

Coach Wimmer rubbed his bald head with his fingertips. “So he wrote you a pass?”

“Yeah. But…the pass was for last period. I turned it in at the computer lab. I lost track of time.”

Coach nodded and gave Eddie a sarcastic-looking smile. “I guess that bell isn't loud enough, huh?”

“I sort of didn't hear it,” Eddie said quietly. “I was deep in thought.”

Most of the class laughed at that.

“Eddie's a deep thinker, all right,” Spencer said.

“He's like a philosopher or something,” said Lamont. “He thinks a lot more than he talks.”

“He'd better be thinking more,” Spencer said, “because he almost never says anything.”

Coach just rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Where were we?” he said. And he got right back to the lecture.

That was one of the things Eddie and the other players loved about Coach Wimmer—he knew when to cut them a break. He'd been coaching and teaching for so long that he knew how kids' minds worked. They wanted to do the right thing, but it didn't always come out as planned. Coach could always laugh at the mess-ups, especially when he saw that an honest effort had been made.

Eddie let out his breath and opened his notebook. A ball of paper hit him on the arm. He tossed it back at Spencer and grinned.

Eddie didn't mind getting busted by the guys. He knew he was the quietest player on the team. He didn't quite know why he was so quiet, especially considering his family.

Eddie's father was a lawyer, and his mother was a third-grade teacher. They talked all day long for a living. His older brother, Lenny, was a student across the river at New York University and was also thinking about going to law school. And his sister, Irene, was president of the junior class at Hudson City High School. So it didn't figure much that Eddie wasn't a talker, except that it was hard for him to get a word in at all in a household like that.

It didn't matter to him. Let the other people do the talking; he just loved to play baseball.

E
ddie could feel the excitement building as the bus climbed Palisades Avenue toward the Weehawken field. Those four straight losses at the beginning of the season felt like a long time ago; this team definitely had momentum now.

Outside the bus windows, the Hudson River was reflecting the sun. The George Washington Bridge loomed large in the distance. This stretch of New Jersey along the Hudson River was one of the most densely populated areas in the country.

“Finally got some of that sunshine breaking through,” Spencer said to Eddie as the bus rolled into the parking lot. “About time, I'd say. Seems like every game we've played it's been cold or drizzly. Or both.”

Eddie nodded.

“I need to get that warmth in the muscles,” Spencer said. “You know what I'm saying? More power.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said.

Spencer stretched out his arms in front of him. “Be hitting that ball all over the place today, I think. Feeling good. You?”

“Sure,” Eddie said. “I feel good.”

“Time to even up that record.” Spencer stood and stepped into the aisle. “Hammer that little ball over the fence a few times.”

Eddie gave a tight smile and nodded again.

“Just don't tire yourself out with all that jabbering you're doing,” Spencer said, rolling his eyes.

Miguel leaned over from the seat in front of Eddie. “Yeah, Ventura,” he said. “Don't you ever shut up? I counted six words out of you on the ride over here. That must be some kind of record.”

“No,” Spencer said. “His record for most words at one time is that quote he gave Calvin for the school paper the other day. That was, like, three whole sentences. Anyway, Eddie, I'm the one who hit the home run. What's he quoting you for?”

Eddie laughed. “I don't know. Calvin had this deadline…. I just happened to be around when he needed me.”

 

Eddie had a poor day with his bat, grounding out three times and striking out once. But it didn't matter, as the Hornets built a big lead early and pitcher David Choi was nearly unhittable.

So all that was left as the Hornets took the field for the bottom of the seventh inning was to preserve the shutout.

David was sweating heavily, but his pitches still had plenty of speed. He looked focused and confident as he struck out the first two batters. There was lots of chatter from the Hornets' infielders.

“Mow 'em down!” yelled Miguel from his shortstop position.

“No batter,” called Lamont from second base.

Eddie swallowed hard and swept his foot through the dirt in front of him. It had been a very routine day in the field for him. A handful of put-outs on throws from the other infielders, one easy pop-up that he caught in foul territory. And Weehawken had only had three base runners, so there hadn't been much activity on that end, either.

But he stayed alert. One more out and this one would be over.

Ventura really sets the tone for this infield,
the announcer's voice in his head was saying.
Always calm but always ready. The kid's got Major League instincts.

David went into his windup and delivered the pitch. The Weehawken batter swung hard but only managed to top the ball, and it bounced quickly toward the gap to Eddie's right.

Eddie lunged toward the ball and got his glove on it, stopping it as he fell to one knee. He scooped up the ball and raced toward first base as the batter ran up the base path. David was running toward the base, too, but Eddie decided not to throw the ball. He was closer to the base than the batter.

He reached first base a half step before the batter, landing with his left foot and hopping back to avoid a collision.

The umpire called the batter out, and Eddie tossed the ball to David with a grin. “Great pitching!” he said.

Superb effort from Ventura,
said that radio voice.
A game-clinching play, for sure.

“Nice hustle, Eddie,” David said as he was lifted off his feet by Jared. All of the Hornets were on the field now, celebrating win number four.

Eddie let out his breath. His heart was beating fast. He followed his happy teammates to the bus.

“All right, good effort,” Coach Wimmer said, standing in the aisle and gripping the overhead railing with one hand as the bus lurched forward. “A couple more like that and we'll be contenders.”

“Coach of the year!” called Miguel.

Coach blushed. “Yes, Miguel, I'm certain that the Hall of Fame will be inducting me any day now,” he joked. “Okay, enjoy this win. We'll get back to work tomorrow. You guys aren't ready for the World Series yet, believe me.”

 

Sunday night Eddie sat at the computer terminal in the family room, pondering his next article for Wednesday's school paper. He'd promised Calvin that he'd turn it in on Monday morning.

“School project?” asked his mother, looking into the room.

“Not really. Something for the newspaper.”

“Wonderful,” she said. Mom was big on extracurricular stuff. All of the Ventura kids had been encouraged to play musical instruments and get involved in school clubs and other activities.

With Eddie, it had been mostly sports. He'd taken some piano lessons in second grade, but all the repetition bored him silly. He got out of that by promising to join the Cub Scouts. And soon he'd gotten out of Cub Scouts by promising to join the junior choir at church.

That hadn't lasted long, either. This time it wasn't his choice; his singing was so flat and quiet that the choir director asked him to leave.

But he always stuck with sports. From his first season of Little League baseball, he'd known this was for him. Now maybe he'd found something else, too. Writing for the paper seemed like fun.

“Don't forget to take the trash cans out tonight,” Mom said.

“No problem. As soon as I'm done writing.”

He had done some studying that afternoon of the articles in the sports sections of the
Hudson Dispatch
and the
New York Times.
The most interesting articles did a lot more than just give the score and the major details of the games. They seemed to put Eddie right there in the moment, making him feel like a part of the action.

He decided to try that, too. It shouldn't be too hard, he figured, since he really
had
been part of the action.

Not bad,
Eddie thought as he read his work over.
This kid might turn out to be a great sportswriter, too. That's some combination of brains and athletic talent at work right there. He's certainly worth keeping an eye on.