Windmill Windup (8 page)

She smiled back, then turned away before he could see her go red in the face. “Where are those two, anyway?” she said, feigning
impatience. “Isn’t it gross the way they’re all ooey-gooey?”

But inside, she was thinking,
He likes me!

T
he Phillies had been last season’s doormat team, the one everyone else walked all over. But no longer. This year, they had
a windmill pitcher who made Laurie Solomon’s fireballs look like batting-practice meatballs. If Dorien Day hadn’t been hit
in the leg, and Kyla Sutton in the arm, there wouldn’t have been two runners on in the first for Allie Warheit to drive in
with a monstrous three-run homer.

Needless to say, the D’backs fans were screaming with excitement by the time Kelly came up to bat. A 3–0 lead, and the Phillies
hadn’t even recorded an out yet. Their coach was already out on the mound, calming down his pitcher, while Kelly stood at
the plate, taking practice swings and getting more and more nervous.

Partly, her nerves came from watching the speed
of the pitches. But mostly, it was because Ryan Randall was in the stands, sitting next to his dad and her mom, watching her.
Of course, Ryan had heard what an all-star she was. Even if her mom hadn’t bragged on her, it wouldn’t have mattered. Everyone
knew about Kelly Conroy, the female phenom, from last fall. Even the boys in school kidded her about it.

And now, Allie had gone and stolen her thunder again! Kelly knew that unless she hit a home run right there and then, she
was going to look bad by comparison. She stepped into the batter’s box determined to smack a four-bagger, even if there wasn’t
anyone on base for her to drive in.

“Stee-rike one!” yelled the umpire, after Kelly whiffed at the first pitch, a heater way over her head. A murmur went up from
the fans and her teammates as they watched her flail fruitlessly at the empty air. “Stee-rike two!” came the call as the second
pitch hit the catcher’s mitt before she’d even gotten around on it.

Kelly braced herself. There was no way she was going to let this third pitch get by her!

Wumhph!!
She heard the buzzing sound of the
ball coming her way, but she never saw the pitch that struck her out. She swung because she didn’t want to go down with the
bat on her shoulder, but there was no way she could ever have hit it. She was way too tense and wound up. “Stee-rike three.
Yer out!” the umpire called.

Kelly trudged back to the bench, her cheeks on fire, not daring to look up in the direction of the stands. Why had she let
Ryan come see her play? Last week’s home runs had been an aberration — they came off a non-windmill pitcher! How had she let
herself forget that?

The Phillies soon came back to take the lead, and it was all Kelly’s fault. A grounder, a ball she normally would have scarfed
up with no problem, dribbled right through her legs.

Then things got even worse. She came off the bag to field a ball that should have been the second baseman’s, and the batter
was safe, making it two on, nobody out. A three-run homer followed, and before the D’backs knew it, they were down, 6–3. Their
fans had fallen silent, Ryan Randall among them.

Kelly whiffed two more times, stranding Allie Warheit both times at second, where she’d wound
up as a result of two scorching doubles. Kelly didn’t think she could feel any lower, until Coach Beigelman came up to her
in the bottom of the fifth and told her he was putting in a sub for her.

“What?” Kelly gasped. “But —”

“I think you need to cool down a little, Kelly,” he told her, patting her on the shoulder. “We’ll get you back in there next
game.”

“Next game!” Kelly cried, and then she fell speechless. She’d never been subbed for in her entire life! It was the final humiliation.
If Ryan hadn’t been sitting there, she would have stormed off and walked home, right in the middle of the game, rather than
sit on the bench with everyone looking at her. But with him there, she had no choice but to act like a team player.

When the game mercifully ended, the score was 7–4, Phillies. Kelly gathered up her stuff and got ready to accept condolences
from Ryan, her mom, and Ken. This was going to be the worst moment of the whole miserable day.

Looking up, Kelly saw a sight that made her freeze in her tracks. There was Ryan, talking with Allie Warheit! Even from this
distance, Kelly could
see that Allie was flirting with him. She remembered now how Allie had talked about liking him.

At the time, Kelly had been amused by Allie’s crush, thinking how stupid and hopeless it was. Now, with a budding crush of
her own, it seemed threatening, not cute. She wanted to go over there and pull Allie away by that sleek, black hair of hers.

Ryan was smiling, obviously enjoying the attention. She heard him say, “You were awesome!” to Allie, obviously impressed by
her performance. What would he say to Kelly? “Good game”? No possible way, unless he was the world’s biggest liar.

“Hi, baby.” Kelly heard her mom’s voice behind her. She turned to see her mom and Ken standing there with sympathetic looks
on their faces. “Rough game, huh?”

“I hate this team!” Kelly said, kicking the dirt with her cleats.

“Hey, you know what?” Ken said. “If you like, I could work with you a little on that swing of yours. I think I could help
you —”

Kelly cut him off before he could finish. “Stay out of this!” she yelled at him. “Stay out of my life, okay? Just leave me
alone!”

She ran off toward home, leaving her mom and
Ken standing there, and she didn’t stop until the front door had slammed closed behind her.

Under the circumstances, it was almost a relief when spring break finally came and Kelly was shipped off to softball camp.
All the way there on the bus, she avoided talking with any of the other kids, none of whom she knew — or wanted to know.

She was determined not to make any friends there, or even talk to anybody. But that resolve soon broke down. The counselors
had them on the field all day long, except for meals, and Kelly soon found herself wrapped up in games and clinics.

Her first order of business was fixing her messed-up swing. The coaches made her open her stance, so she could get a better
look at the ball. But when that only made things worse, they told her to center her feet again.

By the third day, Kelly’s swing was such a mess that she was ready to give up and go home — except that no one was home to
meet her. Her mom and Ken had gone off to their little romantic hideaway, and Kelly was stuck here in this torture chamber,
humiliating herself day after day, unable to find her lost home-run swing.

On the fourth day, as she sat miserably on the bench alongside a bunch of chattering girls, one of the coaches came up to
them and said, “Okay, girls, today we’re going to teach you all how to windmill pitch.”

Kelly blinked and looked up at him. It suddenly hit her. If she couldn’t hit, at least she could learn how to pitch. It might
give her a way out of her dilemma. She got up and followed the other girls to the mound, where one after the other, they learned
the mechanics of windmill pitching.

“Okay, you stand like this,” the coach instructed them, “with the heel of your front foot on the front of the rubber, and
the toe of your back foot on the back of the rubber. Got that? Good.”

He checked around to see that they all had it right before continuing. “Now this is key. You’re only allowed to bring your
hands together once during the windup, otherwise it’s a ‘fault.’ That’s like a balk. It means the base runners advance one
base, or, if there aren’t any runners, the pitch is called a ball.

“Okay. So, hands at your sides. Then lean back — don’t move your feet, though, that’s a fault too — now bring your hands up
and together …good …
now the glove hand slaps the thigh on the way down, as you bring the hand with the ball back, then forward, and all the way
around in a windmill motion. As you do it, the glove hand goes back from the thigh, then forward, pointing to the plate, to
give you more speed and control. Follow through with the elbow of your throwing arm pointing straight out, and end with that
hand on your shoulder.”

One after the other, the girls all tried to mimic the complicated windup. When it came to Kelly’s turn, she went into the
motion, trying to visualize it as she’d seen the coach do it. Her arm wound up and back and around, and she let the ball fly.
It sailed high over the backstop, at least twenty feet in the air.

“Good! Good!” the coach encouraged her, not letting Kelly sag into depression. “Just release it sooner, Kelly, when your arm
is pointing at the catcher’s mitt. Then, as you finish the motion, your hand should be on your shoulder. Right. Now set your
feet in fielding position. That’s it.”

Kelly tried it again, and this time the ball whizzed from her hand with that familiar buzzing sound she’d come to fear as
a hitter. The ball popped into the catcher’s mitt with a loud smack. “OW!” the girl
who was catching shouted. “Hey, take it easy, will you?”

“Hey, there you go!” the coach congratulated her. “Now work on that for the rest of the week, and I guarantee you, you’ll
have it down!”

K
elly spent the next three days doing nothing but pitching. She’d given up on hitting altogether. What did it matter if she
struck out every time at bat? If she could pitch windmill with the best of them, the other team wouldn’t be able to get a
runner on base!

She arrived home and was picked up by her very tanned, happy-looking mom. When she asked Kelly how her week had been, Kelly
said, “Fabulous,” in her most sarcastic tone. But really, it hadn’t been so bad. Not nearly as awful as she’d anticipated.

The following afternoon, right after school, was the Diamondbacks’ next game. Actually, the team had played two games over
the break — without Kelly — and, much to her annoyance and surprise, had won them both. “Allie’s been awesome!” Dorien Day
enthused. “Five homers and seven extra-base hits! Coach says he’s sending her to the all-star game!”

“Fabulous,” said Kelly, in the same sarcastic tone she’d used on her mom.

She hated Allie Warheit. Not only had the girl stolen her spotlight as the star of the team, but she’d had the nerve to move
in on Ryan Randall, a guy who was two years older than her, two grades ahead of her — and the very same guy Kelly had developed
a crush on. Worst of all, she’d shown Kelly up in front of him at the last game before vacation. Well, today Kelly was going
to get some of her own back.

“Coach,” she said, going up to him before the game began, “can I pitch today?”

“You?” he said, surprised. “I thought you liked playing first base.”

“I do, but I went to softball camp during break and learned to pitch windmill.”

“Really?” The coach grew thoughtful. “Tell you what. I don’t want to hurt Marie’s feelings. I promised her she could pitch
today. But if she runs into any trouble, I’ll put you in there in relief, okay?”

Kelly sighed in frustration, but she didn’t argue with him. She felt pretty sure that Marie would run into trouble soon enough.
She always did.

The D’backs’ opponents were the Dodgers, a
team with a 4–1 record going into the game, their only loss being to the undefeated Devil Rays. By the third inning, they
were ahead, 3–2, and had loaded the bases against Marie del Toro with nobody out. Coach Beigelman walked slowly to the mound
and signaled to the ump that he was making a pitching change. Then he beckoned to Kelly.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked her, handing her the ball.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she answered, blowing out a deep breath.

He patted her on the back and headed for the dugout. Kelly pounded the ball into her mitt a few times, then stared in at Sarah
Harden, the catcher.

“Okay, here goes,” she muttered under her breath as she went into her windup.

The ball flew out of her hand and buzzed the chin of the batter, who wheeled out of its way. Sarah was so surprised that she
never got her glove up. But fortunately the ball hit off the backstop and bounced right back to her, so the runner on third
was unable to come home.

There was a wave of murmuring from the stands, and a few audible “Whoa”s from the base runners
and the fielders. Kelly took the throw from the catcher and concentrated on her release point, the way they’d taught her at
camp. This time, she whizzed the ball in right over the plate.

“Stee-rike one!” called the ump.

Kelly shook out her shoulders and stayed focused. “Stee-rike two!” shouted the ump as the batter flailed helplessly at the
next pitch. One more, and Kelly had recorded her first-ever strikeout — on the very first batter she’d faced!

Next up was the Dodgers’ cleanup hitter. Kelly fanned her on three straight fastballs. Now the murmuring had become cheering
from the Diamondbacks, and outraged heckling from the Dodgers, who were trying to rattle her.

But Kelly was not about to be rattled. She got two strikes on the next hitter, then shook off Sarah’s sign and threw a windmill
change-up that totally fooled the hitter.

“Stee-rike three, you’re out!” yelled the ump, and Kelly leaped into the air, pounding her fist into her glove.

Her teammates mobbed her as she reached the bench, and Coach Beigelman said, “Hey, where’d you learn to pitch like that?”

Kelly just smiled happily.

“You’re awesome!” Allie said. “What were you thinking, playing first base? We need you on the mound!”

“Well, you’ve got me from now on,” Kelly told her with a grin of genuine pleasure.

By the end of the game, Kelly had recorded twelve strikeouts, and the D’backs had recorded another victory. Amazingly, some
of Kelly’s teammates even made good defensive plays behind her, on the few occasions when the Dodgers actually made contact.
Maybe Coach Beigelman wasn’t such a loser after all, Kelly thought, wondering if she’d judged him too harshly. His policy
of praise and encouragement seemed to be paying off.