Batting Order Page 5

  Now it was their scary dude, Ben, against the Cubs scary dude, second and third, one out.

  All they needed to get a run was for Ben to put the ball in play. It was too early in the game for the Cubs to bring their infielders in. They were playing at normal depth. So even a ground ball would score a run. If it got through the infield, the Astros would get two.

  Matt found himself looking over at the Cubs third baseman, knowing what it was like to have Ben Roberson standing there just sixty feet away. It had happened to Matt plenty of times when he’d been a baserunner on third. Because of Ben’s size and reach, it looked as if he could practically reach out and tap you on the helmet with his bat if he wanted to.

  It was only the bottom of the first, first game of the season. It still felt like a big moment.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Andrew struck out Ben on three pitches. It was like the announcers said sometimes: Good morning, good afternoon, good night. Ben wasn’t trying to just put the ball in play. He was trying to hit a three-run homer off Andrew Welles, and struck out on three straight fastballs instead. But Stone Russell did much better, blooping a two-strike pitch into center, not trying to do too much with it, just trying to get his bat on the ball. With two outs, Matt was running all the way, and scored easily. Astros 2, Cubs 0.

  When Matt was back on the bench, having been high-fived by his teammates, Ben said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “That I’m happy we’ve got a two-run lead?”

  “That I shouldn’t have been swinging out of my shoes like that,” Ben said.

  “Nope,” Matt said. “All I’m really thinking is that you’ve seen Andrew now and you’ll get him next time.”

  The game stayed at 2–0 until the bottom of the third. This time José worked Andrew for a walk. So did Matt. Runners on first and second. It meant two more guys on the bases for Ben.

  “Give it a ride, big boy!”

  It was the only voice you could hear at Healey Park, and Matt knew instantly that it belonged to Ben’s dad.

  “Take him deep!”

  And Ben nearly did. But what looked for a second as if it might actually be a three-run homer turned into a routine out for the left fielder, even if it had been a really, really high routine out to end the inning.

  Ben walked back to the bench, looking up to the stands, where his dad was standing and pumping a fist at him, as if just giving the ball a ride had been enough.

  Enough to do everything except get the Astros another run.

  Everything except that.

  ELEVEN

  The game was tied 2–2 going into the fifth inning. Teddy Sample hadn’t reached the maximum number of pitches Sarge allowed his starters to throw. But as far as Sarge was concerned, Teddy was close enough. So he brought Chris Conte in from left field to relieve Teddy, and maybe close out the game if the Astros could scratch out at least one run.

  But it was the Cubs who broke the tie, scoring three runs in the top of the fifth to go ahead 5–2. Two of those runs came on a monster home run by Andrew Welles, who by now had moved over to play third base. It was what Sarge called a “no-doubter.” Teddy had gone out to replace Chris in left and had only taken one step back before simply doing what everybody else in Healey Park was doing:

  Watching Andrew’s ball disappear over the fence.

  The Astros did nothing in the bottom of the inning with the reliever the Cubs brought in to replace Andrew, a small left-hander—though not as small as Matt—whom Matt didn’t recognize from last season. Chris got the Cubs out in order in the top of the sixth. Last ups now for the Astros in their opener, down three runs, three outs left.

  The Cubs left-hander got two quick outs, and it looked as if the Astros were about to go quietly in the bottom of the sixth, as quiet as their bench area had become.

  Matt was his team’s last chance. Before he left the on-deck circle he gave a quick turn and looked up to where all the parents were seated in the bleachers, and saw his great baseball mom mouth two words:

  Get on.

  In that moment, Matt Baker felt the way he used to when he was playing in the small park down the street from his house, when he knew he and his friends were getting close to suppertime.

  He didn’t want to stop playing yet.

  Sometimes baseball, even in All-Stars, was as simple and pure as that.

  He needed to get on. Somehow.

  The Cubs catcher didn’t say anything as Matt got into the batter’s box. There was some mild chatter from the infield.

  “You got this, Robbie.”

  “One more out.”

  “All you, baby.”

  Matt took a look around at the defense as he dug in. He always wondered which guys in the field really wanted the ball hit to them at the end of a game, and which ones didn’t. Because Matt knew that not all of them did.

  I’m not making the last out, he told himself.

  He couldn’t think of a single time during the spring season when he’d been the one to make the last out of a game, and he wasn’t planning to start now.

  He couldn’t win the game right here.

  Just keep it going.

  The left-hander, Robbie, threw Matt two pretty good fastballs, one high, both with what Sarge liked to call giddy-up on them. But it wasn’t the kind of heat Andrew had thrown.

  Wait for your pitch.

  It turned out to be the next pitch, a fastball down the middle. Matt jumped on it, lining the ball past Robbie before he could even get his glove up and on into center field. Matt hadn’t made the last out. The Astros were still playing. When he got to first base, he gave a good, hard slap to the side of his leg.

  Yeah.

  Heck, yeah.

  Big Ben walked to the plate.

  Matt watched him from first base as he smiled and said something to the Cubs catcher. Matt couldn’t hear what it was. He just didn’t want him to be thinking about hitting a home run here, because all that would do was make it a 5–4 game, the Astros still down a run, nobody on base.

  Matt just wanted Ben to keep the line moving, give Stone a chance to come to the plate as the potential tying run.

  Or give Stone a chance to keep the line moving.

  And let them all keep playing.

  Matt looked over at Robbie, the Cubs pitcher. He saw how big Robbie’s eyes were as Big Ben got himself ready, hands set high, bat still, the way the rest of him was still as he looked out at the pitcher.

  Then Matt heard it, because everybody at Healey did:

  “All you!”

  Matt didn’t even have to turn around. He knew it was Ben’s dad. By now, everybody knew that voice.

  “All you, big man!”

  The familiar voice was telling Ben to try to go deep. Ball one was so far outside that the Cubs catcher had to lunge for it to keep Matt from advancing to second base on the wild pitch. Ball two was in the dirt.

  He doesn’t want to pitch to him, Matt realized.

  This was good. This was very good. If Robbie continued to be this wild, there was no chance that Ben was going to swing. Robbie would end up walking him. It would be first and second. Stone would represent the tying run.

  Ball three was so high that the Cubs catcher had to jump out of his crouch to keep another pitch from skipping back to the screen behind the plate.

  Take the walk.

  Matt wanted his voice to go right into Ben’s brain. Take the walk Keep the line moving. Stone Russell wasn’t just a solid hitter with power. He knew the strike zone so well for somebody their age, maybe because he looked at it all game long as catcher. He made you throw him strikes, and once he did get strikes, he knew what to do with them. Matt remembered how many balls in the gap he’d hit in the spring, when he was playing for the Angels. Nobody on Matt’s team had ever wanted to see him up in a big spot.

  Take the walk!

  It was as if Matt’s brain were trying to scream its way into Ben’s now.

  Take the pitch, take the walk.<
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  Right now Robbie had a better chance of turning into a real astro, as in astronaut, than he did of throwing a strike to Ben.

  He didn’t. The fourth pitch wasn’t as high as the third pitch had been. Close enough. A fastball that was up in Ben’s eyes. Ball four easy.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Ben swung at it, even though Sarge had been clear from the first night of practice that no one was to swing at a 3-0 pitch unless Sarge gave the green light. Matt had watched Sarge go through his signs in the third-base coach’s box. Not only had he not given Ben the green light. The only sign he’d given was the “take” sign. Repeatedly.

  Ben just barely managed to get his bat on the ball, way up near the end of the bat, and popped weakly to Andrew Welles at third.

  Third out.

  Game over.

  The Astros were 0–1.

  Matt had been running all the way as soon as Ben made contact, because there were two outs. But he’d only made it as far as second base by the time the ball ended up in Andrew’s glove. When he stopped, he saw Ben make the right turn before he got to first base, already walking back to the bench. Stone Russell was still standing in the on-deck circle.

  Sarge was still in the coaching box, arms crossed in front of him, staring at Ben, his eyes following Ben all the way back to the Astros’ bench.

  Matt stood on second base.

  “Take the walk,” he said, only loud enough for himself to hear.

  The words came out of him just fine.

  TWELVE

  Knowing Sarge, and the kind of person he was and the kind of coach he was, Matt didn’t expect him to pull Ben aside for swinging away on 3-0.

  He wouldn’t say what he was going to say in front of the team, either. That wasn’t Sarge’s way. One of his big things was that no one on the Astros was ever to show up the other team. Matt had never seen Sarge show up anybody on his own team.

  But there was going to be a conversation, and soon, Matt was sure of that. Ben hadn’t just missed a sign. He ignored the sign, and ignored a team rule in the process. And it was worse than that. Ben had missed the point. It was almost as if he had decided he was going to hit a three-run homer and tie the game, even though there was only one man on base. What he wanted to do, or maybe what Ben’s dad wanted him to do in that moment, was more important than what his team needed him to do.

  As Matt was walking toward the parking lot with his mom, he saw Ben and his dad well ahead of them. Ben’s dad had his arm around his son’s shoulder.

  They were laughing.

  Then Ben’s dad stopped, as if holding a bat in his hand, and took a huge uppercut swing. After his follow-through, he laughed again and pointed to the sky as if he were following the path of an imaginary home run, before the two of them got into his convertible and drove away.

  Matt’s mom was watching Matt watch them.

  “It’s only one game,” she said.

  Her hand was on Matt’s shoulder now.

  “I know,” Matt said. “Doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

  “And I know you’re all about playing the game right, all the way to the final out,” Rachel Baker said. “We both know Ben didn’t do that tonight.”

  There was so much Matt wanted to say, if only for his mom. He wanted to say that everybody ought to play the game right. It wasn’t about making a play in the field or making an error, getting a hit or striking out. Playing the game right was about being in the right place, making the right decision. And always—always—putting the team first.

  But there was no point, no matter how badly Ben had missed the point.

  That wasn’t the worst part.

  The worst part was that he couldn’t say anything right now even if he wanted to. He could feel himself locking up, or locking down, and becoming even more frustrated. His mouth wouldn’t work, his tongue wouldn’t work. Matt could even feel his back tightening up the way it did. He couldn’t take in any air.

  A long night got longer.

  The best he could so was start shaking his head, slowly at first, then faster and faster.

  His mom squeezed his shoulder.

  “I hear you,” she said. “I hear you.”

  THIRTEEN

  Matt was alone in his room later that night, door closed, watching a baseball game on his laptop, Cubs against the Brewers, focusing most on the middle infielders, as usual.

  Tonight he paid particularly close attention to Javier Baez, the Cubs second baseman. He knew people hadn’t been talking as much about Baez as they had the year the Cubs had finally won the World Series after 108 years. But Matt hadn’t forgotten him. He knew how talented Baez was, particularly in the field.

  And Matt was doing something else while he watched:

  He was reading the rosters of all the major league teams. Aloud. He kept his voice down. He didn’t want his mom to hear him. But he was reading one name after another, even the ones he knew he might not be pronouncing correctly. Sometimes he would do it by division, starting with the American League East, then going to the Central, and the West. Like that. Sometimes he would just randomly jump around from team to team. It wasn’t that he was trying to memorize all the players on all the teams.

  He just wanted to make it through all the players without stuttering one time.

  Sometimes, when he got to the last couple of teams, he’d actually feel as if he’d put some pressure on himself, having challenged himself again to make it all the way through all thirty teams. But if he did power through, he wouldn’t just feel as if he’d won something.

  He’d feel fluent.

  It was one of Ms. Francis’s favorite words.

  Fluent.

  As if all those names flowed out of him, off his lips, out into the air.

  He did that tonight, all the way through the National League West. He spoke in his quiet but fluent voice. Not his stuttering voice. Not the one he hated.

  In that moment, he felt as if he were a different person:

  Fluent Matt Baker.

  So now the same guy who had even stuttered in front of his mom after tonight’s game had just ripped through the roster of the San Diego Padres. He’d made it through all thirty teams.

  Yeah, he thought to himself.

  Same guy.

  The guy he wanted to be.

  On his laptop screen Kris Bryant, the Cubs third baseman, made a backhand stop behind the base, and then threw a strike across the diamond to Anthony Rizzo.

  Matt turned himself into a play-by-play man, still keeping his voice low.

  “Great stop by Bryant,” he said to himself. “And an even better throw across to Rizzo!”

  Ms. Francis had cautioned him not to think of things in terms of “winning” and “losing,” because when he did get stopped, when he did stutter, that didn’t make him a loser. Nobody was keeping score on him.

  Matt hadn’t rushed. Nobody had a clock on him. AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, NL West. He did feel some pressure when he got to the Padres.

  Powered through.

  At least he’d won something tonight.

  You really did have to take your small victories where you found them.

  FOURTEEN

  Healey Park was a big place—a big, happy place. Matt had always thought of it as the center of life in South Shore.

  There were the two Little League fields, a playground, a half-dozen clay tennis courts, even a duck pond. There was a narrow road that cut through the center of the park, not for cars, just for bikes, and on the other side of the road was the big field where South Shore High played its home games, and where Babe Ruth All-Stars played in the summer.

  Matt and José Dominguez were on the back Little League field after lunch for the two-man practice they’d scheduled the night before by text. They’d each brought a bat. Matt had brought an bag of old balls that he and his mom used so that he and José could pitch to each other. For now, though, they were just working on fielding. Matt would stand on first b
ase and throw ground balls to José at short. Then they’d switch off, and Matt would take his place at second, and José would throw him ground balls. Sometimes Matt would cheat toward the base, José would throw him a grounder, Matt would move to his right and step on second and then make his throw, as if trying to complete a double play.

  Sometimes Matt would go over to short and make the throw from there, just for the fun of it.

  “How am I gonna make that throw next season when we’re the ones playing on the big field?” José said.

  “You’ll be bigger and your arm will be stronger,” Matt said.

  He thought: Hope I’m bigger by next year.

  “Not strong enough!” José said.

  “But remember something,” Matt said. “The runners will have farther to run to get to first base next year. So you’ll have more time than you think.”

  José grinned. “Are you ever not thinking about baseball?” he said.

  “Sure,” Matt said. “Sometimes I think about ice cream.”

  “Not until we finish our practice!” José said.

  “What are you, my coach?” Matt said.

  Matt had thought about inviting Ben to join them, but had decided against it. It wasn’t because of the way the Cubs game had ended. He honestly wasn’t angry with Ben about that. He still liked Ben. And the more Matt saw Ben’s dad—and listened to Ben’s dad—the more he could see and hear what kind of hitter his dad wanted him to be. Matt knew that he and Ben were just plain different. So he had to live with the fact that Ben wasn’t ever going to take baseball as seriously as Matt did.

  He wasn’t going to take losing as hard, or not show it if he did.

  So he’d just decided to make this a Ben-free day with José, who did love baseball the way Matt did, and who never seemed to want to come off the field, even today, when it was just the two of them.