Mudville (18 page)

“I think we ought to play again,” says Sturgis. “On our turf.”

“Right,” says Kazuo.

“We won't involve the grown-ups this time,” he says. “It'll just be a sandlot game. Us versus them. No coaches. No umpires.”

“They're not going to want to do that,” says Steve.

“No. They won't want to. But they will,” says Sturgis. “Unless they're chicken.” He grins in his lopsided, slightly evil way, and I know what he's thinking.

“If you bait them, they will come,” I say in my best
Field of Dreams
voice.

“I know exactly who I'm going to talk to, too,” says Sturgis.

“That blond kid. The leadoff hitter,” I say. “The smug one.”

“Oh, I hated him!” says Rita. There's no doubt who we're talking about. I guess he got on their nerves, too.

“I think he'll be easier to poke than a dead possum,” says
Sturgis. “Once he's poked, he'll get out here just to try and teach us a lesson.”

“It might be learned the hard way,” I say.

“It'll be worth it just to put another fastball in his rib cage,” says Sturgis with a sly smile. I'm not at all sure he's kidding.

Sturgis's idea is a great motivator. Now the team is revved up, working hard on defense and batting balls all over the outfield in BP. They were never this stoked for the first game, but that was just about proving themselves. This is a lot more motivating: they want the other guys to
lose.

After practice, I grab the book I've left sitting around in the dugout.

“Is that yours?” Rita asks me.

“Sure,” I tell her. “I was thinking I should read a novel, you know. Something not by a baseball player.”

“Roy, that book is about a middle-aged black woman who's been married three times.”

“So?”

“So nothing,” she says. “It's cute, is all. Let me know how you like it.”

“So do you still want to do a soda?” I ask her, gesturing at the diner across the street.

“We're a little gross right now,” she says with a laugh, which is true enough, I guess. We've had a hard practice, and it's a hot day. She pats my elbow as she leaves, and I can feel the cool of her hand long after she's gone, wishing I had
been quicker with the maybe laters and how about tomorrows.

That evening, I go to the bedroom to read after an hour or so of television and a bit more dawdling on the computer. The book is depressing but pretty readable once you get used to the dialect. So much lousy stuff happens to her it makes for interesting reading.

No baseball, though. Not even Orcs.

Sturgis has never used the Internet, so he asks me to find the blond kid from St. James. I'm able to find him with a little creative Googling.

I start with “St. James Academy baseball” and sort through the links until I find a recent box score. The box score only lists first initials and last names, but I guess that the leadoff hitter, N. White, is our boy Ned.

“Ned White” combined with “St. James Academy” doesn't get any hits on Google. By combining “N. White” with “St. James Academy,” though, we get about sixty hits. One is a newspaper story that mentions Nicholas White as a college-bound basketball star from St. James who also lettered in track and baseball. So much for N. White.

“Do any of the players in the lineup have
E
for a first initial?” Sturgis is hovering behind me, trying to see the screen. “‘Ned’ is usually short for ‘Edward.’”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure,” he says.

“It should be short for ‘Nedward.’” I Google the first of two names on the box score with the first initial
E.
A few seconds later, I'm on the MySpace profile for Edward Vandenberg.

“Ding-ding-ding!” It's totally the same guy. His profile picture is of him aboard a small boat, holding up a mediumsized
fish. I figure it's the best he's got to show for himself—a good tan and a dead animal.

“Can you leave a note?” Sturgis asks.

“Sure,” I tell him. I log in, navigate back to the page, and hit the button to leave a public message.

“Dear Needlenose,” Sturgis dictates.

“Needlenose?”

“You got anything better?”

“Dear Ned,” I type.

“It's too bad the boys’ team wasn't there to play baseball the other day,” Sturgis dictates. “We feel bad beating a bunch of girls, even though we have a couple of girls ourselves. Our pitcher tried to slow his pitches down so you could hit them, but he can only throw so slow.

“If you guys want to play a real game instead of that play-ground garbage we played last time, we'd be happy to see you on our home field. We'll bat and everything. I guess if you don't have anyone who can throw the ball all the way to the plate, you can bring a coach to pitch for you.

“Just let us know when you'll show up so we can warn the elderly and the faint of heart. We don't want them to die laughing.

“Yours truly, Roy McGuire.” Sturgis finishes his dictation.

“Hey, I'm not putting my name on this thing.”

“Why not? We're trying to get under his skin.”

“If we want to show him we're not little kids, we can't act
like we are.” I go back and edit the message, saying that we enjoyed the contest there in Sutton but were disappointed the coaches didn't let us play a full game. We'd be happy to host a game here, with no such fears of interference.

“Well?” Sturgis asks after I send the message.

“It's not like a phone call. He might not answer immediately.”

“Drat.”

It's barely five minutes before I see that I have a new message from the Nedinator, though. I click back to My-Space and see his reply.

“Fat chance!” it says.

“See where politeness gets you?” Sturgis asks. “Sign me up. Give me an account. I'll show you how it's done.”

I set up an e-mail address for him on Yahoo, then a My-Space account. It takes longer than it should, since I have to explain e-mail to him and why you need an e-mail address to have a MySpace account.

“My grandma is trying to get me to use e-mail anyway,” he says. “They have it at the home.”

“It's pretty sad when your
grandma's
trying to get
you
to use the Internet,” I tell him.

“If she knew e-mail was on the Internet, she'd probably be against it.”

I finish setting up his account, telling the MySpace people he's fourteen so I can even do it.

“Go to,” I tell him.

“Where do I find Needlenose?”

I reach over to show him how to access the browser his-tory, but he's struggling with the mouse.

“Here.” I take the mouse and do it myself.

“I can click this?” He takes the mouse back and clicks the Chat button. The Chat window pops up, and he starts typing furiously, using the two-finger hunt-and-peck method.

“Hit Return once in a while,” I remind him.

It's hard to follow the chat over his shoulder, but he sure gets Ned to talk to him. He's pounding away, the Caps Lock on, using lots of exclamation points and accidental number 7s.

“Well, it looks like you know what you're doing,” I tell him, and leave the room.

He catches me coming out of the bathroom a few minutes later.

“We're playing next week,” he tells me. “Thursday at noon.”

“All right.”

“It's not against the proper St. James team, though. It's against Ned and some of his buddies.”

“Even better.”

“The only thing is …”

“Yeah?”

“I'm not completely sure if I signed us up for a baseball game or a rumble.”

“We can always go over the ground rules before the game,” I tell him. “To be on the safe side, I'll tell our team to bring both bats and gloves, and bicycle chains and switchblades.”

“Oh, I can't wait to plug that kid,” says Sturgis eagerly.

“Let's lay off the beanballs,” I tell him. “It'll be way better just to beat them.”

“Sure thing, Captain,” he says. “If the game gets lopsided, though, I'm taking his head off.” So much for the distinction between a baseball game and a rumble.

“So now can you show me how to e-mail my grandma?” he asks.

We have another week of practice, which is just long enough for motivation to flag but not enough time to get much better. My biggest worry is Sturgis's arm. Should I get his pitch count up, then rest him a couple of days? Let him pitch a little every day?

“Do you want to rest your arm at all?” I ask him.

“Nah. I'm fine.”

“What's the most pitches you've thrown in a day?”

“I don't know. I used to practice throwing rocks just about all day. I never felt like I couldn't throw another one.”

“Throwing rocks isn't as hard as pitching.”

“You tell that to Peter Rabbit.”

It takes me a second to figure out what he's talking about. “You won't just be plunking rodents this time.”

“Not unless I have to,” he says with a laugh. “Anyway, rabbits aren't rodents.”

“What are they, then?”

“Rabbits.”

“I'm glad we have that straightened out. Can you help Rita with her fastball? Just to humor me.”

“Sure.”

I'm a mite jealous watching the two of them, his massive hand wrapped around hers as he shows her the grip. So jealous I'm actually relieved when it's a disaster.

“She just can't throw straight,” he tells me later. “Her trick pitch is a freak of nature.”

“Oh well,” I tell him. “I guess you should stop trying.”

My other worry is the offense. P.J. is our best hitter, but he doesn't come every day, and he usually just wants to take batting practice. He's not much for fielding practice, which he needs a lot more.

“So are you on this team or not?” I finally ask him. “We'd love to have you, of course. We could use a good left-handed hitter in our lineup.” For that matter, we need a good hitter in our lineup, but I don't tell him that.

“I've got a team,” he reminds me.

“The Pirates? So why do you practice with us?”

“Something to do,” he says with a shrug. “I come out here with my dad and get bored.”

“Some of these guys think of you as a teammate.”

“That's not my problem.”

I guess I can't kick him off the team if he's not even on it. I wonder if I should flat out tell him not to come any-more. It's too bad we don't have a grown-up to make these
decisions. A real coach would just tell a kid he's cut and that would be that.

I take it to the team. I dread their responses. I imagine David calling me out, telling me I'm just jealous because he's a better player than I am. I imagine Sturgis glaring at me, not saying a word but making me guess what he's thinking. Most of all, I imagine Rita standing up and stamping her foot, saying that if he goes, she goes, and leaving in a huff.

There's no way around it, though. I gather the team after practice.

I try to ease into the topic slowly.

“So that Peter kid, PJ. He's not too reliable.”

“Nah,” says David. “When he does show up, he hogs the plate.”

“He bugs me,” says Anthony.

“He's a good hitter, but he has his own team,” says Sturgis. “He should just play with them.”

“I agree,” says Steve. “If he can't be bothered to show up, forget him.”

“Let's tell him to get lost,” says Rita. Rita says that!

“Wow, why didn't any of you say this stuff before?”

“We figured you wanted him on the team,” says Steve. “You kept talking about what a great hitter he is.”

“We thought you had a crush on him,” says Rita with a grin. Shannon whacks her in the shoulder.

“Well, I guess that's that, then.” I'm thinking that was pretty easy—then I remember I still have to tell PJ. the bad
news. I never get the chance, though, because he never comes back to a Moundville practice.

When Sturgis gets back from his visit to Grandma on Sun-day, he wants to pitch a bit.

“Did she get your e-mail?” I ask him as we head out back.

“Yeah. I told her about us being on MySpace, and she got worked up about it. She's been seeing stuff on the news.”

“Just don't talk to any weirdos and you'll be fine.”

“Too late. I talked to Needlenose, remember?”

“Right.”

We start to toss the ball back and forth, not really working on anything, just throwing the old beanbag around. Sturgis has naturally good mechanics. Even casual pitches are fluid, straight, and on target. Also hard. The guy has a cannon for an arm.

“Your grandma going to come to the game?” I ask him.

“Huh?”

“She could come and watch.”

“I didn't realize there would be spectators.”

“It's not like no one will see us. The game is downtown, in broad daylight. It'll probably draw a crowd. At least a little one.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he says. “How do you think the other guys will take it?”

“Well, they have to get used to it sooner or later.”

“There's no bleachers,” he reminds me. It's true, but for some reason I hadn't thought of it. The old, ruined bleachers
were finally dragged off to the dump, but there's no new ones yet.

“People will watch anyway,” I tell him.

“We're going to need bleachers eventually,” I tell my dad after supper. “If there's ever a game, you know. People might want to watch.” For the time being, I'm not letting on about our game against Ned's posse, but I figure we ought to start thinking about the future.