Thumb on a Diamond (4 page)

“So, we'd still have to play well enough to get at least six batters out before this mercy rule stops a game?” asked Nick.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Why is the ball so small?” asked Big Bette. “I mean, the ball would be easier to hit if it was big.”

“A golf ball is a lot smaller,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Little Liam, “but a golf ball stays still when you hit it. A baseball comes at you. It's moving.”

Dad says Little Liam is so big he probably wants to be a boat when he grows up, maybe even a ship. I had to sit behind Little Liam at school one year, at least until the first report cards. The teacher wrote that I never raised my hand or volunteered for anything. I told her that I raised my hand all the time but she just couldn't see it. She moved Little Liam to the back row and gave him her desk and chair so he had enough room to sit.

“Well,” said Susan, “I don't think we're going to be able to rewrite the rules of baseball. We'd have to use the ball that already exists.”

“How can we learn to hit?” asked Nick. “If we practice and we do hit a baseball it will either hit somebody's house or fly into the ocean. We don't have enough room.”

“I thought about that, too,” said Susan. “We can practice throwing and catching in here, in the gym. And we can practice running to the bases, too. We can practice hitting outside. We'll string some fishing nets around the batting area so the net will stop the ball. We'll leave an opening between the batter and the pitcher and put some more nets behind the pitcher's mound.”

“I don't know . . . ” said Nick.

“If we're going to go to Vancouver as a baseball team,” I said, “shouldn't we learn a little bit about how to play baseball?”

“We're going to stink,” said Nick, bouncing his basketball a couple of times, which is something he does when he's trying to think.

“But we're kids,” I said. “Let's play baseball, just like other kids.”

“Yeah,” Nick said slowly. “You're right. Let's practice hard. And then, the night before we're supposed to play our first game, let's meet and decide if anybody's going to get sick or if we'll actually play.”

I figured Nick had been watching too many sports movies. The ones where a team of losers wins the championship game.

5
PRACTICE

I COOKED DINNER FOR
Dad that night. I always cooked dinner when I told Dad what I wanted for Christmas or when I wanted a friend to sleep overnight. I made spaghetti with a sauce that came from a can but I cooked the noodles right. They weren't chewy and they weren't soggy.

Dad and I had lived in New Auckland for three years. We moved here the year after Mom died. Some people, when they lose somebody they love, want to stay in the same house and walk down the same streets. It helps them to remember.

Dad couldn't stand sleeping in the same room where he and Mom had slept. He couldn't stand shopping in the same grocery store. He needed to move, and he needed to move to some place that was completely different. He used to say that the funny thing is that he loves New Auckland and keeps thinking that Mom would have loved it, too.

“So. What's up?” asked Dad. “I didn't get a free spaghetti dinner for nothing.”

“Susan and I figured out how to get all of us to Vancouver and how to get the school board to pay.”

I twirled my spaghetti and took a bite. Dad did, too.

“There has to be a catch,” he said, “or you wouldn't have made me dinner.”

Dad took another bite and stared at me over the top of his glasses.

“We want to play baseball at the provincial championships,” I said as calmly as possible. I even looked at Dad and tried a confident smile.

I don't think it looked too confident. I don't even think it looked much like a smile

“Who is us?” asked Dad.

“All the kids in the middle grades.”

“Baseball? None of you knows how to play baseball. There isn't even a place to practice.”

“No other village has a place to play, either. We challenge them and then we'll win since nobody will play us and we'll all go to the provincial championships.”

“Why would you want to play at the provincial championships?”

“Because the championships are held in Vancouver, Dad. We can all go to Vancouver and the school board will have to pay.”

“Oh.”

Dad sat back in his chair and stared out the front window. I am not too good with directions but I think he was actually staring toward Vancouver.

“But you'll have to play baseball at some point,” said Dad at last. “Your first game will never end unless the other team just gets tired of scoring and helps put themselves out.”

“Susan checked. If a team is ahead by more than ten runs after two innings, then the game is automatically over. Dad, you want to get all of us to Vancouver. We want to go to Vancouver. Our plan will take us there. Besides, we're going to practice. We'll make sure we know how to catch and hit and run, even if we do it badly.”

“Practice? Where? The first ball that somebody hits will either break a window or land in the ocean. You can't practice baseball on a narrow beach full of houses.”

“We're going to put up nets.”

Dad tilted his head and frowned. He only does that when he's trying to read my brain, as if it's easier to look right inside my head when he looks at me from a slightly different angle.

“You guys aren't planning to win any of these games or anything stupid like that, are you?”

“Dad,” I said calmly, looking him right in the eyes. “We know we can't win. We just want to see Vancouver. You're the one who got everybody excited about seeing a city, and we figured out a way to make it happen. And you know what? We just want to do something that kids in other towns do every day. We just want to run on grass and play some baseball.”

“You've got a whole team?”

“Yeah. Everybody in grade six to grade eight. We found some gloves and balls and bats in the gym equipment room.”

“I'll tell you what,” said Dad, taking another bite of spaghetti. “If you guys practice, then I'll challenge the other villages in our league. And if you keep practicing, I'll tell the school board that we're the coastal villages champions and have a right to attend the provincial championships. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

SUSAN FIGURED OUT THAT WE
could make room to pitch a ball the right distance if we put the pitcher's mound between my house and Annie's house. We put the batter's box next to the fire truck. First base was across the sand by the garage.

We dragged some old net up from the docks, and Little Liam nailed it up between my house and Annie's. He left an opening so that the batter could run to first base after hitting the ball. The only problem was that first base was off to the left, and in a real baseball game first base is off to the right.

“All right,” said Susan when we were finished. “Who wants to bat and who wants to pitch?”

“I'll bat,” said Big Bette, “but the bats we have are way too big for me.”

“Any bat is going to be too big for you,” said Susan, “but that's a good thing. It will help us. You're the only one who doesn't have to take batting practice.”

Big Bette frowned. “Why?”

“The pitcher has to throw at least three strikes to each batter, unless the batter swings. Strikes are pitches that are over the home plate and between a batter's knees and shoulders. The pitcher's target changes with each player. A tall player has a big strike zone and a shorter player like you has a small strike zone. A pitcher has to be really accurate with a small player.”

Big Bette grinned. “So what happens if the pitcher can't throw strikes? Do we get a point?”

“No. And baseball doesn't have points. It counts runs.”

“What's a run worth, then?”

“Basically, one point. But baseball calls that point a run.”

“Why?”

“I don't know, but I do know that if the pitcher throws four pitches that aren't in the strike zone before throwing three strikes, then you get to walk calmly to first base and become a base runner. If we play, you're going to be a base runner a lot so you should find out what a base runner can do.”

Big Bette didn't say anything for a moment. “Doesn't a base runner just run between bases?” she asked. “That's what they do in movies.”

“Sure,” said Susan. “But a base runner has to know the right times to run and the right times to stop. Like you can run to second base if somebody gets a hit. Or you can actually steal second base.”

“Can I keep it?” asked Big Bette seriously.

“Keep what?”

“Second base.”

“When?”

“When I steal it. Or do I have to give it back? And what are we going to do with a second base after I steal it? And how can we keep playing if there is no second base? Are there spares?”

“I think you'd better read the rule book,” said Susan.

Susan reached into her backpack and pulled out a binder of rules that she had printed from the Internet.

“Who wants to bat?” I asked again.

“I will,” said Nick.

“And I'll pitch,” said a voice behind us. We all turned. My dad stood between the houses holding a baseball glove.

“But…you're an adult.”

“And if you're going to play, it would probably be a good idea if you didn't look too stupid out there,” said Dad. “The players who are going to be pitchers can't learn to pitch during batting practice. They'll throw so many pitches that their arms will get sore. I'll pitch batting practice because I have actually played baseball before and can probably throw balls fairly similar to the ones you'll have to hit down in Vancouver. Meanwhile, half of you go down to the beach so that your pitching coach can teach you a few things about throwing.”

“Our pitching coach?”

“Me,” said Mr. Entwhistle, peeking between the houses. He was dressed completely in white, with long sleeves and pants that looked pressed and cleaned. He wore a white cap that looked like a short-billed baseball hat.

“I have never played baseball,” he announced happily, “but I was a smashingly good cricket player and it is almost the same thing. In both games you toss a ball and you hit a ball and you run between bases. I have only one question.”

“What?” I asked.

“What's an inning?” said Mr. Entwhistle, and then, thankfully, he laughed.

Down on the beach, Mr. Entwhistle had us line up.

“I understand that baseball is different from cricket,” he said. “In cricket, the person tossing the ball can take a running start. Besides, he tries to hit the wickets behind the batsman, not aim for a catcher's mitt.”

“Mr. Entwhistle,” I said, raising my hand.

“Yes, Thumb.”

“I think we're going to have a hard enough time learning baseball without learning the differences between baseball and cricket.”

“Fine point, lad. By the way, if you take off that thumb of yours, maybe you can find a funny way to hold the ball and make it curve. I've heard that some pitchers can curve the ball by holding it oddly.”

I can't really take off my thumb. Big Charlie's son came to build our garage last summer, and he brought a joke to town. He said his thumb had been amputated in an accident and that he had a fake thumb. He turned his back to his audience and slid his healthy thumb through a hole in the bottom of a cardboard jewelry box and laid it on top of a bed of cotton. He showed people his thumb, lying in its tiny coffin. And then, just when everyone was leaning over close and feeling sorry for him, Big Charlie's son wiggled his thumb.

People cracked their heads together, they moved back so fast. They yelled and screamed. Most of the village ran down to the dock to see what was wrong.

When Big Charlie's son wiggled his thumb for me, I backed up so fast that I fell off the dock.

After Big Charlie's son left, the village decided that it didn't want the joke to leave with him and that I was the one who had to have an accident and be called Thumb so that any visitor could be scared and the whole village could laugh. Annie Pritchard carved me a wooden box with a hole on the bottom and most people who see the carved box are so stunned that they never question my story about a thumb amputation and being able to take my fake thumb off with screws.

I hadn't wiggled my thumb for Mr. Entwhistle. Not yet. But people were already making bets about how he would react.

“I wouldn't be able to hold a baseball without my thumb,” I said to Mr. Entwhistle. I held up my hand and wiggled all my fingers and my thumb.

“I suppose not,” said Mr. Entwhistle, disappointed. “Now, none of you has the time necessary to learn how to throw fastballs. But I found a book in the school library on how to throw something called junk. Junk pitches are pitches that curve or fall or slide or move in some way that makes the ball hard to hit or, when hit, make it hard for the batters to hit well. I have some pictures of grips that will make the ball curve and twist.”