I was 16 years old in the early spring of 2002, early March, still over a month from my 17th birthday, when the loudmouthed kid who seemed a little too smart even for the honors classes showed up to try out for the school baseball team. Baseball wasn't any kind of a big deal in Elmwood, Maryland; our high school boasted about 400 students, and athletics in general wasn't the essence of life the way it is in western Pennsylvania or the South or Texas. The football team was the most important by far, of course; baseball was pretty minor, only important when the team happened to go deep into the state playoffs, which happened about once every twenty years.
All but about four of the guys on the baseball team were also football players; much of the football team switched over to baseball (and track, and to some extent soccer) once football season was over. Football ended in early December, and the baseball tryout took place on March 3; the season began March 31. For intents and purposes the coaches had already set the roster, from supplementing the returning members of last year's team with various underclassmen football players they'd already talked to. Every year a handful, five for six maybe, of dreamers showed up for the tryout, and every year they were rejected by the coaches and ridiculed and harassed in that particular way high school jocks are so good at.
I couldn't stand the jocks, which made it all the stranger that I was bothering myself with trying out for the baseball team. What was more, I had never been suspected by anybody in school of being even the poorest imitator of an athlete; I was six foot two and about 195, true, and over the past year I'd developed my muscles pretty well, but I wasn't especially fast or coordinated and held my own, but no more, playing basketball or ultimate frisbee in gym class. In the deep end of a pool, I could tread water long enough to survive, tops, two or three minutes.
“Baseball team?” my friend Bill Goldstein, who would go on to be valedictorian of the class, exclaimed when I announced my intent at lunch one day, amid general laughter from the rest of the table. “Yeah, you can throw, but why would you want to hang out with jocks three hours a day?”
“Good point,” I said. “But ten bucks says I'm the best pitcher in the school, right now. I don't know. I guess I just want to find out.”
“Like... you'll get dumber, every day, just being in the same room with those guys,” said Matt Long with a snicker. He was a dead ringer for Cosmo Kramer, hair and face and all, only with slightly darker skin. “Aren't these the same guys that swirlied you in the locker room last year? I'm pretty sure Redman's on the baseball team.”
“That'll stop when I'm throwing shutouts,” I said, waving off his point (which was true; that had happened.) “To these guys, athletics is all that matters. If I'm better than them, they won't do a thing.”
“Come on, Emery,” said Matt. “You're not better than them. You're just going to make things worse.” I had a long history of not getting along with some of the more insufferable jocks, like Dave Redman, a junior (like myself) who figured to be the staff ace this year.
“We'll see. You got to remember, Long, as hard as I can throw, I might get paid a million bucks a year to throw baseballs, if I don't blow my arm to pieces first. Might as well try it.” It didn't do much good. The general consensus of my friends was somewhere between incredulity and ridicule. What else would friends be for?
The jocks' reaction to seeing me show up for the tryout ranged from smug ridicule to downright jackassish ridicule. Officially, nobody that wasn't on the baseball team last year was yet on the team this year, and all had to try out; of the 25 spots on the roster, 14 belonged to returning players (ten seniors and four juniors), leaving 11 still up for grabs. Realistically, all 11 were pretty much accounted for by J.V. players, sophomores that played on the J.V. team last year as freshmen. I hadn't played competitive baseball since my last year of Little League, when, despite being the third-oldest kid on the team my last year, I was also the second-smallest, and played right field and hit eighth. I'd never even tried out for the middle school team. I was in the honors classes; I was one of the eggheads, and ran with the band geek crowd (even though I wasn't in the band). The jocks thought I was the world's worst joke.
16 kids showed up for the tryouts: the 11 that essentially already knew they were on the team, and four other guys from the J.V. team that weren't going to make the cut. Plus myself. Even the coaches snickered and made comments between themselves that I couldn't quite make out.
They started out by having us all run, from home plate to the center field fence and back. Of the 16 of us, I was the sixth one to finish, which was better than I expected to do at running; it was never especially my strong suit. Three of the J.V. guys lagged somewhat behind the rest. The coach didn't tell them to go home, but everyone involved knew that would be the end of them.
Then we all went out and lined up on the right side of second base, and one by one the manager sent us out to shortstop and hit sharp grounders, five for each of us. I didn't embarrass myself, but I wasn't really any good at that. Then we shagged flies in the outfield, and I did embarrass myself there; I lost one of the three flies in the sun, and it fell about four feet behind me. Dave Piedman yelled at me to get back to English class before I got towel-whipped to death. I ignored him. It must have seemed to them that I was steaming and trying to keep my semi-famous temper in check, but really I was just annoyed at the jokes and waiting.
Hitting was next. They had a three of the upperclassmen pitchers take turns pitching to us. I stepped in against Dave Redman and struck out three straight times. Redman was supposed to be taking it easily, just mixing a few fastballs and curves, but he was clearly bearing down on me, pitching at full live-game intensity just to embarrass me. He did a good job. I did a fine job, I thought, of recognizing balls from strikes, but of the seven or eight times I swung, I doubt I got within six inches of the ball once. Most all of the real players were laughing openly at me and making wisecracks now.
“Go home, Emery,” said the manager after Redman had finished striking me out the third time. “You ain't going to make it, son.”
“Not at hitting, sir, I agree,” I said, stepping away from the plate and dropping the bat. “I'm a pitcher. You ought to at least try me there.”
“Go home,” he said, and then turned his head away from me. “McMarlon! Step up!” Marc McMarlon, sophomore, would be the starting second baseman, it was already assumed.
“Oh, c'mon, coach!” yelled Ken Baier. Ken was the superstar of the soccer team and the baseball team, a center fielder that could fly and hit, a sometime pitcher that was there to throw to the guys trying out, a senior, and the quintessence of the prototypical jock. “Let him pitch! I'll step in for him!”
“Yeah, let him pitch,” said Redman. “He hasn't sucked enough yet. Let him suck some more.” He made an obscene gesture, causing general laughter. I was officially the head clown of the circus now.
Even the coach couldn't help but be amused. “Okay, Baier, we got a few minutes. Get out of there, McMarlon. Come on, son, get your glove and show me you're a pitcher.”
Nobody bothered to catch; I'd just have to throw against the backstop. Redman never had any intention of swinging at my first pitch, but it blew past him, hit the center post of the backstop, and ricocheted back and hit him in the hip.
The laughter and voices instantly stopped. Now everyone was staring.
Redman swung at my second pitch, and I think it hit the backstop before his bat passed through the strike zone. He was hopelessly behind it. The third pitch he timed correctly, but still missed it by eight inches; not only was it thrown very hard, but it moved.
I threw about 25 pitches, only those first three of them to Redman or anybody else. When I was done, the coach told me to go home, and wouldn't discuss the matter any further. But I couldn't help but notice that nobody was laughing now.
1 comment:
Well done, sir. I like what you've got here; keep this one going!
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