Wild Pitch Read online

  She blinked her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said reluctantly.

  “I’ve brought a helmet,” he said. He got it from his bike and tossed it to her. “Put it on.”

  She put it on and stepped alongside the bare spot on the ground five or six feet in front of the backstop screen. Eddie got within pitching distance of her, aimed at a spot in the screen directly over the bare spot on the ground, and pitched. He threw easily, cautiously, arching the ball, so that she’d have plenty of time to jump clear if it came at her.

  The throw was good and she swung at it. She ticked it.

  “You’re swinging too hard,” said Eddie.

  She took it easier on the next pitch, which was in there, too, and drove it on the ground to short. He had three more balls, and she hit them all.

  “This is crazy,” she called to him as he turned and ran to the outfield after them.

  It was, but if they wanted to continue practicing, he had to chase after them.

  After the second time, a couple of kids rode up on their bikes. When they saw Eddie chasing the hit balls they left their bikes and chased after the balls themselves.

  “Thanks, guys!” said Eddie appreciatively. “Be around again tomorrow, will you?”

  “Maybe!” one of them answered.

  But they were there the next day, and the next, and Eddie noticed a gradual improvement in Phyllis’s batting. Most of all, she wasn’t afraid of his pitches anymore. That was his ultimate goal.

  14

  He came down with a cold and didn’t see her for a week. But she called him on the phone every day at about eleven o’clock and asked him how he was doing. He found himself waiting expectantly for it.

  “You two have become pretty chummy,” observed his mother. “How long is this going to last?”

  “It’s almost over,” he told her.

  Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Just like that?”

  He shrugged. “She’s all right now. She’s able to play.”

  “The doctor say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was wondering,” she said.

  It was the first part of August, and baseball season was drawing to a close. Phyllis called him one morning when he was better and asked him if he was well enough to go swimming in the gulf. He said he was, and he rode his bike to her place. They walked to the beach, a quarter of a mile away.

  The water was warm, beautiful. They swam for two hours. He was so absorbed in having fun that when he suddenly remembered that the Lancers were scheduled to play the Bruins that afternoon, he almost panicked.

  “Oh, man!” he cried, trudging out of the water and toweling himself quickly. “Where’s my head? We’ve got a game this afternoon!”

  She looked at him, beads of salt water dripping down her face. “Eddie?”

  “Yeah?”

  She grabbed up her towel and started rubbing it gently over her hair, which had grown a little longer since the last time he had seen her.

  “You know it’s almost over.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “What’re we going to do? I mean, we’re not going to quit seeing each other, are we?”

  “Of course not! Chances are we’ll be playing against each other again next year. And maybe we can get together a few times before then. Okay?”

  She nodded, and smiled. “You’ve been great to me. I just wanted to know where we stood.”

  He grinned.

  “Wait’ll we face each other in a ball game,” he said.

  Her eyes twinkled. She draped the towel over her shoulders.

  “Would you try to strike me out?” she asked.

  He laughed. “You’re darn right I would. You think I’d let you try to knock the ball out of the lot on me? No way!”

  They laughed together. He wrapped the towel around his hips and they hurried home.

  The game was ready to start when he got there. The stands were packed. A chorus of cheers went up from the fans as he ran in from the gate to the Lancers’ dugout.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Puffy declared. “Who said he’d forgotten us?”

  Coach Inger tossed him a ball. “Warm up, Eddie. I’ll have Harry go the first two innings and put you in the last five.”

  He warmed up, throwing in the bullpen to Pete Turner, whose poor hitting kept his playing to a minimum. Coach Inger had a rule to play all of his men in every game, but not more than two or three innings if they weren’t playing to his satisfaction.

  The Lancers had first bats, and Eddie took a glance toward the field now and then to see how the guys were making out. Rod Bellow was the only one who got on, driving a single through the pitcher’s box. He died there on first, though, as both Dale and Lynn flied out to the outfield.

  Harry walked the first Bruin, but a double play and Puffy’s neat catch of a line drive kept them from scoring.

  Paul led off the action in the second inning with a single through the pitcher’s box, then advanced to second base on Tip’s sacrifice bunt.

  “Keep it moving! Keep it moving!” Tony Netro kept shouting from the first-base coaching box. Eddie figured that Tony’d be playing the last few innings of the game, since Tom Hooker was starting at right field.

  Tom clobbered a single over short, driving in Paul for the Lancers’ first run, and Eddie felt a small sense of security. Even a one-run lead was better than no lead at all.

  He waited for Puffy to bat before throwing again to Pete.

  “Lay it out of the lot, Puff!” he yelled. The more runs now, the better.

  Puffy connected with a double down the third-base line, driving Tom around the bases as if a swarm of bees were after him. The play at home was close. Harry, standing by, yelled for Tom to hit the dirt, and Tom did, sliding across the plate under the throw and the catcher’s delayed tag.

  “Safe!” the ump boomed.

  Eddie, turning to continue his throws to Pete, smiled. He hoped the guys would keep up their hitting while he was on the mound. He’d probably need it.

  He didn’t watch Harry bat, but when he heard a yell he looked toward the diamond and saw a cloud of dust around third base, and the base umpire crouched over a prostrate Puffy Garfield, thumb sticking up into the air. Apparently Puffy had tried to steal and failed.

  “The jerk,” Pete said. “Why’d he run? He was in position to score.”

  Eddie shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Ask Mr. Inger.”

  “I think he’s bawling Puffy out,” said Pete, glancing toward the field.

  Eddie looked there and saw the coach hovering over Puffy, gesturing with his left hand in the direction of second base.

  Eddie smiled. “I guess it was Puffy’s idea to steal,” he reflected. “Not Mr. Inger’s.”

  The Bruins picked up a run at their turn at bat, but the Lancers got it back in the top of the third with a double off Dale’s bat and a triple off Lynn’s. Lancers 3, Bruins 1.

  “Okay, Eddie, get in there,” said Coach Inger. “How’s his control, Pete?”

  “Great.”

  “Good. Harry, take Lynn’s place in center field.”

  Tip, buckling on his catcher’s gear, looked at the coach in surprise. “Let’s hope no balls are hit to him,” he quipped.

  The guys laughed.

  Eddie, and everyone else on the team, knew that Harry’s skill as an outfielder left a lot to be desired. Obviously the only reason the coach was keeping him in the game was for him to come to the team’s rescue in case Eddie’s pitching was dragging them under.

  Eddie faced the first batter with mustered confidence, concentrating on each pitch in an effort to put it where Tip held his mitt. A couple were on target. A couple weren’t.

  “Watch him, Dave!” yelled a Bruin fan. “He can be wild!”

  “Don’t let him send you to the hospital!” yelled another.

  Eddie tensed. The remarks stung.

  He pitched, and the batter laced it down to third. Larry grabbed the low-bouncing ball, took a step, and whip
ped it to first for the out.

  Eddie was careful with the next batter, a short, stubby-legged kid, and tried to keep the ball low and outside.

  Each pitch was too low. Eddie walked him.

  Tip ran out to the mound. “Hey, what’re you doing? Can’t you see my target?”

  “I can see it,” said Eddie glumly.

  “Well, put it there. And, look. Quit listening to those jerks. You’re not going to hit anybody.”

  “I sure don’t want to.”

  Tip spat into his glove. “Let’s get ’em.”

  He ran back to his position, and Eddie toed the rubber. He pitched well, and got the man out.

  Tip gave him the V-for-victory sign as he headed for the dugout. “You’re in the groove, Eddie. Just listen to your ol’ buddy. That’s all you’ve got to do, kid.”

  He thought he heard a familiar voice calling his name from the grandstand behind home plate. He looked up. Sure enough, it was Phyllis. She waved to him. He grinned and nodded, and glanced at the persons beside her. Two were girls he had seen visiting her at the hospital. The other was Mingo, her cousin. The expression on his face was somber.

  Did he always have to be with her? What was he — her bodyguard?

  He reached the bench, and squeezed in between Puffy and Harry.

  “She up there in the stands?” asked Puffy.

  Eddie nodded.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “No. Better than okay. She can catch and throw and hit pretty good. She exercises quite a lot besides.”

  Harry nudged his arm, smiling. “You haven’t fallen for her, have you?”

  Eddie saw the elfin look in his eyes. “No, I haven’t fallen for her.”

  “You sure? I heard my brother, Dick, tell my parents once that he wasn’t sure he’d fallen for his girl until she went out west for a month to visit relatives.”

  “Your brother Dick’s a lot older than I am.”

  “And dumber, too, I hope. Dick and that chick of his have more fights than a couple of roosters.” He tapped Eddie’s knee. “Hey, man, you’re doing okay in there. Just don’t do too good. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  Eddie nudged him in the ribs. “Don’t worry. I don’t think you will. Why do you think Mr. Inger’s kept you in the game?”

  Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “Why? Because he can count on my hitting?”

  Both Eddie and Puffy laughed. “Clown!” snorted Puffy.

  A figure blocked out the sun in front of Puffy.

  “Puffy, we don’t have a DH in this league,” said Coach Inger, looking at him. “How about getting off that bench and picking up a club?”

  The chunky shortstop looked at him in surprise. “Yeah!”

  “You follow him, Harry,” said the coach. “Shake a leg.”

  Both boys sprang off the bench and selected clubs from the bat rack. At the plate Tip swung at a chest-high pitch and drilled it to left center field for two bases.

  It took Harry’s surprising triple to drive him in. Then Harry himself scored on Larry’s Texas-league hit over second.

  Rod’s strikeout ended the top half of the inning.

  Eddie found it easier going back to the mound. He didn’t feel completely at ease, but he wasn’t as scared as he was earlier. He threw harder, and his average in putting the ball on target improved.

  The Bruins got a hit off him, and their cleanup hitter blasted a home run over the right-field fence.

  “Settle down, Eddie!” Tip yelled to him. “Don’t work too fast!”

  A wild pitch on the next batter drew a yell from the crowd. He wasn’t proud when he struck out the batter. He walked off the field with his head bent in dejection, his eyes focused on the ground.

  The Bruins held the Lancers scoreless in the top of the fifth, then picked up two themselves. In the top of the sixth, Puffy’s double, Larry’s single, Rod’s triple, and Dale’s single put the Lancers in the lead, 8 to 5.

  The Bruins scored again in the bottom of the sixth, but failed to get a man on in the seventh. The Lancers won, 8–6.

  Phyl ran up to him as he sat on the bench, unlacing his shoes.

  “Hey, man, you did okay,” she said.

  He looked up at her. He suspected that a few guys nearby had heard her, and he blushed. “Thanks, Phyl.”

  She stood there a few seconds longer, then said, “Take care,” and dashed away.

  He watched her a bit, then turned back to finish unlacing his shoes.

  “Hey, wasn’t that Monahan?” he heard one of the guys say.

  “Yeah, that was Monahan,” another replied.

  Eddie ignored them.

  15

  Eddie didn’t see Phyllis during the next several days. He thought about her a lot. He felt a strong desire to give her a call, to ask her if she’d like to play catch with him, or pepper, or go for a swim in the gulf, but he fought the impulse. Was this what Harry meant by falling for someone? Heck, he was just interested in making sure that she could play again and not be afraid of a pitched ball, he tried to tell himself.

  He was sure she had conquered most of that goal. The only thing he wasn’t sure about was her batting against him. Secretly he wished that she wouldn’t have to, but he checked the schedule and saw that the Lancers were playing the Surfs on Tuesday.

  He didn’t know whether she was working out with the Surfs or not. Most teams quit practicing toward the latter part of the season. The Lancers hadn’t practiced the last two weeks. They were in third position. Eddie suspected that maybe Coach Inger might think the team couldn’t possibly end up higher than that, anyway.

  Tip called him on the phone Monday evening.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did you read the sports pages in the Argus Tribune?”

  He hadn’t had a chance to. His father was reading it.

  “No. Why?”

  “Her picture’s in it.”

  Eddie frowned. “Phyl’s?”

  “Yeah. With a nice article about her. She’s playing tomorrow. We’re playing the Surfs, you know.”

  “I know,” said Eddie. He rubbed his forehead. “You think Mr. Inger will have me pitch against her, Tip?”

  “I don’t know. You worried about it?”

  “Well — no.”

  That wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was that he wasn’t too worried. Heck, what were the odds of a pitcher hitting the same batter twice? And in the back of the head yet?

  “I bet the picture and article about her will draw a big crowd,” Tip said.

  “I bet it will, too,” Eddie agreed.

  He’d been overwhelmingly happy once he was sure that she was healthy enough and fearless enough to compete again. But he visualized a biased crowd that might be attending only because of what they had read about Phyllis Monahan, the girl who played on an all-boy baseball team, who had been incapacitated because of a wild pitch thrown by a certain Eddie Rhodes and who might face him again in her first game since her injury.

  He was afraid a small story might get blown out of proportion just because of that picture and article.

  But, if he felt that he’d be under pressure from the fans if he were to pitch, what about her? Wouldn’t she be as sensitive about it as he?

  “Well, I just wondered if you’d seen the paper,” said Tip.

  “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Tip. Hey, wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “If you’re not doing anything, bring over your trumpet.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” said Tip.

  Eddie grinned. “Good. I’ll see ya.”

  He hung up and sat there awhile, concentrating his attention on a fly that was buzzing outside against the window. But his mind was on the upcoming game against the Surfs. Well, it should prove interesting, he told himself.

  Tip came over twenty minutes later, carrying the worn case in which he kept his bright and shiny trumpet. Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes had gone outside to inspect th
eir garden, so the boys took advantage of their absence, and for half an hour they had a jam session in the living room, Tip blowing the trumpet as loudly as he could, Eddie banging the snares and rattling the cymbals. For a while everything but the music was forgotten — even baseball.

  The weather the next afternoon was hot and sunny, hotter and sunnier than Eddie liked. Because of the publicity the newspaper article had generated, Mr. Rhodes promised Eddie that come game time he’d be there in the stands. He wanted to see if this Monahan girl was really as good as the paper said she was.

  He didn’t say he also wanted to see how Eddie performed against her if he pitched. But Eddie suspected it.

  Roxie and Margie promised to be there, too. The game would be over in plenty of time for Roxie to relieve their mother at the gift shop.

  Eddie, Tip, and Puffy arrived at the park just as the other guys and Coach Inger did. Some of the Surfs were already there, taking batting practice. One of them was Phyl.

  The Surfs’ equipment was strewn in front of the third-base dugout, an indication that they were going to have last bats.

  After Coach Inger dumped the Lancers’ equipment in front of the first-base dugout, Tip lifted a baseball out of the canvas bag and started to play catch with Eddie and Puffy. Some of the other Lancers started playing catch, too. Some, pepper ball.

  “She’s batting,” remarked Tip.

  Eddie turned to look at her. She had on a helmet, and stood at the plate in a spread-eagle, fearless stance. The kid on the mound pitched one in and Phyl rapped it over shortstop.

  “Tip, work out with Harry,” Eddie heard Coach Inger say. “I’m going to have him start.”

  “Okay.”

  Tip smiled as he tossed the ball back to Eddie. “Relieved?” he asked.

  He shrugged. He guessed he was.

  He found himself listening to the sound of Phyl’s bat connecting with the balls, and felt a secret thrill that she was pounding the ball so well. It proved to him that his helping her had worked. But practice pitches were no solid proof that she could hit as successfully in a game. The real test was how she performed after the ump called “play ball!”

  In routine fashion the Lancers took batting practice after the Surfs finished theirs, then infield practice. When the Surfs had the field, Eddie watched Phyl from the bench, saw her scoop up grounders hit to her by her coach, and whip the ball to second, third, and home with remarkable ease.