Eventually, six more guys did.
“And your brother, right?” Mr. Leskov said as he wrote Antonio’s name at the bottom.
“Yeah, my b-brother,” I answered, even though I hadn’t asked him yet.
“Okay,” Mr. Leskov said. “Now—let’s arrange the games.”
We went into his cramped office at the community center. For two hours I searched the Internet for the names of teams who played in leagues like American Legion or Babe Ruth or Northwest Premier Baseball. When I found a telephone number, Mr. Leskov would call. Other coaches tried to say no, but he was like a dog with a bone. “We’ll play at your field!” he shouted into the phone. “One innings, four innings, ten innings. You choose. Just name the date and time and we’ll be there.”
When he had sixteen games scheduled, he turned to me, half-moons of sweat around his armpits. “Enough?”
I bumped knuckles with him. “Yeah. Enough.”
He slapped the table as he got to his feet. “We win them all! You strike three everyone, and we win them all!”
That night at dinner I told Antonio I’d signed him up for the team. He groaned, but Mom stepped in. “Why wouldn’t you play?”
“I’ve got my job at Home Depot.”
“Two hours in the morning watering plants? What are you going to do with the rest of your day?”
“I don’t know. Just hang out.”
“At the back fence with Garrett Diehl? He’s way older than you.” She paused. “What goes on there anyway?”
Antonio flashed me a look. “Nothing goes on there.”
“Yeah? Well, in my experience a bunch of teenage boys doing nothing usually ends up as something.” She paused. “You get a full-time job and you can drop baseball. Until then, you play.”
Nine
Thirteen guys sounds like plenty for a baseball team, but signing your name to a piece of paper isn’t the same as showing up. Most of the guys on the team lived in Jet City, and in Jet City you never really know what’s coming next.
Once in a while it’s good stuff. Somebody appears who has been gone for months or years. A mom, a dad, a sister, a brother. Maybe from jail, maybe from across town, maybe from across the world. When that happens, music blasts from the lucky trailer and people celebrate.
Sometimes it’s bad stuff. A man goes after his wife, or two brothers get into it, or somebody steals something. Police cars show up, gravel flying, sirens wailing. The cops handcuff the guy and haul him to jail. Every once in a while it’s a she who gets cuffed.
Even when there are no police, there’s still alcohol and drugs and girls selling themselves on Aurora Avenue. And there’s the uncertainty. You have a neighbor one day, and the next, they’re gone. So thirteen players isn’t really thirteen.
I just hoped it would be nine.
* * *
On the day of our first summer game, Mr. Leskov—driving the community center van—pulled up in front of our trailer and honked. I grabbed my glove and hurried out the door, Antonio trailing behind.
Once we were inside the van, Pushkin, Leskov’s black lab, jumped on Antonio and licked his face. “Look what I got,” Mr. Leskov said, shoving a black plastic bag at me that was filled with bright orange T-shirts. “Uniforms. There’s even one for Pushkin.”
Leskov had the addresses of the guys on a sheet of yellow paper. I read them to him, and he cruised around, trying to corral guys who had signed up. When we got ten, Leskov punched an address into his GPS and we were off. As he drove, Antonio passed out orange T-shirts to the guys while I patched together a lineup.
I could see from Leskov’s GPS that our opponent practiced on a field near Husky Stadium. As we pulled into the parking lot, I couldn’t believe all the gear they had—a pitching machine, batting nets, a speed gun. And that was the stuff that was out. A bunch of bulging mesh bags emblazoned with the words SEATTLE MARAUDERS sat along the sideline.
We milled around in the parking lot while Mr. Leskov talked to their coach. Leskov pointed at us and then pointed to his clipboard.
“Their coach forgot all about the game,” Antonio snickered. “A buck says we don’t play.”
Right then, Leskov waved us forward. As we headed toward the infield, I could see some of the guys on the other team smile at our orange T-shirts, ratty jeans, and old sneakers.
I kept my eyes forward and my back straight. I picked one guy to stare at. He had a cocky way of standing and a smug grin on his face. As we neared the baseball diamond, I kept staring—only now I could feel my pulse in my ears.
The kid smirking at me was Ian Thurman.
Ten
“Four innings,” Mr. Leskov said when we circled around him. “Five minutes to loosen muscles, and then we play.”
I’ve never needed more than a dozen throws to get warm. With the adrenaline rush from seeing Ian Thurman, I was ready after six.
We were the visitors, so we batted first. Dawit, who’d come to Seattle from Ethiopia, led off. He had long arms, long legs, and a mischievous gleam in his eyes. Soccer was his passion; baseball was strictly for fun. That made him fearless at the plate. When your bat is loose and quick and you’re an athlete, good things can happen.
The Marauders pitcher went into his wind-up and delivered. Dawit swung and missed, taking such a huge cut that he did a complete three-sixty and fell down, landing on home plate. When he got back to his feet, he raised the bat above his head like some kind of warrior, and everybody laughed, including the Marauders guys.
Dawit got set in the batter’s box; the pitcher delivered. Again Dawit swung, but this time he caught the ball square, rocketing a line drive over the first baseman’s head that landed just fair. Dawit stood at home plate for a beat, watching in delight before he took off.
He should have stopped at second, but we hadn’t thought about base coaches, so he just kept running. The third baseman had the tag down in time, but Dawit’s hard slide caused the ball to pop out of his glove. “Safe!” the umpire yelled, and Dawit stood on the base clapping his hands together as we all cheered like madmen.
Tory Nelson, our catcher, was batting second. He was a stocky guy with good hands and a good eye. Their pitcher, rattled by Dawit’s surprise triple, threw his first two pitches a foot outside. The next two were closer, but they weren’t strikes. Tory trotted down to first as I stepped up to the plate.
Their third baseman was playing back. I wanted to make sure we scored at least one run, so when I got a low fastball on the outside corner, I pushed a bunt past the mound toward second. The second baseman charged, fielded the ball, and threw me out, but Dawit came flying down the line. He didn’t need to slide, but he did, kicking up another cloud of dust and then shouting for joy as he leaped to his feet.
The poor kids in the stupid orange shirts were ahead, 1–0.
The Marauders coach—a tall man with wavy gray-black hair who looked as if he belonged on a yacht—marched out to the mound, said something to the pitcher, and then retreated to the sidelines.
Their pitcher—I learned later his name was Kevin Griffith—rubbed up the baseball and looked toward center field. I knew what he was thinking—that he hadn’t given up anything. A lucky triple on a wild swing, a walk, and a bunt.