The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [123]
“Something wrong?” Schwartz asked. “O’Shea looks ready for a funeral.”
Rick stared down at his Birkenstocks. Starblind gave the lid of the mailbox a few apprehensive flips, not meeting Schwartz’s eye. “There’s something we wanted to talk to you about.”
“Well, here I am.”
“Right.” Starblind sucked in a breath and steeled himself. “We talked it over at practice today, and we think that Henry should sit out tomorrow.”
Schwartz’s whole big body tensed. “Who’s we?”
“Rick and myself. Boddington and Phlox. Jensen. Ajay. Meat.” Starblind glanced at Rick. “Who else?”
Rick looked like Starblind had just asked him to name a Jew. “Sooty Kim,” he muttered.
“Right. Sooty was there.”
“You had a meeting,” Schwartz said.
Starblind shrugged. “Not officially. It was just the juniors and seniors. No need to get the younger guys involved.”
“Was the Buddha there?”
“Buddha hasn’t been around much lately.”
“What about me? Was I there?”
“No,” Starblind conceded. “You weren’t.”
“Sounds like some meeting.” A dangerous calm suffused Schwartz’s voice. “What else did you geniuses do? Elect yourselves captains?”
“Schwartzy, please. Hear us out.” Rick’s normally ruddled face was drained of color. His left thumb flicked at an imaginary lighter, tapped at the filter end of an imaginary cigarette. “It wasn’t a meeting. How could we have a team meeting about this? What would we do, get everyone together to talk about what’s wrong with the Skrimmer? With him sitting right there?”
“So you did it on the sly,” Schwartz said. “Behind my back.”
“It wasn’t like that. It was an impromptu discussion that led to a consensus. And here we are right afterward to tell you about it. As our captain.”
“How big of you.”
“I’ll tell you what’s big,” Starblind said. “This weekend. These four games. We beat Coshwale, we win UMSCACs. We go to the regional tournament.”
“You think we’re gonna beat Coshwale without Henry?” Schwartz said. “Even if we could, you want to go into regionals with him riding the bench? You’re nuts.”
“He cost us that game yesterday,” Starblind said.
“The whole team played like shit the whole game! Rick here dropped a pop-up, Boddington booted two grounders, I struck out with a runner on third. That play of Henry’s was one play. We should have been up by twelve by then.”
“We should’ve been,” said Starblind, “but we weren’t.”
Rick sighed miserably, riffling his ginger hair. “Schwartzy, you know how I feel about the little guy. I love him and I’d go to war for him. He’s like the brother I never had, and I have four brothers. But what’s going on with him is messing with all of our heads. Why do you think we looked so shaky yesterday? I’m not saying it’s Henry’s fault, but…”
Rick lifted his arms and let them drop. Schwartz stayed silent, waiting for him to finish. “Nobody knows how to talk to him anymore. It changes the whole atmosphere. When we win nobody wants to celebrate, because Henry’s our leader, you and him are our leaders, and obviously he’s hurting. And when we lose… well, we shouldn’t lose. We shouldn’t have lost to Wainwright. We’re too good a team.”
“Izzy looks sharp at practice,” Starblind added. “He could step right in. We’d barely miss a beat.”
A pickup rolled by with two kegs in the bed, blasting the rap anthem of the moment. Friday night, for nonathletes, was under way. Schwartz felt a splinter from a cracked porch board pierce the meat of his foot. “Tomorrow’s the Skrimmer’s day,” he said. “His family’ll be here. Aparicio’ll be here. You think he’s just going to take a seat?”
“He might not want to,” Starblind said. “But he should. For the team.”
“Hell, he can play first base if he wants,” Rick said. “I’ll sit. Anything so he doesn’t have to make that throw from short to first. It’s killing him, Schwartzy. You know that. Anyone can see it.”
“He’s just pressing. He’ll be fine.”
“If he was pressing before,” Starblind said, “what do you think’s going to happen tomorrow?”
It wasn’t like it had never occurred to Schwartz. It hadn’t escaped his notice