The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [83]
“Me either.”
They walked across the practice fields toward the VAC, the sun warm against their necks, Schwartz’s flip-flops slurping noisily through the mud. From the VAC they collected their gloves, a bat, a bucket of balls, and a broomstick. They headed out to the baseball diamond.
First base was held in place by a metal post that fit into a long, square-edged hole in the ground; Henry pulled out the base, tossed it aside, and wedged the broomstick into the hole. It tilted a few degrees off the vertical. He slapped it with his hand to check its steadiness, drained the sweet dregs of his cocoa, and jogged out to shortstop.
“How’s the wing?” Schwartz yelled. The wind was whipping off the water; it was hard to hear.
Henry worked his shoulder in its socket, gave Schwartz a thumbs-up.
“Take it easy,” Schwartz called. “Last thing we need is a dead wing.”
“What?”
“Easy!”
Schwartz held up a ball. Henry nodded, dropped into his crouch. The first ball shot up high on his backhand side, snapped sharply into his glove. After a long night of thinking, it felt good to be out here doing. He planted his back foot, brought the broomstick into his sights, whipped his arm. The ball cut through the crosswind and struck the broomstick solidly.
There were fifty balls in the bucket. Seventeen hit the broomstick. The others described a tight arc around it, like the knives of a circus performer around the assistant’s sequined body. “Feeling better?” Schwartz asked as they gathered their stuff and headed for the dining hall.
“Not bad.” Henry nodded. “Not bad at all.”
TUESDAY, MUSKINGUM. The sky was a madhouse of riotous cross-blown clouds, the low ones wispy and torn-cotton white, the high ones gray with sullen underbellies shading to ominous black. Nobody in the stands but scouts and dutiful girlfriends. The Muskingum players wore long-sleeved shirts beneath their powder-blue jerseys. The Harpooners’ arms were bare. Schwartz insisted on it: a psychological advantage could be gained by pretending to be impervious to the weather. By pretending to be impervious, you became so.
Henry checked his teammates to make sure they were shaded correctly, waved Ajay a step to the left. “Sal Sal Sal,” he chanted. “Salvador Dalí Dolly Parton Pardon my French.” Infield chatter wasn’t exactly cool at the college level, but Henry couldn’t help himself. He pounded his fist into the tender pit of his glove. “Dot your is, cross your ts, spread a little cheese. Spread a little Muenster, spread a little Swiss.”
Sal cranked into his awkward staccato windup. Henry dropped into his shallow crouch. Hit it to me, he prayed. Hit it to me. Redemption time. The pitch was a forkball right where Schwartzy wanted it, low and outside. Henry broke from his crouch even before bat met ball with a tinny reverberant ding. At the last second the ball skidded off a lump tucked in the grass. He shifted his glove and fielded it cleanly—no such thing as a bad hop if you were prepared.
He clapped his right hand over the captive ball, spun it to find the seams. He cocked his arm, locked his eyes on Rick’s glove. His arm was moving forward, there wasn’t time to think, but he was thinking anyway, trying to decide whether to speed up his arm or slow it down. He could feel himself calibrating and recalibrating, adjusting and readjusting his aim, like an army sniper hopped up on foreign drugs.
As soon as the ball left his hand he knew he’d messed up. Rick O’Shea tried to scoop it out of the dirt, but it hit the heel of his glove and skittered away. Henry turned his back to the infield, looked up at the roiling clouds, mouthed his new favorite word: Motherfucker.
Schwartzy called time and trudged out to the mound, beckoned to Henry. “You okay?” he asked, his catcher’s mask tipped back on his head, eye black already smearing down into his beard.
“Fine,” Henry said curtly.
“You sure? Wing’s not sore or—”
“Wing’s fine. I’m fine.