Two-Minute Drill - Mike Lupica [40]
“Dude,” Ollie Brown had said to him today, after Nick had schooled him so badly on his stolen-base attempt. “Guys our age aren’t supposed to get thrown out by that much unless they do a header between first and second.”
Throwing out guys stealing was Nick’s very best thing. He didn’t get all the runners who tried him. Even Johnny Bench, the old Cincinnati Red from the Big Red Machine, who Nick had read up on and who was supposed to be the best defensive catcher of all time, didn’t come close to doing that.
Sometimes Nick would bounce one.
Sometimes he’d throw wild left or wild right.
Sometimes, as if he didn’t know his own strength, he’d really let one fly and the ball would go sailing in the direction of Dave Chester, their center fielder, known as Junior on their team because he looked so much like Ken Griffey, Jr.
Most of the time, though, Nick was money.
And he had been money today.
The safest Nick felt in his life, the most confident and sure of himself, the most normal, was when he’d hear one of his teammates yell “he’s going!” just as he saw the runner take off from first, and then he’d be coming up and out of his crouch, and his arm would be coming forward, and he would be the no-worries Nick Crandall he wanted to be more than anything.
That was the way it was happening now as Coach Leeman brought his arm forward and delivered his first pitch to Zach. It wasn’t any kind of pitch-out, the kind that big-league catchers would call to give them a better chance if they thought a guy was about to steal, a pitch they’d have the pitcher purposely throw high and way off the plate so they’d be standing and ready to throw as soon as they came out from behind the batter to catch it.
It might as well have been.
Coach Leeman’s pitch just happened to be high and wide, and that could have been a problem if Nick hadn’t read it perfectly almost from the time it came out of Coach’s hand. As Nick straightened up to catch the ball, he could see that Jeff, one of their fastest guys on the bases, hadn’t gotten nearly a good enough jump.
If Coach Williams hadn’t seen the other throws, he was sure going to see one now.
Nick really leaned into this one and cut it loose, grunting loudly as he did.
The moment the ball came out of his hand, he knew he had put too much on it. Way too much. And he knew why, knew it the way you knew you’d said something wrong the second the words were out of your mouth, when it was too late to take them back: because he was a dope trying to show off for the varsity coach.
To Nick’s eyes, the ball was still rising like a plane taking off as it went over second base, over the head of Reed McDonagh, playing short for Nick’s team, and over the head of the sliding runner. It was still so high in the sky that Nick was suddenly afraid that the ball might make it all the way to center field on the fly.
Junior wound up fielding the throw on one bounce and didn’t even bother trying to get Jeff at third. There was no chance, so he just threw the ball back in to Reed at second. As he did, Nick heard Zach Dugas, in a real loud voice, saying, “I was starting to worry that sucker was going to need one of those parachutes you see on rockets after reentry.”
Nick didn’t say anything. He was too embarrassed. He didn’t mind getting people’s attention with his arm. But you never ever wanted to draw attention to yourself like this. He was used to messing up in his life. Sometimes the messing up was epic, too.
More than anything he hated to do that in baseball.
He took off his mask finally, just because it gave him something to do. Then he walked slowly back around the plate, taking long enough that it felt like he was taking a walk around the block, and yelled out to his fielders to remember there were still two out.
Then he got into his crouch and watched from there as Zach beat the next pitch into the ground and Reed at least showed