No one in the park expected I would bunt. The first baseman finally figured out he needed to get the ball. Neither the second baseman nor the pitcher covered first, so I was safe. Coach Diamond was seething on the bench because Moose had put one over on him.
Coach Haskins, from third, signaled for me to steal. He gave the sign for the batter, Yuri, to take the first pitch. I took my lead at first, daring the kid to chase me back. He threw the pitch home instead. As soon as he lifted his lead leg, I was off. The throw from the catcher went high and sailed into center field. Coach Haskins signaled that I could stand up at third and then suddenly signaled for me to go home.
What I hadn’t seen was the center fielder had decided not to hit his cutoff man, but throw to third. He was way off the line and tossed it to the fence by our dugout. I wondered if Yuri got an RBI for standing in the box. Their pitcher settled down and got the side to go down in order.
Justin showed why he was our number-one pitcher. He was able to get Washington out on just seven pitches. Coach Diamond had them aggressive at the plate, and they hacked away at some balls they shouldn’t have. In the top of the second, I found myself at bat with the bases loaded and two outs. Moose grabbed me before I stepped up to the plate.
“Don’t try to kill it, just drive the ball. Oh, and wait for your pitch.”
Baseball was complicated, but Moose made it simple. I just grinned at him.
When I got into the box, I was zoned in. The first pitch was a low fastball.
“Strike one!” the umpire called.
I looked back at him and smiled.
“If you hadn’t noticed, I’m tall. My knees are way up here,” I said.
The catcher was shaking from trying not to laugh. The umpire must have trained with my mom, based on the look he gave me. I guess I shouldn’t joke with him.
The next three pitches were outside. I knew the kid pitching would have to throw me a strike, or he would walk in a run. He threw another outside pitch, but I swung at ball four to bail him out. I looked down to third and Coach Haskins just clapped and yelled for me to get a hit.
When the pitcher released the next pitch, I recognized it was a curveball. If it dropped like it had in the past, it would be low, but I wasn’t counting on the umpire to make the right call. Bless the baseball gods. The curve hung over the plate. The sound of the bat confirmed what I knew: I got all of it. I drove it into the left-center gap. All the runners had taken off on the sound of contact. Because there were two outs, they didn’t have to wait to see if the ball was caught or not. I drove in three runs and had a stand-up double.
The game ended with that score, 4–0.
Not a bad day for me: two for four with three RBIs. I found out I was credited with a stolen base. If a catcher makes a wild throw in an attempt to prevent a stolen base, and the runner is safe, the catcher isn’t charged with an error. He did get an error when the shortstop didn’t back up the second baseman, and the ball went into center field. The center fielder picked up another error when I was able to score. Alan explained the finer points of scoring on the way home on the bus.
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Mom and Dad took me out to dinner for my first win. At dinner, they told me what a success the day had been. It turned out that twenty-three thousand people had attended the game. We collected a bus and four large moving trucks full of items for the Homeless Coalition. Mom had Mr. Orange go rent them from the local U-Haul dealer.
Coach Diamond called Dad and told him they had raised eight times the amount of funds they’d set as a goal. Thanks to that, the Washington Booster Club loved me. The vast majority of the people who showed up said they came to see me because of the Star Wars hype. The police chief also told the boosters it was me who got them help from the state for porta-potties and state police help to direct traffic. I credited the governor. Finally, Mrs. Sullivan, with help from our booster club, helped them get organized. They also used my guy to cook hogs. Even though they ran out of everything, and there were tremendous waits for bathrooms, people had fun. The good news was no one got hurt.
Angel called and thanked me for the opportunity. She told me they were picking up the cost of travel and hotels. Originally, I’d told her there would be a thousand people there. Eve had never sung for that many people, so she was happy.
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Chapter 20 – All These Things I’ve Said Sunday March 13
The day I’d dreaded was finally here. I had to tell my two ex-best friends the truth of what had happened to them that caused our friendships to fall apart. Looking back, a lot of it was my fault. It was me who brought Brandon into our midst. I’d trusted my lawyers when they recommended him to be my PA and help with recruiting. I’d been too trusting and not looked into why he’d left Harvard.
Since then, I’d requested that Caryn make sure everyone had a background check. I even made them check into people and organizations we donated money to. I had a better understanding of Teddy Wesleyan now. As yet, I wasn’t paranoid that everyone was out to get money from me, but I wasn’t far from it. Before I went off the deep end, I was sure someone would give me a reality check.
I rolled over in my bed and heard a tail thumping. I looked down and saw Duke was next to my bed. That made me shake my head. Mom had bought him a fancy bed for his crate, and he’d rather lie on the bare floor.
I got up and looked out the window. It was snowing, which made it easy to skip running today. Flee, my quarterback friend from Miami, had posted on Facebook that it was in the mid-80s yesterday.
I walked out to the living room, stretched, and did my forms to get my blood pumping. As I stepped into the bathroom to take my shower, I felt good. I was ready to face whatever was to come.
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Dad must have gone to Granny’s because there were two platters of cinnamon rolls on the table. She’d introduced a maple-cream-cheese frosting with pecans. Half the rolls had that on it. I would have to thoroughly test both to see which was better. The smell coming from the oven indicated there was some kind of breakfast casserole warming up. Peggy came downstairs with Little David and handed him to me so I could say good morning.
She made herself a cup of coffee and got me a glass of orange juice.
“I hear you had quite the crowd for your game. They interviewed Mr. Hicks, and he said they may move your games to State to accommodate the number of people interested in seeing you play.”
“Surely he didn’t say it was just for me. Eve sang, and the Washington boosters had a fundraiser.”
“I’m afraid so,” she said.
I didn’t get a chance to quiz Peggy any longer because the back door opened and Uncle John walked in. Mom and Dad came downstairs, and we had coffee.
“Shouldn’t we at least have a cinnamon roll?” I suggested.
“You can wait until everyone gets here,” Mom scolded.
It wasn’t long before the rest showed up. Mom and Dad had talked to both Alan’s parents and Tami’s mom. Everyone seemed to agree I was the one who needed to tell them. As far as they knew, we were all here for breakfast. Mom had told Tami she was tired of us not being close friends and that I was ready to make that happen. Of course, Tami told Alan.
Everyone filled up their plates except for me; I would wait until I was done talking. We’d arranged it so Tami was at the head of the table and I was to her right with Alan on her left. Uncle John said psychologically, Tami sitting at the head of the table would give her more control. I thought he was crazy, but I wasn’t about to argue. With them seated like this, I could look at both of them at the same time.