“Strike three!” cried the ump.

  “Oh, come on!” Tony yelled angrily. “Somebody knock us in!”

  Nobody did.

  “This is it!” Coach Harper said as the Lakers ran out to the field. “Let’s play heads-up out there!”

  Mick worked hard on the Boiler lead-off man and struck him out on the 3-2 pitch. The infielders snapped the ball around the horn, then returned it to Mick.

  Mick took his time, then threw one low and inside. Bat met ball and Terry sprinted forward as he saw it heading for short left field. He reached low for the shallow drive and caught the ball near his sneaker laces. He was within ten feet of Tony when he slowed up and tossed the ball to the shortstop.

  “Nice catch.” Tony said, and smiled crookedly. “Too bad nobody was on second. You might’ve thrown him out — seeing you didn’t have far to throw.”

  “Guess I was lucky,” Terry said as he turned and trotted back to his position. He tried not to get sore. Maybe one of these days — soon, he hoped — Tony would realize that Terry could catch, run and hit well enough to make up for his poor arm, and stop his sarcastic remarks.

  Mick walked the next Boiler, the next batter popped out to Ed, and that was it. The Forest Lakers won, 2 to 1.

  “Nice game, Terry,” Mick said as they stood by the water fountain, waiting for their chance to get a drink.

  “Thanks, Mick,” Terry said, wiping his sweating brow. “You, too.”

  A couple of strange guys came up and looked at Terry. They were about his age and wore baseball caps.

  “Nice hit you got, Delaney,” one of them wearing glasses said. “Bet you won’t get to first base on us.”

  A chuckle rippled from him as he nudged his partner and walked away.

  “Who are they?” Terry asked curiously.

  “Jim Burling and Dave Wilson,” said Tony, who was standing nearby. “They’re the battery for the Yellow Jackets, the team we play our first league game with. They’ve got your number, Terry. You’re a sucker for high, outside pitches.”

  3

  FELLAS,” Coach Harper said. “Before you leave I’ve got some nice news for you. There’s a movie on the Oakland-Cincinnati World Series tomorrow night at the Forest Lake Hotel, sponsored by the Forest Lake Lions Club, and all of us are invited to attend. How about that?”

  A chorus of satisfied shouts resounded from the boys. Terry was especially pleased for the opportunity. He hadn’t seen any of the World Series games on television.

  Suddenly he remembered that tomorrow night his father had planned to take the family out to dinner. The conflict bothered him. He liked to go out for dinner, but he wanted to see the World Series movie, too.

  “Fine,” the coach said. “The movie will be shown at seven-thirty. I’ll have someone telephone each of you and arrange to pick you up.”

  “Are you going, Terry?” Mick asked.

  “I’d like to,” Terry replied. “But we’ve planned to go out for dinner.”

  “Skip the dinner,” Mick suggested, smiling. “You can’t always see a World Series movie.”

  Terry shrugged. “Okay. I’m sure my dad will take us out for dinner again sometime!”

  Terry saw a scornful look come over Tony’s face. Can you beat that? he thought. He even resents my going to see a World Series movie with the team!

  Their eyes locked. Then Tony looked away, tapped a couple of his friends on their shoulders, and walked off with them.

  “Ready to go?” Terry asked Mick, hoping nobody could hear his pounding heart.

  Mick glanced at the three boys leaving. “Let’s wait a minute,” he said.

  “Why? For Tony and those guys to get way ahead of us?” Terry grinned. “If I don’t mind them, why should you?”

  Mick’s eyebrows pulled together above the bridge of his nose. “You mean it doesn’t bother you, the way he looked at you and all that”

  “I’ve met guys like Tony before, Mick,” Terry said. “I’ll always keep meeting guys like him. My father says that’ll be something I’ll have to live with the rest of my life, and as far as I can see I’m not the one with a problem. Tony is.”

  “But doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Sure it hurts. But not as much as it used to.” He chuckled. “At least, he hasn’t called me any dirty names yet — and if he knows what’s good for him, he better not.”

  Mick laughed and socked Terry lightly on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said, and they started off the field. “You know, Terry, I can’t see why any guy — black or white — can’t like you. You know what I’d probably do if I were in your place?”

  “What?” Terry asked.

  “I’d, well, I’d…”

  Mick looked at Terry, a vacant expression in his eyes.

  “You’d what, Mick?”

  Mick inhaled deeply, then breathed out a sigh. “Darn it, Terry, I don’t know what I’d do,” he admitted.

  They walked the rest of the way home in silence, and when Terry told his parents that he wanted to go to the World Series movie instead of to dinner with them, his father didn’t blame him.

  “We can all have dinner together anytime,” he said. “But a World Series movie isn’t shown very often.”

  The next evening the Delaneys left at 6:30, with Terry waiting in the living room for the telephone call. Twice he almost dozed off. The clock on the mantle said 7:00, then 7:15, then 7:30. Still the phone didn’t ring.

  Had he been forgotten? He tried phoning Mick, but no one answered.

  7:45… 8:00…

  Suddenly the phone rang. Terry leaped out of the chair and grabbed the receiver. “Yes?” he said excitedly.

  “Hello. This is Mrs. Williams of the Great Books Club,” said a warm, soothing voice. “Is Mrs. Delaney there?”

  Terry’s heart sank. “No, she isn’t,” he answered politely. “Can I take a message?”

  “No,” the woman said. “I’ll call again tomorrow. Thank you.”

  The phone clicked. Terry hung up and went back to the chair, dejected. He should have gone to the dinner, he thought, instead of sitting here like a bump on a log.

  He picked up a magazine and was reading it when his parents and Connie returned from dinner. They stared sur-prisedly at him.

  “What happened?” his father asked. “Was the movie canceled?”

  “Nobody called.” Terry said cheerlessly.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Delaney said. “I guess you should have come with us after all.”

  He went back to his reading, and was only half concentrating on the story when the phone rang again. Quickly he dropped the magazine and went to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Terry, this is Mick.”

  “Yes, Mick?”

  “Too bad you missed the World Series movie. It was great!”

  Terry’s hand froze on the receiver. He stared at the clock on the wall. Ten after nine!

  “Nobody called me,” he said huskily.

  “Didn’t Tony call you?”

  “Tony? Was he supposed to call me?”

  “Yes! He told me you weren’t going. He said that you decided to go to dinner with your family!”

  “The liar!” Terry cried. “He never called me at all!”

  “The rat,” Mick said softly.

  Terry saw Tony the next day at practice. He was boiling mad. “Tony, I heard that you were supposed to call me last night,” he said, trying to control his rage.

  Tony blushed. “I thought you were going to dinner with your family,” he said.

  “I didn’t say I was,” Terry shot back. “I said that we had planned to go, but that I would go to the World Series movie instead. You must have heard me.”

  Tony’s lips pressed together, then spread apart in a forced smile. “You didn’t miss anything,” he said. “It wasn’t that good.”

  “I bet it wasn’t,” Terry snapped, and stamped angrily toward the pile of bats. He selected one he liked, slipped a metal doughnut over the fat part of it and began swinging it hard back and forth over his shoulder.

  4

  LATER, WHILE waiting for supper, Terry and Mick played catch on the front lawn. Terry was trying to strengthen his throwing arm. He had to be able to peg the ball to second or third base when it was hit to deep left. Mick had put a handkerchief in his glove to cushion the throws and was catching them with hardly a wince.

  “How am I doing?” Terry asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mick answered. “It’s hard to tell. Let’s go to the ballfield after supper.”

  Mick’s father came by and paused on the sidewalk.

  “Hi, Mr. Jordan,” Terry greeted him. “I’m trying to build up my throwing arm.”

  “Hi, Dad,” Mick said.

  “Hi, boys,” Mr. Jordan greeted them. He was tall, yellow-haired, and had the long, lithe build of an athlete. “Mind a bit of advice, Terry?”

  Terry held up his throw and looked at Mr. Jordan. “Anything you want to tell me is sure welcome, Mr. Jordan,” he replied honestly.

  Mr. Jordan grinned. “Well, it isn’t much, but it might save you a lot of torture later on.” He slapped at an annoying bee. “I understand what you’re trying to do, but at your age you’d better not throw too hard nor too long or you might come up with a permanent injury in that arm. You’re just a kid yet. Your arm isn’t strong enough to take it.”

  “That’s why I’m throwing harder,” Terry explained, frowning. “So it will be stronger.”

  “You’re taking a chance, Terry,” Mr. Jordan warned. “A big chance.” He shrugged and started toward home. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Terry smiled. “I won’t, Mr. Jordan,” he promised, “because, as of right now, I’m going to take your advice.”

  Terry waited for Mr. Jordan to walk on, then looked at his friend. “Now there’s a guy who turns me on, Mick,” he said happily. “Not even my own father tells me things like that.”

  He pegged the ball to Mick, then heard footsteps on the porch behind him.

  “That’s because your own father doesn’t know a thing about baseball,” said a voice. Terry turned to see his tall, broad-shouldered father standing behind the screen door, a genial smile on his lips.

  Terry chuckled. “Did you hear what Mr. Jordan told me, Dad?”

  “I sure did,” Mr. Delaney said. “And I think that it makes a lot of sense.”

  He came off the porch, stopped beside Mick, and began to play catch with the boys.

  Presently a dune buggy with a huge flower painted on its hood came buzzing up the street, crept up to the curb, and stopped. Out of it hopped Tony Caster-line and Jeff Roberts. Terry saw that the driver looked to be about nineteen or twenty, wore long hair, and had a striking resemblance to Tony.

  The two boys waved to him as he stepped on the gas and sped away.

  Terry looked at Tony and Jeff without speaking. His first impression was that they had come to see him, since the dune buggy had stopped directly in front of his house. But the guys motioned to Mick and ignored him completely.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Delaney,” Mick said, and ran over to them.

  Terry smiled at his father. Don’t worry, Dad, his look said. Those guys don’t impress me a bit.

  They continued to play catch — just the two of them — and were interrupted when Mrs. Delaney came to the door and told her husband that he had a phone call. He excused himself and went into the house.

  A minute later Tony and Jeff started to leave, and Mick returned to his post to continue playing catch with Terry.

  “Hey, you guys,” Terry suddenly called to them. “If you want to join us one of you can use my glove. I’ve got another one in the house, and one guy can sit out for a while.”

  Tony and Jeff looked at him, said something to each other, then returned to the lawn. Terry smiled and sent his glove spinning toward the boys.

  “You use it,” Tony said to Jeff.

  Jeff caught it and put it on. As Terry started toward the house for his other glove, Tony called to him, “Never mind, Terry. I don’t think your glove is going to feel right to either of us.”

  Terry looked at him; the real meaning behind Tony’s statement hit him like a baseball bat. What Tony meant was that he wouldn’t use Terry’s glove just because it was Terry’s.

  Before Terry could decide what to say, Jeff took off the glove and tossed it back to him. “Here,” he said. “I really don’t think it fits, either.”

  Terry’s face felt hot. He had hoped that his friendly gesture would bear fruit, that it might start to close the gap between them. But his offer had been turned against him in order to humiliate him. His eyes blazed. “All right. If the glove isn’t right, let’s play bare-handed. That okay with you guys?”

  Jeff gazed in sheepish inquiry at Tony. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

  Tony shrugged.

  Terry winged the ball to Tony who gasped at the ball’s impact on his hands. “Take it easy, will you, Terry?” Tony asked.

  Terry, seeing Tony’s discomfort, smiled a bit and nodded agreement. They lobbed the ball between the four of them.

  “Your father ever play professional baseball?” Tony asked as he caught a soft throw from Mick.

  “No. Just sandlot,” Terry replied.

  “My father played in the majors,” Tony said, a spark of pride in his voice.

  “He did? With whom?”

  “The Minnesota Twins.”

  Terry’s heart skipped a beat. He had never before met a kid whose father played major league baseball.

  “He was an infielder,” Tony added.

  They tossed the ball back and forth a few more times, and Terry could see that neither Tony nor Jeff were enjoying catching it bare-handed. After awhile Tony said that they had to leave, and they did.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what they wanted?” Mick asked.

  Terry shrugged. “I figure you’d tell me if you wanted to,” he said.

  Mick smiled. “They told me that our first league game is Tuesday against the Yellow Jackets. But I already knew that. I think it was just an excuse for them to stop here and cause a bit of trouble.”

  Terry nodded. “I figured that,” he said. “And I’m glad they did. I guess maybe next time they might want to use my glove.”

  Mick chuckled. “I guess they will,” he said.

  5

  THE YELLOW JACKETS had a picture of a fat bee on the front left side of their jerseys. They had first raps and looked extremely confident of winning their first game.

  On the mound for the Forest Lakers was Woody Davis, a slim kid with arms like spindles but with plenty of speed. A crowd was divided between a large group in the stands behind the backstop screen and a smattering in the small bleachers behind first and third bases. It was a hot June day and a lot of the women were fanning themselves to keep cool.

  The Yellow Jackets’ lead-off hitter looked for a walk, and almost got it as Woody worked the count on him to 3–2. Then Woody slid a pitch by him.

  “Strike three!” yelled the ump.

  In left field Terry Delaney wished that if a ball were hit out to him it would be a shallow drive, one that he wouldn’t have trouble throwing in to the infield. The thought had hardly left his mind when bang! — a long hit zoomed out to deep left! He ran back… back… lifted his glove and caught the fly over his head!

  The Forest Laker fans cheered as he pegged the ball in. They didn’t know, though, how hard his heart was pounding and how relieved he was.

  A pop fly to the infield ended the top half of the inning.

  Jeff Roberts, leading off for the Forest Lakers, put on his protective helmet, stepped to the mound, and faced the Yellow Jackets’ short, husky pitcher, Jim Durling. Ready to follow him were Tony, Terry, and Rich Muldoon.

  Jim released a couple of high pitches, then grooved one down the middle. He grooved the next one too, and Jeff smashed it to center field for a single.

  Tony got the signal from Coach Harper to bunt, and laid one down neatly just inside the third-base line. The Yellow Jacket third baseman, waiting for exactly this to happen, nevertheless didn’t play in close enough to field the bunt and get Jeff at second. He managed, however, to throw Tony out at first.

  Terry let an inside pitch go by for a strike, then swung at a high, outside one that he missed for strike two.

  “Bring ’em down, Terry!” yelled Tony, who had run back to the bench.

  Terry stepped out of the box and rubbed his hands in the soft dirt, while a chorus of yells rose from the fans. He returned to the box. In came a pitch he liked, and he swung. Foul ball!

  Nothing and two. He felt nervous and sweaty. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were focused on him, waiting to see what he would do.

  A wide pitch. One and two.

  Another pitch looked good to him. He swung hard — and missed. “Strike three!” the ump yelled.

  “That was a mile high, Terry!” Tony shouted. “You’ve got to bring ’em down, man!”

  Terry tossed the bat aside and returned, head bowed, to the bench, the roar of the fans lingering in his ears.

  “That was high and outside, Terry,” Coach Harper said evenly. “Next time step a few inches closer to the plate. See what happens.”

  Terry nodded.

  Rich, the Forest Lakers’ cleanup hitter, belted a foul ball into the third-base bleachers, then lambasted a high pitch to deep center. The ball was caught and that was it for the Lakers’ half of the inning.

  The Yellow Jackets’ lead-off hitter cracked Woody’s first pitch to right field for a neat single, then made it to second on a sacrifice bunt. First baseman Bud Philips brought the ball to Woody after the put-out, talked to him a minute, then returned to his position.

  Woody threw two wide pitches to the next Yellow Jacket, then grooved one. Crack! A blow to deep left center! Both Terry and Rich bolted after it. Terry reached it first, picked it up and heaved it to second base.

 

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