Kristy at Bat

  Claudia passed me a bag of Doritos. “Have some of these,” she said. “They’ll make you feel better.”

  Trust Claudia to believe that a handful of chips can change your outlook on life.

  I took a few and ate them. After all, maybe she was right. I had nothing to lose by trying. But when the crunching was over, my mood hadn’t changed one bit.

  Jessi told a long story about a time she’d been turned down after auditioning for a big role in some ballet. But then it turned out that she danced the part after all, when the person who’d won the role came down with the flu.

  I wasn’t expecting any happy endings to my story.

  Stacey said she didn’t understand the team system at school anyway. She reminded us of the way her ex-boyfriend Robert had quit the basketball team because he hated the way athletes are idolized at SMS.

  But Robert was a first-string player. That was all I could think of.

  Mary Anne didn’t say much at all. She just looked at me with these big, sad eyes.

  Augh! I knew my friends meant well, but everything they said and did just made me feel worse. It wasn’t their fault. I was so bummed that there was no way anyone could cheer me up.

  Over the weekend, I did my best to work up some enthusiasm for Dream Camp. I felt I owed Watson that much. I knew he thought that going to camp would help cheer me up about not making the first-string team.

  On Saturday night, after I’d spent some time thinking about what to pack, I decided to oil my baseball glove, a job I usually love to do in the spring. The smell of the oil always gives me a little thrill, and as I work I replay moments from the previous softball season in my mind. This year, the only scenes I could picture were from tryouts. I finished up the job as soon as I could and put the glove aside, along with my softball cleats.

  On Sunday night, my mom made us a special going-away dinner of salmon and asparagus. Watson loved it. And he ate two helpings of the rhubarb pie she’d made for dessert. I didn’t have much of an appetite myself. Plus, it was hard to force myself to join in the conversation about how much fun we were going to have at camp. After dinner, I went upstairs and finished packing. Whether I was psyched about it or not, I was headed for Dream Camp first thing in the morning.

  Here’s a funny thing. When I woke up, I felt a little better. Maybe it was because I’d had a few days to get used to the idea of being put on the second-string team. Or maybe it was because I was, despite myself, starting to feel a little more excited about Dream Camp. After all, this was the big day. We were headed to Delaware.

  That afternoon, Watson threw our suitcases into the trunk of his car. We hugged everybody good-bye (that can take awhile, in my family) and then we were off.

  Watson was in a really, really good mood. He was like a kid on Christmas morning. He spent the first half hour of the trip singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” (Actually, he bellowed. Watson is no Pavarotti.) Finally, he must have grown tired of that one tune (I know I did), and he switched to that “Put Me In, Coach” song.

  Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, he didn’t know all the words to that one. He gave it up after a few tries. Then he turned to me and grinned. “We’re on our way,” he said for the fortieth time.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Soon I’ll be shaking the hand of one of this country’s greatest athletes,” Watson went on. “William F. Bain.”

  “What does the F stand for, anyway?” I asked. Not that I cared.

  “Franklin,” Watson said. “That was his father’s name.”

  If I’d asked about Bill Bain’s shoe size, Watson probably could have told me.

  Instead, Watson started in on the Bill Bain stories. “Did I ever tell you about the time Bill Bain made three home runs in one game?’ he asked.

  Of course he had. But I didn’t mind hearing it again. Actually, it was a pretty good story, and Watson told it well. “Was that when he had the broken finger?” I asked. Bill Bain was famous for “playing hurt,” which means he was a real tough guy who didn’t let small injuries keep him out of the game.

  Watson nodded. “That’s right,” he said. He was off and running. “He’d broken the finger while helping a little boy fix his bicycle. Bain was like that, always taking time out to do favors. Anyway, there he was, with the finger in a splint. It had to affect the way he held his bat, but you’d never have known it that day. I remember watching the game on TV, over at my uncle Moe’s house. He was a big Bill Bain fan too.”

  I knew Uncle Moe had gone to that big ball field in the sky, so I made a sympathetic noise.

  “When Bain smacked the first one out of the park, we were ecstatic,” said Watson. “But when he hit the second one and the third …” He paused, remembering. “… It was just amazing,” he continued in a quieter voice. “I’ll never forget the way he ran the bases after that third homer. He didn’t throw his fist in the air the way they do now, or smile at the fans. He just ran the way he always did — head down, looking serious. Then, after he’d crossed home, he ducked down into the dugout.”

  “That was it?” I asked. I knew it wasn’t, but I wanted Watson to tell the rest.

  “No,” said Watson. “The crowd at the ballpark wouldn’t stop cheering. The umpires had to stop the game because the noise was so distracting. Finally, Bill Bain came out of the dugout and tipped his hat. The crowd went absolutely bananas.” Watson had this faraway smile on his face. “Back at home, Uncle Moe and I were going bananas too. It was some afternoon.”

  “I bet it was,” I said. Watson’s enthusiasm was infectious. I was starting to remember how exciting baseball could be. “Wasn’t it right after that game that Bill Bain went on the Jimmy Carson show?”

  Watson burst out laughing. “That’s Johnny Carson. I guess you’ve heard these stories before,” he said. “Yes, it was. I’ll never forget that either. It was the first time my parents let me stay up that late. The Johnny Carson show didn’t even start until after the late news. But I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to watch.”

  “Couldn’t you have just taped it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We didn’t have VCRs in those days,” he said. “It was the Dark Ages, remember?”

  I laughed. We like to tease Watson about being old. Sometimes Sam asks him what it was like to hunt dinosaurs. The truth is, he isn’t all that much older than Mom.

  Watson went on to tell how Bill Bain had played catch with Johnny Carson on national TV. “Johnny couldn’t throw well at all,” said Watson. “Or maybe he was just fooling around to make the audience laugh. Anyway, it was hilarious.” He cracked up, just thinking about it. “Maybe it’s on tape somewhere,” he told me. “I’d love to find that. You’d get a real kick out of seeing it.”

  I nodded. And kept nodding as Watson went on with his Bill Bain stories. He didn’t need much encouragement to keep talking. And I didn’t mind listening, since it made the time go by. After awhile, though, I started tuning out just a bit. I’ve heard all the stories before. And I was beginning to feel a little, well, bored. Also, I had started thinking again about being chosen for second string. Finally, I stopped making those “Oh, really?” and “What happened next?” comments.

  Suddenly, Watson stopped talking. “Kristy?’ he asked. “Is everything okay?” He looked at me with real concern.

  “Everything is fine,” I said firmly.

  Watson nodded. He’s lived with me long enough to understand that what I meant by that was, “Even though everything is not fine, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  The rest of the drive was a lot quieter. Watson talked a bit more about Bill Bain, and we made awkward small talk over our truck-stop dinner, but basically we each kept to our own thoughts.

  Finally, we arrived at our hotel. It looked like a nice place, and our accommodations were excellent. We were in a suite, which meant that we each had our own room and bathroom, but we shared a living room. We unpacked quickly (I saw that Watson had brought a whole
pile of Bill Bain memorabilia, such as baseball cards and sports magazines, hoping to have them autographed) and headed off to bed.

  The next day would be the first day of Dream Camp. I may not have been quite as thrilled about it as Watson was, but I couldn’t help feeling excited. I was even looking forward to meeting Bill Bain.

  On Monday, while I was living through the Bill Bain-athon that was my drive to Delaware with Watson, Claudia was sitting for David Michael, Karen, and Andrew. (Emily Michelle had a play date with a little girl named Dakota whose mom works with my mom.)

  You have to understand that Claudia knows next to nothing about the world of sports. But as you know, I definitely do. And I groaned as soon as I began to read her notebook entry when I returned from Delaware. I could see the problem coming from a mile away. But Claudia was taken by surprise. She doesn’t have a clue about baseball cards.

  Except as art objects. That’s how she was looking at them that day, when David Michael began showing her his collection. She noticed the colors of the uniforms, the way the cards were designed, the little drawings on the backs.

  “Forget about all of that,” David Michael said impatiently, pulling another card out of shoe box where he kept them. “Look at this one! Michael Cannon. He is the coolest player. He always hits home runs.”

  “I like the teal trim on his uniform,” said Claudia thoughtfully, “although I think he’d look better in something more on the purple side.”

  David Michael rolled his eyes.

  “What about this guy?” asked Karen, reaching into the box for a card.

  “Hold it,” said David Michael, grabbing her hand. “Nobody touches my cards until I give them permission.”

  Karen shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “Can I have permission?”

  “Sure,” said David Michael.

  “Can I?” asked Andrew.

  “Are your hands clean?” asked David Michael. Andrew held his hands up, and David Michael inspected them. “Okay,” he said.

  Karen and Andrew rummaged happily through the cards. “I like this guy’s name,” said Karen. She showed Claudia a card.

  “Roscoe Vaughn,” read Claudia. “Nice.”

  “Look at this one,” said Andrew, pulling out another card. He tried to sound out the name on it.

  Karen leaned over to see it. “Bucky Shephard,” she read. “He plays first base for the Dodgers. He must be really good.”

  David Michael snorted. “All these guys are really good,” he said. “They’re major league players. They’re not like the Krushers.”

  “What’s wrong with the Krushers?” Karen asked, standing up and putting her hands on her hips.

  “Nothing, nothing,” muttered David Michael. “Hey, Claudia, can we go to the playground?”

  Claudia knew he meant the Stoneybrook Elementary School playground, which is a pretty long walk from Kristy’s house.

  “Sure,” said Claudia. “It’s a beautiful day. I’d love a walk. It’ll take awhile, though. What do you guys think?” she asked Karen and Andrew.

  “Yay!” they cried. Karen ran to put on her sneakers, while Claudia rummaged around in the kitchen, assembling a snack to bring along. (Like any good sitter, she knows it’s important to be prepared. Kids can be very cranky when they’re hungry.)

  Fifteen minutes later, they were ready to go. Karen brought her jump rope; Andrew had a Nerf football; Claudia had packed her backpack with peanut-butter-and-cracker sandwiches, juice boxes, and some apples; and David Michael was carrying his shoe box.

  “Are you sure you want to bring that?” Claudia asked him as they set out.

  He nodded. “Definitely. See, a bunch of the kids are bringing their card collections to the playground today. That’s why I wanted to go. We’re going to show each other what we have and maybe trade some cards too.”

  “That sounds cool,” said Claudia. (This is where I would have seen the big, flashing DANGER sign.)

  “I want to trade!” announced Andrew. He sat down on the sidewalk and stuck out his lower lip.

  “But you don’t have any cards,” Karen reminded him.

  Andrew’s lip began to quiver.

  Claudia saw a tantrum coming.

  Fortunately, David Michael did too. And, good kid that he is, he knew how to nip it in the bud. “You know what, Andrew?” he said. “You can have a few of my cards.”

  Andrew was stunned. “I can?” he asked. The lip stopped quivering. “Really?” He stood up. “Which ones? Can I have that Bucky guy?”

  “Let’s see,” said David Michael. He opened the shoe box and rummaged around. “If I have a double of that card, you can.” He poked around some more. “Yup! Here it is. And you can have these too.” He handed Andrew four cards.

  Andrew was overwhelmed.

  “Say ‘thank you,’ ” Claudia prompted him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. He was holding the cards carefully, as if they were made of china.

  “Do you want me to carry them for you?” Claudia asked.

  Andrew nodded. “But first I have to look at them one more time,” he said. He leafed through them slowly, drinking in all the details of each one. Then he handed them to Claudia.

  They walked for a while in silence.

  Then Andrew spoke up. “Do I have to trade them?” he asked suddenly. He looked worried. “I just want to keep them. I want to have a collection.”

  “That’s okay,” David Michael assured him. “They’re your cards. You can do whatever you want with them.”

  Andrew brightened. By then, they were nearly at the playground.

  Karen handed her jump rope to Claudia and asked her to carry it. Then she ran ahead. “Last one there is a rotten egg!” she cried over her shoulder as she dashed for the jungle gym.

  Claudia spotted a group of kids near the slide. So did David Michael. “There they are,” he said. He trotted across the playground to join them, his shoe box under his arm.

  Claudia and Andrew stopped for a few minutes to check out the swings, then joined the group. Claudia spotted several familiar faces. Jake Kuhn was there, along with his sister Laurel. (He’s eight; she’s six.) Claudia spotted their mom and baby sister Patsy, sitting with a group of parents by the teeter-totters. Buddy Barrett (he’s eight) was on hand, and so was Jackie Rodowsky, who’s seven and very accident-prone.

  A few other boys and girls whom Claudia didn’t know were there too. David Michael seemed to be familiar with most of them, though. She figured he knew them from school.

  The group was in a loose circle. As Claudia arrived, Jake Kuhn was starting to show off his collection. He held up a notebook filled with plastic pages, each with a pocket made to hold a card. “See, it’s organized by team and by position,” Jake explained. “I have full sets of almost every team in the American League.”

  The kids seemed impressed.

  Claudia certainly was. Jake’s collection was well organized and beautifully displayed. It was a big step up from David Michael’s shoe box.

  Then another boy, whom Claudia didn’t know, stepped forward. “Nice,” he said, nodding at Jake. “Anything valuable?”

  “Well …” began Jake. “My mom doesn’t let me spend too much on any one card.” He paused. “But I do have one of Rafael Hernandez in his rookie year. My cousin gave it to me.”

  “Is it mint?” the boy asked eagerly.

  Jake shrugged. “I guess it’s in pretty good condition.” He flipped the pages until he found it and showed it to the boy.

  “Looks good,” the boy said. “If you ever want to trade, let me know.”

  Claudia pulled David Michael aside. “What’s ‘mint’?” she asked. “And who is that boy?”

  “Mint means it’s in perfect condition,” explained David Michael. “That’s important if you want to make good trades. And that’s Barry. I don’t know his last name, but he goes to SES.”

  Claudia and David Michael watched, with growing dismay, as Barry began to take over the group. He showed off h
is collection, which was housed in “lockers,” each card individually wrapped and stored in a compartment according to team. He boasted about how many of his cards were “mint,” and talked a lot about how much each card was worth. He seemed to be more interested in the value of the cards than anything else, Claudia noticed.

  Not all the kids were like Barry, though. Some of them even seemed impressed with a few of the cards in David Michael’s collection. (Barry basically ignored it, as soon as he saw the shoe box.) And a few of them sounded as if they enjoyed talking about the players and their stats instead of about what the cards were worth.

  But Claudia could tell that seeing the other kids’ collection had upset David Michael. Suddenly, he wasn’t so thrilled with his overstuffed shoe box. As they left the playground later that afternoon, he couldn’t stop talking about how he was going to build the best baseball card collection ever.

  “The scorebook or the baseball? Or maybe I should bring the bat?” Watson was standing in our shared living room at the hotel, going through the pile of Bill Bain memorabilia he’d brought to camp. We were just about to head to the Welcome Breakfast, where we’d meet our fellow campers and hear about the coming week at Dream Camp. Watson was obviously nervous about meeting Bill Bain. He was having a hard time deciding which piece of his collection he wanted to have autographed first.

  “Don’t bring any of it,” I suggested. “He probably won’t have time to autograph things this morning anyway.”

  Watson looked relieved. “You know, that’s a very good point,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t want the man to think I’m a pushy fan.”

  “Right,” I agreed. I had to smile to myself. I was seeing a new side of Watson these days. He was acting almost like a little boy. I was glad he was so happy and excited about being at Dream Camp.

  I was feeling excited myself. How could I help it? I picked up my glove and punched a fist into it a few times. Today I was going to have to “show my stuff” out there on the field — in front of real, live major league players.

  Yikes.

  “Nervous?” Watson asked me.