ARCHER
On the mound,the world narrows.
Leather in my left.
Ball in my right.
Tension coils in my spine. My lungs yield, breathing now a secondary concern. I trace the ball’s seams with my fingertips, adjusting my grip. Weighing the familiar curve against my calluses.
When you’re first learning to pitch, back in Little League, coaches tell you to focus on the catcher’s mitt if you want your ball to break in the strike zone.
That never felt specific enough for me.
I look harder.Closer. Using every bit of my concentration, until the brand name on the glove’s lower heel becomes legible. Until the mitt breaks into discernible parts — webbing, pocket, pads. I find the seams. The individual laces that weave their way up the finger stalls.
I find one, single stitch.
And when I have it in my sights, when I’ve locked onto that tiny, far-off detail with the precision of a laser…
I let the ball fly.
In this game, there are as many types of players as there are pitches. Sluggers, runners, fielders, closers. Splitters, sliders, curveballs, changeups.
I’m an ace.
A power pitcher.
A flamethrower.
My four-seam fastball is already breaking triple digits on the radar-gun — unheard of in most pre-collegiate divisions. It’s not uncommon for me to pitch a no-hitter, striking out every batter who swings against me. They tremble when they step up to my plate.
And it ismyplate.
My stadium.
My team.
That might sound conceited but it’s the truth. One I earned, one I refuse to be ashamed of. I worked my ass off to get here. I practice twice as hard as any other guy at Exeter. I had to — my parents couldn’t afford private coaching sessions, couldn’t rent out the cages for hours at a time, couldn’t pay for the best equipment, couldn’t send me away to training camp.
To make the varsity team junior year, I dragged my ass out of bed at every morning at the crack of dawn and jogged six miles to the field before the sun was up. By the time the rest of the team showed up for practice at nine, still yawning into their gloves and wiping crust from the corners of their eyes, I’d been at it for hours. And when they called it quits for the day, heading off to play video games or make-out with their girlfriends, I’d still be there. Throwing until my arm gave out — or, until Jo arrived to drag me home for dinner.
“That’s it, Reyes! Looking good out there,” Coach Hamm calls from the dugout, giving an approving nod when my fastball slams into Chris Tomlinson’s catching glove at bone-bending speed. Behind the cage of his face mask, I think I see him wince.
“Hilton, you’re up!” Coach jerks his chin at Andy. “Snyder, in the hole.”
Three quick sinkers, and Andy’s out. At his best, he’s no great hitter; with a hangover, striking him out is child’s play. He tosses his helmet to the dirt and storms off the field, looking like someone pissed in his Cheerios. I’m surprised he made it to practice at all. He was so drunk last night, if he blew a breathalyzer right now he’d probably still be over the legal limit.
Ryan Snyder steps up, aluminum bat glinting in the sunshine. Judging by the glare he’s directing my way — and the mottled purple shiner surrounding his right eye socket — he’s yet to forgive me for punching him last night.
Oh well.
No big loss, there. We were never friends. Just teammates — brought together by necessity rather than actual camaraderie. If he wasn’t such a solid first baseman, I wouldn’t put up with his chameleonic bullshit at all.
Snyder is a poser. When he’s trying to get into a cute girl’s pants, he becomes whatever,whoever, she wants him to be. The jock, the poet, the comedian, the tortured soul. Sensitive, quiet, funny, outrageous.
He does it so skillfully, most girls never know they’re being played. But the moment they sashay away, titillated by his attention, that oozing charm goes up in smoke, replaced by cocky bravado. And once they let him under their bra straps, into their beds? Snyder uses the locker room bench as his personal stage, bragging to a captive audience about his latest lay. I’ve lost count of the times he’s chronicled his weekend conquests after practice on Monday.
Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell; privileged white boys use more details than J.R.R. Tolkien describing the trees of Middle Earth.