Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I sat in the dugout with my hands clenched together, silently chanting the same thing I chanted every time Cameron was up to bat.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…
He stepped into his batting stance and held his bat in the perfect position. His fellow teammates cheered him on, clapping from the dugout. They knew exactly what I knew was about to happen, but they still cheered him on because that meant being a good teammate.
I glanced at the scouts in the stands. What an awful game to come see Cameron play. He was better than this, but all they were seeing was the opposite of that fact. It wasn’t fair, but the kid was living too much in his head and not enough in his heart as of late. I didn’t blame him. After I lost my mother, I moved through life as if in quicksand, getting nowhere at all. Still, I hated that it was happening to Cameron at such a defining moment of his baseball career.
The scouts were early anyway. We were still in preseason, and these games didn’t count for much.
Cameron took a deep breath as I held mine.
The pitch was released, Cameron swung, and he missed.
A swing and a miss.
Damn.
The crowd from the opposite team erupted with cheers while our small handful of fans booed. The loudest boos came from Cameron’s own father, Adam Fisher, who stood in the stands, probably drunk.
“What was that, Cam? Dammit!” Adam shouted, gesturing as if the greatest tragedy had just taken place. “Come on!”
The look on the scouts’ faces told me everything I needed to know as they packed up their stuff and left the stands. They’d seen enough, which upset me because they didn’t see anywhere near enough of that kid. He was so much more talented than his current grief-stricken state.
I found my father in the stands, too. Daddy had attended every home game since I started five years ago. He gave me a small smile and shrugged. I could hear his comments without him even speaking: “You win some, you lose some, but no matter what, you keep playing the game.”
Matthew Kingsley was the father of the century. He got me into the sport, and his quiet support kept me going throughout the season. I only wish Adam Fisher had taken a note out of my father’s handbook of supportive parenting.
Cameron grumbled and stomped off to the dugout. A few teammates tried to pat him on the back and tell him it was okay, but Cameron shrugged them away as he moved to the back corner of the dugout. He took off his helmet and threw it to the ground.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry…
“Fuck!” he blurted out, covering his face with his hands. He broke down into tears.
Crap.
Every time he did that, I felt my own heart shatter.
I walked over to him and sat on the bench beside him. I clasped my hands together and remained silent for a moment. I wasn’t good with seeing others cry. I didn’t show emotions at the level of the average human. The last time I cried, I was eighteen years old—almost two decades ago—so seeing other people cry made me feel highly uncomfortable. It was probably something I should’ve seen a therapist about, but to see a therapist, one had to open up, and well, no, thank you.
I grimaced as I raised my hand and patted Cameron on the shoulder. “There, there,” I muttered. “You’ll get them next time, Cam. This is just preseason anyway. This game doesn’t count.”
“You said every game counts, Coach K,” he replied.
“Did I? Well, yeah. But this one didn’t. Every game but this one. You’ll get it next time.”
I stood and removed myself from the situation because it felt odd to remain sitting there. If I were falling apart, I wouldn’t want people to be around, watching me and giving me pitiful shoulder pats. I gave him space and privacy to pull himself together.
I coached the rest of the game, only for us to lose by a handful of runs. Cameron would probably beat himself up for striking out, but it wasn’t a huge deal. Our team sucked every single year. I was kind of surprised that the school district didn’t cancel our baseball team to save a few bucks, but they did invest a lot of money into the state-of-the-art sports facility after Nathan’s success in the Major Leagues. The district was convinced they could become the breeding ground for Major League players. It hadn’t happened much, especially with the baseball team that yours truly had overseen.
Maybe this year will be different with Coach Erickson gone. One could only hope.
The first week of March, I was called into the principal’s office only to realize that the district had been discussing our team’s bad performance. Instead of canceling the team altogether, Principal Raymond, or Ray as I called him, had gathered an even worse idea. One that made my blood boil from irritation as I sat across from him at his desk.