“You mind if I ride with you?” Cassie said. “I know I won’t get lost.”
“I never get lost,” Sarah said, her face serious. “I know the way.” And then once again she recited the streets that would take her past Highland Park and home. She looked at Cassie now and said, “Why do you want to ride with me?”
“My friends Jack and Teddy and Gus are practicing in the park, and I thought I’d go watch.”
“Can I watch too?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Cassie said.
Just one she hadn’t thought through as well as she might have.
• • •
They actually heard Coach Anthony before they parked their bikes near the bleachers on the home side of Highland Park.
“Morales!” was the first thing they heard. “How many times do I have to tell you where the runner has to be before you decide to cut the ball off?”
So, Cassie thought, it was Gus’s turn to be in the barrel, as her dad liked to say. If Sarah had heard, she didn’t let on. But Cassie sure had. She assumed that even moms and little kids at the playground in the distance could hear.
“Great,” Cassie said.
“What’s great?”
“Nothing.”
When they took their seats halfway up the bleachers, Cassie saw that the Cubs were doing a drill that had runners on the bases, and the outfielders trying to throw them out if they could.
Gus was at first. Jack was at short. Mr. Anthony had a bat in his hands at home plate. Teddy was behind him. Sam Anthony, Cassie saw, was one of the base runners, at second. Brett Hawkins, who was playing both the infield and outfield this season, was on first. Gregg Leonard was in center today. Scott Sutter, who’d been the catcher last season before he’d gotten hurt and opened up the position for Teddy, was in left. Max Conte was in right.
“Two outs, runners going as soon as I hit this ball,” Mr. Anthony called out to the guys on defense.
“It will be hard to throw out the man at second on a single if the runners are running,” Sarah said.
“Probably.”
“Do you think I could do it?”
Cassie grinned. “Definitely.”
“You have to charge the ball,” Sarah said. “You have to go fast but not rush when you pick the ball up. Field it cleanly. Then come up throwing.” She nodded. “Then concentrate on squaring yourself up and not rushing the throw, because that’s when you make a wild throw.”
“Did you get that from my dad?” Cassie said.
“My dad,” Sarah said. “Over and over and over and over again. That’s how I get things down. You have to concentrate on the fundamentals. If you concentrate on the fundamentals, they’ll come naturally in a game. Fundamentals and repetition, those are the keys.”
She sounded the way she had when she was reciting the capitals of Europe. Not just secure in this repetition, Cassie thought, but happy.
Mr. Anthony hit a line drive over second base to Gregg Leonard, who did exactly what Sarah had said he should do: he charged the ball, gloved it cleanly, squared himself, and came up throwing. As he did, Cassie checked to see where Sam Anthony was and was surprised to see that he couldn’t have taken off when his dad had hit the ball, because he had just come around third base. If he hadn’t been running hard enough before, he was now.
His father had gotten out of the way. Teddy wasn’t blocking the plate yet. In youth baseball they used the same new rules about blocking the plate that they did in the big leagues. Cassie knew that Major League Baseball had changed the rules after Buster Posey of the Giants had gotten crushed on a play at the plate and been lost to his team for the season.
So Teddy held his position, holding his glove out, waiting for Gregg’s throw. Gus was the cutoff man. He was in perfect position, and Gregg’s throw went directly over him, and into Teddy’s glove on one bounce.
“Wow,” Cassie heard Sarah say. “Wow, wow, wow.”
When Teddy had the ball, he quickly moved to his left, Cassie once again admiring how good his footwork was, how far he’d come as a catcher in just a year. So now he was set up between Sam Anthony and the plate, and you could see that the play wasn’t even going to be close when Sam went into his slide—because you had to slide. Nobody was allowed to run over the catcher.
Sam didn’t try to run Teddy over.
But it wasn’t exactly a straight slide, either, because he was way too close to Teddy when he went into it, and went into Teddy with his feet way too high as Teddy put the tag on him.
Sam’s lead leg caught Teddy in the middle of his chest protector, and sent him over onto his back, in a huge explosion of dirt at home plate.
And now Cassie said, “Wow, wow, wow.”
Teddy was up so fast, it was as if he had springs in his legs. The ball was still in his mitt, but with his free hand he pulled off his mask and tossed it behind him.
“What kind of punk move was that?” Teddy shouted, pointing his mitt at Sam.
By now Sam was on his feet too.
“Just trying to knock the ball loose, like I was taught,” Sam shouted back at him.
Cassie had seen Teddy angry before. Never this angry.
“What class was that taught in,” Teddy said, his voice still hot, “the one about dirty play?”
“You calling me a dirty player?”
Teddy took another step closer to Sam now. Sam took a step back. Cassie wondered if Sam even knew he’d done it.
“If you wanted to come in high, why didn’t you just try to run me over?” Teddy
