“You’re throwing me out?” Mr. Anthony said.
“I am,” the ump said.
“I don’t have an assistant coach here tonight,” he said. “You can see that I had one of our kids coaching first base. So who’s going to coach the rest of the game?”
An amazing thing happened then.
“I’m the captain of the team,” Jack Callahan called out from shortstop. “I will.”
And he did.
Then another amazing thing happened, after Jerry York got the first batter he faced to hit a ground ball that Jack scooped up near second base and turned into a double play, and got the Cubs out of the inning.
The Cubs came back.
• • •
Teddy got the first big hit, in the top of the fourth, a bases- clearing double with two outs that cut the Rawson lead to 6–3.
By then the Cubs didn’t just have a player-coach in Jack, they also had a new third-base coach:
Cassie.
“Need your help,” Jack said to her from his side of the bench after both Mr. Anthony and Sam had gotten tossed in the bottom of the second.
“What else is new?” Cassie said.
“Can you coach third?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
When she got down to the bench, Jack said to her, “And, Cass? If you notice anything that could help us, don’t hold back.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s me, always holding stuff back. Sometimes I keep so much bottled up inside, I’m afraid I might explode.”
“You think we can get back into the game?”
“Totally,” she said.
“So let’s have some fun,” he said.
“Finally somebody wants to have fun playing ball!” she said, knowing she was speaking for both of them.
She knew she was taking a risk when she waved Brett home from third on Teddy’s double, knowing that you never wanted anybody to make the last out of an inning at home. But she trusted Brett’s speed, and trusted her own instincts, and Brett ended up scoring easily when the Rangers’ shortstop bobbled the cutoff throw. Teddy took third on the play.
It was here that Jack called for Jerry York to bunt, even with two outs, catching everybody by surprise, starting with the Rangers’ third baseman. Jerry deadened the ball perfectly. It died halfway up the line. The third baseman didn’t even try to make a throw when he finally barehanded the ball. It was 6–4, which was the way the inning ended.
When Cassie got back to the bench, she said to Jack, “I thought the third-base coach gave the signs.”
“You don’t know our signs.”
“Good point,” she said. “But great call. A squeeze? Seriously?”
“Thought we could steal an extra run,” Jack said.
“Now are we having fun?” Cassie said.
“We’re still losing.”
“Yeah,” Cassie said. “But it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way.”
It didn’t. Jerry, who hadn’t expected to pitch at all this season, finally tired in the fifth, loading the bases with two outs because of a couple of walks and a rare error by Gus at first base. Jack called time and waved J.B. in from second base to see if J.B. could get them out of the jam, even though J.B. hadn’t pitched an inning since last season, when he was still living in Pennsylvania. The score was still 6–4 for the Rangers, but more runs here would probably put away the Cubs for good.
Cassie was sitting on the bench next to Scott Sutter, who’d turned his ankle catching a fly ball the inning before and had taken himself out of the game.
“The only time Jack has ever seen J.B. pitch is in batting practice,” Scott said. “And even then, not for very long.”
“Your new coach sees stuff other people don’t,” Cassie said.
Scott grinned. “Even you?”
Cassie said, “I was referring to you guys.”
They watched as J.B. threw a fastball and the Rawson center fielder hit a weak pop-out to Jerry at second. The inning was over. The game stayed at 6–4.
“Told you,” Cassie said.
The Cubs tied the game in the top of the sixth when Gus hit his first homer of the season, a two-run shot to right. J. B. Scarborough, getting into a groove now, then pitched a scoreless bottom of the sixth. As Cassie ran over to the third-base coach’s box for the top of the seventh, she realized she felt ridiculously excited, about a game she wasn’t even playing. But this was the way sports were supposed to make you feel.
The bottom of the order was coming up for the Cubs. Max Conte hit a long fly ball to right that looked as if it might get into the gap, but their center fielder chased it down. Gregg Leonard beat out an infield hit to deep short, but then Brett struck out swinging. There were two outs now, the go-ahead run still at first.
J.B., whom Mr. Anthony had moved up to second in the order tonight, walked. Now the Cubs had first and second with Jack Callahan coming to the plate. He was no longer a player- coach in this moment. Just a player.
Jack didn’t even look down at Cassie. His focus was on the kid the Rangers’ coach had brought in to pitch the seventh. Jack didn’t look nervous, or excited. He looked completely relaxed, as if this were exactly where he was supposed to be, and wanted to be.
The pitcher, who’d played first base at the start of the game, threw Jack a ball, away. Jack didn’t move as the ball went past him, just gave a quick look to see where the catcher’s mitt was when he caught it.
Then came ball two.
If the next pitch was ball three, it meant this was like what the announcers like to call an “unintentional intentional” walk. They were trying to get Jack to swing at a bad pitch, something Cassie knew he hardly ever did, and if he didn’t, they were going to put him on and take their chances with Gus, even though Gus had gone deep his last time up against the Rangers’ first relief pitcher of the game.
The next pitch wasn’t ball three. Maybe the pitcher was
