She walked the first batter she faced, the Greenacres right fielder, on four pitches, not one of them being close to the strike zone. So now the Giants had first and third. Still two outs. Cassie thought: We can’t get much further behind, or the only season I’ll have left by two o’clock is the one the Cubs are still playing.
I’ll be a full-time coach by then, she thought.
The next hitter for the Giants was their first baseman, Stephanie Rawls. She was the biggest girl on their team and had nearly hit a home run off Allie her first time up.
Sarah finally threw a strike right down the middle. Stephanie took it, as if she weren’t going to swing until Sarah did throw a strike. Cassie exhaled so loudly, she was afraid Sarah could hear her at the pitcher’s mound.
But then Sarah threw the same pitch again, a fastball down the middle that was a little higher in the strike zone this time, and Stephanie scorched a line drive to Cassie’s left. If the ball got past her and into center, the score would be 5–0 and the inning would continue for the Giants. And Sarah Milligan still wouldn’t have recorded her first out.
Before it was past her and into center, Cassie dove and got her glove on the ball. She felt the sweet sting of the softball in the pocket of her glove. Where it stayed. As the game stayed 4–0.
Cassie got quickly to her feet, tossed the ball to the infield ump, and jogged off the field, as if what had just happened were no big deal. Even though she knew it was a very big deal.
When she got to the bench, Kathleen was the first to greet her.
By now she’d already had surgery to repair the torn ligament in her knee, and had been sitting next to Cassie’s dad at the end of the bench, her cast stretched out in front of her, crutches in the grass next to her. But she didn’t use the crutches to get to her feet. She got herself up and put up her hand to Cassie for a high five.
“Don’t knock me over,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” Cassie said, and softly slapped her hand.
“That was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen you make,” she said.
“Sometimes there’s only one reason you make a play like that,” Cassie said. “ ’Cause you have to.”
“Now we have to score some runs,” Kathleen said.
“That would be fun,” Cassie said.
Just two old friends, Cassie thought, chopping it up at the big game. Better late than never.
But nothing changed in the bottom of the fourth, because Marisa Russell breezed through a three-up, three-down inning. Sarah did the same in the top of the fifth. It was still 4–0.
What happened next, though, in the bottom of the inning, happened fast, like a storm blowing across Highland Park, one that started at the top of the Red Sox batting order. Lizzie walked. Allie surprised everybody and laid down a bunt. Cassie doubled both of them home. Sarah doubled home Cassie. Greta singled home Sarah. In a blink, it was 4–4. The Greenacres coach got Marisa out of there. One batter too late.
The game was still tied in the top of the seventh when Sarah walked Marisa, who was playing third base now. Then the girl who’d replaced Marisa as pitcher, Shannon Betts, hit a pop fly to short right-center that Cassie knew Sarah would have caught easily. But Nell and Allie both broke late on the ball, and it dropped between them. Marisa had to wait and see if it was going to be caught, so she only made it to second. It was still first and second, nobody out. If the dropped ball bothered Sarah, she didn’t show it, because she proceeded to strike out the next two batters.
Then she walked the Giants second baseman on a 3–2 pitch, even though the pitch looked perfect to Cassie from where she was standing at short.
Just not to the home plate ump.
She called it ball four.
Bases loaded.
And Sarah Milligan was hot.
“That was a strike!” she yelled.
She wasn’t looking directly at the ump. She’d actually turned and was facing center field. But the ump had to have heard her, because Cassie was pretty sure everybody at Highland Park had heard her.
Sarah didn’t seem to care.
“Totally a strike!” Sarah yelled again.
Cassie asked for time and walked to the mound, even as Sarah continued her loud conversation with herself.
“That was a strike, totally a strike, a strike right down the middle,” Sarah said.
At least she’d lowered her voice slightly.
“You can’t call that a ball. That is wrong. Totally wrong.”
Cassie was at the mound by then, facing home plate. She could see that the umpire, a woman, had taken off her mask. Never good. And the look on her face said that Sarah better not say another word.
Sarah turned back around.
“Do not look at her,” Cassie said, keeping her own voice down.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I’m the captain of the team,” Cassie said. “So, yeah, right now I can.”
Cassie looked over and saw her dad standing halfway between the Red Sox bench and the first baseline. Cassie gave him a fast shake of her head.
“Are you going to tackle me again?” Sarah said.
“Nope,” Cassie said.
“So what do you want?”
“First of all, I want you to shut up,” Cassie said. “And second of all, I want you to remember what you told me when I did tackle you, about how I didn’t trust you. Well, this time I’m going to trust you to help us win the game. Because you’re too good to get thrown out of it.”
Sarah was taking deep breaths. Her face was red. But she had shut up, at least for the time being.
The ump started walking slowly toward them, her first sign that this meeting at the mound was about to come to an end.
“You wanted to be a part of this team,” Cassie said.
