Better late than never for them, too, she thought.
Charlie Flores, the Astros’ center fielder and their best hitter, dug in at the plate. This was the third game the Cubs had played against the Astros, so by now even Cassie knew how much Charlie loved hitting fastballs. High, low, inside, outside, he didn’t care. So in this moment it was Sam’s power against Charlie’s. Except Cassie was worried, because Sam had clearly lost a little off his fastball. Maybe a lot.
The first pitch was a fastball too far outside for even Charlie to swing at. It was almost as if Teddy had been expecting it out there, because he slid out early to get himself in front of it.
It was fine to waste a pitch. But Cassie couldn’t see Sam wasting another and going to 2–0 with the bases loaded. Sam didn’t want to walk home the tying run. If he did, Jack would surely call for J.B. Scarborough, even though it was still only the fifth, because the game was on the line right here.
Game, and maybe season.
Sam had been pitching out of the stretch when he’d thrown ball one. But he went into his windup now, and then threw the first slow curveball he’d thrown all day. A big lollipop of a curve that looked as if it took about ten seconds to get to home plate.
Charlie Flores, sure he was going to see another fastball—all Sam had been throwing was fastballs—was completely off balance. But he couldn’t lay off a pitch that had to look as fat to him as everybody else at Highland Park.
He was lucky to get even a piece of it, hitting a weak roller to Jack at short. Cassie thought it was trouble when she saw it dying well short of the infield dirt. It should have been a tough play.
Just not for Jack Callahan.
He closed quickly on the ball, barehanded it, and threw almost in the same motion across to Gus at first. The throw beat Charlie by a step for the third out. The game was still 2–1. Gus Morales hit a home run in the bottom of the fifth to make it 3–1, which was the way it ended after J.B. pitched a perfect sixth and then a perfect seventh. The Cubs were in the championship game.
The first chance Cassie got, she asked Sam what it had meant when his father had had his arm up in the air that way. Sam grinned. She’d found he was actually a good guy once you got to know him.
“You only saw one arm up in the air,” Sam said. “I saw two fingers. He was telling me to throw my curve.”
“How did you even know to look out there?”
Sam Anthony lifted his shoulders, dropped them, and sighed.
“It was like I could still hear him shouting,” Sam said. “Just inside my head.”
He grinned again.
“This time I was the only one who could hear him.”
THIRTY-FOUR
They played both championship games on Saturday. Only, this time the Cubs played first, against Hollis Hills. Jack had been right. The Yankees had beaten Rawson in their semifinal. The Red Sox game against Greenacres, who had upset Clements and their star pitcher, Amy Lewis, was at three. Because the Sox were the highest seed left, the game was at Highland Park. The Cubs would play at eleven.
So it was a big doubleheader Saturday for Cassie and Jack and Teddy and Gus. They all knew how special a day like this was, all of them playing with this much on the line. There was no way of knowing when there would be another one like it for them, or if there would ever be a day quite like it.
“There was this great old baseball player, Ernie Banks, who was famous for saying ‘Let’s play two,’ ” Jack said, right before he was ready to throw his first pitch. “Guy knew what he was talking about.”
“How come you’re not acting nervous?” Cassie said. “How come you never act nervous?”
“I do,” he said. “I just don’t let you see it.”
“Same.”
“You know when I’m really nervous? Watching you,” he said. “It’s way worse when you have to watch.”
“Same,” she said again.
He put out his fist. She reached over with her own and tapped his lightly.
“For now,” he said, “let’s play one.”
After that Cassie watched as Jack tried to take all the nerves out of her, and his teammates, and the size of the game. What she was really watching, she knew, was Jack Callahan just being Jack Callahan. He was going up against the Hollis Hills ace, Logan James, a big lefty who could throw as hard as Jack, if not with the same kind of precision. And Logan was good today.
Jack was just better.
He gave up a single to Logan in the top of the fifth. He’d walked a guy back in the second. Those were the only two base runners for the Yankees. Teddy threw out the guy Jack had walked when the guy tried to steal second. Logan got erased by a double play. So the Yankees still hadn’t gotten a runner to second through their fifth inning.
The Cubs finally got to Logan in the bottom of the fifth. Two singles, a double from Jack, a home run from Gus, who was hotter now than he’d been all season. It was 4–0. Cassie never liked getting ahead of herself. But she knew that every single player from Hollis Hills had a better
