Safe at Home by Mike Lupica Page A

back.”
    “I was just a little afraid.”
    And Mr. Boyd had said, “Everybody’s afraid of something in sports. Of failing, mostly. The best ones are just best at getting past it.”
    I have to find a way to do that now, Nick thought. Today.
    Even though there was a part of him that felt like a Riverdale Redbird again, wanting to leave this field and go straight home.
    In batting practice, Nick was at least hitting the ball today, getting some good line drives off the coach—one to left, one to center, one to right.
    “Way to use the whole ballpark there, Nick!” Coach Williams said.
    Nick thought, He makes it sound like I just won the game with a grand-slam home run.
    “See?” Jack Elmore said when Nick’s turn at bat was over and Jack’s was about to start. “I
knew
you’d remember which end of the bat you’re supposed to use!”
    Nick said, “Just so you know? You’re not helping, as funny as you think you are.”
    Jack grinned. “Dude. I’m not good enough to help.”
    They both knew it was true. Maybe if his best friend on his team was also the best player on the team, he could have helped out with the other guys. But Jack wasn’t close to being the best player, which meant that Nick was pretty much on his own with the other guys. None of whom had said anything to him today. Nick couldn’t decide which was worse, the kind of stuff he’d heard from Gary yesterday, or the silent treatment he was getting now.
    Either way, he was still an outsider.
    Nick was good at that by now.
    When the team got around to scrimmaging, he went back to feeling as if he’d forgotten how to play. It was as if his equipment, even his red-and-yellow mask that he’d painted in Captain Marvel colors, was on backward. As if his throwing arm still wouldn’t work right. He’d hear baseball announcers saying sometimes that pitchers who couldn’t throw a strike to save their lives had “lost” the strike zone, the way you lost a pen or a notebook in school.
    Nick felt as if he had lost more than the strike zone. He never came close to throwing out any of the guys trying to steal a base on him.
    Every throw was different. Bounce one. Sail one. Throw one wide. If I keep this up, Nick thought, I’m gonna end up like one of those pitchers who get so wild they have to finally switch positions.
    After the first six guys had stolen on him, Coach Williams called time and started walking toward home plate. On the previous pitch, Nick had airmailed one into center field, even though the runner trying to get to second was Steve Carberry, the slowest guy on the team.
    Gary Watson was the batter. As Nick stood there and helplessly watched the ball go so far over Joey Johnson’s head he didn’t even bother to jump for it, Gary was finally ready to say something.
    “Dude,” he said in a loud voice, “are you absolutely sure you’re right-handed?”
    Coach Williams said, “Gary,” and made a motion with his hand for Gary to walk away from the plate for a second.
    To Nick he quietly said, “You’ve got to find a way to relax.”
    “I
can’t
,” Nick said.
    “Nick, this is baseball, not life and death.”
    Nick wanted to tell him he was wrong, it was
much
more important than that to him. Or at least it felt that way right now.
    Nick had taken off his Captain Marvel mask, had it in his hand, his cap turned around backward on his head, the way catchers did. And just like that, he could feel his eyes start to fill up with tears.
    He tried to look away. But Coach Williams saw. Grown-ups could always see tears coming, even from a mile away.
    Crying in front of the whole team would be all I need, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut like he was thinking real hard about what the coach was saying to him.
    Then he quickly put his mask back on.
    Needing the mask in that moment as much as he ever had.
    “You know what?” Coach Williams said. “I just had a brilliant thought.”
    He yelled, “Listen up!” and told everybody that Gary