Bounced off my shin pads.
I signaled two again.
“Time out,” Smoke called. Play was halted, and he waved me to the mound for a conference. “What the hell are you doing with your fingers down there?”
“I’m calling the game. Those are the signs, one finger for fastball, two for curve.”
“I got a sign for you,” he said, and gave me one. One finger, up. Rotating. “You’re a friggin’ backstop, kid. Don’t tell me what to throw.”
I slunk back to my station, the one cool thing about catching ripped away from me. There was nothing left but the sweat and facelessness the padding gave me, and all that work. Next to pitcher, catcher is the only one who works all the time. Catch the ball, throw the ball, block the ball, throw the ball. Even on foul balls I had to jump up, throw the mask, search the sky for the ball. Invariably, I was the last one to pick up on it, and everyone would be back in position waiting for me while I wandered around clueless like Robert De Niro near the end of Bang the Drum Slowly .
I was exhausted by the second inning. Fortunately, nobody could hit Smoke, so there weren’t many base runners to worry about. Just a couple of guys he hit on purpose. Both of them stole second, then third, one of my throws to second being so lame that Smoke caught it.
My glove hand was so pink and raw and swollen from Smoke’s perfectly placed fastballs that I couldn’t have missed if I wanted to.
In the third inning I got to hit. No, that’s a lie. In the third inning, I got to stand in the box with a bat on my shoulder. Fastball. Pop ! in the glove. Steee-rike one. Fastball. Steee-rike two. I dug in. I was going to swing at this thing at least once. I couldn’t react quickly enough, so I had to anticipate, not wait for the ball. He wound up, came over the top, and as soon as he let go of the ball, I started my swing.
I swung as ferociously as I could, throwing myself so wildly off balance and ahead of the ball that I watched from the ground as the pitch floated about a foot outside. “Well, what do you know?” I thought, suspended in another one of life’s fabulous, cruel slo-mo moments. “A curve ball. Imagine that.”
The opposing team hooted me. I looked to my own side of the field to see my team with all their heads down as they took the field, trying not to laugh or get angry. That was embarrassing.
The thing I couldn’t seem to remember was that, with all the equipment on, I was fairly protected from a pitch bouncing up out of the dirt. Out of reflex, I kept turning my face away as I stabbed at it with the glove.
“Cut that out,” I kept hearing Vinnie scream. “Keep your eye on the ball.”
I heard him and I heard him and I heard him, but I just could not get my body to obey. In the fourth inning I paid. Smoke put a real hard one in the dirt, bouncing it right on the plate so that it ricocheted up like a super ball. I closed my eyes and turned my face halfway away as I tried to spear it, but it came up and blasted me.
I don’t know what it sounded like outside my own head, but inside, when the hardball hit my jaw, it didn’t sound any different from when the bat hits the ball. It blew me over backward, and I flopped around, mask and glove flying off in opposite directions.
I heard laughs. Not everyone, but quite a few. Problem was, I got right up. I was rubbing and rubbing at the spot, moving my jaw all around to test it. So since I wasn’t dead, it was funny.
Coach called from the sidelines, “You all right, kid?”
I nodded. He didn’t care. I didn’t care.
But the batter and the umpire came up to me, looked closely at my jaw. Their eyes were big and deep, like real human eyes. They both asked if I was all right, and they meant it. Because they had been close, and they had heard it.
Why do people have to hear the bone smash before they can care?
I went back to work and did all right. I only had a headache. The heat and the squatting and the catching and catching
I signaled two again.
“Time out,” Smoke called. Play was halted, and he waved me to the mound for a conference. “What the hell are you doing with your fingers down there?”
“I’m calling the game. Those are the signs, one finger for fastball, two for curve.”
“I got a sign for you,” he said, and gave me one. One finger, up. Rotating. “You’re a friggin’ backstop, kid. Don’t tell me what to throw.”
I slunk back to my station, the one cool thing about catching ripped away from me. There was nothing left but the sweat and facelessness the padding gave me, and all that work. Next to pitcher, catcher is the only one who works all the time. Catch the ball, throw the ball, block the ball, throw the ball. Even on foul balls I had to jump up, throw the mask, search the sky for the ball. Invariably, I was the last one to pick up on it, and everyone would be back in position waiting for me while I wandered around clueless like Robert De Niro near the end of Bang the Drum Slowly .
I was exhausted by the second inning. Fortunately, nobody could hit Smoke, so there weren’t many base runners to worry about. Just a couple of guys he hit on purpose. Both of them stole second, then third, one of my throws to second being so lame that Smoke caught it.
My glove hand was so pink and raw and swollen from Smoke’s perfectly placed fastballs that I couldn’t have missed if I wanted to.
In the third inning I got to hit. No, that’s a lie. In the third inning, I got to stand in the box with a bat on my shoulder. Fastball. Pop ! in the glove. Steee-rike one. Fastball. Steee-rike two. I dug in. I was going to swing at this thing at least once. I couldn’t react quickly enough, so I had to anticipate, not wait for the ball. He wound up, came over the top, and as soon as he let go of the ball, I started my swing.
I swung as ferociously as I could, throwing myself so wildly off balance and ahead of the ball that I watched from the ground as the pitch floated about a foot outside. “Well, what do you know?” I thought, suspended in another one of life’s fabulous, cruel slo-mo moments. “A curve ball. Imagine that.”
The opposing team hooted me. I looked to my own side of the field to see my team with all their heads down as they took the field, trying not to laugh or get angry. That was embarrassing.
The thing I couldn’t seem to remember was that, with all the equipment on, I was fairly protected from a pitch bouncing up out of the dirt. Out of reflex, I kept turning my face away as I stabbed at it with the glove.
“Cut that out,” I kept hearing Vinnie scream. “Keep your eye on the ball.”
I heard him and I heard him and I heard him, but I just could not get my body to obey. In the fourth inning I paid. Smoke put a real hard one in the dirt, bouncing it right on the plate so that it ricocheted up like a super ball. I closed my eyes and turned my face halfway away as I tried to spear it, but it came up and blasted me.
I don’t know what it sounded like outside my own head, but inside, when the hardball hit my jaw, it didn’t sound any different from when the bat hits the ball. It blew me over backward, and I flopped around, mask and glove flying off in opposite directions.
I heard laughs. Not everyone, but quite a few. Problem was, I got right up. I was rubbing and rubbing at the spot, moving my jaw all around to test it. So since I wasn’t dead, it was funny.
Coach called from the sidelines, “You all right, kid?”
I nodded. He didn’t care. I didn’t care.
But the batter and the umpire came up to me, looked closely at my jaw. Their eyes were big and deep, like real human eyes. They both asked if I was all right, and they meant it. Because they had been close, and they had heard it.
Why do people have to hear the bone smash before they can care?
I went back to work and did all right. I only had a headache. The heat and the squatting and the catching and catching
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