The Best American Mystery Stories 2002

The June day was surprisingly muggy and hot, especially out in the baseball field behind the Morton Regional High School, where there was no shade and the sun beat down so hard that Richard Dow could feel its strength through the baseball cap he was wearing. The cap was yellow with a blue “P” in the center, just like the caps of the dozen boys who were on the field or in the dugout this day who played for the Pine Tree Rotary youth team. He stood by first base, the team’s assistant coach, and he looked over at the scoreboard, kept current by a young girl using a piece of chalk almost the size of her fist. Pine Tree Rotary, 1; Glen’s Plumbing & Heating, o. Two out, the bottom of the sixth. The game was almost over. Just one more out.

He rubbed his hands together. A boy from Glen’s Plumbing 8c Heating was on third base. He didn’t know his name. But he certainly knew the name of the boy pitching this afternoon’s game: Sam Dow, age twelve, who was one out away from earning Pine Tree’s first victory this season. They were 1 and 5, but nobody on the team counted that solitary victory: it had been a forfeit, when the other team — Jerry’s Lumberyard — didn’t make it to the game because the coach’s van had struck a moose on Route Four.

“C’mon, Sam!” he called out, slapping his hands together. “One more out, you can do it! Just one more out!”

Sam ignored him. Good boy. Focus on the hitter, standing there with his helmet and blue and white uniform, bat looking so large in his small hands. The attendance was good for a warm summer day in Vermont, with a smattering of parents and friends and relatives in the stands behind home plate. Someone in the stands was smoking a large cigar, and a brief breeze brought the scent over, and Richard was surprised at the hunger he felt at smelling it. God, how long had it been since he had a really good cigar...

Richard looked over in the stands again, saw his ten-year-old daughter, Olivia, carefully keeping score in a large looseleaf binder. He waved at her but she, too, was ignoring her father, keeping focused on the job at hand. And that’s what their mother Carla was doing this early afternoon as well, working at the local travel agency.

Sam wound up and the ball flew fast for a throw from such a young boy, and the batter swung just as Richard heard the satisfying thump! as the ball landed in the catcher’s glove. The umpire did his sideways dance and said, “Strike!” and there were a few cheers and groans, but no jeers. The umpire today was Denny Thompson, the town’s fire chief, and he had a good eye and for an umpire was pretty reasonable.

“C’mon, Sam,” he whispered, “one more strike. You can do it.” He rubbed his hands again, looked over at the few boys of Pine Tree who weren’t on the field, now leaning forward on the badly painted green bench in the dugout. He could sense their anticipation, their youthful hunger, to feel — just once — what it would be like to win. That’s all, pretty simple stuff, but for an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy, getting that first win meant everything. It had been a long time since Richard had been this young, but he remembered. He always remembered.

There. Another windup from his boy, the blur of the ball, and — Crack!

Richard snapped his head, tracking the firing ball, it was well hit, pretty well hit, but wait, it’s arcing over, it’s just a pop-up fly, great, a pop-up fly, that’s it, it’s going to happen, we’re going to win, it’s going to happen...

Then Richard noticed the slow-moving legs of the Pine Tree Rotary boy backing up in right field, one hand shading his eyes, the other hand holding up the open glove, his arm now wavering, trembling, moving back and forth like a semaphore signaler. Leo Winn. The youngest player on the team. Richard just whispered again, “C’mon, Leo, you can do it, buddy, just catch the ball, just like practice, nothing to it, nothing at all.”

The ball plopped into his glove, and before the cheers could get any louder from the Pine Tree players and fans, young Leo, still moving backwards, tripped and fell on his back, the ball flying free into the freshly mown grass, the cheers and shouts now coming from the other team, as Pine Tree players and fans, including Richard, fell silent, as they lost once again.