A bunch of us were hanging out at Arthur’s house, including Andy, Stuart, Frankie, Mike and Cal. It was the middle of July, which was the middle of summer, the middle of my favorite time of the year. Sixth grade and mom and dad’s divorce seemed so long ago and next fall and seventh grade still a ways in the future. It felt good, and at least for the moment I felt safe around all my “comrades”, that was the word Mike liked to use.

Arthur had this big house on Packard and an older brother AND sister. His brother was going into ninth grade at Tappan and his sister into eleventh grade at Ann Arbor High. We were down in his big basement, that wasn’t like mine but had rooms with carpets and doors that he and other people called “finished”, listening to music and talking. He had of course already played his still favorite song right now, “Wild Things”, by the British Band the Troggs a bunch of times…

Wild thing, I think I love you
But I wanna know for sure

… until the rest of us got sick of listening to it. I mean it was a really cool song, but not over and over and over again!

Frankie finally said, “Geez, Arthur, we GET IT! You LOVE Wild Things! It’s your latest greatest ‘der der der’ song. Can we PLEASE move on?”

So Arthur put on this new album that his sister Ginny had just bought at Discount Records, by a new band she said was like the Beach Boys but “hipper” and “more intellectual”. He said that, like the Beach Boys, they were from Los Angeles, which I knew from looking at maps of the U.S. was that really big city in the south part of California which was the real name of that place that other people called “Hollywood”, where it was supposed to always be sunny and there were palm trees, the place where movies and TV shows were made. The band was called “The Association” and the album was called “And Then… Along Comes The Association”. The album cover showed all the guys in the band wearing dress up clothes, all serious like grownups in the top half, but then on the bottom half playing around more like kids having fun. They all looked like those college students I saw walking around on the Diag when I walked into town to go to Discount Records or the movies. The first song started…

Here they come
Here they come
(Here they come yeah)

The guys in the band were all singing in harmony like the Beach Boys. I wasn’t sure who “they” were yet…

Well, some are walking, some are riding
(Here they come yeah)
And some are flying, some just gliding
Released after years of being kept in hiding
They’re climbing up the ladder, rung by rung

Enter the young (yeah)
Yeah they’ve learned how to think
Enter the young (yeah)
More than you think they think
Not only learned to think but to care
Not only learned to think but to dare

I saw Mike smiling like he liked the words they were singing. Their words WERE clever, but then I figured it out. Us kids were “they” and the grownups were “you”. Those guys singing and all of us were “the young”. That’s how grownups would sometimes call you, “young man”, specially when they wanted you to do something you didn’t want to do, or act more like a grownup, like them. Dad would talk about a student in one of his classes and would say they were a “young man” or a “young woman”. So all of them together were “young people”, or in this song just “the young”.

I looked around at everyone else and I could see that they were all kind of getting it too, the song was talking about THEM, about all of US…

Enter the young
Yeah here they come
Well some with questions, some decisions
Here they come
And some with facts and some with visions
Of a place to multiply without the use of divisions
To win a prize that no one’s ever won

Yes, I thought, to win a prize that NO ONE’S EVER WON! That was it. That was going to be our job. We would take over the world that the grownups had made and change it completely and make it better, with our facts, what we knew, and our visions, how we imagined things could be. The words washed over me and all of us in Arthur’s basement…

(Here they come yeah)
Well some are laughing, some are crying
(Here they come)
And some are doing, some are trying
Some are selling, some are buying
Some are living, some are dying
But demanding recognition one by one

My friends and I DID do a lot of laughing, but not a lot of crying because boys weren’t supposed to. But there were a lot of times since mom and dad had that big fight last September and then got divorced in last November that I had WANTED to cry. But instead I guess I was doing and trying, though trying the pencils had been pretty bad. The selling and buying part I couldn’t figure out, but the living and dying part I think I got. The dying part was about the war in Vietnam, where some older kids, like those guys in the band, were soldiers and then they got killed in the war. Almost every day on the news they would talk about how many of our soldiers had died and were wounded and how many of their soldiers had too. So now we had to “demand recognition”, which I kind of knew meant getting grownups to take us seriously…

Enter the young yeah
Yeah they’ve learned how to think
Enter the young yeah
More than you think they think

“That’s a very cool song, I like the words”, Mike said, once it was over. Arthur smiled and nodded.

“Not bad”, said Frankie, who always liked to say something, “I like the harmonies.”

I wanted to stand up, raise my fist and say, “We’re all going to change things, make them better!”, but I was too shy to do it, and I had no idea HOW we would do that.

The rest of the songs on that side of the album were more the regular kind of Beach Boy type songs about liking girls or Beatles type songs about having trouble with girlfriends. We talked about stuff while we listened, including the upcoming game between our two Little League teams, “Huron Valley Bank” and “Michigan Tube Benders”. Mike and Stuart were on Huron Valley, and their team had won five games and lost only one and was in first place. Andy, Cal and I were on the Tube Benders, and we were only three and three. Arthur and Frankie didn’t play Little League baseball, though they would play in our pickup games in the park sometimes.

“You guys haven’t got a chance”, said Stuart, “We’ve got a much better team and Mike’s pitching that one.”

“Yeah, well”, said Andy, “We got Grant pitching for us and YOU GUYS are going to be very humiliated.” I had heard grownups use that “humiliated” word, but never another kid like me. I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, though I knew it was a bad thing to be. And I wasn’t exactly sure Andy knew what it meant either.

It was interesting that some of my friends liked to do that. When they were on different teams that were playing against each other they would tease guys on the other team, even their friends, that the other team was no good and they were so much better, and they were going to win. They didn’t really mean it, but it was just something you said to be tough.

I would never do that, and I had never seen Mike or Cal do that, but lots of older kids and grownups liked to do that kind of teasing and saying bad things about the other team. Last fall before Michigan played Ohio State, I saw people with bumper stickers on their cars that said “Oh how I hate Ohio State”. Mom and dad even did that kind of stuff, saying bad stuff about the other team Michigan was playing, or how Michigan was going to beat them really bad. Or when Dad’s favorite Major League baseball team, the Tigers, played mom’s favorite team, the Yankees. Though mom said she just did it because it was “fun” to be “competitive” and “talk a little trash”.

As we talked about the game and who was going to win and lose, the songs continued, until we got to the last one on that side of the record, one that I had heard before on the radio. It started with that “der der der” music part that I recognized…

[Bass guitar lead in]

Every time I think that I’m
The only one who’s lonely someone calls on me
And every now and then I spend
My time at rhyme and verse and curse those faults in me

And then along comes Mary
And does she wanna give me kicks
And be my steady chick
And give me pick of memories?
Or maybe rather gather tales from all the
Fails and tribulations no one ever sees?

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
(Boppa doo wah)

“Someone said that’s a drug song”, Frankie said. We all looked at him. I remembered I’d heard some older kids say that too.

“It’s about marijuana”, Mike said, “But they wrote it to sound like he’s talking about a girl named Mary, so they can pretend that it isn’t.”

Stuart shook his head and had a worried look on his face. “How do you KNOW all this stuff?” he asked Mike.

“My dad walks down to the Blue Front every morning to get the New York Times from the day before and the Village Voice too on Fridays”, Mike said, “And I read them after he’s done. And I look at Crawdaddy at Discount Records. I just like finding out about stuff.”

And when the morning of the warning’s passed
The gassed and flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars

And then along comes Mary
And does she wanna see the stains, the dead remains
Of all the pains she left the night before?
Or will their wakin’ eyes reflect the lies
And make them realize their urgent cry for sight no more?

I had heard the song a bunch of times but I still couldn’t figure out what most of the words meant, even once I figured out what most of them were. They sang the words so fast. But these words from the song always stuck with me…

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

I knew what it meant to be “out to lunch”, like you didn’t know what’s going on, but “now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch” I still couldn’t figure out, though I was thinking that grownups drank that “punch” stuff at parties with booze in it that made them drunk and silly. Maybe “drugs” made older kids drunk and silly in a different way, and they didn’t have to drink any punch.

***

Dad was still taking David and I out to lunch twice a week, though not “out to lunch” like they meant in the song. Now that it was summer and he had a different “schedule”, it was on Wednesdays and Sundays. Every Wednesday we’d still go to the Food and Drug, but on Sunday’s we’d go to lots of different places, like Dog and Suds, Crazy Jims, A&W, and McDonalds, because dad didn’t have to work on Sundays, so he had more time. David really liked McDonalds, so that’s why we went there, though I kind of liked it too. Dad would let us get french fries, milkshakes and TWO hamburgers there, if we wanted. Dad would get that “Filet o Fish” thing, french fries, and coffee. Dad always liked to drink coffee, though he said David and I shouldn’t drink it until we were older, in college. I tasted his coffee a couple times, but it tasted awful, like drinking dirt. He would laugh and say I might like it better with lots of cream and sugar, but HE always drank it “black”. He also said that my “tastes would change” as I got older. Maybe, but I couldn’t imagine ever liking drinking hot dirt, no matter how old I got.

Then on Sundays after lunch we would do something together, like go over to that grassy area on State Street by his new apartment on Henry by the A and P and throw a ball, or he would hit fly balls and grounders to us. David had just turned eight, so he was getting better at baseball stuff, specially hitting. Or maybe we’d buy our lunch and then take it to Island Park to eat it. We all thought that was the best park to have a picnic. I liked watching the trains go by across the river, and David liked feeding the ducks swimming in the river.

Dad didn’t seem as sad as he had been before, though I think he always was extra happy when David and I were with him, and he might even be pretending sometimes he was happy so David and I would be happy too. He never TALKED about being happy OR sad, I guess grownup men weren’t supposed to, but you could kind of tell. He seemed to like his regular job, where they were figuring out better ways to teach people languages, but I think he still liked teaching students the most, and he would tell us about students that he really thought were “bright”. Mom and dad BOTH liked bright people and specially kids.

Mom was getting happier too. I could tell because she was getting up early in the morning to go out in the yard to “garden”, though we didn’t really have a garden with flowers, just a bunch of hedges and other plants. I don’t think she was watching as much TV late at night and she didn’t usually call dad late at night to yell at him. And since there was no school, she let David and I stay up to ten o’clock or even eleven o’clock to watch programs we liked on TV, though she still kept the TV in her room.

But she would also ask me to come and sit with her, me in her rocking chair and her on her bed while she figured out what bills to pay and write them checks, and put them in envelopes to mail them. She would tell me about which bills she had to pay, like the rent, the phone bill, and the gas and electric bills, and which ones she could “put off”, like that Fiegle’s store where David and I got some of our clothes. Sometimes she’d run out of money and get mad and then sad and say we’d have to eat a lot of peanut butter for lunch and Roberts Spaghetti for dinner.

This last time I sat with her she said we would have to eat a lot of peanut butter and Roberts Spaghetti over the summer too, but for a “good reason”. She had found a “cottage” on Cape Cod we could rent for three whole weeks in August that she thought we could “barely afford” if we “watch our pennies through June and July”.

***

It was the day of the big game between our team, the Tube Benders, and Mike and Stuart’s team, Huron Valley. Mom wished me good luck and told me to “keep your eye on the ball”. Our coach came with his pickup truck and parked it in the little parking lot by the Burns Park tennis courts. All of us – me, Andy, Cal, Billy, Gil, Teddy, Peter, Todd and Grant – climbed in the back of the truck. We could barely all fit, but that made it even more fun. We were a team, or “comrades” as Mike would say.

It felt strange when we got there. It was my old neighborhood, but I hadn’t been there in a long time. From the baseball diamond where our game was going to be, I looked across the park at my old street. I could just barely see the front of my old house. I knew we still owned it but other people were living there that we rented it to. And then WE rented our Burns Park house from the older people who lived in the other half of it.

Mike and Stuart were already there. Mike was being “warmed up” to pitch by their coach. Stuart saw me and the rest of my team walking up from the parking lot by the park lodge and nodded his head. I nodded back and waved at him. He waved back but just a little bit.

“We need to beat these guys”, Billy said. Grant was going to pitch this time, so at least we had a chance.

Billy was our catcher, and what he was really good at, which I’d never thought of being so important a part of being the catcher on a baseball team, was just talking a lot, “working his mouth”, as our coach said, which was the thing Billy did best. When we were in the field and the other team was up, as each of their guys came up to bat, he would be talking.

When their guy came up to the plate to bat, he would yell at all of us out in the field to “look alive” or “be sharp”, and if the batter was a lefty like me, he would yell something like “got a lefty… Coop, Dale, be sharp”, because the lefties were more likely to hit it to me at first or Dale at second. And he’d also yell “look alive out there in right”, to make sure Gill was paying attention out in right field.

Billy would talk to our pitcher, tell him this batter was “no big deal”, and to “just fire it in here”. If our pitcher threw a strike and the batter didn’t swing, he’d say something like “no hitter” or “just a looker”. And if the batter swung and missed, he’d say something like, “ooo, nice try, no hitter here”. And if our pitcher threw one that wasn’t a strike, he’d say to him stuff like, “Just missed… you got this… just fire it in there… no biggie.”

In Little League games when you were batting, some catchers liked to say stuff to you that was annoying, like he was teasing you, though I’d gotten used to it. But watching Billy do it, and how it made our main pitchers, Grant and Cal, relax a little and maybe pitch better, was kind of a different way of looking at things. You’d think the coach, always a grownup, was in charge of all the things you were doing when you were out in the field, but I was figuring out at least some of it was really Billy, our catcher. He was short, and in all the catching equipment – backward cap, mask, chest protector and leg protectors – he looked like some giant talking insect.

And if their guy got a hit, Billy would say “okay, lucky swing” or “got to let them get at least a FEW hits”, or something like that, so our pitcher didn’t feel bad. And it made all the rest of us on the field get into the game more, which made us play better but also made it more fun. If our grownup coach was the captain, Billy as the catcher was the lieutenant, and even though I was still mad at Billy about the pencils, I would rather have a kid, one of my teammates, telling me to “look sharp” than some grownup, even our coach.

As usual, we all got a little time to warm up, throw balls back and forth, our team on the first base side, because we were the visitors, and theirs on the third base side. Grant got to warm up practicing pitching to Billy. Mike was on the other side, now practicing pitching with their team’s catcher. Then Mike walked over to our side of the field. As usual he was the tallest kid there.

“Hey guys”, he said to all of us, “I hope we have a good fun game and everybody plays well.”

Billy, who was crouched down catching Grant’s practice pitches, didn’t even look at Mike but said, “I hope YOU enjoy getting beat!” Some of the guys on our team laughed. I laughed too, not because I wanted to but because it felt like I should, to be part of my team. I think Mike heard Billy and he kind of looked up in the air and pushed his lips together. Then he walked over to me playing catch with Andy.

“So this is your old neighborhood, right?” he asked.

“Yep”, I said, nodding, still catching and throwing the ball with Andy.

“Where’d you live?” Mike asked. I caught the ball from Andy, turned and pointed to my house across the park.

“Wow”, he said, “Right across from the park, just like your house now.”

“No talking to the enemy”, I heard Billy say from inside his mask still in his crouch catching Grant’s pitches.

Mike shook his head slowly and laughed a little through his nose. “Anyway, guys”, he said, “Good game!” and then turned and walked back over to his team’s side of the field. I could see Stuart watching Mike from their side, shaking his head like he was agreeing with Billy, what was Mike doing anyway talking to the enemy.

The umpire guy was talking to our coach and Huron Valley’s, going over some of the rules for the game. The two coaches shook hands and walked back to their sides. Our coach looked at all of us and held his hand up and moved his finger in a circle in the air.

“Okay, boys, circle up!” he said. He always gave us our lineup and one of those “pep talks” before the game. He said I was batting first, which I usually did, because I got a lot of hits, and being left-handed, I got a lot of walks too.

Once he finished that he said, “If we play a smart game and all do our part, we can beat these guys. Remember… when you get up to the plate, look to me coaching at third for whether to take or swingaway.” We all nodded.

“Okay everyone”, said the umpire loudly, “Let’s play ball!”

Since we were the visiting team, I was the first batter up in the whole game. That made me kind of nervous, specially since Mike was pitching and I knew he pitched fast. I liked it better when we were the home team and I had been out in the field for an inning before being the first one to bat for my team. But getting to bat first was pretty cool, made me feel special, so I better do it.

I walked out to the plate area and took a couple swings. The umpire and the catcher looked at me, then the catcher banged his fist into his glove and said, “Okay, Mike, no hitter here”. You know, standard catcher stuff.

I kind of nodded at the catcher kid, pressed my lips together but tried to smile, and pounded my bat on the hard rubber home plate a couple times like I’d seen some of the Major League guys do. I looked at Mike standing on the mound, his hands down at his sides, one in his glove and the other fingering the ball. He grinned, kind of flashed his eyes, and raised his hand holding the ball a bit and pointed at me with one finger and nodded just a little. I wasn’t sure if he was nodding at me or his catcher, but I nodded back.

“Okay”, said our coach, standing by third base and clapping his hands, “Make him throw a strike!” That meant I shouldn’t swing at the first pitch, or any pitch until he had already thrown a strike. Since most kids batted right-handed, the coach always wanted to see if the pitcher was going to have trouble with a left-handed batter like me.

I got in my crouch and pulled my bat back into position. Mike’s pitches were always pretty fast and hard to hit, so I was happy to “take” them and not swing until he had thrown a strike.

Mike did his big windup and with his lips pushed together flung the ball towards me and the plate. It was right down the middle but I didn’t swing.

“Steeerike!” said the umpire, raising his hand, “0 and one.”

“Okay”, said our coach by third, “Got your look. Wait for your pitch!”, which I knew meant don’t swing at any bad ones.

I could tell Mike was looking at the catcher and not at me, and he didn’t feel like my friend at the moment, which was weird. He did his big windup again and threw the ball towards me harder this time. I just had that quick second to see it, and it felt like it was coming right for my wrists so I backed away a little, thinking it would be a ball, but maybe not.

“Steeerike two!” said the umpire again, “0 and two.” I felt a little mad because that one was close, but hey, the umpire was in charge. So I stepped out of the batter’s box to think for a second.

“Okay”, said our coach, clapping his hands twice, “You’re a hitter, Cooper!” Yeah, I’m a hitter, I thought as I stepped back into the batter’s box, banged on the plate and then got in my crouch, bat back.

Mike wound up and hurled another one that was low and more outside. I had only that split second to decide if it was a strike or a ball but it was close and there was no way I was going to “strike out looking”, so I swung, but I heard the ball smack again into the catcher’s mitt.

“Steeerike three… batter’s out. That’s one out!” the umpire said.

Ugh, I thought, struck out on three straight pitches! What a way to start a game!

Our coach clapped and always tried to say something nice. “Good cut. You’ll get ‘em next time!” I turned and walked back to our bleachers. Dale was standing there on deck to hit second.

“Wow”, Dale said quietly to me, “He’s fast.” I nodded. Put my bat in the rack our coach had brought and sat down on the bottom row of bleachers with my teammates, next to Andy, who would bat after Dale.

“That’s Mike for ya”, he said to me.

“Yeah”, I kind of growled softly, “Damn!”

Dale went up to the plate next and, maybe because I struck out, he struck out too. Andy, who was standing on deck, looked at me sitting and said, fiercely, “No way I’M striking out! Mike or not!” I nodded at him.

Mike’s first two pitches to Andy were balls. Our coach kept saying to him, “Make him throw you a strike!” But when Mike threw his next pitch, which was right down the middle, maybe thinking that Andy was taking like the coach told him, Andy swung and hit the ball hard towards the shortstop. It bounced in front of the guy and up high above his glove and hit him in the chest, with Andy, who was really fast, running hard to first. By the time their shortstop was able to pick up the ball on the ground in front of him, his throw to first was too late and Andy was on.

Now Todd was up, our “cleanup” hitter batting fourth. As soon as Mike let go of his first pitch, Andy took off for second base, trying to steal, which was the new thing you could do in twelve-year-old league that you couldn’t do in eleven. The catcher caught the pitch and quickly made a good throw down to second base. Andy slid head first and it looked like his hand touched the base before he was tagged, but the umpire behind the plate called him out.

“What!”, yelled Andy, getting up from the ground, the front of his uniform all covered with dirt, “I was safe. My fingers were touching the bag before he tagged me!”

Our coach ran down from third base to where the umpire was now between home plate and the pitcher’s mound. “C’mon ump”, he said, “He sure looked safe to me. Couldn’t you see his hand on the bag?”

“I saw what I saw”, said the umpire, “And I’m calling him out. Three outs. End of the inning!” Our coach shook his head, and Todd, me and my teammates on the bench groaned. Andy just stood there on the base with his hands on his hips, really mad.

Our coach puffed his cheeks and blew out air. “Okay, okay”, he said, “It’s just a game, guys.” He looked at Andy and said, “C’mon Andy, I think you were safe, but ump made the call, maybe next close one it will go OUR way.” The umpire looked at our coach fiercely but didn’t say anything. All the guys on the other team ran in from their positions in the field.

Andy walked back to where the rest of us were getting up to go out in the field and said, quietly so he figured the umpire couldn’t hear him, “Damn umpire, didn’t even take his damn mask off. How could he see if I was out or safe!”

“C’mon boys”, our coach said, clapping his hands again, “Out in the field. It’s just one inning.”

Billy, with all his equipment on, ran out to his position behind the plate, pounding his glove and saying, “We got these guys. Yeah, we were robbed, but we got these guys.” Grant was out on the mound and threw Billy his warmup pitches. I threw a couple practice ground balls to each of my other infielders, and they threw them back to me, the front of Andy’s uniform at short brown with dirt from his headfirst slide.

So Huron Valley guys got to take their turn to bat, but Grant was pitching really good, though not as good as Mike had. Stuart and their first baseman guy got singles, but two other guys got out, and then Mike got a walk to load the bases. But the last guy hit a ground ball to short that Andy was able to get and throw to me to get the guy out for their last out so they didn’t score.

So the game continued, with both teams getting some runs. My second time up was in the third inning and Mike walked me and I scored later on a double by Todd. My third time up in the fifth I struck out again, Mike just seemed to pitch too fast for me to get a good swing.

It was now the top of the seventh inning, the last inning, and we were behind five to three and there were two outs. Grant was on second, he had gotten a single and then Billy had managed to bunt and beat out the throw to first. Gill was up next. He had replaced Darren in right field, since the coach said that everybody that showed up for a game would get to play at least half of it. He had struck out the first time he was up in the fifth.

I was on deck, wondering if Gill would make the last out, ending the game. Part of me kind of wanted him to, rather than me getting up and maybe striking out for a third time and letting down all my teammates. I could tell Billy was unhappy that it was Gill who was our last chance.

He kind of growled and said, “Ugh, Gill”, to himself. Then he clapped his hands hard and said loudly, “C’mon Gilbert… don’t strike out this time! Give us a chance!” It wasn’t a very nice thing to say to your friend, who never said anything bad about you, but that was Billy. He always thought that everything was other people’s fault and he was great.

Our coach by third base clapped his hands and said, “You can do it Gill. Wait for your pitch, then nice easy swing.”

Mike threw the first pitch. Gil swung and missed. The second pitch, Gil swung and missed again. It looked bad, like this next pitch would be it. Billy growled again, standing on first, shaking his head. Our coach said, “Good cuts, Gill. You got this next one.”

And then it happened. Mike threw one really fast but it was way inside and hit Gill on his elbow. He cried out in pain, dropped his bat and staggered away from the plate holding his left elbow that had been hit with his other hand. I could see tears in his eyes, like he was about to cry.

“YES!” said Billy, making a fist and shaking it. “Hit batter, that’s a walk. We’re still alive!”

Mike ran down by the plate where Gill was standing and said, “I’m SO sorry! Are you all right?” Gill just stood there, holding his elbow, tears still in his eyes.

Our coach ran down from third base. He held up his hand and said, “Time out, ump.”

The umpire nodded and said loudly to everyone, holding up HIS hand, “That’s a time out!”

Mike looked at Dale’s dad, our coach, and said, “Geez, Mr O’Connor, I feel bad”, and then to Gill, “Rub your elbow and bend it a few times, that might help.” Gill nodded and did that.

From first, Billy yelled, “Suck it up, Mr Smith!” which was Gill’s last name. I could tell Gill really wanted to “suck it up” but his elbow really hurt.

“I’m okay”, he managed to say, nodding at our coach, Mike, and the umpire, who was also right there now.

The umpire nodded and held up his hand and said, “Hit batter, that’s a walk, runners advance!” As Grant ran to third and Billy to second, Billy made fists with both hands, shook them and looked up to the sky and said, “Yes, yes, yes!” Everyone on our team was excited and happy, except for me because now it was all up to me.

Before he went back by third base, our coach took me aside and said to me quietly, “You got this, Cooper. I know you’ve struck out twice and he throws fast, but you can hit him. You’ve got a good eye, but for a pitcher like this guy you need to start your swing right when the ball leaves his hand. You can adjust as the ball comes, and even stop swinging if it’s not in your strike zone, but start your swing as soon as it leaves his hand.”

I didn’t like our coach, or any grownup really, telling me I wasn’t doing things the right way. I felt bad, like I wasn’t really as good of a hitter as I thought I was.

“Okay?” the coach asked, patting me on the shoulder. I nodded, though I wasn’t okay about it. He ran back to his place by third base, then clapping his hands again and saying, “Okay, Cooper. Wait for your pitch. Little rap here, little rap! Keep us going.”

I didn’t want to do it his way, because that meant my usual way was wrong, and he knew better about me than I did. So I waited for the first pitch, and didn’t start to swing when Mike threw it. I could tell it was high so I didn’t swing at all.

“That’s a ball”, said the ump, “One and 0.”

“Way to look, Cooper!” yelled our coach.

Mike threw his second pitch, and again I waited til I saw it coming to decide whether to swing. In that instant I saw it was a strike I started to swing and the bat hit it, sort of, but it went off to the side, a foul ball.

“Foul ball”, said the ump, “One and one!”

“Be ready”, our coach yelled, clapping his hands, “Wait for your pitch.”

Suddenly I thought my way might not be working. I couldn’t get the bat around enough to hit that last pitch the right way. What if the coach was right? I didn’t want to strike out AGAIN and LOSE THE GAME! I was worried, but also mad. I was going to do it his way, though I didn’t like it.

Mike threw his third pitch. When I saw the ball leave his glove I took a step forward with my front foot and started my swing, like the coach said. The ball was coming down and inside. I kept swinging. There was that hard crack of the bat and the ball and the ball shot down toward first base, a linedrive. That guy on Huron Valley that had replaced me at first, reached for it with his glove but didn’t get it and the ball shot into the outfield and I started to run to first. When my line drive finally hit the ground for the first time a poof of chalk came up from the foul line and I heard the umpire behind me yell, “Fair ball!”

Their right fielder was trying to get it but he couldn’t get in front of it but had to chase it instead. Extra base hit, I thought. Everybody was yelling and moving around me. Their first baseman ran out in right field to do the cutoff. Their second baseman ran to second ready for a throw, if it came, from the right fielder trying to chase down the ball. Gill had hesitated at first but was now running to second as our coach yelled, “Go, go, go!”. I rounded first just maybe ten feet behind him. I looked to my left. Our coach was sweeping his arm around in big circles which was the signal to tell the baserunners ahead of me to keep running. Grant had scored. Billy was rounding third base screaming, “Yes, yes, yes!” Gill was headed to third and our coach was still sweeping his arm so Gill rounded third and headed home. I was just behind Gill and rounded third after him.

Billy did his job as the last one who had scored. He looked out at the ball being thrown by the cutoff guy, the first baseman, and fell down on his knees near the side of the plate and signaled with his hands for Gill to slide, which Gill did. The ball came on a short hop to the catcher’s glove, but it hit his glove and bounced out. Gill was there on the ground in front of me covering the plate as the umpire flung his hands out to either side. “Safe!” he said. I couldn’t slide, because Gill was covering the plate so I stopped, not sure what to do. Mike was there too and he grabbed the loose ball from the ground and tagged me out.

The umpire held up his hand and then pointed at me and said, “You’re out! That’s three!” I was out. I got a triple, but I was thrown out trying to stretch it into a homerun, which would have been the first homerun I had ever hit in Little League, other than a couple in nine- and ten-year-old league that were really a bunch of errors. Still I’d done it. Hit Mike, and driven in three big runs for my team to go ahead six to fire.

After Mike tagged me, he said, “Wow… nice hit!”

Their catcher, who was mad that he missed catching the ball to make the tag on Gill, said to Mike, “Hey man, whose side are you on?”

“Hey, Blake”, Mike said, “Coop’s a good friend, and it WAS a nice hit! They’re just the other team, we’re not enemies!”

“Yeah, well”, said Blake, and went to look for his catcher mask that he’d pulled off earlier in the action. I think he knew Mike was right, but he was still mad and still didn’t like it.

So I was the third out and our half of the last inning was over, but I was now the hero for my whole team. As I walked back to our bleachers all my teammates were standing, cheering and clapping. Some patted me on the shoulders and Billy came up to me and shook my hand.

“That was the best clutch hit in our whole season”, he said, “You probably should have stayed at third, but I’M not complaining or anything. He laughed through his nose and he continued to shake my hand, me nodding and trying to laugh a little too.

Then our coach came up to me, smiling, and said, “Billy’s right, that was a clutch hit. So our little adjustment worked, eh?” His eyes sparkled, but his question made me mad, like he made me hit it as much as I did, but I didn’t say anything and just nodded.

Then he looked around and yelled, “Okay, guys. No more celebrating for now. Out in the field. We still need to hold them to win this thing!”

Still flush with energy and feeling the good feelings of all my teammates, my “comrades” as Mike would say, I grabbed my glove and ran out on the field to quickly warm up my fellow infielders for hopefully our last inning and a big win. I had seen Major League first basemen walk over to their pitcher sometimes to talk to them before the start of an inning, so I decided to do that with Grant, who had finished his warmup pitches and was waiting for their first batter to walk into the batter’s box.

“Great hit, Cooper”, he said, smiling, “But I hate you! Now I gotta get them out or it’s all on me!”

“Sorry!” I said, smiling back.

“Thanks a lot”, he said, in that way you did when you didn’t really mean it, “So get out of here so we can finish this game!” I nodded and ran back to first. At least he was pitching to the bottom part of their lineup, with the guys that didn’t hit as well as their best hitters, like Stuart and Mike and Blake, in the top of their lineup.

So their first batter came to the plate, some guy I didn’t know that was playing rightfield for them. Billy was in high gear, you could tell he was really excited, and SO wanted to beat Huron Valley.

“All right you guys”, he yelled to all of us, pounding his fist into his catcher’s mitt, “Look alive out there. We got these guys!” Then he said, “Talk it up out there!” So all of us in the infield, did the standard, “Hey batter batter” chant.

I don’t know if all of us saying that over and over really made the batter nervous, or just helped all of us in the infield be less nervous because we were too busy chanting.

After two balls and two strikes, the guy finally hit up in the air to leftfield, but not very deep, and Teddy was able to get under it and catch it for the first out. Billy yelled “Yes, yes, yes”, and shook his fist in the air. The next guy, the last hitter in their lineup, got out too, hitting a ground ball to short, Which Andy fielded nicely and threw to me for the out. So now with two outs, it was their leadoff hitter, Stuart, their last chance.

Stuart walked up to the plate, pounded his bat on it and looked at Billy. I could hear him say to Billy, “You guys are going DOWN.”

“Ha”, I heard Billy say, “Not from some sissy boy like you!”

The umpire stood up from his crouch and said, “Okay, boys, no more of that. Play ball!”

Billy said something else more quietly that I couldn’t quite hear and Stuart turned to look at him and glared and then stepped out of the batter’s box.

The umpire stood up again, put up his hand and said, “Time out!” He pointed at our coach standing by our bleachers and said, “Coach, if your catcher says anything else like he just said, and I won’t repeat it, I’m awarding the batter first base and throwing your catcher out of the game.”

Our coach nodded and looked worried and waved at Billy with his hand to come on over and talk with him. Billy walked over to him by third base and stood in front of him with his mask still on, his hands in fists on his hips and his elbows out. Our coach leaned into his mask and spoke to him quietly so no one else could hear. Billy nodded slowly, but I could tell by the way he was still standing that he was only nodding because he was supposed to.

“Allright”, our coach said to him louder, smacking him on the shoulder, “Good man!”

Billy slowly walked back to his position behind the plate, still puffed up and looking like he was staring at Stuart, who was staring back at him. Now standing behind the plate again, he pounded his fist super hard into his glove and yelled, “Look alive out there guys! We got this! Little chatter please!” and he got down in his crouch, pounding his glove a few more times.

We all started our “Hey batter, batter” chant again, louder this time. Stuart stepped back up to the plate, puffed his cheeks and blew air out, held his bat out across the plate for a couple seconds before pulling it back into position and getting in his batting crouch. Grant threw his first pitch and Stuart started to swing but didn’t really swing through, but the ball hit his bat and popped up in the infield.

“Damn, damn, damn, damn!” Stuart yelled, pounding his bat on the ground. You could hear other guys on Huron Valley groaning, while all of us on the Tube Benders side were saying stuff like “yeah”.

“Run to first, Stuart”, his coach yelled. Stuart started running towards first but not very hard, still carrying his bat and saying “damn” more quietly now. Todd called, “I got it”, caught the ball, and that was that, we’d won.

“Three outs”, said the umpire, “That’s game!”

***

Our coach took us all to Dairy Queen, most of us packed in the back of his pickup truck, to celebrate our big win over Huron Valley, which had been the first place team. I was the hero along with Grant, who didn’t let any runs score or even give up any hits in that last inning when we had to hold them to win. Billy had called Stuart a sissy, but also said something to him that maybe made him extra mad I guess, but he wouldn’t tell us what he said. The umpire hadn’t liked that, and our coach had talked to him, but Billy still seemed happy that he’d done it. I felt bad that Billy had done that to Stuart to try and help us win, but I didn’t say anything.

***

The next time David and I went out to lunch with dad I told him about the game and my big hit in the seventh inning, though not about my coach telling me how I could hit better off a fast pitcher like Mike. AND, I didn’t tell him about what Billy said to Stuart that might have gotten Stuart to mess up. Dad really liked my story. He said it must really feel good to feel like you were “playing up to your potential as a ball player” and “making the clutch play for your team”. It did feel good, I guess, at least that part I told him about.

The next couple days in the park, Billy and Stuart both avoided me, like they didn’t want to talk about the game. But finally I saw Mike and we talked about the game and what happened at the end.

“That was really not nice what Billy said to Stuart the last time he was up in our game”, he said.

“That he was a sissy?” I asked. He nodded and then shook his head slowly. “Kids call other kids sissies sometimes”, I said.

“Yeah, well”, he said, “Younger kids don’t know any better, but we’re not children anymore, Billy should know better.”

“Billy’s just stupid”, I said.

“Not really”, he said, “Billy’s smart enough to know what would really get Stuart.” He waved his hands in front of his face and said, “I really shouldn’t be talking about this. It’s not my place.”

I suddenly felt really bad, like I was still too much of a little kid. I WAS a year younger than all of my school friends, and I guess too stupid to understand something about Stuart, that Mike and maybe even Billy understood.

I thought about those words in that Association song…

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup is as sweet as the punch

I needed MY empty cup to be as sweet as the punch somehow.