Say It Ain't So Read Free

my right foot and did as I was told. I kicked Mike in the crotch. Hard.
    He didn’t even blink. “Is that all you got?” he said. He yawned and cracked his knuckles.
    â€œJust warming up,” I said. I took a step back and really let him have it. Again, not even a blink. Itwas then that I knew he was going to make the team. He was going to be a star. It was also then that Mike’s little sister, Arianna, walked into the garage. She had grown a lot in the past year. She was, much to my annoyance, like, almost as tall as me. She was terrifying as a tiny person, so now she was, well, whatever is beyond terrifying. She always hated me for some reason, and the feeling was beginning to be mutual.
    â€œMy turn! My turn!” she said.
    â€œNo way,” Mike said. “Get out of here. I don’t want you anywhere near me, Arianna.”
    â€œI don’t want to kick
you
,” she said. “I want to kick Lenny.”
    â€œI’m not even wearing a cup!” I said.
    â€œI know,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “That’s my point.”
    Mike and I looked at each other. He started to laugh. I did not.
    â€œUh, can we go do something else?” I asked.
    â€œYou go ahead inside,” he said. “I have a few more drills I need to practice. You can check out my new toys.” Then he paused for a second and hastily added, “Sorry.”
    â€œNo need to apologize to me,” I said. “You didn’t invent Discardia.”
    â€œOooh,” he said. “Actually, I did. I’m also behind National Mustard Day. And Have a Bad Day Day.”
    I should have laughed. It
was
a pretty good one. But I was feeling so glum. It wasn’t just the toys. It wasn’t just that Mike was obviously going to make the team while I sat on the sidelines. It was more than that. He had this … this thing he was so excited to do. Little League is big around here, yeah, but the middle school baseball team is what’s really huge. Mainly because the high school baseball team is always great. It’s a pretty small school, but they had an amazing history of success.
    Schwenkfelder High’s baseball team (Fighting Quakers!) wins the division pretty much every year. They won the state championship in 1982 and I think that was the biggest thing to ever happen to Schwenkfelder. I don’t just mean the high school—I mean the whole town. There is still a giant blue and white banner hanging over the front door of the high school: SCHWENKFELDER HIGH SCHOOL—PENNSYLVANIA STATE BASEBALL CHAMPIONS 1982 . The only other banner is the one that says ADEQUATE YEARLY ACADEMIC SCORES! You can tell that they’re way more excited about the baseball. Actually, it’s really funny that they even madea banner celebrating being adequate. Maybe someone complained that they should celebrate academic stuff as much as sports, but the best thing they could say about the school’s academics was “adequate.” That exclamation point isn’t fooling anyone.
    The guys who played on that 1982 team are still kind of legends around town. The current head coach was one of those guys—one of the pitchers from that ’82 team. His name is Gary Hinzo and everyone calls him “Coach Zo.” Short for “Hinzo,” I guess. The assistant coach—Ray Moyer—was on that team too.
    Another local legend was Pete Benderson, who everyone calls “Bendy.” Baseball nicknames aren’t really that inventive a lot of the time. I mean, yeah, sometimes there’s “Old Tomato Face” (Gabby Hartnett) or “Puddin’ Head” (Willie Jones). Usually it’s like, “Hey, let’s call Willie McCovey just ‘Mac.’ Christy Mathewson? Let’s call him ‘Matty.’ Mike Lieberthal? ‘Lieby.’ ” Basically, you just take the first syllable of their last name and maybe add a
y
. … I guess