5
Jaybird wore shorts, T-shirt, and a baseball cap with the bill in front, and shook his head when a ball from the coach rolled right past the shortstop.
“Willy, you run over in front of the ball, then bend over and reach for it. You bend your right knee and it’s right in front of the path of the ball. Then if you miss the ball with your glove, it hits your knee and stops. You grab it with your right hand and throw it to first or second.”
“Show me,” Willy said. He was eight years old, had played one season in the Caps league, and moved up to the minors. He was the worst shortstop Jaybird had ever seen. Jaybird waved at the other coach, Harley Albertson, to hit him a grounder. Jaybird got in front of the ball, bent down with his right foot and leg in the path of the ball, and lifted up his glove at the last minute and let the ball hit his shoe. He grabbed the ball and flipped it to the second baseman, who made a stab at it and missed.
“See, Willy. If you don’t get the ball in your glove, it still is stopped nearby and you can grab it and throw. If you don’t almost kneel down, the ball will go through your legs into left field.”
“So?” Willy asked, his sharp brown eyes challenging.
“Then, Willy, I’ll have to tell your father that you can’t play shortstop, and you’ll have to go to right field, where nobody hits the ball and you can grow roots waiting out there for the inning to end.”
Willy grinned. “Hey, I don’t want to grow no roots. Let me try again.”
Jaybird moved back twenty feet and rolled the baseball toward Willy. He had to move only six feet to one side. His knee came down and he missed the ball with his glove, but it hit his leg and stopped. He grabbed it and threw it to the second baseman, who was so surprised to see it coming that he threw up his glove and caught it.
“Good play,” Jaybird called. “Good play, Willy, you to Joe. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Jaybird watched the rest of the practice. It was before the season started, they hadn’t had their first game yet, and they were still a long way from being a team. Eight-year-olds were simply not that coordinated. Some of them did well. But Jaybird had yet to see a ball hit to the outfield that was caught. Their pitcher had trouble getting the ball all the way to the catcher without bouncing it. Jaybird grinned. Still, it was a load of fun. His kind of baseball. There were two other coaches, both older than he was. One was the pitcher’s father, Harley Albertson, the head coach. He was short and pudgy, wore glasses, a baseball cap, suit pants, and a white shirt. He always came directly from his banker’s job to the practices. He sweated like an overworked horse, and was given to making up words to use in place of swear words.
“You gimbleshakled marsnest, Phil, you missed that easy grounder.” He was gentle and easy with the kids, and they seemed to try harder when he made suggestions to them.
The other coach was Rusty Ingles, an insurance salesman in his late thirties, married but with no kids. He was a slender six feet tall, with thinning red hair and lots of freckles. He knew baseball rules inside out, and said he’d played for a junior college back East somewhere for two years. He handled mostly the outfielders, trying to teach them how to judge a fly ball and then to catch it. He wasn’t having anything like good results.
Jaybird had lettered in baseball three years at his high school, playing shortstop, and loved the game. He followed the Detroit Tigers, not the Padres in San Diego.
“Good throw,” Jaybird yelled as the third baseman gloved a slow roller off Coach Albertson’s bat and threw it all the way to first base. It arrived after only one hop. “Way to go, Pete. Way to throw, guy. Keep up the good work.”
“The infield is your job,” Coach Albertson had told Jaybird the first day when he found out he’d played in high school. “Show them how to play the positions and how to field and throw the ball. That’s all there is to it. I’ll run the pitchers and catchers and try to teach these little wonders how to hit the ball.” It was the first year for most of the boys to try to hit a thrown ball. Last year those who played had been able to hit the ball off a T-Ball stand in front of the plate.
This was their third practice, and the coaches were still moving players around. First they asked what position each boy wanted to play. So far they had no girls on the team. Jaybird was glad about that. Nobody wanted to be catcher. Coach Albertson drafted one kid who could throw pretty well. After the second practice he liked it.
“Okay, infield practice,” Jaybird called. “Rusty will hit some ground balls and I’ll call which base you throw it to. First round will all be throws to the first baseman. Okay, Rusty, hit some.”
Rusty’s grin popped out, and he made a vicious swing at the ball he tossed up. He missed it by a yard. The boys all howled with glee. Then he began batting the ball gently directly at the players in turn. Jaybird nodded as Rusty hit the ball almost exactly where he wanted to. All the boys liked Rusty. He was never harsh with them, and half the time told them jokes to get a point across.
He hit a slow roller to the second baseman playing between first and second. The boy ran toward the ball, missed it, and threw his glove on the ground, then ran for the ball and threw it toward first base. It missed the first baseman by ten feet.
“No problem, Joey, you’ll get the next one,” Jaybird called.
Twenty minutes later they called a halt to the fielding and went up to the plate to practice hitting. Coach Albertson tossed the balls in easily for the hitters. Rusty watched for a minute, then headed for the rest rooms. They were city-built, made of concrete block, so they were cold and spartan. Jaybird felt a calling as well and walked to the facility. He had just started around the double turn into the boys’ bathroom, which eliminated the need for doors, when he heard a boy yell from inside.
“Hey, don’t do that,” the boy called.
Jaybird frowned and edged around the concrete-block wall so he could see inside the small room. Joey, the second baseman, stood near the urinal with his pants down. He backed away from Coach Rusty Ingles.
“I just want to see where the ball hit your leg,” Coach Ingles said, squatting beside the boy.
“Told you it didn’t hurt me,” Joey said.
“Let me check.” Coach Ingles moved forward, caught the boy’s leg, and rubbed it; then his hand moved up to Joey’s crotch and fondled it.
“No!” Joey shouted, and jumped back.
“Hey, that didn’t hurt, did it?” Coach Ingles said. “Hey, I bet it felt good. Look what it did for me.” Coach Ingles’s back was to Jaybird then, but he could see the man unzip his pants. Joey jerked up his pants and ran for the door. Jaybird stepped away from it and around to the side of the rest room. Coach Rusty didn’t leave the bathroom for five minutes.
Jaybird scowled. What the hell was going on? Was it what it had looked like? Rusty Ingles was a pedophile? Had he been bothering other boys on the team? Before Jaybird could think it through, Coach Albertson called.
“Hey, Jaybird. Get your fanny over here. I can’t do this all by myself. Both of you vanished on me. You pitch some soft ones. I need to do some batting coaching here or we’ll be last in the league again this year.”
Jaybird pitched underhanded for a half hour, and then the practice was over. Rusty bailed out early, saying his wife had a special event planned for that night and he had to get home. Jaybird helped the boys put away the equipment in the big bat bags, and then loaded them in Coach Albertson’s van. Jaybird was trying to decide if he should tell Coach Albertson when they were done, but before he could the man waved and drove away. It was Jaybird’s turn to wait at the diamond until the last boy’s parents came to pick him up. Joey had left, and didn’t seem affected by what Jaybird had seen. So what should he do? Call the cops? Cause a big flap in the league? Accuse Rusty privately and tell him to quit coaching this or any other team of small boys or he’d wind up floating facedown in Glorietta Bay?