Stumptown Kid by Carol Gorman and Ron J. Findley Read Free Book Online

time. Maybe he’d come later.
    The memory of tryouts yesterday was a fresh attack in my head. I didn’t want my chest to heat up again, so I pushed the tryouts out of my thoughts and hurried toward the baseball diamond.
    Johnny, Brian, and Eileen were all just fooling around, playing catch. It was a nice day, not so hot yet, and the sun was shining soft through the trees.
    I crossed the grass toward them, and Johnny called out, “Hey, Charlie’s here!”
    “Charlie!” Eileen hollered.
    Eileen’s the only girl in a family of nine brothers, so she plays ball real good, better than most boys I know. Shortstop is her specialty, because she’s fast and has a strong arm. She’s got a nose for the ball, too.
    Johnny came up and clapped me on the back.
    “You seen Will?” I asked them.
    “He came by a while ago,” Johnny said. “Was goin’ to play ball with some of the Wildcat guys.”
    “They’re practicing this morning?” I was surprised. Wildcats always practice after Coach Hennessey gets off work at five.
    “Naw,” Johnny said, “he was just goin’ to play some catch with them over at Hayes School.”
    “Oh.” I thought about that. Will was my best friend, and he’s not the kind to get stuck-up about playing with the Wildcats, even though they’re the winningest team for miles. But I was surprised that he was playing with them outside of practice, and it made me feel kind of bad. He always said Johnny, Brian, Eileen, and me were the most fun to play ball with because we didn’t take things so serious that we’d argue about whether a runner was safe or not. I hoped when he played with some of the other guys today, he’d see they weren’t as much fun as we were.
    “We should get some more kids and play workup,” I said. Workup’s a way to practice so everybody gets to rotate through all the positions.
    “Eileen, go call a bunch of your brothers, okay? At least get Alan, Bowie, and Casey.”
    The McNally kids had Irish names, and they were named in alphabetical order like hurricanes. I’m not fooling. Eileen says it wasn’t on purpose at first. But after Casey was named, Mr. and Mrs. McNally realized that the first three were in alphabetical order, so they decided to keep it up. Eileen says her mom swears she’s not going to have a whole alphabet full of kids.
    “Okay,” Eileen said. “Be right back.” She grabbed her bike and rode off toward her house, which was about three blocks away.
    When she came back about fifteen minutes later, five of her brothers were with her. Plus they brought four other kids they saw on the way. One was Walter Pink. He has catcher’s equipment and likes that position, and we’re glad to let him have it. Jim Holladay came, too. He’s a good friend of Brian’s. The other two were girls, Kathleen Grady and Leslie White. Kathleen and Leslie also had families with lots of brothers. They’re good ballplayers. Not as good as Eileen, but pretty good.
    “Okay if I play pitcher and not rotate for a while?” I asked. I wanted to practice what Luther had taught me yesterday after Wildcat tryouts.
    “Okay,” Johnny said. “Rest of us, ’cept Charlie and Walter, can rotate.”
    Everybody ran to stake out where they were playing first.
    Finn, another one of the McNally kids, had brought a bat—it was cracked but taped up good—and he stood in the batter’s box, ready for the pitch.
    I thought about what Luther told me and laid my index and second fingers across the seams on the ball. I wound up and delivered a fastball, following through the way Luther taught me, bringing my hand all the way down to the ground. There wasn’t grass to pick up, just dirt, so I touched the dirt in my follow-through.
    The pitch was good. Finn smashed it to the outfield and Bowie caught it no problem.
    In a workup, that means Finn takes Bowie’s position in left field, and Bowie comes in to wait to bat.
    “Hey, good pitch!” Johnny called out to me.
    I smiled. I’d have to tell him