The Game Player by Rafael Yglesias Read Free Book Online Page B

by eleven games. It was an amazing organization: dividing a group of forty boys into two teams and playing every day. I became aware, from the talk of the others, that Brian had pushed and maintained this single-minded, almost mythical, daily battle. I thought of it as a domination like dictatorship: he had coaxed a community to play with him.
    When we reached my house I asked Brian to come in and he accepted. Before dismissing the others, he took a good five minutes to settle various questions of performance that his players asked. Some were thinly disguised requests for compliments and approval; others were attempts to excuse a mistake, blaming the weather or mysterious illnesses. There were questions about what he would be doing later and he answered all of them by saying he would phone. Inside, Mom offered us sandwiches. After they were made, we took them upstairs to my room. Brian sat at my desk alternately eating and collating the day’s statistics with the large, black figures in the section called Lifetime. He would make appropriate comments: “Adam’s dropped below three hundred.” “Danny’s ERA is over three.”
    â€œWhat are you hitting Lifetime?” I asked after it became clear that, though he was reciting everyone else’s statistics, his were going to be skipped.
    â€œUm”—he flipped through the notebook—“let’s see.”
    â€œYou don’t know it by heart?”
    â€œWell,” he said, glancing at me with a self-knowing smile, “I wanted to give you the exact figure. Here it is. Point four-seven-zero.”
    Despite being prepared for something astonishing, I had to fight my impulse to scream with surprise. “It figures,” I mumbled.
    â€œI’m hitting four-seventy in thirty-four games, one hundred and thirty-one at bats, sixty-two hits, nine walks, twenty-six doubles—that’s impressive, I must admit—one triple, ten home runs, twenty runs scored, and twenty-two runs batted in. Also, fifteen stolen bases.” He turned to face me and looked apologetic about his outburst of self-congratulation. “It’s really not that big a deal.”
    â€œIt’s not?” My tone barely made it a question. I was slouched against the wall that my bed was next to and I looked at him in mock disgust. “What bullshit.”
    â€œSeriously,” and he was in earnest now, “it’s not that amazing. My runs batted in is quite low considering my hits. And I don’t have many home runs. Danny’s got sixteen, Bill’s got nineteen, and George has twenty -three.”
    â€œYeah, but who’s hitting four-seventy? Who else is hitting four hundred?”
    Brian looked expressionless.
    â€œAnybody, besides you?” I continued. “Who’s closest to you in average?”
    â€œGeorge. He’s hitting three fifty-eight.”
    â€œSo enough of this modesty.”
    He propped his head on one of his hands, cupping his chin, and stared at me. “You don’t understand,” he said listlessly. Brian was ready with a speech but he only allowed his eyes to communicate—I would have to demand it.
    â€œWhat don’t I understand?”
    He didn’t release the search of his gaze. “You don’t understand, like the rest of them don’t, that I hit for such a good average because I know that I can’t hit home runs like George. There are other players who could hit for my average, but they keep trying to hit it over the fence. So they fly out. Or they strike out. Or they pop up.” He broke his pose, his body gathering the energy explaining gave him. “They all stand at the plate like pull hitters.” He put his hands around an imagined bat and imitated the hard yanking motion of someone trying to pull a pitch. “They don’t lean over the plate or move into a pitch and try to hit it the other way. They’re fools. They try and pull pitches