The Catch by Richard Reece

Author:Richard Reece [Jasper Rick ]
Language: ita
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780761387305
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

CHAPTER 11

When we got to the ballpark I was in for a surprise. Dad was there, along with Sal, and they were talking with Mr. Strauss.

I ran over and hugged Dad, who seemed to be in a great mood.

“I have a good feeling about this game,” he said. “Right, Jack?”

“Without a doubt, sir. Danny, we’re shooting a new advertisement this series. I think you’ll love it. Great job showing the colors yesterday—just what we need. Here, I brought you something.”

He reached in his man purse and pulled out a spotted doo-rag with the Ocelot logo on the top.

“I’ve been talking with your father about incentives. We pay a certain amount for you to wear our gear; you know that. But every time our cameras spot the logo in a play situation, there’s a bonus.”

“A bonus?”

“It’s a great deal, son,” Dad beamed. “Just do what you . . . do.” And he winked and nodded at the doo-rag.

I turned to Mr. Strauss.

“Did you meet with Pop Mancini?” I asked.

“Why yes,” Strauss muttered. “It turns out Mr. Mancini is well connected in this area. He’s friends with judges, casino owners, you name it. An outsider like Ocelot would have a difficult, expensive time getting a favorable decision in a lawsuit in Las Vegas.”

“What will you do?”

“Pay him what he asks, for now.”

My dad looked concerned. “That payoff isn’t coming out of Danny’s earnings, is it?”

Strauss put this hand on my dad’s shoulder, “Oh, no, no. We’ll pass the extra cost along to the consumer. We’ll simply raise our prices by eleven percent. It’s cheaper than going to court.”

“Well, that’s reasonable,” my dad commented.

I heard Coach calling in the players.

“Okay! Team’s calling me. See ya later!”

“Good luck, son!” yelled my dad.

The renewed confidence we’d felt at dinner was tested in the very first inning. We had gone hitless in the top, and Carson struck out their first two batters. But then Bo “Beast” Bronsky, their first baseman, came to the plate. Six-four, around 240, Beast looks about twenty-five. He was first and foremost a football player—a defensive tackle who was being recruited by colleges like Texas and Nebraska. But he was a good enough athlete to play for most traveling teams, and his power at the plate was legend. The Caps had played an exhibition last season at AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play, and Beast put one in McCovey Cove.

Carson made him fan on two curveballs and then thought he could slip a fastball by for strike three. Wrong. Beast walloped that pitch over the light poles in right and literally out of sight. When the yelling stopped, you could hear a car alarm going off somewhere in the distance.

Their cleanup batter tagged one too, toward center, but not as far as I thought at first. I sprinted about five strides, then looked over my shoulder and saw that I could come in a few steps and wait for it to come down. I caught it for the third out. Then I whipped off my cap so folks could see the spotted doo-rag on my run back to the dugout.

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