The Kid Who Batted 1.000 by Troon McAllister

Author:Troon McAllister
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780385505307
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2009-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

WILSON HOWITZERED ONE DOWN the middle. Aires, who’d been trying to anticipate everything it could possibly do, was taken by complete surprise when it did absolutely nothing. He started to swing, guessing he could alter the path of the bat in midcourse depending on what the ball did, then abruptly checked up altogether, but the ump thought he’d passed the halfway point and called a strike anyway.

“Whoa!” Brannigan yelled as the ball hit his glove. “You believe this guy’s control?” He stood up to return the ball and Aires could sense his shit-eating grin right through the mask. Brannigan was not a razzer by nature—it would always come back to haunt you—but he could talk trash when the situation called for it. Besides, he wasn’t actually dissing Aires, just praising his own man.

Wilson’s backdoor slider started out aimed at Bueno’s hands but swung back to the outside edge of the strike zone. Bueno went after it but caught it late and with the tip of the bat, sending it foul into the right field stands.

“Damn, sometimes I don’t believe this myself!” Brannigan made no attempt to hide the glee in his voice, staying down this time as the ump handed him a new ball and he threw it out to the mound.

Bueno let the 0-and-2 pitch go by for a ball, then almost got suckered into going after a sinker but checked up successfully. Now 2-and-2, he watched carefully as Wilson, pitching from the stretch to keep Amos from taking too big a lead off the base, grunted with the effort of an apparent fastball, but Bueno saw it for what it was, a change-up that only looked like a fastball.

He swung with everything he had and the ball leaped for the heavens. The crowd began to roar, but Bueno stayed put, realizing that the ball had come in so slowly he’d caught it a bit early. Sure enough, it drifted further and further toward the stands left of the foul pole, although it wasn’t lost on anybody that it made it all the way to the third deck before it finally disappeared.

With the count still at 2-and-2, Bueno was pretty sure Wilson would go for a corner next, and he did, but it wasn’t quite as wide as Bueno had expected and he went for it. This time his timing was perfect and he caught it eight inches from the tip of the bat, but it was a splitter and therefore diving as it crossed the plate. The ball hit the bat slightly below center and took off at an angle somewhat less than the ideal trajectory for maximum distance, but the connection was otherwise solid.

It was a line drive through the hole between second and short and then the alley between the left and center fielders. With nothing to lose, Kowalski and Amos took off, Amos with strength and speed for third, Kowalski with . . . whatever, for second, both of them watching third-base coach Bink Iverson rather than what was happening in the outfield.

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