Screaming at the Ump Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Right Off the Bat

  Preseason

  Screwball

  Teammates

  Cut from the Team

  Old-School Rivalry

  Play Ball

  Televised Game

  On Deck

  Sticking the Call

  Stepping Up to the Plate

  Striking Out

  Touch Base

  Out of Left Field

  Still in the Game

  Players Take the Field

  A Whole New Ball Game

  Not Quite on the Ball

  Illegal Paly

  Getting the Call Right

  Out of My League

  Little League

  Bush League

  Digging in at the Plate

  Small Ball

  And Here’s the Pitch

  The Game’s on the Line

  All Bases Covered

  Way Off Base

  Benched

  Called Up from the Minors

  Playing Hardball

  Full Count

  Bottom Dropped Out

  You Suck, Ump!

  Late in the Game

  Slump

  Game-Time Decision

  Bring in the Closer

  Rally Caps

  Postgame (Author's Note)

  Acknowledgments

  Sample Chapter from WATER BALLOON

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Clarion Books

  215 Park Avenue South

  New York, New York 10003

  Copyright © 2014 by Audrey Vernick

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhco.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Vernick, Audrey.

  Screaming at the ump / Audrey Vernick.

  pages cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Casey lives with his father and grandfather at their family-run umpire school, and as he deals with middle school and his mother’s unwelcome return, he stumbles on a sensational story that has him questioning his dream of becoming a journalist.

  ISBN 978-0-544-25208-0 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-544-30669-1 (ebook)

  [1. Baseball—Fiction. 2. Baseball umpires—Fiction. 3. Single-parent families—Fiction. 4. Journalism—Fiction. 5. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 6. Mothers and sons—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.V5973Scr 2014

  [Fic]—dc23 2013036213

  eISBN 978-0-544-30669-1

  v1.0314

  This one’s for the home team—Michael, Jacob, and Anna— who also happen to be the best cheering section of all time.

  Right Off the Bat

  PEOPLE always assumed I was going to be an umpire when I got older, like my dad and his dad. Or teach at their umpire school, Behind the Plate. But the thing about umpires is, if they do their job well, they aren’t part of the story at all.

  Not that I wanted to be part of the story. I never wanted to be a player. Or one of those statistics-obsessed fans.

  I wanted to write about baseball, to report on it, to show how every game is unique, its own unpredictable story.

  And now I could finally get started.

  It would all begin today.

  ***

  Three eighth-graders I didn’t know were shoving their way to the back of the bus. I ducked out of their way, sat down near the front, and looked out the window.

  Middle school meant a school newspaper! I wasn’t too excited about the other back-to-school stuff, but I’d always known this was when my life as a reporter would begin. I could finally write for a newspaper! I wondered what my first article would be, what headline would be over my first byline: by Casey Snowden.

  When the bus reached Zeke’s stop, he found me and practically sat on top of me as the bus lurched forward. I had kind of hoped he might take this opportunity—starting a new school—to make some changes. Like maybe remembering to brush his hair before he left the house. It always looked like a big pile of brown—not straight, not exactly curly, just big. I probably hadn’t remembered to brush mine either—but that’s easier to get away with when you have just plain straight hair.

  Without even a quick hello, he started rambling on about some epic episode of That’sPETacular, where a kitten got stuck on a roof, and it was so hilarious, because there was a squirrel or something. It was one of those things that most people would realize wasn’t going to be funny when you tried to tell it, but Zeke wasn’t most people.

  “And then at the end they made this announcement—I can’t believe no one thought of it before—but it is so cool, and I am so going to win.”

  I was half listening as he rambled on about some new contest, called Your Show Here, where regular people submitted ideas for their own reality TV show. “Is that, like, an idea just made for me or what?” he said.

  I couldn’t even imagine where his brain would lead him. Zeke had always been obsessed with reality TV. Or, to be more accurate, somehow being part of reality TV. And he had a kind of overactive and maybe a tiny bit insane imagination. It was entertaining, being his best friend, without a doubt. It was never boring.

  When we were nine, he was absolutely convinced that our mailman was really the first host of That’sPETacular, Joey Collins. I’m guessing you’re ahead of me on this one—you probably already figured out that our mailman was not, in fact, Joey Collins. Over time, I’d figured out that I shouldn’t believe everything Zeke said. But still, he was fun. And loyal. And we always found the same things funny (we were often the only ones laughing in a movie theater at any given time). Ninety-two percent of the time, I was glad he was my best friend.

  We got off the bus, and when the school doors opened, we walked, with what felt like tens of thousands of other kids, inside. I pulled the orientation info out of my backpack—room 219. My homeroom.

  As soon as the teacher had taken attendance, she let us go out to our lockers. I found mine, opened it, and hung my backpack up, after getting out the notebook I’d nabbed from the supply room at Behind the Plate last night. I closed the locker door and was about to head back to 219 when I noticed all the other kids were still turning their combination locks, some kicking at the locker or asking the kid next to them to help.

  I guess most of them didn’t live on a campus with lockers all over the place. I helped some kid I didn’t know and these two girls, Leah and Marley, who were in my class last year. They all acted like I was some kind of genius for knowing how to open a locker.

  The whole first day was all about learning to use our lockers and finding our way through the halls and meeting our teachers and writing down the supplies we’d need and blah blah blahing. Lunch was cool, I guess—it was good to see my friends again. But we got through the whole day without anyone even saying the word newspaper a single time.

  On the afternoon bus, I was thinking about every-thing I’d missed by not being home today. I wasn’t there when the staff arrived for our annual five-week Umpire Academy, and I felt like if this bus didn’t begin moving faster, I was going to jump off and start running.

  Umpire Academy started tomorrow. It was as close as I came to anything like a family reunion. I never thought much about being an only child, because every September, it felt like I had about a dozen big brothers. A lot of the staff had been working at BTP since before I could remember. So
me had regular names—Joe Girardo, Lorenzo Watkins, Hank Lorsan—and some everyone knew by their nicknames—Soupcan, Steamboat, Bobbybo.

  During the rest of the year, BTP hosted all sorts of different clinics and classes for umpires to improve their skills, but there was nothing like Academy. It was the big one.

  I couldn’t wait to see those guys.

  The bus was way too hot. And smelly. At the first stop, it took FOREVER for three kids to grab their backpacks and get off the bus, then one kid realized he’d forgotten his jacket—who needed a jacket on a sunny, eighty-degree day?—so he got back on and off again. Everything was like that—slow motion.

  Zeke and I jumped up when the bus got near my stop. The driver yelled, “Siddown! No standing till the bus is at a complete stop.” I tripped over Zeke and heard some snickers as we stumbled back to our seats like a pair of sixth-grade clowns.

  When we finally got off the bus and rounded the corner, we jogged to the front gate, which was now left open, since Academy was in session. We walked down the long driveway, all the brick buildings laid out ahead of us like a small college campus. There weren’t as many cars in the parking lot as there should have been. I didn’t see one with Rhode Island plates—Steamboat must be running late.

  We walked past the cafeteria and through the main building until we got to Mrs. G. (her last name had something like eleven syllables, and I wasn’t even sure she could pronounce it), who ran the front office. She kept her dyed-some-unnameable-shade-of-orange hair knotted up on top of her head and often stuck pencils, pens, and I’m not sure what else in there, too. She called all the students Honey, and she called me Baby, and she called Zeke Zeke. Today there was some little girl with her. She was young, maybe eight. Really pale, with long black hair.

  “Baby,” Mrs. G. said, “this is my granddaughter, Sylvia.”

  “Sly,” the girl said, embarrassed.

  “Most people don’t call me Baby,” I said, embarrassed too. “I’m Casey.”

  On Mrs. G.’s desk there had always been this picture with the name Sylvia written vertically on the page, each letter starting a different word. I always got a kick out of the first two:

  Smart

  Yes, excellent.

  (Y is a hard letter.)

  I did the same project in first grade, but mine’s not hanging anywhere.

  “And this is Zeke,” I said.

  “Sly? Are you, like, a fox or a raccoon or something? What kind of name is Sly?” Zeke asked. I was thinking that someone whose real name was Ezekiel should probably not have been speaking at that time.

  She nodded. “It’s better than Sylvia, isn’t it?”

  I had to agree. I wished my name had a cool nickname. Or at least a nickname that would keep people from assuming I was a girl.

  “How old are you?” Sylvia asked.

  “We’re eleven,” Zeke said. “Which is quite old.”

  “I’m twelve,” I reminded him. Like a lot of kids in Clay Coves with summer birthdays, my parents signed me up for an extra year of preschool, and now I’m one of the older kids in the grade. I like to hold that over Zeke whenever possible. “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Eight,” she said.

  And then we made a quick exit because I did not want to be spending this day hanging out with Mrs. G. and her granddaughter. I had waited all year for this! I was dying to see everyone.

  Preseason

  WE found Dad and his dad (my grandfather, Pop), and Bobbybo setting up one of the classrooms, unstacking chairs and pushing desks around.

  “Casey!” Bobbybo called, coming at me. There was this awkward “Do we high-five or fist-bump?” moment and then he just hugged me. He did the same to Zeke. “Where’ve you guys been?”

  “School,” I said.

  “You’re looking good, just like your old man,” Bobbybo said. I glanced at Dad, whose hair was too long and who needed to shave, but otherwise, yeah. He did look pretty good for an older guy.

  “Loose lips sink ships,” Pop said. Usually what he said made sense.

  Bobbybo shot a look at Dad, who gave a quick shake of his head. Did they think I was an idiot? Or blind? Something was going on.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Dad said, lining up desks evenly near the front of the classroom.

  Were people coming later than they said? Dad and Pop hated that—not a good way to begin.

  Usually, there’d be teams working in the different classrooms and lecture hall, but the building was quiet except for us. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Soupcan and Hank and Joe are out with the truck. And some are still on their way.”

  “What should me and Casey do?” Zeke asked. “Are the dorms open? Do you want us to make sure they’re clean? Or the lecture hall? The cages? Tell me. I’ll get right to work.”

  Zeke’s parents were both kind of laid-back people, two very calm dentists, and Zeke was this sort of always-bouncing ball. I guess his parents were always in motion too, in a way—they both worked almost all the time, but it was like they walked and talked and, I guess, worked, too, in slow motion. Kind of like that guy Mr. Rogers, who used to be on public television. And they were hardly ever home. But Zeke’s energy . . . there really was nothing quite like it.

  Pop was watching Zeke and shaking his head. “I’d like some of what he has,” Pop said.

  Dad laughed. “Casey, you and Zeke head out to the cages. Make sure the cameras are all working, the pitching machines, all of it.”

  “Right,” Zeke said. “Excellent.” You could probably tell him to scrub the toilets and clean out the goop at the bottom of the gym garbage pails and he’d thank you for the opportunity. I worried, not for the first time, about his parents’ choice to name him something that rhymed—so easily!—with freak. And geek.

  “Are you hungry?” Dad asked.

  Zeke nodded.

  “Okay, then. Let’s all go eat something first.”

  “I’ll keep working,” Bobbybo said.

  I knew there was, like, no food in the house. No one had gone shopping in a while. Even though it had been just the three of us for years, no one had yet figured out the grocery part of our daily lives. As we walked into the kitchen, Dad asked, “Casey, how are we for cereal?”

  Cereal we had.

  I pulled out three boxes and put them on the table. Pop got the milk. Dad grabbed some bowls, and Zeke pulled four spoons out of the drawer.

  “Here’s to a great beginning,” Zeke said with a big smile. We reached for our spoons, but he wasn’t done yet.

  (Pop couldn’t wait. He snuck a spoonful into his mouth.)

  “And here’s to teaching fair and foul. Safe and out. And doing whatever it takes to get it done.” He made us clink spoons before the rest of us could start eating.

  ***

  We were clearing the table when Dad said, “Casey, your mom called again.”

  I moved the bowls from where Zeke had put them, on the top shelf of the dishwasher, down to the bottom, where they fit better.

  “Casey?”

  “He heard you, Ibbit,” Zeke said.

  “All right, then. Pop and I will meet you at the cages. And, Casey, make sure you call your mother today.”

  We walked out to the gym, where I grabbed a handful of trash bags from the supply closet.

  “Why’s your dad all over you about your mom?” Zeke asked.

  I shrugged.

  “You been talking to her more?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hmm,” he said, as though he sensed deep meaning.

  Screwball

  LONG before I was born, back when Pop was an umpire for Major League Baseball, the grounds that now belonged to Behind the Plate were used by a reform school. I didn’t think they still had reform schools exactly. Dad said they probably called them something different now, like Attitude Improvement Academies or Boarding Schools for Pre-Criminals, but back then, this was where the bad boys of New Jersey—too youn
g for prison—had been sent.

  Reform-school students attended classes here and were also expected to maintain the grounds. Which could have made me feel like a reform-school kid. I did a lot of chores at BTP—checking inventory, ordering supplies, inspecting the dorms. It was expected of me, the same way a farm kid would know it was his job to milk the cows. Except . . . I wondered if farm kids minded doing their chores. Because I never did.

  Zeke, of course, didn’t have to do anything—but he loved this place as much as I did and spent nearly as much time here as I did. We only spent time at his house when we had to study for a big test or get school projects done—because there was nothing there that could distract us. Like, nothing. His parents were always at work, and their house was just . . . boring. They didn’t have any video games, no pets. There weren’t even any chores for us to do there. (Not that I was complaining about that.)

  There was always something to do, or watch, at BTP. Zeke once got to chalk the fields for a month, the year Pop had knee replacement surgery. It was the highlight of his life.

  The only thing Zeke liked as much as being part of BTP was watching reality TV. Stupid animal tricks, brainless gross-out challenges, talent show performances, all the garbage you could never pay me to watch—Zeke never missed it. He wanted nothing more than to be on one of those shows.

  He said it would be his claim to fame. Breaking into reality TV.

  The claim to fame I wanted was more serious: I wanted to write award-winning newspaper articles. It was weird—I didn’t know what they would be about. In fact, the only thing I could see was my byline—by Casey Snowden.

  I pushed open the door to the batting cages. The building used to be a garage for whatever kinds of vehicles they housed at reform schools, but it always looked more like a stable to me. There were five batting cages here, divided by netting and some kind of plasticky tarp. Each cage had a pitching machine and home plate/backstop set up and an Ibbit stick, the contraption Dad, aka Ibbit, invented to show students how to line up their feet when in the crouch behind the plate. (If you didn’t know what it was, you might wonder why someone would nail rulers and yardsticks together at weird angles.) Students came out here in groups of five every day to work on the mechanics of making calls behind the plate. Most students came to Academy with some umpiring experience—Little League, rec leagues, travel baseball, sometimes college ball. They knew the basics, but at BTP, we taught the exact-right way to umpire a game.