Screaming at the Ump Read online

  Zeke was examining a video camera. “Can you give me one of those memory cards?” he asked, pointing at the little box where we kept all the camera stuff.

  I handed him one. “We forgot the first-aid kits,” I said. “I’ll check on those. Be right back.”

  I walked through the gym back to the first classroom, where the desks were already in neat rows. I finally found Dad and Bobbybo unstacking desks in the classroom at the end of the hall. Pop was supervising.

  “Do you need the first-aid kits restocked?”

  “It’s on the master list, isn’t it?” Pop said.

  “We probably won’t need them right away,” Dad said.

  “Famous last words,” Pop said.

  “Well, we don’t do much fieldwork at first, so no opportunity for anyone to get hurt.”

  “Then watch a student get stabbed with a pencil in the first hour here. It’s never a mistake to be ready for everything.”

  Bobbybo smiled at me, and I knew why—Pop always spoke in life lessons, and I bet he’d missed Pop, and Dad, and everything. I was sure Behind the Plate was a hard place to be away from. Luckily, I never had to find out for myself.

  “Just tell Mrs. G. you’re taking care of it,” Dad said. “So she can mark it off the list.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  I crossed the hallway to the office. Mrs. G. was sitting with her granddaughter.

  “Hi, Sly,” I said. For some reason, my voice sounded like I was talking to a baby. She scowled at me.

  “Baby, you know my daughter, Dana, right?” Mrs. G. said.

  I’d heard of her. I nodded.

  “She’s been taking on some extra jobs—you know how that goes. She’ll be coming to pick up Sylvia later.”

  Mrs. G. talked to me sometimes like I was fifty or something. “Sure, sure,” I said. Because I couldn’t really say, “Mrs. G., I’m twelve. What do you think I really know about extra jobs and little kids?” Not to mention mothers.

  She was still talking. “Anyway, Dana’s sitter quit, so I have Sylvia with me here today. Is there anything she can do to help you boys get ready?”

  “Sly!” the girl said. “No one calls me Sylvia, Grandma.”

  “I don’t think so, thanks. I was just getting the first-aid—”

  “That is exactly the kind of thing Sylvia can do. Get the kits—they’re in the clos—Oh, why am I telling you? Sylvia, this boy could run this whole school by himself if he had to.”

  I didn’t really think I could run the school, but I did know a lot.

  I pulled the first-aid boxes from the supply closet, then climbed to the top shelf and pushed aside random spare parts from leg guards, helmets, and chest protectors (the Snowdens were of the you-never-know-when-you-might-need-this school of never throwing anything away) until I found the checklist of all the things that needed to be in each kit.

  I showed Sly the list and explained that she needed to open every kit, check the expiration dates, count out bandages, and make sure everything on the list was in the box.

  “Hey, what if a bandage is kind of gross, like this one?” She held one up that was half opened and nasty looking.

  “Then you throw it out.”

  “Could I keep it?”

  The kid was creepy. “I guess,” I said.

  “Cool.”

  By the time I got back to the batting cages, Zeke had finished checking all the cameras. He was holding one and playing with its buttons.

  “Does your dad know this one’s broken?” he asked.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “This thing doesn’t stay closed, so you have to keep your hand on it. It’s no big deal or anything, as long as whoever’s using this camera knows about it.”

  Dad and Pop joined us then, and Zeke showed them the sort-of-broken camera.

  “So how many are working?” Dad asked.

  “The other four are fine. And this one still works. You just have to hold it shut.”

  “You never want to make it easy for someone to screw up,” Pop said.

  “We have what,” Dad said, “eighty students? Four cameras’ll be enough. But let’s replace that one so we’re ready for next year.”

  “You can probably get it fixed, right?” Zeke said.

  “It’s usually as much to fix it as it is to replace it, and that’s a pretty old one,” Dad said.

  Wait, what? Did Dad say eighty? That had to be wrong. There were always at least a hundred students for Academy.

  “I have this idea,” Zeke said before I could ask. I managed not to groan.

  Dad said, “Let me guess: You want to keep the camera.”

  “No,” Zeke said. “I mean, that wasn’t my idea. But wow, yeah. Sick! I do.” He looked at me. “But wouldn’t you want it?” he asked.

  Sly walked in with two first-aid kits. “Where do I put these?” she asked me.

  “Why’s the kid here?” Zeke asked.

  Pop fake-slapped Zeke’s head with his open hand. “Don’t be rude. This is Mrs. G.’s granddaughter, Sylvia.”

  “Sly,” she said with a sigh.

  “So I had this IDEA,” Zeke said again. “Have you ever thought of shooting before-and-after videos of each student?”

  “We film them every day,” Pop said. “In the cages.”

  “No,” Zeke said, “I mean if I get each student out on the field, doing calls behind the plate the first few days and then again at the end of the session. The cage tapes are so gradual, but if you showed a real before-and-after tape—”

  “Excuse me,” Sly said. “Where are the cages?”

  “These are the cages, sweetheart,” Pop said, motioning to the whole building.

  “You lock people in there or animals?”

  “No,” I said. “No one gets locked in. They’re called batting cages.”

  “So they practice batting hits in there?”

  “Where’s Mrs. G.?” Pop said, his patience suddenly evaporated. “Let me take you back to the office.”

  “Thanks for bringing out the first-aid kits,” Dad said. Then he turned to Zeke and said, “I like the idea, but you can’t do all that camera work. I’ll put some staff on it too. It’s a good idea. You can help out after school.”

  Even I had to admit it—it was good. The students all improved so much, and seeing it like that, on video, would be really sweet.

  Zeke was still beaming as we headed back outside. “About that camera,” he said. “Your dad should have offered it to you first. I mean, he’s YOUR dad.”

  “He knows I wouldn’t use it,” I said. The thought of going out and filming stuff did seem pretty cool, but I knew I’d never really do it. There was this big box of stuff, unused stuff, in my room: lacrosse stick, bowling ball in a rolling case, microscope. I knew the camera would just get added to it.

  But I did have a quick and bad thought about how we might actually be helping Zeke achieve his stupid goal of getting something on TV by putting a camera in his hand. It was as though I could see this huge banner headline: BREAKING NEWS: GUESS WHO GAVE REALITY TV’S ZEKE THE FREAK THE CAMERA?

  Teammates

  ZEKE and I were sitting in the center of the gym, surrounded by a sea of registration papers. I looked a second time at the form in my hand. “I didn’t know there was a woman this year,” I said. “June Sponato.”

  “I love the lady umpires!”

  Zeke really did. Every few years, a woman signed up, but none of them had been very . . . girlie. Students all wore the same gray-pants-blue-shirt-and-hat uniform, and the women pretty much blended in. Zeke always held out hope that some contestant from America’s Next Top Model was going to sign up at BTP.

  “So no roommate, right?”

  “Not unless there’s another woman,” I said. “Put her on the third floor. She’ll get that extra bathroom all to herself.”

  This was the absolute highlight of getting ready for Academy. We were checking the list over to catch things a computer might miss, like making
sure no woman had been assigned to room with a man. But really, what we were hoping to discover was the next great roommate name matchup. Dad’s umpire-school roommate had been Joseph Costello. Everyone called them Abbott and Costello, and somehow—this is the part I always wondered about, but Dad said he had no idea how it happened—Abbott turned into Ibbit, which is what everyone but Pop and I called him now.

  I loved this part, the name part. I guess there was a pretty good reason for it—my own stupid name. The way the story goes: my parents could not agree on a name, even after I was born. For days, the names my dad liked—Jeter, Gehrig, Robinson—were all just too much baseball for my mother. Finally, still unable to agree when I was almost a week old, she asked Dad, “Wasn’t there a poem or something about a baseball player named Casey? Could we maybe compromise and go with that?”

  She was right. There was. A very famous poem. But somehow, neither one of them thought about the fact that they were naming me for a fictional guy famous for striking out. I guess it’s better than naming me after Babe Ruth—a pig’s name AND a girl’s name. So I’ve got that going for me.

  Zeke was running down the student list with his index finger, and he stopped at room 208. “We’ve got a Bob Franklin and a Robbie Franklin, one from Delaware and one from West Orange. What’s the call?”

  “Same last name, probably both Robert, but different nicknames. Let’s come back to that.”

  “Okey dokey,” Zeke said. “Oh, look at this. “Didn’t we have a whole group of Mcs and Macs last year too?” Zeke asked. He read their names out loud: “MacGregor, Mackenzie, MacNamara, MacSophal, McDonaldson.”

  “I think that was the year before,” I said. “Did we end up breaking those pairs up into different rooms? No, wait. No! We realized later that we should have, because they all called each other Mac, remember?”

  “But then they started with Big Mac and Fat Mac and Forehead Mac, right? You know I’m a fan of the creative nicknames.”

  “Yeah. But let’s break those all up this year.”

  Zeke was staring at the printout. “MacSophal,” he said. “Remember that name?”

  “Yeah, you just said it.”

  “Come on. Stay with me, Snowden. MacSophal. Remember J-Mac?”

  “That relief pitcher with the Phillies? The steroid guy with the crazy beard?”

  “Jimmy MacSophal,” he said.

  I reached for the dorm roommate form. “This guy’s name’s Patrick.”

  “Oh,” Zeke said. “Different guy.”

  “What,” I said laughing, “you thought some former major leaguer was going to attend BTP?”

  Zeke shrugged. We got back to work.

  I heard a little girl’s voice ask “What are you doing?” I hadn’t even heard the door open.

  Zeke whispered, “No. Make her go away.”

  Pop once told me that if you see a stray dog, you don’t make eye contact. You remain calm, and you pretend it’s not there. You never look its way. That was my plan. And, apparently, Zeke’s too. It was one of those unspoken things between friends.

  Even though I was busy very much not watching Mrs. G.’s granddaughter, I could sort of feel her . . . walking around us. Like she was studying us or something. I wasn’t even sure I knew what the word meant, but I had the feeling she was skulking.

  “So back to the Franklins,” Zeke said. “The call is Robbie/Bob, too close or different enough to be roommates without confusion?”

  “I could go for Robbie/Bob under normal circumstances,” I said, still not looking at the girl. “But in this case, we have the same last name. So many guys go by their last names, right? Like remember Mankowitz? Hey, Mankowitz!”

  Stan Mankowitz was the shortest student in BTP history. I had no idea who suggested umpiring as a possible profession to him, but that person steered him wrong. You need to be able to see over the catcher. Dad and Pop tried everything, using phone books and stools for him to stand on, but he dropped out after the first two weeks.

  Mankowitz!

  “What’re all these papers?” Sly asked.

  “Your name is Sylvia, right?” Zeke said.

  “Sly.”

  “Don’t you have some other place to be?” Zeke asked. His voice was a little nasty, but Sly didn’t know him well enough to notice.

  She shook her head.

  To Zeke, I said, “Split up the Franklins.”

  “Got it, chief.”

  Sly either hadn’t noticed that we were ignoring her or didn’t care. “So this is where you teach the baseball?”

  I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t want to start. Zeke and I waited all year for this, and yeah, it was true that we loved it way more than two guys our age should have, but there was just no room for an annoying little kid here right now.

  “Can I help?” Sly asked.

  “Not really,” I said, still not making eye contact. “Maybe you could ask your grandmother if there’s anything else on the master list you could do. Me and Zeke got this covered.”

  “She sent me out to ask you.”

  “Well, like he said,” Zeke said, “we’re good. Tell your grandma we said thanks.”

  I knew he thought that would send her scampering back to Mrs. G., but this girl clearly wanted to hang with Zeke. And me.

  “That’s okay. I’ll just stay here with you guys and help.”

  “Oh, you know what she should do?” Zeke said.

  “What might that be, Ezekiel?”

  “Room fresheners!”

  I loved that guy. Seriously, sometimes he just pulled one out.

  LEMON-SCENTED HAIL-MARY PLAY SAVES DAY.

  I told Sly to ask her grandmother where to find the plug-in room deodorizers and to put one in each dorm room and one in each bathroom outlet. Umpire-school students, for some reason, tended to be on the stinky side.

  Zeke and I high-fived each other all over the place when she left and moved through the list a little faster than we might have otherwise, knowing we were on limited time. Everything went well, but there was no great roommate name pair to be found this year. We ended up with one guy in a single room—June Sponato had thrown off the even matchups.

  We went to the dorm and worked our way down the hall, starting on the first floor. The carpet was getting kind of rundown here, and there was this old-building smell. I didn’t think it was mold, but it had something to do with moisture or humidity or something. That was just how it was—old boarding schools don’t smell great. Maybe the room fresheners would help.

  We started to hang names on the doors—all doubles, except for a single name on June’s room and one on the door for Jorge Washington. It reminded me of the time a few years ago when Zeke tried hanging his own name on one of the doors. But he never needed to do that. It was just a fact that he practically lived here for the whole Academy. His parents didn’t expect him to even check in with them—they knew where to find him.

  We finished hanging all the names. But it seemed like way too many rooms were empty. Were there really just eighty students this year?

  Cut from the Team

  OUR house used to be the headmaster’s house, back in its reform-school days, and there was a certain old weirdness to it that I really loved. There were a lot of little rooms, and we used many of them in ways that probably were not intended whenever this house was built. Like one room that was probably supposed to be the dining room was stuffed with dirty old equipment bags filled with baseballs, gloves, catching gear, and old bases. Another had the furniture from Pop’s house, from back when Grandma was still alive, when I was just a baby. It was a dark room with dark wood furniture, really heavy, sitting up against the walls, some of it covered with cloth. A lot of framed photos that used to be all over the house were now in that room, too, mostly wedding pictures of my parents.

  There was one of Dad and Pop on the day my parents got married. Pop was taller than Dad then. And now he was shorter. (They were briefly the same height again after Pop’s double knee rep
lacement surgery. Apparently new knees make you taller.) And there was one of my dad—at least they told me it was my dad—when he was about my age. My mother, or Mrs. Bob the Baker, as I called her, always loved that picture. The weirdest thing was that how he looked then, in that picture, looked just like me now, except his hair was darker and shorter. Mine was on the brown side of blond, and his was more straight-up brown. But everything else—the sort of long shape of the face, skinny kid body, even the way he was standing—seemed just like me. I kept meaning to bring that picture to my room.

  When my mother left, we closed off the whole third floor. Three guys just didn’t need that much house. All that used to be up there was her office and a room she called the craft room but hardly ever used, a bathroom with a leaky tub, and a guest room that we didn’t need because the only guests who came were students, and they stayed in the dorms. A long time ago, Pop lived up on the third floor too, but as his body parts started giving out, he moved down to the second floor, near my room and Dad’s.

  The one room that got a lot of use at our house was the kitchen. At dinnertime. Zeke and I joined Dad and Pop there for our annual day-before pizza. Like always, Dad had sent staff to have dinner in town at the Well.

  I sometimes checked on Pop for signs of wear. That was a term Mrs. G. used when she inspected old classroom equipment. Every year when Academy rolled around, I looked at Pop to see if he seemed like he was getting really old. But he was like one of those old-school baseball managers who look the same every year. Maybe it was the baseball cap he always wore, but I bet it was more than just that. Those old-time managers, usually ones who played ball before managing, have these smart-seeming eyes, eyes that have seen a lot of ball. Pop’s eyes were like that. When Pop watched students, his eyes often had something like fire in them. But when he looked at me, there was this really obvious . . . love.