{"id":698,"date":"2013-07-29T07:06:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T15:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=698"},"modified":"2013-07-29T07:06:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T15:06:04","slug":"team-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/29\/team-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards<\/em><\/p>\n

The Skipper hadn\u2019t said a word yet. Pacing in front of the boys, in his baseball pants, a size too small. His baseball shirt a size too big and his nylon manager\u2019s jacket, against the cold March air. His grey mustache, big enough to hide his mouth, stained in places with tobacco. Pacing back and forth, looking at these men, these grown men with their salaries and their agents and their endorsements and their fans. All of them in their uniforms too, some of them shivering, most of them scowling, casting glances around at each other or the gray sky or the sunflower seed shells all over the dugout floor or the splatters of \u2018bacco juice or the skip, pacing back and forth. Wad in the skip\u2019s cheek as big as a golf ball or maybe a cantaloupe or even a pluot. The skip spat another spit of \u2018bacco juice into the dirt, even though the floor of the dugout was concrete, and even so it made a ding like he\u2019d hit a spittoon. A big fancy brass one. \u201cSo what I\u2019m saying,\u201d the skipper said \u201cis you got to put the bat on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The boys looked at each other, frowning. Behind the skip, the assistant manager stood there, stoic, with his clipboard and his sweatshirt and his big ass whistle, which had not been blown once in ten years of assistant managering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t one for speeches,\u201d the skip said. \u201cWords ain\u2019t what I do.\u201d He spat again, ding. \u201cBut I know one thing. One word that pretty much sums up this stupid game.\u201d He stopped, suddenly, and somehow peered at every single one of them in the eye. \u201cYou put the bat on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of them nodded. Some of them rolled their eyes. Some of them secretly fondled their smart phones in the pockets of their nylon team jackets.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou. Carlos.\u201d<\/p>\n

One them looked up. \u201cIt\u2019s Gregory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSame thing. You put the bat on the ball?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregory frowned, looked around, got no support from the other boys. \u201cI\u2019m a pitcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip paused for a moment, chewing furiously. \u201cDid I stutter?\u201d Spit, ding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the AL, skip.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip nodded. \u201cIf I wanted sass, I\u2019d go watch a movie in a negro theater. Answer muh question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregory tried not to smile, succeeded \u201cThat\u2019s\u2026 that\u2019s racist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip just shook his head. \u201cSparky, am I holding a ticket stub?\u201d<\/p>\n

The assistant manager checked his clipboard. \u201cNo skip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust checking.\u201d He went back to pacing. \u201cYou put the bat on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murmurs, knuckle- cracks, the slick and slither of nylon jackets elbowing each other in the frosty dugout.<\/p>\n

The skip spat again, nearly hitting one boy in the shoe, who nevertheless dodged it. \u201cYou, what\u2019s your name, Rodriguez.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Sanchez.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip nodded. \u201cWhere you from, Rodriguez.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dominican Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spit, ding. \u201cNo, before that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, Santo Domingo?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, before that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Geronimo?\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip nodded, scowled, stopped pacing, stuffed a little more chew into his cheek, took up pacing again. \u201cThey play ball there, Rodriguez?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez smiled. \u201cThat\u2019s all they do, skip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo they put the bat on the a ball?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pause. \u201cThat\u2019s all they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWrite that down, Sparky.\u201d Spit, ding.<\/p>\n

Sparky wrote it down.<\/p>\n

The boys were silent, watching the manager. The cold March air was getting colder. The view from the dugout was gray misty sky. Some of them thought about their wives, their kids, the small-town parade if they ever made it back home. Apple pie and sitting onna bale of hay, gingham dresses and a coy little wink, curly blonde hair and the way she smelled in the spring-time sun, her hand so frail and smooth taking his and leading him \u2018round back of the clapboard church, the doors of the old hand-dug cellar yawning open, down into the cool darkness, the way she put those leather straps on his wrists and ankles, cutting his clothes away with a rusty knife and forcing the dog collar on him and whipping him until he cried for his mommy and his body failed him and he hung there in chains and the terrible stink of his own fear.<\/p>\n

Spit, ding. \u201cSparky, what\u2019s the team ERA?\u201d<\/p>\n

The assistant manager checked his clipboard. \u201c2.32.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip nodded. \u201cNot bad, not bad. How many Ks we getting per game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, about ten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot bad, not bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were number one in the league last year,\u201d a voice said from the back.<\/p>\n

The skip stopped, a statue. \u201cWhaju say boy?\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd of nylon team jackets parted to reveal a shorter-than average little runt of a man, head bowed, poking at a cell phone like he was a five year old kid and the phone was a dead bird. Probably a god damned short stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the lowest runs-against last year, Manless got the Golden Glove, we had only 55 errors, which broke all the records.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip started to spit, but couldn\u2019t. \u201cWhaju say, boy?\u201d<\/p>\n

The kid finally looked up. \u201cYou asked what our ERA was and then said \u2018Not bad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip folded his arms, leaned back, peered at the kid. \u201cGonna have to try harder, boy, I didn\u2019t go to no college.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou said \u2018not bad\u2019 like it could be better. I couldn\u2019t be better. It was already the best. We\u2019re number one in, like, seven categories.\u201d The boy looked nervous, real nervous, and had to swallow a few times. \u201cSo back off,\u201d he managed, in a small voice, the kind short-stops use.<\/p>\n

Around him, the rest of the team was utterly silent. Utterly still, and yet edging away from him as much as possible.<\/p>\n

The skip slowly extended an arm, pointing at the field \u201cThat look like the sorta place where seven categories wins balls games,\u201d spit, ding, \u201cboy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, sort of, I mean-\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go out there today, you gonna wave seven categories in the other team\u2019s face, hope they just give up and go home to their kids and their nintendos, boy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday? It\u2019s the middle of March!\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip put his hands on his hips, legs wide for balance, leaned back and looked up at the sky , chewing noisily, and muttered \u201cWell goddamn.\u201d He spat, looked at the boy. \u201cYou some kind of genius? Is that what I\u2019m dealing with here today, son? A bona-fide genius?\u201d<\/p>\n

The kid shrugged. The rest of the team remained invisible.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, what I figgered. This kid\u2019s a genius. Write that down; Sparky, Rodriguez here is a genius.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparky wrote it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, my name\u2019s Cordry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spit, ding. \u201cAlright then. We\u2019ll do it the college way. Now.\u201d Chew, peer, chew, eyes narrow, chew some more. \u201cWhat\u2019s this game called?\u201d<\/p>\n

The kid scowled the scowl of a four-year-old forced to sit there until he ate his peas. \u201cBaseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skip nodded. \u201cWhat\u2019s the last part?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBall,\u201d the kid said, still frowning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the first part?\u201d<\/p>\n

The kid puffed a sigh, barely controlled an eye-roll. \u201cBase.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the e silent, you college- goin\u2019 sumbitch?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes?\u201d Around him, the team started becoming visible again, edging a bit closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what\u2019s after S in the alphabet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Counts on his fingers. \u201cT.\u201d Teammates started looking at each other, eyes wide, grins slowly emerging. The gray March sky seeming not so gray, not so March.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what\u2019s that make with a silent e?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pause, big grin, \u201cBat!\u201d A few giggles, a couple of chortles from the team. A \u201cyeah\u201d and a \u201cyou tell \u2018im!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what\u2019s that all together?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBat-ball!\u201d The team jumps to their feet, tackling the kid, as if they stadium wasn\u2019t empty but full of roaring fans and the kid returning from a grand-slam homerun in the top of the eighth, putting them up by three and that much closer to only one game back, just one game back and they\u2019d be looking at a possible division win for the first time in a decade, rolling all over each other in the dug out while the fans go nuts and the PA blares their theme song, this crazy group of guys rolling around in their nylon team jackets smeared and splattered with tobacco juice and field dirt and broken sunflower seeds, the sweat and tears of 155 stupid games in the hottest summer on record and all that hard work finally starting to pay off, rolling around in the frigid dugout in the middle of march and wind whipping, ignored by all of them, around the utterly empty stadium.<\/p>\n

The skipper stood there, looking at them, nodding his head like a general nods at a battlefield strewn with dead bodies. \u201cNow, that\u2019s called the Socrates way.\u201d Chew, spit, ding. \u201cYou put the bat on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards The Skipper hadn\u2019t said a word yet. Pacing in front of the boys, in his baseball pants, a size too small. His baseball shirt a size too big and his nylon manager\u2019s jacket, against the cold March air. His grey mustache, big enough to hide his mouth, stained in places with … <\/p>\n

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