The Hitting Zone

It took a bit longer for Mr. Cameron to ask some more questions after talking to Zeke about his future options. He was very thorough in his questions about today, tomorrow, and the season. By the time he was done, Mrs. Atkins has already ended her phone call and was just waiting on us.

"Okay, one last thing boys. I would like to get a picture of all five of you together for a group shot." Mr. Cameron smiled at us, happy with all the notes he had written down.

I nervously looked at the Atkins. He said five. That includes me right? I've never had my picture taken before. What do I do?

Noah saw me inching away and quickly grabbed me. "Where do you think you're going? Come here. It's just a picture." He looked at Mr. Cameron. "How should we pose?"

Mr. Cameron started to arrange us. Noah and I would stand in the front, with his arm over my shoulders, like he usually does. The twins and Zeke stood behind us, with Zeke in between the twins. He had each twin put an elbow on Zeke, leaning on him, and Zeke had his arms across his chest, looking intimidating as always. "Looking good! Let me just snap a few. For the first one, let's use serious expressions."

He went on and on as he started clicking his camera. He kept picking out different expressions like frowns, smiles, and smirks, but I just stood there frozen. I just tried my best not to look terrified. Luckily he didn't comment on it and just ignored my awkwardness. After ten minutes he finally started to part ways.

"Well thanks you guys. Sorry to hold you up. I'll let you all get to dinner and head home. Rest well for tomorrow!" He lowered his voice and whispered. "I'll be cheering for you boys, but not aloud. Have to be non-biased in this job, you know."

They all laughed and started to say their goodbyes.

"Mr. Cameron, if that last group shot doesn't make it to the paper, can you send it to me?" Mrs. Atkins asked before we left.

Mr. Cameron nodded and held up his camera. "I'll send it all to your email. I took some during the game as well and captured some good action shots."

"Thanks!"

We finally separated and got to go back to the car. We stuffed all our bags in the trunk and got into the same seats we had sat in, on the way here. After discussion and hitting the road, Mr. and Mrs. Atkins decided that Kyle would get to pick what's for dinner since he had the most impressive performance.

"Hear that, mister-first-in-the-county-and-eighth-in-the-state?" Kyle taunted Zeke. "I had the better performance."

Zeke smirked. "You forgot 58th in the country. And I might even break the top 20."

Dave and Noah laughed.

"I." I coughed and cleared my throat. The car seemed to quiet down and so many eyes focused on me. "Uh. I didn't understand." I turned to Noah and pretended only he was listening. "What the guy was saying."

Noah squinted at me. "What part?"

I glanced at Zeke real quick.

"Ohhh." Noah nodded. "The talk about Zeke's future in baseball? Right, you wouldn't understand since you barely even know how high school baseball works."

"All you need to know, is that Zeke is good. Really good." Noah told me.

Dave snorted. "Don't ask Noah. He doesn't even know what's going on."

Kyle laughed. "Yea, it's something that really only affects upperclassmen."

Noah rolled his eyes. "I know a little."

"What did you not understand?" Zeke asked.

I looked at my hands, avoiding eye contact. "The letter? And quiet period. And ESPN 100."

"The ESPN 100 is just the top recruits in the country." Noah explained. "ESPN is the top sports channel. They have analysts and reporters everywhere. They have rankings for almost everything sports related. Like for high school baseball, they'll list the top 100 players and update it every few weeks. When it gets closer to draft day, they really emphasized the top 30 high schooler who could possibly be drafted."

Zeke nodded. "That's pretty much the gist of it. Unlike other professional sports, the MLB can draft high school players that just graduated. But that's rare. It's mostly college players unless you're really good."

"You're good." I whispered.

The twins laughed. "That's an understatement."

"The national letter of intent is kind of like a contract to go play at a college. I would commit to play for that school in exchange for a scholarship to pay for my education." Zeke told me. "When we spoke about the quiet period, it's a certain period of a few weeks where college coaches can't contact potential recruits. It'll end at the end of this month, and that's when I'll start thinking about what I want to do."

"Zeke has a lot of options." Kyle added. "He's good enough to possibly get drafted by a pro team so of course a lot of super colleges want to recruit him. By March, our house will have a ton of visitors and there'll be scouts showing up to watch him."

I looked in amazement at Zeke. I feel like he keeps getting better and better every time we spoke about baseball.

"It's harder to make a choice when you have so many options." Zeke faced forward and got into a more comfortable position. "There's a lot of pros and cons you have to go through for every opportunity. Some colleges are too far. Some don't offer enough scholarship money. Some won't have a shot at the college World Series. Some will require me to stay for the full four years before I go back to the draft. Then there's the MLB teams. Some will start you in the lowest of minor league teams and it'll take years to make it to the majors. Some will use you as a bargaining chip for trades. Then there's money to think about. The earlier you get picked, the more you get in bonus."

"You don't need to worry about money, Zeke." Mr. Atkins cut him off. "We've told you before. Pick what you want to do because you want to do it. Not because having a lot of money will help your future. You don't have to be so reasonable all the time."

The car went oddly silent. Even the twins had nothing to say. I looked at Noah but he just shrugged and pulled out his handheld video game. Maybe they have had this talk a few too many times and didn't want to continue anymore.

I sighed and looked out my window to watch the scenery. I didn't realize there was so much to baseball outside of games and practice. There's college and the MLB. Zeke would be a pro in the end no matter what path he takes, I'm positive.