The Hitting Zone

It was a great boy's weekend. The twins fought less. Zeke talked more than normal. Noah stayed out of trouble. And I hung out with them happily. Jeremy's team won both games we watched and invited us to dinner after Sunday's game.

With all of us together, it didn't feel like there was too much of an age gap between me and Jeremy. He was only three to four years older than Rhys and Zeke. Another year for the twins. Then seven years for Noah and I.

He got along great with everyone, especially when he talked about his early struggles in the minors. It's hard to believe that he went through a year long slump, but he did. And got out of it. Then reached the majors as young as he did.

"I'll debut before you." Noah said confidently as dinner was winding down. He clenched his fists. "That'll be my goal."

Kyle laughed at him. "Shouldn't your first goal be getting better at batting before the next season starts? Then graduating high school and even getting picked in the draft?"

"Not going to look at colleges?" Jeremy asked Noah after hearing Kyle.

Noah shook his head, then stopped and shrugged. "Mom will probably make me look like Zeke did, but I won't be going. It's just a waste of time. Of my time at least."

"Yea, don't knock the rest of us that picked college." Rhys laughed. "For the record, I don't think I'm wasting my time. And I know for a fact that Zeke isn't wasting his time."

Jeremy nodded. "I know some friends that just graduated and will graduate this upcoming year. College is perfect for furthering your education while working on your game. Yea, you're not getting paid, but minor league pay really sucks. I had to share a room with three other guys at one point."

Noah made a face. "Weren't you drafted near the top? Why didn't you just use your signing bonus-" He stopped suddenly and looked at Jeremy, apologetic. "Sorry. I just remembered."

Jeremy shrugged. "It's fine. It's not something I can hide from. I had given the majority of the money to my uncle and just lived from small paycheck to small paycheck. Absolutely brutal, but I didn't stay long at those lower levels. The worst was a winter league I did in Florida. Living conditions were almost bare minimum." He laughed. "It was a sight to see when I made my debut and the clubhouse supplied the food. I ate so much before the game that in the middle of an inning, I had to take a bathroom break. So embarrassing."

We laughed, imagining the sight of him rushing for the restroom.

"Those guys in San Diego never let me forget it either." He covered his face with a hand and shook his head. "I'll be hearing it for the rest of my life."

"There are worst debuts." Rhys said sympathetically.

We talked some more, then it was time to go. Jeremy waved and parted ways with us, heading to his own car. While the rest of us piled into our car and headed back to Rhys's house. We dropped him and Zeke off there instead of their college because apparently Rhys was going to take his car to school so they can have access to it.

Back home, Mom sent us straight to bed because it was still a school night. When I woke up the next morning, I found Noah doing some ab exercises on the floor of our room.

I frowned. "How long have you been up?"

"Twenty minutes ago." He huffed.

I rolled out of bed and joined him on the floor.

He grinned at my actions, but didn't say anything.

I copied his movements.

Throughout the week, we got into the routine of doing those ab workouts in the mornings. We didn't have time for long morning runs before school so this would have to do.

At the beginning of Thursday's practice, Coach made a few announcements including the closing of the signup sheet for pitchers who wanted to challenge me after Friday's scrimmage. He also told us that we would start using the new gym on Monday's and Wednesday's so we had to be sure to have tennis shoes.

"Are we all going to fit?" Someone asked.

Coach shook his head. "Not everyone will go. Depends on the groups. Some weeks there will be players who go twice, some once, and some none." He continued. "Maybe in a month or two, I'll switch it up. Eventually when we divide you into teams, each team will have its own day and time."

"I hope to be the person that doesn't go at all." Noah told me. "We have weights at home we can use. I don't want to give up valuable practice time for that."

"Jeremy said it was important to build your strength though." I reminded him. "We can also practice at home, but the gym will have weights and machines that we don't have at home."

Noah made a face. "Tsk. I can't believe you're for this."

I grinned. "I know how important it is to build up strength. When I was in the hospital for a long period of time, it was really hard to move after I recovered."

Noah laughed. "I remember the first time you ran with me. I guess I could imagine what it was like for you in the hospital." He paused. "You don't talk about that much."

I shrugged. "There's not much to say. I did nothing. I spoke to no one. It was...a very lonely time in my life."

Noah reached out to pat me on the back. "Just a memory now."

I nodded. Yea. It was just a memory now. A memory that was growing older by the day. Probably won't be something I forget though.

Coach held me back after practice, passing me a list of names. "Here's a copy of tomorrow's challengers. They've already picked what catcher they're going to use and I noted that down in case you cared. I also organized the list in the way they'll go. I grouped it by what catcher they're going to use, so the catchers didn't have to constantly change out."

"Wow." I stared at the full page of names and counted. "Twenty-six?" I looked up at Coach. "Do we really have this many pitchers in the program?"

He laughed. "Not usually. Or at least we don't actively use them. Some boys like to think they're 'pitchers' but we might only use them as outfielders. I think this week will only have a lot because everyone wants an easy ride to being a member of the varsity team."

"So some of them aren't even pitchers at all?" Noah laughed. "Jake is going to kill them on one pitch."

I thought about it. "One pitch? Shouldn't I let them do more?"

Coach shook his head. "No. You go at this like you need to put the ball in play no matter what. Don't give them any freebies. They want a spot on varsity, then they have to prove it." He patted me on the shoulder. "If I see you go easy on them, it's your roster spot that's in jeopardy."

My face fell.

"That's not funny, Coach." Noah told him.

Coach grinned. "Who said I was joking?"