The Summer of the Homerun Read online

back and yelled, "Play ball."

  That's easy for you to say, I thought.

  The batter stepped in and suddenly the target that Ray was holding up was way too small. I wanted to yell into him to get a bigger glove. All that space around home plate that I had before was gone, filled up by the body of this kid and his bat that he waved it over the plate two or three times.

  I must have closed my eyes when I threw the ball, because all I heard was Ray shouting, "Look out!"

  When I looked up, the batter was sitting in the dirt, trying to hold on to his helmet. He had a wild look in his eyes like he had just seen his future flash before

  him. I wanted to say I was sorry. I mean, he was just a little kid. He had his whole life ahead of him. Ray chased the ball down near the backstop. That must have been some pitch. "Hang in there, Smitty," Ray yelled, grinning. "Just throw to the glove."

  And I guess things got better, because I got to pitch a lot after that. Of course there was the time when with a runner on first, I went into a full wind-up instead of

  pitching from the stretch and about halfway through thought, "I'm not supposed to do it this way," and stopped, took my foot off the rubber, rearranged my feet to go into a stretch, and leaned over ready to throw home. By the time I got this all worked out, the runner was on third, Ray, laughing, was trying to call time-out, and Coach looked like he'd eaten something bad.

  But I'd become a pitcher. And nothing was going to change that top-of-the-world feeling, ever.

  Or so I thought.

  Who could have figured that one hit would have made so much difference? Guys had hit home runs before. Tommy had hit five already.

  It wasn't even the game-winner. We were eight runs ahead when the New Kid came up. But something changed.

  The New Kid always used this weird little bat. The first time we saw it way back at the beginning of the season when Coach dumped out the bat bag for the first time, nobody touched it. It just sat in the dust like a bone or something that just appeared, an ancient relic dug up when some runner slid into a base. It had a skinny barrel, maybe four inches around, and the handle tapered down to a little nub. There didn't seem to be any writing on it, you know, like a brand name or anyone's signature burned into the wood; I mean it wasn't a Roger Maris model by a long shot. It looked like a Little League bat, except none of us had ever seen one that looked so old. Tommy said he bet that Ron had carved it from a tree branch, it looked so odd. Ronnie carried this big-ass knife and was always carving stuff.

  We all stood around it just looking at it, like we were waiting for it to, I don't know, talk or something. Finally the New Kid pushed into the circle and picked up the little bat. He examined it end to end, banged the handle on home plate a couple of times and said, "Well, it ain't broken. Maybe it's got some hits in it." Then he walked away. Sometimes we had trouble figuring out the New Kid.

  How many hits that little bat had in it nobody could know. But it had one home run.

  It happened in the fifth inning and we were way ahead.

  Their pitcher was supposed to be some Little League ace. Well, this wasn't Little League and we were shelling him. Not that it mattered who threw the ball.

  I was on deck, just watching as the New Kid batted. He had a slight crouch and rocked his shoulders forward so that his left arm was slightly below his right when he swung. The kid pitcher threw the ball toward the plate, and the New Kid swung.

  When the ball hit the bat it was the loudest crack I had ever heard, like the sky opened up.

  For an instant everyone on the field except the left fielder and the New Kid just stood and stared into the sky over left. There was no sound except for the soft

  puff-puff of the New Kid's spikes pounding the dust of the base path as he ran hard. "Slow down," someone said as he charged into second, tagged the bag and made the turn for third. "It hasn't even landed yet."

  And it wouldn't for several more seconds. The New Kid glanced over his right shoulder to find the ball and then straightened up; he slowed his dash to a trot, then to a walk. On third, he joined the standing players watching as the ball landed soundlessly at the other end of the park.

  It hit once and rolled to a stop near the pitcher's mound on the other diamond. It had to be four hundred feet if it was an inch.

  For a moment the only person moving was the left fielder. When the ball was hit, he stood still a second -- he just raised his head, trying to pick up the ball's flight out of the blue sky beyond -- and then he slowly turned and ran back. In a second he was tearing back as fast as he could, head down, arms and glove flying all over the place. When he looked up again a few steps later, the ball had already overtaken him and was still climbing in its massive arc. The fielder turned in a complete circle, looking back for the ball while still running forward, and then stumbled as he turned again running after the sphere, not to catch it, but to retrieve it. Then he, too, stopped running. The ball landed still a hundred feet beyond him. He threw his glove at it.

  I had never seen a ball hit that far or that high. I was standing at attention just watching when I became aware that Ray and Tommy were at my side. The three of us stood in silent awe as the ball dropped from the clear blue sky

  through a green stripe of trees and then landed and bounced once, as if dropped from a passing plane. It seemed so far away.

  The ball seemed to be something other than an object struck by a wooden bat and sent sailing through the air over the park; it was more like a bird, something with an intelligence of its own, or like time itself moving as we

  stopped to gaze and wonder.

  After the ball landed, the New Kid stepped on third base and completed in a slow trot the circling of the bases. When he finally crossed home plate and returned to the bench, all anyone could say was, "Nice hit."

  July became August and by the middle of the month the season was over. Football practice started. The thoughts of the home run that changed the summer faded into the grunts of shoulder pads and blocking sleds.

  . September came, school opened and the world got busy again. Sandy Miller and I still hadn't dated, and now that she was a cheerleader, the prospect seemed doomed. But we did talk a lot more. And walked home together more often. For a while it seemed that we would never catch up with all the

  things that we had to tell people we hadn't seen in two months or we'd never get used to the new teachers or the schedules. Or find our lockers. Or stop talking about the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Half the time we were talking about beating Cortland on Saturday, and the other half, wondering what our mothers would say if we got our hair cut like John Lennon.

  Anyway, we beat Cortland 30 to 6 and the bus ride home was filled with loud cheer and happy talk. I was going over a play with Tommy -- he blocked a punt and rolled on the bouncing ball in the end zone for a touchdown -- when from the middle of the bus I heard Ray say, " ... And then someone said, ‘slow down it hasn't even landed yet.’ ” Tommy and I exchanged startled glances and then laughed as Ray's voice and the rest of the story was lost in the swelling chatter.

  I just looked out the window at the grey landscape.

  But even then, and just for a moment, I felt the July sun on my neck.

  I had stayed behind after everyone went home that day.

  A wind had come up and I could smell the chocolate being cooked again. It was more like I had become aware of the aroma that surrounded me as if just the moment before I had been dead.

  That home run, I thought, as I gazed into left field of our diamond, then into right field of the field beyond that, and at the pitcher's mound in the middle of the

  infield and tried to see the ball landing all over again. It seemed so far away.

  I had saved an old scuffed-up ball we were tossing around before the game, and I pulled it from my glove. Then I threw it toward left field. It arced through the air and plopped into the grass. I ran to where it had stopped rolling and looked back toward home plate. Not
a bad toss, but I had a long way to go.

  I threw the ball again and made right field of the other diamond. I guessed I could reach the mound in one more throw and aimed the ball high so it would land squarely and not roll much. That was how the home run landed -- straight down like a rocket exploding out of the sky.

  I walked slowly over to where the ball rested in the grass between first base and the mound and looked back into the sun, now setting near the tree line to the west.

  I looked back to a spot just to the right of the plate where I imagined the New Kid at bat, slightly crouched, pointing that short, skinny bat over his right shoulder. And then he swung. I tried to follow the flight of the ball, but the sphere was lost in the golden haze as if swallowed by the sun itself. I imagined the sound of the contact finally reaching me, a soft "puck," and saw the New Kid steaming

  past first, head down, arms swinging, taking second, and only then straightening up, looking skyward for the ball, slowing to a walk and finally standing on third. After a moment he turned, tagged the base and trotted home.

  Each movement was majestic, fulfilled, as if meant to be only once.

  I started the walk back to my bike. About halfway back, somewhere out in left-center of the regular diamond, I stopped and looked around. I had hit a home run in a game in April that had landed about where I stood. I remember jumping in the air a little as I passed second after