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  “And trust me, Jeter, we will be victorious—if you take on your half of the responsibility.”

  “Huh? What do you mean by that?” Derek asked, taking offense.

  Gary put a hand on one hip and looked over at the chart Derek had been trying without success to put together for the past half hour. “I mean that. That mess you’ve got there. What exactly is that supposed to be, anyway?”

  “It’s our team’s batting averages, game to game. I tried putting it in crosswise, but I think I did it wrong.”

  “You did do it wrong, of course,” said Gary, as obnoxious as ever.

  “Well, I don’t really get how it’s supposed to look. It’s not my fault. We haven’t really done graphs.”

  “What are you talking about? We did them back in November, remember?”

  “I was sick with chicken pox those two weeks, remember?” Derek shot back smartly.

  Gary sighed as if he were carrying a sack of heavy stones. “I can tell I’m going to have to get this team across the finish line by myself. Here, let me show you how it’s done.”

  Derek wanted to argue, but he wanted even more to let Gary make the chart for him. Five minutes later it was done, and perfectly.

  “Thanks, Gary,” said Derek sincerely. “I appreciate the help. Now if you could just take five more minutes to explain it to me, so I can understand it.”

  “Why should I waste five precious minutes of my life to teach you what you should have learned yourself months ago?”

  “Just because . . . because we’re friends.”

  “Friends?” Gary could not have looked more stunned.

  Derek suddenly had a great idea. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t occurred to him before.

  “And because we’re friends now, if you help me out and explain graphs to me so I can ace that part of the math final, I’ll help you with your fielding!”

  “Huh?”

  “Your fielding, man! Now that you can hit, it’s the only thing keeping you from being a decent ballplayer. Just think, you might even shut those kids up who’ve been making fun of you all this time! And we might just start winning some ball games.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Come on!” Derek said, getting excited about the idea of coaching Gary and improving his game. “All you have to do is show up at the Hill after school tomorrow. I’ll get Vijay and Dave out there to help us too. It’ll take only an hour or so. Come on, trust me. I can help you! I mean, it’s only fair, after how you’re about to help me.”

  “I am? Who says I am?” But then he grinned, showing Derek he was only joking. “Okay, okay, I’ll help you out, Jeter. But forget about paying me back like that. Extra time playing sports? It’s bad enough I already have to show up for the games. Besides, there are always a ton of kids over there at the Hill. I don’t need to get made fun of any more than I already have been.”

  “That’s just it! Once I get through with you, you won’t be getting made fun of anymore, because you’ll be as good with a glove as any of them!”

  Gary gave him a doubtful look.

  “Well . . . at least you won’t be embarrassing,” Derek corrected himself.

  Gary seemed to be about to relent. “Well . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Besides, you’re already hitting the ball okay, thanks to my dad. Believe me, I may not know how to draw a chart, but I know stuff about fielding that’ll make you better, and quick.”

  Gary sighed again, as if the weight of the whole world were on his shoulders. “Oh, okay,” he said, sounding completely defeated. “But just this one time, and for one hour max.”

  “Done!” Derek said, clapping his hands in triumph. “We can do it right after school tomorrow—before Vijay, Dave, and the rest of the kids even get there. That way you won’t have to get made fun of.”

  “Good idea.”

  Seeing the relieved look on Gary’s face, Derek realized just how much all the teasing must have gotten to him. Beneath his hardened exterior, Gary actually had feelings, just like anybody else!

  Unbelievable, but true.

  “And I promise I’m going to work hard on this project next session,” Derek said. Smiling, he added, “That is, if you’ll get a better attitude about sports.”

  Gary gave him a sickly smile in return. “You first, smarty-pants.”

  • • •

  Derek couldn’t get the grin off his face as he headed to the Hill the next day after school. He wasn’t technically allowed to play ball until he’d done that day’s homework, but this one time he had talked his dad into letting him go, saying that coaching Gary in fielding was part of their project about baseball stats and math.

  When Mr. Jeter saw what Derek was trying to do, he smiled and gave his permission, provided Derek came right back home afterward and did his homework.

  Now for the hard part. Teaching Gary to field was going to be a challenge. He had no natural instincts for the game, no athleticism, and no interest in improving. But Derek had lured him by promising he could stop the others from teasing him. Now Derek had to come through.

  Yikes.

  Gary was there, right on time. “Okay, let’s get this torture session over with so I can go home and have fun doing homework.” He checked his watch. “One hour. No, wait. . . . Fifty-nine minutes left. Go!”

  Derek went into a momentary panic. Here he was, face-to-face with the biggest challenge he could think of. His mind actually went totally blank for a moment.

  Then he saw Gary’s baseball mitt.

  “That thing looks like it’s never been worn!” he said, taking it from Gary and examining it. He put it on his hand and tried to clamp it shut—unsuccessfully.

  “It’s as hard as a rock!” he said. “No wonder you can’t catch anything with it.”

  “Huh? I thought that was how it was supposed to be.”

  “No!”

  “But all the other gloves in the store were the same way.”

  “Because they’ve never been used! Gary, didn’t anyone ever tell you you have to break a glove in?”

  “Break it what?”

  “Oh boy,” Derek said, realizing just how much Gary had to learn about baseball. “Look, feel my glove. Go ahead, try it on.”

  Gary did. “Ooohhh. Wow, this thing is just about worn to shreds. It feels like a glove.”

  “It is a glove, for goodness’ sake! Don’t you get it? You’ve got to stomp on your glove, have your mom run over it with the car, rub it down with saddle soap or grease, kick it around!”

  “Hey, this glove cost thirty dollars!”

  “Gary, it’s no good if you don’t break it in somehow, and it never will be. Here, let’s try playing catch, except you wear my glove.”

  He positioned Gary about fifty feet away so that they could toss the ball back and forth. Right away Derek noticed an improvement in Gary’s ability to get and keep the ball in his mitt.

  “Two hands!” Derek reminded him when a ball or two dropped from Gary’s grasp. “Catch it in the webbing, not in the pocket. That’s it! Next time clamp it shut—with both hands.”

  Little by little Gary seemed to get more comfortable catching the ball. And with that comfort, his fear of the baseball hitting him in the face seemed to lessen.

  “This is actually sort of cool,” Gary had to admit after about fifteen minutes. “I feel like I almost, kind of, sort of know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m telling you, man, the better you get at baseball, the more you’re going to love it.”

  “Gag me with a spoon,” said Gary, making a nice one-handed grab of a ball Derek had thrown too high.

  “Nice one!”

  “Thanks!” Gary said, tossing it back wildly. “Ha! You missed it!”

  “This glove’s pretty impossible,” Derek admitted. “You’re going to go home and mess with it, right?”

  “I like the part about my mom running it over with the car,” Gary said with a grin. “Yaaaaa! Take that, stupid baseball!”
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  Derek laughed, and then proceeded to show Gary some of the finer points of fielding—how to shield his eyes from the sun with his mitt, how to run back on a ball over his head, how to know where to throw it after he caught it when there were men on base.

  Derek might have been an infielder, but his dad had trained him well, putting him in different positions early in the season, so that he knew a little about outfielding from actual experience. All of that helped Derek now as he tried to help Gary with his game.

  Had his dad seen all this coming? Was that why he’d insisted that Derek play those other positions? Derek wouldn’t have been surprised. His dad sometimes seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, and a periscope into the future, too.

  Vijay and Dave arrived, along with a couple of other kids. “Nice catching!” Vijay exulted when he saw how much improved Gary’s glove work was.

  “Amazing!” Dave agreed. “Hey, man, you do that in the game, and we’re gonna be a better team!”

  After throwing it around for a while, Gary remembered to check his watch. “Hour’s up!” he announced. “Thank goodness that’s over.”

  Derek felt hurt. Even after their session Gary was still putting down sports. But then, when he and Gary were exchanging gloves, he saw from Gary’s wristwatch what time it actually was. Gary had been playing for an hour and a half, without even realizing it!

  “Hey, time flies when you’re having fun,” Derek said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Very funny,” said Gary.

  “You know what?” Derek asked. “I know you think we make each other better in school by competing. But I think we do even better when we cooperate and act like we’re on the same team.”

  “Hmm. You might actually have something there, Jeter. Oh, by the way . . .”

  Gary reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here are your statistics for the season so far, complete with the graphs that were supposed to be your job to make.”

  “Thanks!” Derek said, unfolding the paper and looking at his stats come to life in charts and graphs, perfectly done in easy-to-decipher colors. “You’re going to do this up bigger, right?”

  “And I’ve got the charts and graphs for every member of our team, and for the team as a whole, and for the major-league Indians, too.” Gary stuck his chin out proudly. “And I’ve already designed a system to keep it up to date.”

  “Wow!” Derek said. “Okay, I admit it. You are smarter than me.”

  “Smarter than I, not me.”

  “Whatever. I’m just glad we’re on the same team.”

  Frankly, Derek was totally floored. Gary had outdone himself, and Derek was sure to profit from it. On top of everything else, it seemed like Gary had finally found a way to get excited about baseball!

  Now, if the work they’d done on Gary’s fielding translated into better play on the field, things might actually turn around for the Indians!

  Chapter Twelve

  TURNAROUND

  The Indians were a nervous-looking bunch before their fourth game of the season. Everyone knew what today’s game meant. If they lost and went to 0–4, there was not much chance of ever digging out of that hole.

  For some team members that might not have been a big deal. Eddie, Jonah, and Gary had probably never imagined winning a championship. They hadn’t been much into the spirit to begin with, and Gary’s antics hadn’t helped. By now they’d probably given up on the rest of the season.

  But for the rest of the kids, being 0–3 was a thorn in their sides. Either it was going to be removed with a win today, or it was going to be stuck there for the rest of the season. Even the usually sunny and optimistic Vijay seemed tense and anxious.

  The coaches did their best to get the players into the right frame of mind. But feeling good about their prospects was tough for the players, especially since they were going up against the first-place, undefeated Giants today. None of the Giants’ games had even been close. Their hitters were being talked about all over the league.

  Derek wished his dad would change his mind and put Dave back in at pitcher. Derek had been working with him for a week and a half now, and Dave had improved a lot. His changeup looked just like his fastball, and Derek felt sure it could fool even the best hitters. Dave’s fastball had better location now, and he had learned how to follow through so that he ended up in a good fielding position.

  Derek was tempted to beg his dad to make a switch, but he knew it wasn’t his place and that his dad wouldn’t like it. So he kept silent as Jonathan warmed up.

  Jonathan wasn’t bad on the mound, but he had neither Dave’s arm strength nor his control. Jonathan didn’t have a changeup, either. Against the Giants’ hitters, that did not bode well for success today.

  “Hey, team!” came a familiar voice from behind Derek. Turning around, he saw Gary, looking bright and cheerful for a change, and waving a sheaf of papers in his hand.

  “Guess what, guys?” he said as everybody turned his way. “I’ve got everybody’s stats for the season right here. You guys can check out how you’re doing, and maybe do something to improve the areas where you’re pathetic.”

  That last comment was meant as a joke, of course. A bunch of the kids cracked up as they reached for their personal stats sheets and started to look them over.

  “That’s great work, Gary!” Chase said, clapping him on the back. “Who gave you that idea?”

  “I came up with it on my own, all by my little old self.” Gary was standing right beside Derek when he said it, and Derek was about to say, “Hey, what about me?” when Gary gave him a quick wink, then turned away and continued giving out the stats sheets.

  Chase must have noticed, because he turned to Derek and said, “What have you been saying to that boy?”

  For the sake of team harmony, Derek decided to let Gary take the credit. “I just worked with him on his fielding, and Dad showed him how to hit. Maybe it affected his attitude. I don’t know. I just hope it helps in the field.”

  “Good job!” Chase clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s being a really good teammate.”

  Derek felt great hearing that. It was just how he wanted to see himself on this team that needed so much help. He knew his dad would be proud too, if he learned about all the work Derek had been doing with Gary and Dave.

  That reminded Derek. . . . “Chase?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think you could get my dad to give Dave another shot at pitching? I’ve been working with him, too, and he’s gotten really good.”

  There. He’d managed to get up the courage to ask Chase at least, even though he couldn’t bring himself to ask his dad directly.

  “I’m going to leave those kinds of decisions to the head coach, Derek,” Chase said. “I’m sure he’ll give Dave another chance eventually. Hey, you might even find yourself back out on the mound.”

  Derek wanted to scream, “Noooo!” Pitching was the last thing he wanted to do on this team. But he kept silent.

  As the team warmed up, going through infield practice before the game, Derek kept thinking there had to be a way to get his dad to give Dave another shot.

  But how?

  • • •

  Derek knew from his stats sheet that he was leading the team in hitting with a .462 batting average. His slugging percentage was also high, at .631, showing that he’d hit a few doubles and triples, and even a couple of home runs.

  The point was, the team counted on him as its best hitter. And from what he could see of the Giants’ starting pitcher, Derek ought to be able to do some damage if the Indians could get hitters on base in front of him.

  But Mason and Dean, while they made good contact, hit the ball right at two of the Giants’ outfielders. So when Derek came to the plate, there were two outs and nobody on base.

  Derek knew Dave was up next. Dave’s average was only .325, but his slugging percentage was even higher than Derek’s. Derek figured if he could get on, Dave might be
able to drive him in. That would give the Indians the early lead—but even more important, it would give them hope that they could hang in there against the mighty Giants.

  Derek let the first two pitches go by for strikes, but he watched them carefully, timing them so he would be ready for the next strike.

  After trying to get Derek to swing at one in the dirt, the pitcher threw his fastest ball right over the heart of the plate.

  Derek whacked it, and the ball took off, a screaming line drive that split the outfielders. Derek was on his horse at once, speeding around the base paths. Between second and third he saw that the throw back in had gotten away from the shortstop. Chase, who was acting as third base coach, waved his arm around frantically, signaling for Derek to keep on going.

  Derek’s heart was hammering in his chest, and he was gasping for breath, but he kept his speed up and slid into home a split second before the ball got there.

  He’d done it! His fourth home run of the season, and a 1–0 Indians lead in the first!

  He hadn’t even needed Dave to drive him in. But Dave was up there to hit too, and he drove one to deep right that ricocheted off the glove of the right fielder.

  Now it was Dave who came barreling around third. But one thing Dave hadn’t practiced was sliding. He came in standing up and was tagged out by the catcher for the final out of the inning.

  “Hey, that’s okay,” Mr. Jeter yelled, clapping encouragement. “Nice hitting anyway, Dave! Let’s go, team. We’ve got a lead. Let’s keep it!”

  Easier said than done. Jonathan immediately had his hands full with the Giants’ hitters. After he gave up a single and a walk, their next batter hit a shot over Vijay’s head in left, scoring two runs.

  Two walks and a single later, it was 4–1, Giants. Jonathan got lucky with a double play and a throw-out at the plate. But now the Indians were down again, by three big runs.

  It was a steep hill to climb. But as their coaches reminded the Indians, it was still early. And soon the team showed they weren’t going to go down easily.

  It was Gary, hitting seventh today, who got them back on the scoreboard, cracking a long double to score Tito and Paul, who’d gotten on in front of him with a pair of walks.