Read Online Emergency Quarterback by Rich Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

boys on the pitching staff.”
    “I think I got a shot,” Jimmy replied. He could see that Spencer was going to keep busting his chops, letting him know he was an outsider.
    “You got okay stuff. We might be able to use you some in relief.”
    Jimmy gave Spencer a mean look. “I guess the coaches’ll decide that, won’t they?”
    Spencer shrugged. “Yeah. But they want guys who are gonna fit in, Flem. People who know the score.”
    “I been pitching for four years,” Jimmy said.
    “Yeah, in the sticks.”
    “Sticks? Where’d you find a word like that? 1920?”
    “What do you call it?”
    “Home.”
    “Call it whatever you want,” Spencer said. “All I’m saying is there’s a big difference between Hudson City and cow country.”
    That stung a little. There actually had been a dairy farm about two hundred yards from the Flemings’ house in Pennsylvania. Jimmy’s mother owned a horse that she boarded there.
    Jimmy just smiled, went into a batting stance, and gave a gentle swing. “Strike three,” he said.
    “Like I was saying, I ain’t used to lefties right now.”
    “And like I said, I think I got a shot. Besides, you ever heard of Christy Mathewson?” he asked, referring to the Hall of Fame pitcher who had grown up in northeastern Pennsylvania.
    “Yeah. So?”
    “Where do you think he’s from?”
    Spencer laughed. “That was like forever and two days ago, Flem.”
    Head Coach Wimmer had walked over and cleared his throat. He was old and paunchy and had been leading the Hudson City Middle School seventh-grade team for more than thirty years. “All right, boys,” he said, eyeing the bunch. “Pretty good for a first day. You’re not quite ready for Yankee Stadium, but we’ll whip you into shape.
    “Go on home, lay off the ice cream, and be back here after school tomorrow.” Coach took off his cap and rubbed his big, bald head. His pink ears stuck out like rounded fins. “And tuck in those shirts; probably be some Major League scouts hanging around looking for prospects. Don’t want them to think I run a sloppy ship.”
    Jimmy laughed with the rest of them, then left the dugout and headed for home, just a short block down 15th Street to the Boulevard.
    It still seemed strange to be walking these streets, so noisy and busy with traffic. It had only been a month since he and his dad moved here, taking a second-story apartment above the Lindo Música Internacional store. So many things had changed so quickly.
    His parents’ divorce hadn’t been such a surprise; he’d figured it was coming. But he never thought his dad would be leaving Sturbridge, Pennsylvania to take a job in Jersey City. So Jimmy was left with the biggest decision of his life: stay with his mother or leave with his dad, right in the middle of seventh grade.
    And here he was, suddenly a city-dweller, stuck in that urban stretch of North Jersey between the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, an arm’s reach across the Hudson River from the New York City skyline. In a town where half the signs were in Spanish and white kids like him were a minority.
    Exciting, but scary.
    He needed to make the school baseball team. When he gripped that ball this afternoon, pushed back his cap, and peered in at the catcher, he’d finally felt at home for a few minutes. When he let loose with that wide overhand delivery and sent the ball zipping toward the plate for the first time this season, he’d felt a burden lifting.
    But maybe Spencer was right. Jimmy had been on enough sports teams to know that the coaches often did have their rosters picked way in advance, with few real opportunities for a newcomer to fit in. He’d have to do a lot better than the established players to secure a place on the team.