Gil

GIL HURLED THE baseball as hard as he could at the

backstop. He needed to blow off steam and calm himself before

he did something stupid, or regrettable. He picked up another ball

from the fluorescent-orange five-gallon bucket, and concentrated

on his form.

He was consumed with frustration, and was venting with the

baseball instead of with his fists or mouth. He tried concentrating

on his form instead of his woes. Gil could control his pitches,

but not his destiny. He was good, but not good enough. At age

forty-four, Gil knew he was well past his prime and was trying

to accept the inevitability of unfulfilled dreams.

He reached again into the bucket beside him on the mound

and grabbed another ball. Focusing his form, he hurled another,

and then another. Arm back; elbow bent, he told himself . He threw once again, then he looked up and saw his buddy and

assistant coach, Peck, making his way over to him from a series

of disjointed brown brick buildings, the campus of the Prairie

Ridge High School Coyotes.

“First strike I’ve seen you throw all night. What gives, Gil?”

Gil kept his foot lodged against the rubber on the pitcher’s

mound then stooped down and plucked up another baseball.

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GIL

With a quick windup, another of his pitches cut the thin Colorado

air and hammered the fence.

“Okay,” Peck interrupted, stepping between the mound and

home plate. “That’s enough, Gil. We need to talk before you ruin

a whole bucket of balls—and your arm. With these budget cuts

we’ll be lucky if we get enough for the season.” He turned and

made his way to the backstop, tugging on two balls lodged in the

wire lattice. Peck yanked one out and ran his fingers across the

torn leather.

“Holy crap,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

Gil flippantly tossed the ball back into the orange bucket.

“What’s got you so pissed off?” Peck asked.

Gil slid the back of his worn leather glove across his brow.

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“Like?”

“All my life I’ve worked so hard, tried to do the right thing,

and look what it’s gotten me.”

Peck lifted up his ball cap and smoothed back his brown

wavy hair, letting his burly hand glide over his six-inch mullet.

“Are you kidding me? You’ve got the hottest wife this side

of the Mississippi, two of the most well-mannered kids I’ve ever

met, and you’re one of the most highly respected high school

coaches in the state. And you’re still playing ball—and coaching

it. Most guys your age gave it up long ago. What’s with the self-

pity?”

“My age, exactly,’’ Gil huffed. “What I’ve really got is some

loser job that is going nowhere fast.”

“Shoot, Gil. I’m your assistant. What does that make me? A

double loser?’’

Peck made his way to the mound, his tattooed arms folded,

like a coach ready to talk some sense into his rattled starter, or

else make a decision to yank him before the other team could do

any more damage.

“How so?”

“We don’t need to go into this, not now.”

Peck continued rolling the ball in his hands, digging his

fingernail into the sliced leather. “Oh, I think we do. You know,

with the strike, all the major league teams are looking for

replacement players. You could try out for the Rockies.”

 DARIN GIBBY

3

Gil grunted. “That’s not going to last. The owners will cave

before the season starts and all those replacement players will

be back on the streets. Besides, I gave up that dream—and I’m

too old. All I’ve been doing is messing around in the rec leagues

for years. I’d get creamed, even by replacement players.”

“Not from what I’ve seen. You can still throw in the eighties,

and you have a big breaking ball. I’ve seen it. No way, I bet you

were just firing at least eighty-five,” said Peck, looking at one of

the scarred balls he plucked from the fence. “That’s better than

most minor leaguers.”

“You never told me why you didn’t try to play professionally,”

Peck continued. “You must have had one rocket of an arm when

you were younger.”

“Unlike you, I didn’t stand a chance,” Gil snapped back.

“That’s not what I heard. And not with what I just watched

you throw. What gives?”

“It’s really complicated.”

“Try me.”

Gil hung his head and breathed out deeply.

“Well, when I was playing for ASU, a lot of scouts were

looking at me. I had to make a decision.”

“Like?”

“Being a responsible adult and finishing my degree, or being

flighty and chasing some harebrained idea that I was good

enough to play professional baseball.”

“I take it you were offered a contract?”

Gil nodded.

“You never told me that. So why didn’t you sign?”

“Some things came up, and getting a degree seemed like a

better choice than wasting my life away in the minors.”

“Easy there. Remember who you’re talking to.”

“You had a real chance, Peck—if you hadn’t had those elbow

problems. Not so with me. Do you know how many twenty-year-

olds can throw a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball?”

Peck shrugged.

“A whole bunch.” Gil adjusted his cap. “It’s water under the

bridge. My life is in the history books. I made my bed and all

that stuff. I’ve lived a very mediocre life. Four years of misery

to get a physics degree. I was too much of a loser to even try to

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GIL

get a masters degree. I took a job as a lousy high school teacher

making fifty thousand a year, coaching on the side. What kind of

loser career is that?”

“Again, Gil, consider your audience. At least you are the

head coach. Look at me. I’d kill for your job.”

Gil spit and covered up the spittle with a kick of his toe. “You

know I didn’t mean that.”

“But seriously. How can you say it is a loser job? With all

the talk of your science fair this year—and another season in the

playoffs—you could easily get teacher of the year. How many

people can brag about that? And the kids here love you to death.

You are the coolest teacher ever. How many high school students

beg to have their science teacher play at their prom? You can

sing Sunday Bloody Sunday better than Bono.”

“When I get to play him! The only gigs I get anymore are

overplayed country songs about some guy finding religion. Have

I ever written one of my own?”

Peck shrugged. “I’ll bet you have.”

“Well maybe, but you’ll never hear it on the radio. Just good

ol’ Gil. Friend to everyone, foe to no one. That’s all I am.”

“Well tell me this, if teaching is such a loser job as you say,

then why did you choose it?”

Gil shook his head. “I don’t want to go there.”

Peck hopped up beside his friend and shoved him back,

enough to dislodge Gil’s foot from the rubber. “With the energy

you were putting into that ball, I think we need to go there. Come

clean with me. How long have we been together?”

Gil’s jaw muscles clenched, and he slapped his glove against

his thigh then looked up into the fading sky. “Alright, I’ll tell

you, if you really want to know. I did the honorable thing and

married her, then dumped any dream of playing pro ball. I took

a teaching job to pay for the baby. Would you believe that I

met her at a frat party? You know when you go to those dinner

parties and everyone has to tell how they met? I couldn’t do it.

I made up some story about how I picked her out of the crowd

when we were playing UCLA.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Way too much information. I didn’t

mean to pry like that.”

“She was pregnant. My plans for baseball were over. And

 DARIN GIBBY

5

don’t you ever mention it to anyone—my kids don’t know.”

Peck reached out and put a hand on Gil’s broad shoulder.

“How was that a bad thing? Look at what it got you.”

“Yeah, a beautiful family that I can’t even support. Not

now—not now that I am going to lose everything.”

“Gil, what exactly are you talking about?”

“The little turd is suing me, that’s what.”

“Are you drinking, man?”

“Do I ever drink? I am the clean-cut all-American parent.

Except that now I am getting hauled into court.”

“For what? Wait, for when Zach was screwing around after

practice and thunked Shaila in the head?”

“Yes, they’re suing the school and me personally. Two

million bucks. Claiming the ball cracked her skull and caused

brain damage.”

“If you ask me, the ditz already had brain damage.”

“Yeah, well tell that to a jury. They are going to wipe me out.”

“They can ask for anything, you know that. Besides that, the

school district is required to defend you.”

“That’s what I thought, but it’s not that clear. What if they

don’t? I can’t afford a lawyer. You know how much I make. What

am I going to do?”

Peck also spit and shook his head. “I see now.” Then he went

and fished a catcher’s mitt from the equipment bag. “Okay, at

least throw the rest at me so we don’t destroy any more balls. And

don’t worry, they won’t fire you. Can you imagine the protests?

You’ve had a winning season for fifteen straight years.”

Gil went into a full windup and whipped the ball at his catcher,

each pitch slamming into the glove with a loud smack. Peck bolted

up and tossed down the mitt, shaking his stinging hand.

“Holy crap! What is going on here? You taking some kind of

performance cocktail? Your gut is gone, your chest looks like a

bulldog’s, and you are solid as a rock.”

A hint of a smile crept onto Gil’s weathered face. “Drugs?

Never did them—not being the son of a preacher.”

“Then what? You don’t just all of the sudden hurl like that.”

“Mid-life crisis is all. Lots of stress builds the physique… and

I’ve been working out some.”

“No, man. What kind of drugs are you on? I’ve caught for a

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GIL

lot of pitchers, but nothing like this. You gotta be throwing in the

nineties, pushing a hundred. I’ve got to get a speed gun on you,

Gil. What is the record these days?”

“The fastest pitch? Some say Bob Feller threw a one-hundred-

and-seven-mile-an-hour fastball, but who knows? Most of those

guys were full of themselves. That was before radar, so it is all

speculation.”

“You are the science guy. You should know.”

“Since modern speed guns came around, there has been a few

clocked at one hundred and four, and in 2010 Aroldis Chapmin

was officially measured at one hundred and five. But it’s hard to

say. Feller thought Satchel Paige was the fastest pitcher alive.

So, could he throw faster than one hundred and seven?”

“What were you in college?”

“Fastest was ninety-one.”

“Then that confirms it—you are all screwed up my friend.

A forty-four-year-old man can’t throw like that, not without a

whole lotta dope.”

“No drugs, man. You’re just getting old. Bad eyesight and

soft hands. Still getting those manicures?”

“Hey, the last time was with you. Come on Gil. Let’s be

honest here. This is crazy stuff. Those balls I pulled out of the

fence—the leather was completely torn through. Let’s try one

more, just as a sanity check. Let me have it. Get really pissed off.

Imagine you are throwing at that lawyer’s face.”

Peck backpedaled to the plate and pounded his fist into his

glove. “Give me all you’ve got.”

This time the ball whizzed into Peck’s glove with the same

familiar smack. Peck removed his hand from the glove. The

palm was red.

“I think that confirms it,” he said, shaking his head.

“Tomorrow I am going to make a few calls.”