“Jan, Wolf, and Ms. Jaroslav should work on the tables. Ms. Jaroslav, you need to get approval for us, please. Alan and Stacy can work on the app. I’ll work with Brit on the homeless project. Let’s all meet next week with to catch everyone up with our progress and any help we might need.”
Brit and I talked as we walked to our lockers.
“I’ll meet with the homeless guy and get a list of items they need. We can post it, so everyone knows what to bring,” Brit said.
“I believe we can make this bigger than just Lincoln High. I bet we can get some free publicity and get the community involved,” I said.
“You work on that,” Brit said.
The bell rang, so we didn’t have time to finish our conversation.
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Before I had to go to Cassidy’s workout, I had some free time since we hadn’t started baseball practice yet. I typically used it to do my homework or meet with a study group for a class, but today I wanted to use the new batting cages. This time I was smart and let the machine fire off a pitch before I got near the batter’s box. I wouldn’t put it past Jim or one of the other guys to make a small adjustment to try to kill me.
I checked the settings, and it was set to throw ninety-mile-per-hour fastballs. That was the upper limit of what you would usually see in high school unless you ran into someone exceptional. I picked up right where I’d left off in LA. I ran through my five steps and just took a few easy swings at first to get the timing down.
Twenty balls at seven-second intervals didn’t take very long. I spent more time picking up balls and reloading the machine than I did batting. We needed a better system. The easy solution would be to get more balls. I could get a few five-gallon buckets and just pour them in when it ran out.
My side was still a little tender, but I could really tell the difference in my hitting that the five steps had made. The coaching would pay dividends come baseball season.
It startled me when Moose suddenly appeared in my peripheral vision. He silently watched as I crushed twenty sweet fastballs over the center of the plate. We both knew I was taking it easy to get into the rhythm of hitting.
Ignoring my audience, I focused on what I’d learned in LA. Rhythm was the first step. I needed to be relaxed in the batter’s box and do a routine to get ready to hit. I would make a little circular motion with my bat in preparation. The second step was seeing the pitch. My front foot was down, and I watched for the ball coming out of the machine. Third was separation. This required the hands and front foot to go in opposite directions at the same time. You wanted to end in a balanced and athletic position. Your weight distribution should be 50/50 in your lower half after separation and as you transfer your strength into the ball. The fourth was to stay square. You lost power when you deviated from a straight-on approach. The final step was weight shift and transfer.
When done right, my hitting power rose significantly. Baseball is a lot about sounds. You can hear a good pitch. It starts with the whizzing sound as the ball slices through the air, and then there’s the pop as it hits the catcher’s mitt. Hitting a baseball is the same; it just sounds different when you get all of it with speed and power. The satisfying ‘crack’ as you send a line drive four hundred feet over the center-field fence sounds different from the ‘dink’ of a slow roller.
Moose was smarter than I was. He had a bucket of balls, so when they ran out, he stepped into the cage and dumped more in. He also made some adjustments to the machine and stepped out. It was now throwing curveballs.
Moose just nodded as I got all of the first one. My confidence that what had happened in LA wasn’t a fluke took a step up. When my time was up, I started to pick up baseballs.
“Leave them, I’ll get them later. I want to talk to you for a minute before you work out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I got a call from USA Baseball. Coach Revilla recommended you, as did Lucas Kite, and Coach Boyd of the Dodgers. USA Baseball wanted to confirm a few things with me, but it sounds like you’ll get an invitation in a couple of weeks. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll do whatever I can to help you. It’s a big deal that you’re going to be invited.”
“Thanks, Coach. That means a lot to me,” I said.
I looked at my watch, and it was time for me to let Cassidy abuse me. It felt good to have Moose support me.
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Chapter 5 – Amateurism Wednesday February 3
We’d dropped to fourth place in the box-office race. An animated movie,
