The Hitting Zone

I rounded the bases with a brisk jog, tagging home as I heard Dave yelling some compliments. I waved to acknowledge him.

"Sounds like you've got a one-man cheer squad." The second batter waited for me, holding out a fist.

I bumped it with a fist of my own. "Yea…it's my brother."

He grinned. "That's cool. I wish my siblings could be here too."

We went back to the dugout together. Ryan congratulated us, but besides him, not much was said from everyone else. It wasn't a team vibe at all. I pursed my lips together and went back to my bag to switch out my gear.

The whole morning scrimmage stayed rather quiet on our side as we powered through and beat on the pitchers that came against us. Cody did four innings of no-hit ball, showing off his high speed curveball.

I swear the loudest one was Dave in the stands. I was sad to see him go, but it was getting close to Zeke's game time. Him and Mom should be finding Dad, then meeting up with Kyle and Grampa at the Stanford stadium.

There were a couple of pitcher changes for both sides. I was able to hit two more home runs and a handful of doubles, successfully standing out as a power hitter. There were a few other guys I thought were pretty good at the plate too. We really racked up the runs.

But without Cody, we started to see more action defensively. I can happily say I only bobbled one throw to first out of the handful of grounders that came my way. It was just a bad transition from my glove to my hand and the throw was off, causing the runner to be safe.

I thought I successfully shook it off and put that play out of my mind as the game went on. But just as Ryan dismissed us for lunch, I heard some of the guys talking.

"Number one in the state with an error?" He scoffed. "Come on."

"Yea, that's got to be rigged." Another player agreed.

I slowed my steps.

"It really eases my mind to see his mid defensive plays."

"Yea, he's good at the plate, but not an all-rounder."

"Nick and Caleb were good at the plate too. Not getting out once."

Their voices were harder to hear as they got further away. I dragged my feet, not feeling so good.

"Hey, Jake! Over here!" I immediately heard Noah as soon as I took a step in the cafeteria. I scanned the room and found him waving his arm, already sitting with Danny.

I nodded so he knew I saw him, then went through the line to grab some food.

"Is that all you grabbed?" Noah asked with raised eyebrows as I sat down across from him and Danny.

I shrugged. "Not feeling very hungry."

"No food equals no energy." He picked up his apple and moved it to my tray.

"You just don't want to eat that." Danny pointed out casually. He looked at me. "Pretty sure Noah only grabbed that because a coach was in front of us in line."

I cracked a smile. "Yea, that sounds like him."

"Shut up. I eat my fruit and veggies." Noah straightened up. "Why do you think I'm taller than you?"

"You shut up." Danny rolled his eyes. "I know your brothers are all very tall. You just have good genetics."

"It's a good start at least." Noah grinned.

Being with the two of them distracted me as I ate my lunch, no longer caring about what some random guys said about me.

"Did either of you guys see Cody today?" Danny asked.

"No." Noah shook his head.

While I nodded.

"Dang, you already had another rematch?" Noah asked.

"Did you lose again?" Danny asked.

I finished swallowing the food in my mouth. "We didn't play against each other. We were on the same team in the beginning. He left after a few innings."

"Oh. So you probably did just fine then?" Danny asked casually.

I gave a shrug, thinking of my error. "It could have been better."

"Did you get out?" Noah asked.

I shook my head.

"Damn. What could be better than a perfect batting average?" Danny cursed.

I let out a heavy sigh. "I had a fielding error."

"That must be why you looked down when you came in the cafeteria." Noah nodded understandingly. "Don't worry. They won't kick you off because of that."

I gave a weak smile, but didn't correct him. It wasn't the coaches I was worried about. Just the other potential players on the roster with me. But it'll be fine. I've only got a few more hours to go, then I won't have to worry about these strangers for over a month.

The hours were even less than I thought. I had imagined my weekend camp ending with a face-off against Cody or maybe even against Danny with bases loaded and two outs. Instead, it was very anticlimactic. They wanted to time everyone's 60-yard run again. They called it that…yet all we did was stop our playing and took turns running from home to second base. My guess was to see if we could leg out a double? I didn't mind since they didn't ask us to slide into the bag or anything crazy.

After that, we were sent back to our rooms to pack up and get ready to go. We would hear some closing statements from Coach Rob and others in the cafeteria when everyone had gathered.

I met Noah in our room, yet he wasn't doing any packing. Just sitting on the bed with his phone in hand.

I took a guess. "Are you watching the play-by-play of Zeke's game?"

"Yea. It's a close one." Noah didn't take his eyes off the screen.

I frowned. "If they're still there, are we going to be stuck here?"

"Dave sent us a text. He'll be here in a few." Noah answered.

I packed up both our backpacks, and since it wasn't much, it didn't take any time. We carried our bags separately, with me mostly guiding the way since Noah had his attention on the phone. He occasionally would groan or mutter, clearly invested in the game.

I could live without the stress. I wanted Zeke and Rhys to win, but I didn't want the anxiety that goes with a do-or-die game.

We chilled on a small table, eventually joined by Danny and surprisingly, Cody. It was my first time seeing him in the crowded room.

"I really wish they would feed us dinner before sending us off." Danny complained. "All that working out made me hungry." He nudged Cody "Tell your mom that we need food asap."

Cody didn't pay him any attention.

I felt awkward, but Danny looked unbothered. He just moved over to look at Noah's phone. "What is this?"

"Stanford elimination game." Noah answered, moving away from Danny.

Danny shrugged. "4-4. That's a close one."

"Yea."

"You guys going straight there?" He glanced at me.

I shrugged.

"Got to meet up with the fam there." Noah answered.

I nodded. That was true. Even if Dave was getting us, everyone else would still be at the stadium. At the very least, we should be eating dinner with them.

"Do you practice against your twin brothers often?" Cody spoke up, looking directly at me.

Noah glanced up and saw that the question wasn't directed at him. He let out a laugh. "Yea, Jake uses them for batting practice. To improve though? Nah. The lefty on our team was better." He went back to looking at his phone.

Cody was still looking at me though. So I did what I do best: shrugged. "We play against each other at the local park sometimes. It's good to see live pitching, but I mostly prefer the cages."

"It relaxes him." Noah added without looking up.

"You can invite me over to pitch to you." Danny grinned. "As long as you're not afraid that is."

"Sure. If you want to expose yourself to heartbreak week in, week out." Noah chuckled. He looked at Cody. "You going to join too?"

"No." Cody said lightly. "I'll face him again when the roster is announced and the team is put together."

"That confident?" Danny squinted at his teammate.

He nodded. "I was the only one to get him out. My ranking is high. No one has a faster curve than me at this tryout."

"Wow. You really analyzed this." Danny said. "What do you think my odds are?"

"How many hits did you give up during the scrimmages?"

"Two."

"Over how many outs?"

Danny took a little longer, thinking back. "Let's see. I did one, two, three…fourteen." He nodded to himself. "Yea, it was fourteen. Less innings than strikeouts." He smirked.

"Your chances are good. I would say 90%." Cody replied, not showing much emotion one way or the other. More like he was just informing Danny of the weather. "If it was just based on this group here today, I would say you made it."

"Yea, I think so too." He nodded.

"What about my odds?" Noah asked Cody curiously.

Cody shook his head. "It's not easy to estimate field players. Who's hot, who's not. Speed, agility, reliability. Without knowing the coach's parameters on what the cutoff might look like, it would be a blind guess. Some coaches like hitters more. Some like a good defense."

"Wow. That's the most I've heard you say ever." Noah commented, not too invested in his odds of making the team.

The team director used a speakerphone to quiet everyone down, cutting into our conversation. He thanked us for our time and effort before turning it over to Coach Rob. Coach Rob told everyone that he would send out an email with the final roster by mid-July. He finished by encouraging everyone to work hard regardless of the results and that he hoped to see our improvements in the future.