CHAPTER 1
Losing sucks.
Don't let anyone tell you it builds character or any of that junk; it sucks. Itsucks that someone else is beating you. It sucks that you've worked so hard andit's going to mean nothing. It sucks that you can't hit the ball the way youwant and can't field the grounder the way you imagined—a thousand thingsabout losing suck.
But it sucks worse when you're stuck in the dugout on a 102-degree day in thehumidity, and the heat index is 120, and sweat is pouring off you, and your teamis losing—not because you suck at baseball, but because your baseballcoach, Mr. Cocoran, sucks at coaching.
Mr. Cocoran won't listen to you when you tell him he's got the batting orderwrong. He likes big hits and loves guys who hack at the ball and swing for thefences and all that junk, and he doesn't understand about getting runners onbase. He doesn't know squat about baseball.
But you know the thing about losing that sucks even worse than that?
Knowing you're the one who's going to get blamed.
When you're finally up at bat, with Miguel on third and Sammy on first, andyou're down by two in the bottom of the sixth, and you're the last and finalhope of the Delbe Diamondbacks—you're the one everyone is going toremember.
Maybe I could hit a single on my good days (and if the pitcher was off hisgame), but basically, for me, the ball just moves too darn fast.
My dad says I swing with my heart.
Well, he said that after I struck out once and spun myself all the way aroundand all the other kids were so busy laughing at me—even my ownteam—that nobody minded so much that we'd lost another game.
After that game, my dad came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said,"Don't worry about it, Rabi; you swung with your heart. You were all in. We canwork on your swing. As soon as I'm back from the rigs, we'll work on it."
Of course, baseball season was going to be over by then, so my swing wasn'tgoing to improve in time to save me from more humiliation. Dad works oil and gasrigs—ten weeks on, two weeks off—so I was on my own.
There was no way I should have been batting cleanup, I can tell you that, butthere I was, sitting on the bench, watching the lineup come down to me, like aslow-moving train wreck.
Miguel was sitting next to me, chewing gum. "What're the odds?" he asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Come on, Rabi." Joe, who was sitting on my other side, poked me in the ribs."Do that trick you do. With the numbers."
A couple of the older guys, Travis Thompson and Sammy Riggoni, both looked over.Beefy dudes with mean piggy eyes who liked to hassle anyone who was littler thanthem. I didn't want their attention at all. I looked away.
"Nah," I said. "There's not enough numbers to do it. I need more stats. Youcan't do stats with Little League. You need a lot of numbers before you canpredict anything."
"Come on," Miguel said. "You know you can."
I looked out at the bases, frowning. I studied the batters in our lineup, eyedthe Eamons Eagles defense, their catcher and fielders and pitcher. And then Istarted setting stats. It was a trick I used. I could set stats over thedifferent players' heads in my mind, a little like health bars in World ofWarcraft, and then I could figure out probable outcomes.
Numbers. Stats. I have a cousin in Boston who calls it my inner Asian math nerd.
But whatever it is, I'm good at it. The Eagles pitcher was still going strong,even after pitching most of the game. We hadn't worn him down much. I'd read upon his stats and seen how he normally did after pitching four innings. I'd beencounting how many times he'd actually had to pitch against all our batters, andI knew he wasn't tired. Not a bit.
He'd just struck out Billy Freudenberg on three straight pitches. And now ShawnCarney, at the plate, had two balls and two strikes on him. But Shawn barely hit.225, even against a weak pitcher. Against the Eamons guy, he was more like.075. Shawn was always hacking at random pitches. When he hit, he hit withpower, but the Eamons pitcher was smart enough to bait him into swinging at amean little curveball.
Shawn was dead meat.
Then there'd be Miguel. Miguel was hitting .525 on the season, steady all thetime, dangerous. And the Eamons pitcher was afraid of him. Miguel could gethimself on base, for sure. He was a slugger and he hit for extra bases moreoften than not. After that, Sammy would be up—.305, but not with as muchpower as Miguel. Then there'd be me. It all added up to ...
"You need a double or better," I said. "And Sammy needs the same for us to tie."
Miguel cracked his gum. "And if we do, that means you got to ..."
"I got to do anything except strike out. Anything at all."
"What are the odds?"
I laughed. "If you two nail it? Twenty to one, against. If you don't?" Ishrugged. "No shot."
"Don't sell yourself short," Miguel said. "You can get on, no problem."
"Numbers don't lie. It wouldn't be a problem if they moved me ahead of you two.I do better when there's no one on base, and no pressure. If Mr. Cocoran wouldjust concentrate on getting players on base, concentrate on getting more walksinstead of big hits, we'd already be winning right now. And this wouldn't matterat all. We'd probably be up two at this point. Game over, Delbe wins."
Miguel nodded out at Shawn, who was getting ready for his next pitch. "What ifShawn gets a hit?"
I looked over at the redheaded boy. "He won't. Not with two strikes on him. Healways chokes once he gets two strikes."
"Shut up, Rabi. You're on a team."
That was Mr. Cocoran, our king of a coach. Funny-looking guy with a big nose anda face that was red like a tandoori chicken. He was always irritated. Mostly atme. "You don't rip your own teammates," Mr. Cocoran said. "Especially withyour batting average."
Sammy Riggoni snickered. "Yeah, Rabi, have you even hit a ball this season?"
I think somewhere in the Little League rule book, there's something about beinga good sport, and everyone playing hard, and winning clean, and working togetheras a team. I'm pretty sure it's there, somewhere.
For Mr. Cocoran, that meant telling the good players they were amazing, andpretending the crummy players didn't exist. I mean, sure, I'm a terrible hitter.But so is Shawn. I'm not being mean; the kid's got a serious hole in his swing.When the count's 2–2, he always chokes. It doesn't do any good to standaround clapping and cheering and saying he can do it, after you've spent theentire season ignoring the problem.
My dad says there's no point pretending reality doesn't exist; otherwise, youcan't fix anything. Mr. Cocoran should have paid attention to Shawn and helpedhim get better. Instead, he spent his time helping Sammy, because Sammy was a"natural."
That was how Cocoran rolled, and now, under Cocoran's glare, I shut up. I didn'twant to argue with him, and I sure didn't want to get in a fight with Sammy.Besides, two seconds later, the numbers lined up, just like I expected, and mademy point for me. Shawn hacked at a crummy pitch and popped the ball straight up,and the catcher snagged it nice and easy. Two outs.
Cocoran glared at me even harder.
It's got to be annoying when a middle school kid knows more about baseball thanyou.
Miguel was up. He went out into the sun, and just like the numbers predicted, hegot a hit. He roped a double, which wasn't as good as we needed. Then Sammysingled, which moved Miguel to third. If Sammy had tripled, then we would've hada chance ... but no.
It was down to me, walking out to home plate.
It should have been Miguel standing where I was now. The guy who hits a doubleon his bad day. If Cocoran had changed the batting order, Miguel could havedriven runs in all day long. Instead he liked to get Miguel out there early, andtried to get him to steal bases.
Cocoran was standing at the entrance to the dugout, sweating and shouting for meto make it happen. I stood over the plate. The pitcher was looking at me,smirking. He had runners on first and third, which might have worried him,except he was facing me, a batter he'd struck out every time. He knew that I wasthe end of the inning—and the game.
Miguel was nodding encouragingly, willing me to bring him home. Sammy was juststaring at me. I could tell he hated that he had to depend on a shrimp like meto do something right for once. Too bad for him that I'm a strategizer, not aslugger. I think. I don't do.
The sun pounded down. The stands got quiet.
And then my mom started clapping.
Everyone swung around to look at her.
There she was, up in the stands, calling, "Rabindranath! Ra-bin-dra-nath!Ra-bin-dra-nath!" This crazy Indian lady in a bright yellow sari, withnight-black hair in a bun and a red bindi in the middle of her brown forehead,was cheering for me. She didn't care that everyone was looking at her, or thatshe was embarrassing me. She was all in, supporting her son.
I wanted to die.
I looked down at the plate, then up at the pitcher. He was grinning at me. Heknew he had me now. And that made me mad, him thinking he could just whup methat way.
So what if I had a name no one could pronounce? So what if I had a mom who woresaris? I was going to take his pitch and knock the cover off the ball. I wasgoing to teach them all not to laugh at me.
I looked at the pitcher, and I pointed, just pointed toward left field, lettinghim know where I was going to put the ball, staring him down, letting him knowthat I owned him.
Rabindranath Chatterjee-Jones was going to knock the ball out of the park.
Around me, everyone went quiet. Even my mom.
I was ready. I touched the plate. Wound up the bat.
The pitch came in high.
I let it go.
"Strike one!" the umpire shouted.
