Four men stand with clipboards behind the pitcher's mound
the boys they've exiled to the other field run at them one
at a time to field a ball batted by another middle aged man.
Two other men in shorts stand along the first base line wearing
gloves. After each boy catches and releases to the man wearing
a mitt at home, the men put their pens to the clipboards. Another
boy comes loping hopefully onto the green field, runs, watches,
misses a high fly ball. They keep two boys in the infield to lob
throws from fielder boy to the man at home plate. The batter
lofts the ball for his own swing like a tennis player, loose and
high. Nobody has their clipboard trained on him. On the ground
around the writers, white paper coffee cups that look like
baseballs from this distance. The batter has a five gallon bucket
of balls beside him, like a golfer at the driving range. Another
boy sidles up, bends, rocks side to side baseball player style,
catches one ball then moves into the shortstop position,
another go-between for the next boy up. He has caught
the ball, his throws are accurate and long, body easy, shortest
up but strong. Paper on clipboards waves in the wind like the American
flag presiding over the field. The men hold the paper down,
and now the boys run back, all of them, notebook paper numbers
pinned to the backs of their baseball shirts, to stand around
their coaches between first and home, eight of them now in
a line around the infield, one at bat, boy pitcher with that vat
of balls tosses to first base, the first short stop, the second,
boy in full catcher's protective gear crouched behind home.
The smallest boy, at third, in a red hat, catches a popup, lobs
easily to first base. Dust rises behind the pitcher's feet before
he lets go each throw. The metal bat plinks every hit from
the boy in red shirt waggling it, adjusting his right sleeve
clear of his shoulder like Ichiro, pulling up as they all do on
his pants. The men with the clipboards hold them carelessly,
the pitcher whanging his throwing arm like a catapult.
The batter and catcher wear hard helmets, everyone
wears baseball gear for what must be a try out, the bases
plump and new, the grass where it should be and just
the right height. They move with economy and mannerisms
of professional players. Nobody jeers or chats in the outfield.
They've learned their movements from television as much
as from older brothers under the lights by the high school.