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crest of a long rise, was pleasantly surprised. He was grateful his head was clear. No headache. No static. Just baseball. A fine day, indeed.
    He stood at the left-field fence to watch a few innings, but by the fifth he had made his way in to the stands. Most of the small crowd was made up of hopeful parents who were stirring over this nail-biter between the Spencer High Tigers and the Mason City Madness. It was only a pre-season match, but both teams had brought their A-game. The scoreboard read 7–6 for the Tigers.
    The home team pitcher, a gangly sixteen-year-old with a rocket for an arm, had gotten in deep by the seventh. He’d been in since the fourth inning, the coach giving the hook to the starter, the score suddenly tied after a two-run bomb by a big senior left the Madness team chanting, Will-lie, Will-lie, as the hulk strolled round the bases. An in-the-park home run had put the Tigers up in the sixth, but now there was one out, with runners on second and third. A sac-fly would do the kid in, and everyone, the kid included, knew it.
    Number 23’s brim was turned down. Doubt lingered in his eyes. His glove dangled at his left side. Nervously, he rolled the ball in his pitching hand.
    The batter, another hulking senior (apparently they grew ’em big in Mason City), stepped up to the plate. He eased into his spot and tapped the plate with his bat. He signaled where he wanted the pitch with two short swings.
    The kid flung two balls, both outside. He let his glove dangle again and kept on with that anxious roll of the ball. He mumbled under his breath.
    He wound up, delivered, and a sharp crack of the bat threatened to sink him. The ball sailed, a solid drive to short. The shortstop, a quick eighteen-year-old named Ben Caldwell, leapt to his right. Ben curled his body mid-air to get his left hand out to make the catch, and the ball slipped into his glove with a dull poop. There was a collective sigh of relief on the Tigers bench that chorused with their infield and outfield, a groan and a single Shit on the Madness bench. Everyone heard the expletive, and the Mason City coach singled out the offending player, the first baseman. The tall kid said he was sorry.
    The Tigers coach shouted for his team to look alive— Right-handed batter! —and all at once, like giant spiders converging slowly on a single fly, everyone in the field made those final adjustments only ball players do. The coach checked the infield and told the shortstop to tighten the gap between second and third. Ben Caldwell nodded and slipped right.
    The pitcher followed the next batter to the plate, with a look that said what the tall first baseman had said. The bruiser had put him into the game with that blistering two-run shot in the fourth, and now, as his Madness teammates chanted his name again, he could bring those chants to a deafening pitch with, pardon the pun, a single pitch. The kid was a monster, six-four easy, about two-twenty, with eyes of ebony. A thick wad of gum bulged in his left cheek. His face was cold with purpose. From the first row, a man in a red ball cap, a man no stranger to size himself, yelled, Come on, Willie, come on, boy.
    William Jones—Number 13—took his place at the plate. His final year at Mason City, he was a shoe-in to be picked up by one of the majors. He corked home runs like they’d moved the fence in about a hundred feet. A right fielder, he could run like a bull, and throw you out at home from the warning track without a single hop of the ball.
    Jones choked up on the bat and took a single swing to get his rhythm. He brought the bat back, swirling it in a tight circle. It was a mortar of hickory waiting to explode.
    The pitcher nodded dimly at the catcher’s signal. He rushed his wind-up and delivered. Outside. Ball one.
    Twenty-three gave a slight shake of his head. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the nagging doubt, and when he dared a glance along the Tigers bench, was met with a long row of