Waiting It Out - Benny Rodriguez - Book 1

Camp Out

We've been playing with Smalls for almost 2 weeks now and he's made a lot of improvement. Even went up to bat a few times. We started off today with Ham at bat and Benny as catcher.

When Ham warms up to swing, he likes to say random things and it takes him extra long before he actually starts hitting. It's an unfortunate thing we've all grown used to.

"Hamilton 'The Babe' Porter. Long-ball Porter. Come on, DeNunez." he then replicates Babe Ruth calling his shot making everyone laugh. 

There's no way in hell he could hit a homer on his first swing.

Kenny pitches and, big surprise, Ham misses.

"You call that pitching?" Ham asks Kenny frustrated. "This is baseball, not tennis."

Benny throws the ball back to Kenny and the boys are teasing Ham relentlessly.

"Give him a tennis racket!" Timmy calls out.

"Give me something to hit!"

"Alright, Ham. This is my heater, I dare you to hit it!" Kenny says, pointing at Ham.

"Give that boy a bigger bat!" Squints yells. "Give him a basketball! Maybe then he'll hit it."

I admit that last one was okay. Coming from Squints, anyway.

Kenny pitches the ball again and this time Ham hits it clean over the fence.

Everyone starts groaning at him for hitting it over and he starting running slowly just cause he can.

"Ham, you idiot. Now we can't play no more." Benny says, taking off the catcher's mask.

"Hit me with the heater. Low and outside. Just like I like it!"

The boys were chasing Ham around the diamond as he hit the bases and as he passed third, I took off my glove and whipped the back of his head with it.

I walk over to Benny at home plate after Ham reached it.

"We already use all 3 buys?" he asked me.

"Yep."

"NOOOOOO!"

I look over to see Squints looking towards the fence. I look over too and see Smalls trying to climb over the fence.

All the boys run to get him off and I take my sweet time getting over there.

I get there in time to hear Benny say:

"You can't go back there Smalls."

"Then how do we get the ball back?"

"We don't." Timmy

"We don't." Tommy

"It's history." Timmy

"It's history." Tommy

"Kiss it good-bye." Timmy

"Kiss it-"

"Shut up, Tommy."

That made me laugh.

"It's gone, man. Gone." Bertram tells Smalls.

"Game's over, man." Benny adds. "We'll just get another ball tomorrow." After the third time I've bought a ball, I'm not allowed to buy another that week so Mrs. Timmons is nice enough to get us one the next day. "We'll never see it again."

I roll my eyes at that last part. What babies.

We start walking to dugout before Smalls asks, "Why not?"

Here we go.

Everybody turns back around, ready to pollute his brain.

"The Beast." they all say in unison.