7 Days at the Hot Corner by Terry Trueman Page A

peel off my batting gloves, I can’t lock out the weirdness of Matt Tompkins being the hero. I wanted to be the hero—I needed to be! I try to put it out of my head, but it keeps rolling over and over. All my life baseball has been the most important thing, and now, at its most important moment, I’m left standing in the on-deck circle? This isn’t the way I saw things going—not at all. There’s a huge hole in my gut, a huge empty feeling inside me; how can this happen, to be so close to being a hero only to have it snatched away at the last second? You live in fantasyland … baseball and bullshit … you think everything is one way, the way you wish it were, when really nothing is!
    I watch Matt trotting around second base and I realize that I’m being a jerk, a jealous jerk at that.
    I remove my batting helmet and by habit drop my gloves into it. My bat lies on the ground at my feet; the metal donut ring is still wedged onto the barrel from my warm-up swings. Gloves, helmet, bat—if I don’t get a call-up from the pros, this will be the last time I’ll ever use this equipment. Matt is the hero, not me. How is that fair? But even as I ask myself the question, I laugh at how stupid that is—“fair” hardly ever has anything to do with what happens.
    I walk out to join the rest of the team at home plate.
    I crowd in next to Josh and Willie and all the other guys. It’s mayhem as we all jump up and down together. The crowd pours onto the field from every direction, jumping up and down with us, waving their arms in the air, whooping and whistling and hollering. It’s completely nuts. Brad Collins crosses the plate to a mugging of a hundred hugs and high-fives. By the time Matt comes around third, there is a huge mob of kids and he is actually smiling and laughing, accepting back-slaps and hugs and high-fiving kids; I don’t remember ever seeing him laugh before.
    The umpire behind home plate, getting jostled by the crowd, finally gets out of the way, giving up on the idea of watching Matt touch home. This game is over. My baseball career is probably over too. Oddly, it feels all right—actually it feels almost good.
    The second Matt jumps up and lands with both feet on home plate, he is lifted onto the shoulders of dozens of crazed kids, some teammates, some classmates. They carry him off for a trip around the diamond again. I give up on the idea of trying to congratulate him—the crowd is too wild and he wouldn’t care anyway. In the middle of that mob, though, I see the two girls from the Safeway. I can’t remember their names—oh yeah, the taller, blond girl is Davita; I think that’s right. The girls are helping carry Matt, the hero, on his victory lap. This is his moment.
    I turn to leave the field, noticing for the first time all the kids surrounding me, slapping my back, excited to be close to me just because I’ve been a part of it. I am laughing and whooping along with everybody else. Some moments are pure good , and this is one of them.
    I look across the white chalk running up the first-base line, and standing waiting for me are my dad and mom and Travis. Mom comes over and gives me a big hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she says. Dad hugs me too and adds, “Good game, great game, you guys were magic out there.”
    Travis has hung back a little, but I see his face. It is obvious he doesn’t want to take anything away from my moment, but I can tell he is really happy for me. How hard must it be for him to stand back and watch my parents give me so much love and support, while his parents have shut him out of their lives? Here I am being treated like a hero, when really I’m not a hero at all. Travis is the real hero. I get that now; he’s done something brave—and it isn’t in a baseball game, it’s in real life, and it’s something that matters a lot more than any game.
    He