Chapter 1
Capture a moment
On a late summer afternoon in the early evening, a black Chevy pick up truck comes roaring through the side streets of a small New Jersey shore town. The truck is loud because it has no muffler or tail pipes. The windows are rolled all the way down because it does not have a working air conditioner. The bed of the truck is scratched from hauling loads of scrap metal, and the right rear side is dented from a hit and run accident several years back. The bumper is also bent, and the back window has been replaced by Plexiglas. The town is quiet this time of year because most of the tourists had gone back home, and all of the kids were going back to school soon. The sky is a pretty light blue, with a slight tinge of orange and raspberry red. There is one tiny white cream puffed shaped cloud sitting just above the setting sun. It is 90° or so, and the hot summer sun is refusing to set. The truck pulls around the sports complex behind the elementary school, passing the football and soccer fields. The vehicle comes to a stop in the fire lane right besides the baseball diamond where the local high school varsity team had lost a heart breaker to their crosstown rivals just a month before. The truck is parked in the long shadow of the flagpole near a deserted snack stand. The motor remains running and the humming from the engine echoes off the brick school building and a few seagulls disperse because of the commotion. A squirrel is frantically deciding whether to eat the piece of bread he found in the dumpster he’s sitting on, or duck back inside it for cover.
The passenger side door swings open, and out jumps an eight-year-old boy. His name is Andy. He is wearing his Little League baseball gear. From toes, to earlobes, plus a hat, he is dressed like a real New York Yankee. He has his brown baseball glove in his right hand and his bat in his left. He trots onto the field and begins tossing the ball up in the air to himself. The grass in the infield is long. It hasn’t been cut since the season ended. The grass in the outfield is longer and has many burn marks. The bases have all been removed and put in storage, but Andy is marking an “X” in the dirt where the bases should be. The field is very large. It has a fence that creates a barrier between the outfield and the road about 100 yards away from home plate. Some local business signs are hung along the fence. Andy likes to watch the high school games, and sometimes his mom will allow him to stay after school to watch. Andy had only ever seen one boy hit a home run on this field. The backstop is a giant metal cage that is half rusted out and bent. There are two dugouts and they are littered with paper cups and sunflower seed shells.
The driver of the truck, Andy’s father, still sitting in the truck, was listening to the baseball game on the radio. He shuts off the truck,and joins his son on the field. Andy’s dad is about fifty years old. He is a tall and strong man. He has rough hands and scars on his legs and arms from doing construction all his life. He is wearing green cargo shorts, a Yankees T-shirt with the number two on the back, and an old pair of flip-flops, that had almost as many years, and miles as the truck did.
As Andy ran from base to base,and kicked dust into the air, his father unpacked the red lawn chair, blue igloo cooler, and his radio from the bed of the truck. The radio is gray with three big silver knobs. It has a tape deck that doesn’t work, and it has no antenna. A bulky piece of tinfoil limps over the top of the carrying handle to replace it. The radio only has one speaker, and it only gets one station. He flips the power button to the on position, and he fiddles with the tuning knob until all the static is gone, and he could hear the baritone voice of the commentator whom he had listened to for almost 30 years.
“What’s the score now dad?” Andy asked as he fixed his hat to a comfortable position on his head that desperately need a haircut. His mother had let him grow it out over the summer, but he knows it will all be gone when school starts up in a few weeks.
“The Yanks are still losing buddy.” He replied. He kicked off his flip-flops. “Alright let’s see what you got.”
Andy, now standing on the front of the pictures mound, hurled the ball, and it made a loud smacking sound as it hit his father’s glove. “Nice.”His father said. He tossed the ball back to Andy, and it hit the top tip of his glove,and rolled out into the outfield.
“Keep your eye on the ball dude.” His dad chuckled a little, and reached into the cooler for a beer. Andy slapped his glove and took off after the ball. His dad opened the beer, and took a big sip. He walked over to the radio, and turned it up a little louder. Andy, now back on the mound, threw the ball back, again making a loud thud.
“Whoa! “His father took his left hand out of the glove and rubbed his palm. “Pretty soon we are going to have to start calling you Andy Pettitte.” He threw the ball back. As Andy caught it, he smiled at the compliment.
“Who is up now?” Andy asked.
“Gardner. Jeter is on deck.” He walked back to the radio and adjusted the big knob again. He finished his beer with a long chug, wiped off his chin, then crumpled the can and tossed into the cooler. He took out another beer, opened it, and had another long sip. Andy threw the ball in, and said “throw me a high fly one dad.”
“Alright, here you go.” He arched his arm back and sent the ball soaring into the endless blue sky. Andy got under it, placed his hand in front of his eyes to shield the sun, and caught the ball. His father smiled at his son. Andy had started playing baseball when he was five years old and his dad taught him everything he knew. Andy’s father was a big Yankees fan and naturally so was Andy. His father listened to every game that he could on the radio. He liked to listen to the games on the radio rather than watching them on TV because the announcers were more poetic and they described the drama of the game in such a way that it made him feel like he was actually there in Yankee Stadium, sitting in the bleachers waiting to catch a homerun or a foul ball. They would listen to the games together when they were doing yardwork or cooking dinner. And whenever they were in the truck, the game was on. When the Yankees made the playoffs, even if it was a school night, he would wake Andy up so they could listen to the last inning of the World Series together.
“Okay, Jeter is up. Come on over here. Let’s see if he can do it.” Andy ran over to his dad, and sat in the lawnchair. His father gave him a scolding look, and Andy popped up and smiled and said “just kidding. ”
His father sat down, and took a sip of his drink and said. “You’re too young to be sitting. You haven’t earned it yet.”
“Do you think he’ll do it today dad?”
“You never know, but I hope he does.”They were both hoping that their favorite player, Derek Jeter, would get his 3000th career hit. Andy had grown up listening to Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter was Andy’s hero.(Other than his dad of course.) Just then, a crack of a bat, and the announcer started screaming. “There it goes… It is high…It is far…”
“Here we go Andy…this is it.” He turned the radio all the way up. The announcer bellowed “It is gone.” Derek Jeter just hit a game-tying homerun for his 3000th career hit. Andy took off laughing and smiling. He threw his glove and hat into the air, and he started running around the bases as if he had just hit the homerun. He was dancing in the base path, and waving to the empty field, but he was imagining himself running the bases in Yankee Stadium. He could still hear the radio. He could hear the fans at the ballpark screaming, and he pretended that it was him they were cheering for. As he rounded third-base he could hear the announcer say “Isn’t it amazing, that a man can capture a moment like that?”
Suddenly as Andy past third base, he realized that his father was slumped over in a heap on the ground next to home plate. He ran to him. “Dad? “No response. “Dad? “Andy reach for the cell phone in his father’s pocket and dialed 911.
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