Chapter 13: A Real Look
The bullpen at Riverbend was quiet in a way the main diamond never was. No bleachers full of parents, no sponsor banners flapping, no phones held up in the air. Just a strip of dirt, a rubber slab, a catcher's glove, and the long shadows of the fence in the late afternoon. Davon arrived early, as Earl had taught him, and stood with his hands in his pockets while Coach Tom Beasley raked the landing area smooth.
Frank Delaney came with his notepad, its cover worn soft at the corners. Sarah Kim came with her tablet and a small radar device on a tripod. She smiled at Davon, businesslike and kind.
"We're going to do this properly," she said. "Warm up first. No rushing. We'll measure what you actually do, not what the video made it look like."
Marcus Bell was already crouched behind the plate, tapping his glove. "Ready when you are, kid," he said. "Just throw like you did yesterday. I'll handle the rest."
Davon nodded, though his throat was dry. Yesterday there had been laughter to push against. Today there was only quiet, and quiet made his thoughts louder. He started with easy tosses, loosening his shoulder the way the library book described, keeping his elbow up, finishing toward his target. Beasley watched without speaking, then stepped in.
"Slow down your feet," Beasley said quietly. "You rush when you're nervous. Plant, then throw. Your arm will follow."
Davon tried again, slower. The ball traveled straighter. He felt the difference in his chest, a small settling, as if his body had remembered something his mind had forgotten.
Delaney did not write much during warm-ups. He watched Davon's feet, his hips, the way his arm came through. Kim called out numbers in a calm voice, not praising, not criticizing, just recording. When Davon threw his fastball, it sat low in the zone, true and steady. His change-up dropped late, the way it had against the wall when he practiced with a tennis ball that refused to behave. His breaking ball found the corner, not perfectly every time, but often enough that Marcus grinned behind his mask.
"That's a real pitch," Marcus said after one breaking ball. "Not a trick. A pitch."
Between sets, Delaney asked Davon questions, not about velocity but about school, about how often he threw, about whether his arm ever hurt. Davon answered honestly. He threw against the wall most days, but never for hours. He had read about arm care in the library book and tried not to throw hard two days in a row, though he had not always understood why it mattered.
"Good," Delaney said, writing that down. "An arm is not a machine. You take care of it, it takes care of you."
Kim showed Davon the tablet at the end, not to impress him but to be fair. The numbers were solid for a fourteen-year-old, not magical, not impossible. She explained spin in plain words, how the ball moved because of the way his fingers left the seams.
"No promises," Delaney said as they packed up. "Scouts don't promise. But you earned a trial with the Falcons, if Callahan agrees and your grandmother signs the paperwork. A trial means practices, not a guaranteed spot. You'd have to earn your place like everyone else."
Davon felt his knees go a little weak. "Yes, sir," he said. "I understand."
Beasley walked him back toward the shed, carrying the bucket of balls. "You threw well because you stayed calm," Beasley said. "Remember that feeling. In a real game, the noise comes back. Your job is to find this quiet again, right here on the mound."
Before they left, Kim asked Davon to throw a few pitches from the stretch, the position he would use with runners on base. It felt awkward at first, his feet closer together, his motion shorter, but Marcus talked him through it, and by the third pitch he found a rhythm. Delaney wrote one more note, then closed his notepad with a soft snap. "You listen," Delaney said. "That matters more than any single number today. Boys who listen get better. Boys who only want to be praised stay exactly where they are."
Beasley added one practical warning: Davon would need water, food before practice, and to tell Rose the schedule. The trial was not only about pitching. It was about handling the whole day well.
Davon looked back at the bullpen, empty now except for footprints in the dirt. Yesterday, three pitches had changed how people looked at him. Today, a full session had changed how he looked at himself. He was not a video. He was a pitcher who still had a great deal to learn, and for the first time, someone was willing to teach him properly. He walked home a little taller, the paperwork folded carefully in his pocket, as if it were something fragile and important, which, in its own way, it was.