Chapter 3: Coach Callahan
Coach Ron Callahan arrived at Riverbend Athletic Park the way a storm arrives: loudly, and with everybody looking. He was fifty-two, broad-shouldered, with a whistle around his neck and a clipboard tucked under one arm, and his voice carried across all four diamonds before he had even reached the Falcons' dugout. Davon heard him from the equipment shed, where he was helping Earl stack bases, and he recognised the voice at once. He had heard it through the fence for months.
"Let's go, Falcons! Hustle in, hustle out! No standing around on my field!"
The boys jogged to the dugout, helmets in hand, and Callahan launched into a speech about the showcase. Scouts were coming, he said. Real scouts, with notepads and radar guns, who would be watching every pitch. This was their chance to be seen, to be remembered, to prove that the Falcons were the best fourteen-and-under team in the county. The boys nodded, some eagerly, some nervously, and Davon watched from a respectful distance, holding a base in each hand.
Callahan was not a cruel man, exactly. Davon had decided that long ago. He was proud, and loud, and certain that his way was the right way, and certainty could sound a lot like cruelty when you were on the outside of it. He ran a closed team, and he said so openly, as if it were a virtue. Tryouts were by invitation. The fee was two thousand eight hundred dollars for the season, covering uniforms, tournaments, and travel. If you could not pay, you could not play. If you were not invited, you did not ask.
Now Callahan gathered his pitchers near the mound. His assistant, Coach Tom Beasley, stood a step behind him, quiet as always. Beasley was forty-four, lean and sun-weathered, and he handled the bullpen and the equipment with a calm efficiency that contrasted sharply with Callahan's volume. Davon liked watching Beasley. He did not shout. He watched, and when he spoke, it was usually one sentence, and it was usually right.
"Cody!" Callahan called. "You're starting today. Showcase arm, showcase day. Show them what a Falcon looks like."
Cody Sullivan stepped forward. He was fourteen, tall for his age, with a strong arm and a confident stride, and Davon recognised him as the pitcher from batting practice, the one whose elbow dropped. Cody nodded at Callahan, but his jaw was tight, and Davon saw the pressure sitting on his shoulders like a weight. A starting pitcher on showcase day, with scouts in the stands, was carrying more than a baseball.
Callahan clapped Cody on the back. "Throw hard, son. Don't aim it. Just let it fly. Velocity gets you noticed. Location gets you lessons later."
Davon winced, almost without meaning to. That was exactly the wrong advice for a boy whose elbow was already dropping. Telling Cody to throw harder would only make him overthrow, pull his arm down further, and lose the plate entirely. Davon opened his mouth, then closed it again. He was the mower boy, holding bases. Nobody had asked him.
Beasley glanced toward Davon, just for a second, and Davon wondered if the assistant coach had noticed his reaction. Beasley's expression gave nothing away. He turned back to the pitchers and began laying out the warm-up routine in his low, even voice, and the boys fell into line, throwing easy tosses to one another in the outfield grass.
From the shed, Earl watched Callahan too, his arms folded. "Man loves his team," Earl said quietly. "Sometimes loves it so much he can't see past it."
Callahan's voice rose again, organising the batting order, assigning positions, reminding parents to stay behind the fence and let the coaches coach. The parents laughed, settling into the bleachers with their coolers. The Falcons took the field in their clean uniforms, and the afternoon sun glinted off their helmets. It was a fine-looking team, Davon thought, and he meant it. They were talented, and they worked hard, and they deserved their showcase.
But as Cody Sullivan took the mound for his warm-up tosses, his elbow dropped again on the third throw, and the ball sailed high over the catcher's head to the backstop. Callahan shouted for him to shake it off and throw harder. Beasley said nothing, but he watched Cody's arm with a thoughtful frown, and Davon, still holding the bases, felt his stomach tighten.
He knew what was coming, even if he did not know when. A pitcher who overthrew on showcase day, in front of scouts, would eventually lose the strike zone completely. And when that happened, somebody would need a pitcher. Davon looked down at his work boots, dusty from the morning's mowing, and then back at the mound, where Cody was winding up again. He did not wish Cody ill. He wished, instead, that somebody would tell the boy the simple truth about his elbow, before the game told it to him in a harder way.