The Hitting Zone

Sunday's game was right during lunch time so Mom and Dad let us go crazy at the snackbar.

Noah squinted at my small pile of food. I had two hotdogs, a bag of peanuts, and a large coke fitting on a small to-go tray. "That's all?!? Are you planning to get up later to get more?"

I frowned. "I thought this was a lot."

"No way. Don't you want to grow? You have to eat more." Noah straightened up, showing off how much taller he was than me.

"Don't take his advice." Mom cut in, leaning forward in her seat to look at me. "That's just junk food. It won't really make you grow. You're doing just fine. You've come a long way as it is."

I sat up straight in my own seat. "Am I really growing?"

Mom smiled. "It won't be long until we buy you some new clothes."

"I've got some hand-me-downs for you." Noah told me. "And I'll start taking clothes from the twins."

Dave rolled his eyes. "I don't think you've grown that much. Chill bro."

Kyle nudged me. "You can have my old stuff instead. I have better style than them after all."

"We share a closet, dude." Dave rolled his eyes. "What's mine is yours. And yours is mine."

We talked a little more about size, including height and weight. The twins were identical in looks and build, but they compared biceps to show that the circumference was just a little bit different.

Kyle grinned as he flexed. "All those handstands are starting to pay off."

Noah was confused. "Handstands? When do you guys do that?"

"Before bed." Dave said. "Not every night. Just occasionally against one another or right before taking a shower. We thought we would give it a try."

"You got that from the guy here at Stanford, right? What was his name again?" Noah asked, looking out onto the field where players were preparing to start the game.

"He was a pitcher." I pointed out. So he wouldn't be on the field right now. He would be in the bullpen.

"His name was Shawn." Kyle answered. "And he graduated last year so he wouldn't be out there anyways."

"Oh. Do you know what happened to him?" Noah asked.

Kyle shrugged. "We only met once. It's not like we exchanged contact info."

Noah's lips twitched. "You can still follow him on Instagram or something. Just to see what he's doing. Maybe you'll be meeting him in the minors later this summer."

"You're right. I should just follow him." Kyle pulled out his phone and started to tap away. He suddenly paused and looked up. "Does anyone remember his last name?"

Dave laughed. "Yea, right. I don't know if we ever bothered to ask. Just go to the Stanford roster on the team website, then change the year to last. That's not too hard."

Kyle took the lead and started to act on Dave's idea. He found the guy in no time, clicked 'follow', then proceeded to look through his profile. "Looks like he's still playing baseball. Must be the minor leagues."

"Can you figure out which pro team he's affiliated with?" Noah asked, getting up to peek at his phone.

"Just look him up yourself." Dave pulled Noah back to sit in his seat. "The game is about to start."

Zeke and his team took the field.

In the top of the first, they fell behind by three runs early on, but was able to get in the bottom half thanks to a two run double by Zeke and then another double to drive him home by Bradley Thompson. The game became a complete hitfest, constantly going back and forth with multiple pitcher changes. What would normally take a little over three hours, the game was stretched to almost four and a half. To make things worse, we still had to wait around over an hour for Zeke to finish his postgame meeting and shower. It was only after he joined us could we take him out to dinner.

"Rhys didn't want a free meal?" Dad asked as we loaded into the car. "He could have squeezed in the very back with Noah and Jake."

Zeke shook his head. "No, he still has homework to do before tomorrow. I told him I would let him know where we go and then bring him something back. If you guys don't mind?"

"Of course we don't mind!" Mom answered, buckling in. "His parents are closer and treat you to more meals than we're able to do for Rhys. When's your next game? Can we take you both to dinner then?"

"I'll help you download the schedule to your phone, Mom." Zeke told her. "Next game is on Tuesday. Only thirty minutes away but at 6pm so I wouldn't recommend you come to that. There'll be traffic and we have to take the team bus. There'll be plenty more to come to later."

"Next weekend?" Noah asked, poking his head through. "But we won't be able to go, because we have a game Saturday."

Zeke chuckled. "No, next weekend we travel to Texas for a round-robin tournament. Our flight leaves Thursday night. We won't play another home game until the end of the month, but you guys will be playing in the Foothill Classic by then. But after that, I'll have a string of home games and maybe you guys can come then."

"Wow. We basically won't see you until March." Dave said.

"Not even a whole month." Zeke said.

"We should get the schedules down on one calendar." Dad suggested. "That way your mother and I can plan to go to as many home games as possible."

"Even if they conflict with our games?" Dave asked.

"Contrary to belief, your father and I don't have to do everything together." Mom said, looking back. "We can split up and multitask. Take turns going to games. Tuesday, I'll make an early drive to avoid traffic and watch Zeke and his team. Zeke, who are you guys playing?"

"Santa Clara." He told her. "I'll send you the stadium address." He pulled out her phone.

"I can go on Tuesday too. The boys don't play until Wednesday." Dad added.

Mom glanced at him. "You want to leave the four of them with Grampa alone?"

Dad smiled. "You can't baby all of them at the same time. The boys know what to do after practice: showers and homework. Your dad would probably like to take control of the kitchen again. He always liked cooking."

Mom sighed. "Yea, he would. I just worry with him getting older."

"I know." Dad subtly patted her knee.

After dinner, we took Zeke back to school with some food for Rhys. The drive home from there wasn't too bad and we made it before it got too late.

Grampa was still up and waiting for us. He had avoided going to the games this weekend because he had something to do at the senior center. He was becoming more and more involved with other senior citizens.

"How'd you like having the house to yourself, Dad?" Mom asked Grampa. "I really think you should have come with us. We missed you."

Grampa shook his head with a light smile. "Mary, I'm a grown man. I don't need to be dragged around all the time. I've got to see Zeke play just a bit ago. The drive is a bit much for me. You don't expect me to travel to all the away games for the other boys, do you?"

"Of course not." Mom told him. "I don't want to feel like you're forced to do anything and I know the traveling can be rough."

"You're forcing him to make dinner on Tuesday." Noah reminded.

"Noah James, go get ready for bed." Mom pointed to the stairs.

Noah laughed and ran off first.

"Tuesday? What's going on Tuesday?" Grampa was interested.

"Zeke has a game." Dad explained. "We'll probably leave early in the afternoon to beat traffic. But the boys won't be able to come. They have school and practice. So we were hoping you would take over dinner for them."

"Of course! It's no problem!" Grampa headed for the kitchen. "I have to see if I need to go grocery shopping."

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