The Hitting Zone

After talking it out with Noah and getting more baseball information, I felt more relaxed. He helped me straighten my thoughts out and I was thankful for it. He told me the boys probably ordered a pizza from the snack bar and got the food by now, so we should hurry back.

He was accurate with his assumption. The three were sitting at a round table chomping on an extra-large pizza, water bottles all over the place. They stopped eating as we approached the table. Noah sat down and looked at me, expectantly.

I took a deep breath and looked Zeke in the eye. "I want to hit."

The twins jaws dropped.

Zeke gave a simple nod. "Yes, I know. But it all depends on the situation. You have to look at who is pitching: are they good or bad? Do they have endurance? Would a hit on the first pitch throw them off? Or on the fifteenth pitch? There's a lot to take in account during games."

Noah rolled his eyes. "A simple yes would have sufficed. Jake likes to hit. You should have explained that you don't want him to foul off every pitch all the time."

Zeke frowned. "No, that would probably make pitchers angry and throw at you. Today was just practice."

I crumbled to my seat. Practice. Again. I thought today was for relaxation and hanging out. The twins laughed at my heartbroken expression.

"You really surprised us though." Kyle passed me a plate with pizza. "I didn't expect you to snap like that, at all."

I turned red, ashamed of how I acted, letting my emotions get the better of me.

Dave nodded along to Kyle's words. "Yea, no kidding. Only Zeke can piss off a mute so much that he'll speak aloud."

Noah frowned. "Jake isn't a mute."

Dave waved him off. "Yea, sure. He's pretty damn close. Normal people talk more in an hour than he does in a week."

Noah glared, then he pouted at Zeke. "Dave is bullying Jake. I think the only compensation we need would be ice cream." Zeke got the stern look on his face, making me shrink in my seat. "Look, you too! Ice cream or I tell mom you almost made Jake upset enough to run away." Blackmail. No surprise there.

Zeke caved though. He looked at Dave. "Go buy ice cream for everyone."

"Everyone?" Dave squinted at his oldest brother. "Including you?"

Zeke nodded. "We have to stick together. If one of us doesn't get ice cream, they might tattle on the others. We're family." My heart started to pound at the last word.

Dave rolled his eyes. "If we're family, then pitch in. I'm super broke after today. So many tokens and now you want me to buy the ice cream..?"

"Denied." Noah replied. "You insulted Jake so we have more dirt on you. You would get the biggest punishment."

Dave groaned and got up, stomping his way to the counter. Kyle and Noah laughed as me and Zeke continued to eat pizza.

The rest of the afternoon was spent stuffing our faces and playing video games. The twins took a strange pride in beating me and Noah at every game we stopped at. Zeke just sat in the snack bar area with our bags, playing on his phone.

When we passed by him after over an hour, I noticed he was still on his phone. I tugged Noah's sleeve and pointed at the scene, wanting to know what was so important.

Noah gave me a light smile. "The bracket for the tournament must have came out. He's probably looking up every team that we might potentially play."

"Not even probably." Kyle cut in. "He's definitely looking up every team. Even the loser ones that will play against seeded teams. Zeke is overly dedicated to his captain position."

I nodded. I know that he knows everything this is about baseball. It only makes sense that he would be checking out other teams.

"The tournament this weekend has a simple format." Noah explained. "You win, you move on. You lose, you go home."

"It's all relatively local." Dave added. "Sixteen teams including us. Everyone plays in the morning. Then there'll be eight teams left to play in the evening." So a doubleheader? "Sunday morning is the semi-finals. Sunday evening would be the finals."

They added little tidbits here and there about what schools we need to worry about, but it didn't mean much to me. I was more focused on the fact that an elimination game would be my first official baseball game experience.