Free Out of Control by Richard Reece

CHAPTER 1
    I f you had attended the baseball game between the Las Vegas Roadrunners and the Boise Bulls on that steamy June afternoon, you would have seen something unusual. Both summer travel teams were at the elite level, which is to say that both teams had teenage players under seventeen years old with college or even professional potential. But that afternoon you would have seen something that looked more like a scene from a Little League game.
    It began simply enough. The Roadrunners were down by two in the bottom of the eighth inning. Thanks to a walk, they had a runner on first with nobody out: their shortstop, Carlos “Trip” Costas. Trip was speedy, so the expectation was that he would try to steal second, and indeed he was taking a generous enough lead to draw the attention of the pitcher.
    The Bulls’ pitcher was good enough, or well-coached enough, to expect the steal. But even if he had been unaware, the screaming of one of the Roadrunners’ fans would have alerted him.
    â€œSTEAL! STEAL, CARLOS! Jeez, move your butt! This guy’s got nothing!”
    A few people in the crowd looked around, but most of the Roadrunners’ faithful knew without looking that the screamer was Trip’s father, Julio. Like Trip, they ignored him.
    The game slowed down considerably with the next batter, center fielder Danny Manuel. He was a good match for the pitcher; both of them were—to put it nicely in a word often used by sports broadcasters—“deliberate.” They took their time. The pitcher would fool around with the resin bag, make a couple of throws to first, fool around with his cap, and then again go to the resin bag. Once he was finally ready to pitch, Danny would call time and step out of the batter’s box.
    When a pitch actually managed to occur, Danny would foul it off. The afternoon was warm, the sun was bright, and the sky was a monotonous, cloudless, desert blue. What should have been a tense situation was becoming nap-inducing.
    Julio was still awake, though. He was still yelling for the steal. And he was still being ignored, as the attention of the other fans and, as it turned out, some of the players waned. The count drowsed its way to 2–2, and Danny kept fouling off pitches—over the backstop, tipped into the dirt, down the line, high, low. It was after about seven of these that the Bulls’ catcher noticed Trip’s overlong lead.
    The next pitch was outside, on the first-base side of the plate. The catcher gunned it to first and Trip, as he admitted later, was caught napping. The first baseman tagged him out, the Roadrunners’ fans groaned, and Trip headed back to the dugout.
    From the seats came an outraged bellow, and suddenly Julio was on the field, heading for his son. What transpired looked like a coach-umpire altercation, with Julio in the role of coach, cursing in Spanish and waving his arms, while Trip stared at him with little expression while trying to walk away. That’s when the shoving started. Julio grabbed the teenager by the shoulder and started shaking him. Trip was four inches taller and pushed his dad away, but Julio kept grabbing him and getting in his face.
    â€œWhat were you thinking? You had that guy! You could steal standing up!”
    Finally, Trip started backing his dad up, shoving the heels of his hands against Julio’s chest.
    Before things got really ugly, the umpires converged on the two and the Roadrunners’ bench emptied. The resulting spectacle consisted of a baseball team separating father from son, handing Julio over to security and shielding Trip as they ushered him to the dugout. Trip hadn’t said anything to that point, but as his dad was escorted out he turned and yelled, in a voice as impressively loud as Julio’s, “Happy freakin’ Father’s Day!”
    When the game finally resumed, Danny flied out. Zack Waddell singled, but he was then thrown out on Nick Cosimo’s