Free The Batboy by Mike Lupica

clubhouse of his father’s team in Japan, because Brian had sent him one earlier this year without telling his mom he was doing it, a picture of him and Kenny in their Schwartz Investments Pirates uniforms. He’d included a letter along with the photo, telling his dad about his season, about his batting average and RBI.
    Told him at the end how much he loved him and missed him.
    And never heard back.
    Brian had no way of knowing how old the picture of Katie Bishop was, how long ago it had been taken. He stared at it now, and for some reason, it made him like Hank Bishop more.

CHAPTER 11
    I t was past midnight now, way past, on the night of the great Comerica sleepover.
    “C’mon,” Finn said, “they’re about to show the plays of the week on the Tigers’ channel.”
    “Plays that occurred,” Brian said, turning, “in a ballpark we are still inside of.”
    “Good night, children!” Mr. Schenkel yelled from behind the closed door to Davey Schofield’s office.
    “Good night, Mr. Schenkel,” they sang out in classroom voices.
    They watched the highlights from the week. Watched Willie’s four hits, his headfirst slides on his steals, watched him glove that ball behind second again. Watched the replay of Hank’s walk-off against the Angels again, saw the other players jumping him at home plate. It wasn’t like the rockets he used to hit, Brian knew. It looked more like a ball just falling out of the sky, landing just beyond the right-field wall.
    Who cares, Brian thought. The swing still looks the same, just not the results. There had been a fly ball early in tonight’s game, one that the crowd thought was a home run when it came off Hank’s bat. But when it ended up an easy out on the warning track, Brian had heard the Rangers’ pitching coach yell out, “Not anymore, big boy.” Trash talk about the steroids.
    Brian didn’t know whether Hank had heard, but Brian had.
    They watched the rest of the highlights until Brian looked over and saw that Finn had fallen asleep, as if the air had come out of his balloon all at once.
    Brian gently took the remote out of his hand and used it to shut off the television. He left Finn where he was and took the other couch, the one in front of the other television set. The only light in the Tigers’ clubhouse now was from the supermarket-style refrigerators, the ones with the glass doors and bottles of water and Gatorade and fruit juice and Vitaminwater inside, the ones he and Finn were constantly re stocking.
    He was almost ready for sleep, too. Almost. But first there was something he wanted to do. He walked across the room, through the double doors, down the stairs, and up the runway to the dugout.
    Then up the stairs to the field.
    He took it all in. The quiet expanse of the outfield. The blue tarp on the mound at home plate. He noticed that the lights at the top of Comerica were dimmed slightly, and would stay that way through the night.
    Then he walked over to home plate in his bare feet, feeling the cool, wet grass underneath him, and got into the batter’s box side. He took a huge swing with an imaginary bat, hit himself a great big imaginary home run, and started to run around the bases, taking his time.
    As he came around third, he tossed away an imaginary batting helmet before jumping hard on the blue tarp covering home plate.
    He took one last look around, taking in the sights of the empty place and the night sounds, even though there were hardly any sounds at all at this time of night. Comerica was so quiet he could actually hear the hum of the stadium lights.
    He started back toward the dugout, again feeling the soft ballpark grass underneath his feet.
    When he got to the top of the dugout steps, he used his own chair as a ladder and hopped into the stands and walked up through the empty rows and then over a couple of sections to the two seats on the aisle where he and his dad used to sit, in the last row of Section 135.
    And in that moment, Brian didn’t