This story is told by me, Billy’s younger brother

Billy and I are what people call “Irish twins”, two kids born within a twelve month period of each other. Billy is older. Because of the closeness in our ages, we did almost everything together, but we couldn’t be more different people.

I’m a video game junkie; Call of Duty is my jam, I’m learning the guitar, I want to play like Eric Clapton and I love soccer, center line forward, co-team captain. 

Billy, well he’s weird. He devours those mega thick cartoon books of the Walking Dead series, they’re like a thousand pages each, he plays Madden Football all the time and loves baseball, I mean he really loves baseball. The clown sleeps with his glove and has the bat next to his bed.

We have a younger sister too, Kelly. She’s only three. Because of her, Mom makes Billy play soccer and I have to play baseball, which I stink at. Plus we have to play on the same team so mom isn’t the quote on quote, soccer mom. You know, the mom who has to drive us kids here, there and everywhere, all the time.

Billy and I play on the Springfield Blue Demons little league team. Billy is one of our pitchers and I’m sent out to left field, or as some call it, left out. A safer place to play your worst fielder. 

There are times when a batted ball gets past our third baseman and bounces into left field. Now I have to run it down. Lucky for me by the time I have to field the ball, it almost stopped rolling. I can field it bare handed and make an easy throw back to the shortstop. That is the extent of my skills as a left fielder. I don’t want anything more than that. 

Recently we played a scheduled game against the River Plaza Renegades. They were real good. The game was close. We were up 6 - 4. Billy was pitching and today he had some zip on the ball. He was mowing them down left and right as the saying goes. There were two outs when their clean-up hitter came to bat. 

Billy was laser focused. Had him on a one ball two strike count. The batter saw the next pitch real good because he lofted a high fly ball to left field. That’s right. Left field. That’s where I play. Oh no, oh no, no no no … I’m not ready. 

I looked up in the air and saw the ball. I ran over to the spot where I thought the ball will land. I stretched my arm, stuck the glove out, squeezed my eyes shut… 

Thwump! 

I opened one eye and there sat the ball, in the middle of my mitt. “I caught it, I caught it,” I screamed, raising my arms like Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The next inning when it was my turn to bat, I walked up to the plate with a new found swag in my step. I stood in the box, tapped the bat on the ground, because that’s what ball players do. I was ready.

So was the pitcher. He hit me on my butt with the first pitch. Did he mean to do it? I don’t know. Was he mad because I caught the ball? I don’t know. All I know was that it hurt and I couldn’t rub it without being laughed at by the other team.

The guys on my team started to yell at the pitcher and talk trash to him until our coach put a stop to it. He said getting hit is all “part of the game” and not to lower yourself or your standards. 

Well my brother took care of business in the next inning. When their pitcher came to bat, Billy plunked him with his first pitch. A high fastball, right on his back, between the numbers. Yup, he unloaded on him. On purpose! 

He immediately got thrown out of the game by the umpire. Billy smiled as he walked off the mound. Not because he hit the batter, but because he protected  me, his little brother.

Even if he’s only nine months older then me!