The knuckleball pitcher grips the baseball in his knuckles and throws a baseball that has very little spin in the air, but whirls and dips in a pitch that confuses the batter.

  It is one of the hardest pitches for a batter to hit.

  I am young, four years old, when it first happens.

  My father has finished braiding my hair, one slick braid on each side.

  He likes braiding my hair.

  “It’s good for my fingers, Lucy,” he tells me. “It keeps them nimble for pitching.”

  He flashes his fingers open-shut, open-shut to show me.

  “Luther!” Edgar, my father’s favorite catcher, calls from the field past our yard.

  “It’s time,” says my father, picking up his bag of baseballs and his glove, running out to practice pitching.

  I sit on the porch with my mother. She has just finished a painting and she wipes smudges from her hands.

  We watch my father pitch to Edgar in the field. It is sixty feet, six inches from pitcher to catcher.

  I know this. My father and I measured it out, step by step.

  I know I can’t throw a ball that far.

  My father throws pitch after pitch to Edgar. Then Edgar makes a sign with his hands.

  My father shakes his head no.

  “Do it,” Edgar calls.

  My father looks at my mother to make sure she’s watching.

  And he pitches to Edgar. But Edgar can’t catch it, whirling around, looking for it. The ball ends up way behind him, deep in a pricker bush.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” Edgar yells, tangled in thorns. But Edgar is laughing. My father laughs too.

  He looks over at my mother.

  Her mouth is open with surprise.

  She knows.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She grins at my father. “Daddy pitched a knuckleball,” she says.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “Magic,” says my mother.

  My father holds up his hand and flashes his fingers to me. Open-shut, open-shut.

  “Nimble!” he calls.

  Magic.

  And that was the beginning.

  Part I

  Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.

  —YOGI BERRA, catcher

  1 The Yard Goats

  I am eleven years old—

  spring is turning into summer—

  baseball time!

  Our combined fourth and fifth and sixth grades play baseball in the field next to our country school—only four boys in my class.

  It’s a team of boys and girls together: Lily, Bett, Ellie, Markus, the two Lizzies, Anna, Tim, Arthur, Tex, Robin, and me.

  We play with worn school gloves of different sizes.

  Long ago my father gave me a glove when we tossed a ball back and forth in the backyard. It is blue, and much too small for me now. It sits on the table next to my bed. Except when my dad’s away. Then it sits on my pillow.

  Our school principal, Mr. Baker, comes out sometimes to coach us and call balls and strikes at practice and games.

  “Want to try pitching today, Lucy?” he asks me.

  “Never!” I say quickly. “That’s not for me!”

  I play second base sometimes, or wherever I’m needed.

  But not pitching.

  Pitching is my dad’s job. And he’s really good at it.

  Next to our playing field is a fenced-in family of friendly goats. They watch us play, baaing loudly when we cheer a hit or home run.

  From time to time the goats get out and wander into our schoolyard for pats, and to nose the first grade swings.

  Once we played another team and the goats pushed their way out. The visiting team ran away. Their coach climbed a tree, afraid.

  We started laughing. The goats started bleating.

  After that my friend Tex’s younger brother Jake named our team the Yard Goats. We shortened the name to the Goats.

  “Yay Goats!!” we yell as the goats bleat.

  I have two best friends—Tex, named Texas after the state where he was born, and the other named Robin after a bird. They are cousins.

  Robin is the best hitter—better than both boys and girls. Some of the goats bleat when she comes to the plate.

  In the outfield, however, Robin is distracted and bored. We have to shout at her when there is an outfield fly ball so she won’t miss it or get hit on the head.

  * * *

  It’s a half day at school today. My mother drives Tex, Robin, and me the two-hour trip to the stadium where my father’s minor league team is playing.

  “Minor league for now,” she says. “Hoping to be major.”

  “What’s the difference?” asks Robin.

  “A new car,” answers my mother, making Robin and Tex laugh.

  It is early pregame practice when we get to the stadium. My father waves and comes over. The words SALEM RED SOX are written on his uniform in small red letters.

  “Your poor braids,” he says sadly to me.

  He kisses my mother. “Got a brush, Meg?”

  My mother takes a brush out of her backpack. He brushes and braids my hair, and it feels like past times to me. He’s been away pitching for weeks and weeks at a time—sometimes a month or two.

  I miss his fingers in my hair.

  But I don’t tell him I don’t wear braids most times anymore—unless he’s around.

  My mother takes a photo of Billy May, a pitcher warming up. Billy comes over to look at the photo.

  “I’m not following through enough,” he says. “Thanks, Meg.”

  “Billy thinks a lot,” says my father. “Of course, all pitchers do.”

  “Will you pitch today?” Tex says.

  My father shrugs.

  “Don’t know. Knuckleball pitchers often sit out the games. Sometimes they are starters. Or are called to pitch suddenly depending on the batter. We know batters don’t like knuckleballs. They are hard to hit. But catchers don’t like them either because they’re hard to catch, too.”

  “Except for Edgar,” I say.

  “Except for Edgar,” my father repeats. “Edgar is what every pitcher needs—a steady, calming partner in an unpredictable game. And sometimes the pitch just doesn’t work.”

  “Then why do you pitch the knuckleball?” asks Robin.

  “I love when it works. It surprises me. And it surprises the batter!”

  My mother has her own answer. “Think of him trying to paint the game. Like me painting a picture. Trying to make the game come out the way he wants. In his own way,” she says.

  The players take a break and run off the field.

  “Come,” says my father.

  We follow him, climbing over the railing.

  He takes us to the pitcher’s mound. It’s the first time I’ve ever stood on a real mound.

  “Wow,” says Tex, grinning. “This is great!”

  “It’s so high,” says Robin.

  My father looks at me, waiting.

  “Lucy?”

  I take his pitching hand. I can see that it is a bit larger, with more muscle than his other hand.

  “It’s the scariest place I’ve ever been,” I say.

  My father nods.

  “And it is where I try to paint the game,” he tells me.

  * * *

  “Luther Chance coming in to pitch!” the announcer says loudly. “Edgar Vazquez catching.”

  The crowd applauds.

  My father pitches in the ninth inning. We lead three to two.

  He gets three strikeouts in a row to win the game!

  The crowd cheers loudly!!

  My mother takes a photo.

  And she cries.

  My father and Edgar come over to us. Edgar gives me the baseball.

  “Yours,” he says.

  It is still warm.

  “Your last pitch scared me,” says Edgar. “It was close to being a passed ball.”

  “But it wasn’t, thanks to you!” says my father, putting his arm around Edgar.

  * * *

  At home that night my mother shows me the photo of all of us on the pitcher’s mound.

  “Tex looks joyful!” I say. “And Robin looks…” I pause.

  “Wary,” says my mother.

  I nod.

  “I look scared,” I say.

  “Yes. And your father has all these same feelings when he pitches,” says my mother.

  I hold the baseball Edgar put in my hand.

  “All?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “A pitcher has to learn courage.”

  I look up at my mother.

  “Courage,” she repeats.

  * * *

  The next morning I wake before sunrise.

  My mother still sleeps.

  I carry my father’s bag of baseballs outside to the field.

  I stand in the middle of the sixty feet, six inches where my father pitches to Edgar.

  Early morning mist is all around me.

  The screen stands behind the bag that is home plate.

  I take a breath. I feel wary and scared.

  I pitch ball after ball until I begin to hit the place where Edgar would hold his glove ready.

  I gather up the balls and back up closer to my father’s homemade pitching mound.

  I pitch, missing often—gathering up the balls to pitch again—

  over and over

  pitch after pitch.

  And when the mist clears and it is daylight, I c
arry the bag of balls back inside.

  I hear the sounds of my mother in the kitchen, making morning coffee.

  She doesn’t see me pass the open door.

  I get into bed, half-asleep.

  I realize I still have a baseball in my hand.

  I put it on my bedside table, next to my old blue glove.

  I think about courage.

  I know I’ll dream about it.

  And I do.

  2 Ruby

  It is summer vacation.

  Day after day I get up in the morning dark to pitch.

  I tell no one.

  I feel joyful. I like being out in the field alone, pitching into the screen.

  I like the dark before sunrise.

  I like the peace of it.

  And then I have a surprising thought.

  I like to pitch.

  I like watching where the baseball in my hand begins and where it ends.

  Is this courage?

  I wonder what my father would think.

  When the light comes I gather up the baseballs.

  Inside the house my mother is awake, drawing or painting behind the closed door of her studio.

  She thinks I’m still asleep.

  Later Tex and Robin are coming to the house. She has put a sign on the studio door for the three of us.

  The note reads Nope. Busy.

  I smile.

  My mother and I are alike.

  We both have secret lives of our own.

  * * *

  Tex and Robin are amused by my mother’s note.

  “Your mother is wise and funny at the same time,” says Tex.

  “And she’s fierce!” whispers Robin, backing away from the studio door.

  We go out into the playing field.

  Robin hits fungos to us, some over our heads. Some we catch with borrowed gloves from school.

  We don’t hear or see anything but us, hitting, catching, and throwing. No pitching.

  Then I look over and see Edgar’s green truck parked in the driveway. My father sits in the passenger seat, Edgar behind the wheel, watching us.

  A dog sits between them.

  My father rushes out and hugs me.

  “You’re home!” I say.

  “Surprise!” He grins.

  “Nice hitting,” Edgar says to Robin.

  “I can hit,” says Robin. “Not so good at fielding.”

  “We know major league players with the same problem,” says Edgar, making my father laugh.

  The dog, smooth coated white with large dark spots, runs over to us.

  “This is Ruby,” says Edgar. “I brought her from Puerto Rico when I came here to go to school and play baseball. She may be the most talented dog you’ve ever seen.”

  “Why?” asks Robin, patting Ruby.

  “She’s a great fielder!” he says.

  Edgar throws a worn ball to me. “Throw it to her.”

  I toss the ball and Ruby catches it and throws it back with her mouth!!

  I catch and toss it back and Ruby catches and returns it over and over, all of us laughing.

  This goes on until Ruby catches the ball and runs off to pee.

  “She has brilliant mouth-eye coordination,” says Edgar. “Once she caught and tossed the ball sixty-six times before she took it to her bed and went to sleep.”

  “Where’s Meg?” asks my father.

  “In her studio working with a ‘nope’ note on her door.”

  He grins.

  “We’ll surprise her when she comes out. We have two days off,” says my father. “They’re renovating the stadium, most importantly the bathrooms, and improving the field.”

  Two whole days.

  “So we came here!” says Edgar.

  “Don’t you have a wife?” I ask.

  “Nope. And no daughter with golden hair to braid.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe means yes,” I say.

  Edgar grins.

  “My girlfriend, Lena, is a yoga instructor. She knows not one thing about baseball! But she thinks I have great legs.”

  “Catcher’s legs,” says my father. “Hey, where are your braids?” he says to me.

  “I guess I forgot,” I say, and we head into the house.

  * * *

  When my mother comes out of her studio she is surprised!

  My father is braiding my hair.

  Ruby jumps off the couch, the ball in her mouth.

  My father stands, puts his arms around my mother, and kisses her on the lips for a long time.

  Robin blushes. Tex shakes his head and looks away. After a while my mother leans back and touches my father’s cheek.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Most times pretty fine. A few times not so fine.”

  “Are you done kissing?” asks Tex politely.

  “Maybe!” says my father, laughing. “Maybe not!”

  Ruby drops the ball at my mother’s feet.

  “Yours, Edgar?” my mother asks.

  He nods.

  “Ruby. Toss the ball to her.”

  She does and the game of catch is on again, my mother impressed.

  Tex hands my father a baseball.

  “Would you show me how you grip the knuckleball?”

  My father grips the baseball in the knuckles of his pitching hand and shows Tex.

  Tex peers at it.

  “It doesn’t look like a powerful way to pitch,” he says.

  “In a way it is, Tex. You let it fly. You throw it with your knuckles without spin so it is confusing for the batter. It floats and dips and circles in surprising ways. Sly and bewildering.”

  “Did you know that Tim Wakefield pitched the knuckleball with his little finger held out?” asks Tex.

  “That is true.”

  “How many knuckleball pitchers are there in the leagues?” asks Robin.

  “Well, for now there’s me,” my father says.

  We laugh.

  “And before me there were five or six or more, including the great R. A. Dickey. He was the only knuckleball pitcher to win the important Cy Young Award. Every once in a while another appears.”

  “In school I read about a woman pitcher,” I say.

  Everyone looks at me.

  “Who?” asks my father.

  “Annabelle ‘Lefty’ Lee,” I tell him.

  “Oh yes!” says my father. “She pitched a no-hitter and a perfect game!”

  “Was she a knuckleball pitcher, though?” I say.

  “Some women do pitch the knuckleball, Lucy,” says Edgar.

  I stare at Edgar.

  “What women?”

  My father nods.

  “Eri Yoshida from Japan. She learned by watching Tim Wakefield.”

  “And there is Claire Eccles, who has played with both men and women,” says Edgar. “She can pitch the knuckleball.”

  My mother finally stops the catch game with Ruby.

  Edgar picks up his glove.

  He looks at my father. “Ready to pitch?”

  “Wait one minute before you go out,” says my mother. “I want to show you something.”

  She goes to her studio and comes out with a large sketchbook.

  She opens a large page to show us.

  It is my father on the pitcher’s mound, his arms up with happiness.

  Edgar is grinning, his mask half-off, rising up from his crouch.

  The drawing shows the end of a game just won.

  My father puts his arms around my mother.

  “Kissing again?” Tex whispers.

  “The drawing is so real,” says Robin softly. “Better than real.”

  Better than real.

  “And see?” says Edgar. “Lena’s right. My legs do look great.”

  “You’ve painted the game,” I say to my mother.

  She shakes her head.

  “No. I’ve drawn the players who are painting the game.”

  * * *

  We are on the porch, watching my father pitch to Edgar, hearing them call to each other. Ruby watches too. My mother cooks in the kitchen.

  Robin taps my arm.

  “You’re very quiet, Lucy.”

  “I’m thinking.” I pause. “I’m thinking that maybe I will try to pitch when our school team plays this summer.”

  “Really?!” says Robin. “You’ve never wanted to pitch.”

  “And you hate the pitcher’s mound,” Tex adds.

  “I’m learning courage,” I say.

  “What?” says Tex. “What do you mean?”