Flash Fiction: The Next Card Played Will Be the Jack of Nasturtiums
“No. It’s against the rules,” Coach Peters said. Andrew, standing before him at a hefty six foot two inches tall, had showed up to the softball game with a badminton racquet. “You’re not taking that out onto the field.”
“What harm can it do?” Andrew looked hurt.
“This isn’t a kid’s league, Andrew. And be reasonable. It’s a softball game: At the plate you got two hands on the bat. In the field you got one hand to catch and one to throw. What are you gonna do with that thing?”
Andrew’s eyes followed the racquet drooping in fingers toughened by long days at the shop. Then he looked up. “Can I at least put it out with our equipment?”
Coach sighed, clipboard in hand. “Can’t guarantee it won’t get broken.”
Andrew stared.
“Fine then,” Coach Peters said. “And by the way, I’m counting on you tonight. I just put you down batting cleanup. Now get your gear on. We got a ball game to win.”
‘Yes, Coach. Just a minute.”
Sure enough, when the Redbirds went to grab their bats in the first inning, they saw a badminton racquet lying among them. Looks were exchanged. Whispered explanations went around. Eyes slid to their corners. Stepping up to the plate, Andrew let two balls go by before blasting a triple with a man on first. Up next, Nick followed with a powerful shot down the third base line, driving Andrew in with a double.
And so it went. By game’s end Andrew had driven in six runs and scored twice, snapping the Redbirds’ three-game losing streak.
Later, Coach Peters and third baseman Sean picked up their equipment, and the coach handed the racquet to Andrew.
“Good game,” he said.
After that, Andrew brought the racquet to the next five games and every practice in between. The Redbirds won all of them, rising to second place in the league. With each win the team gained energy. Coach Peters noticed his players straining heroically to catch long fly balls that earlier in the season might have elicited a trot just to show some effort. Infielders dove for grounders as if they were priceless pearls and then fired them away again like live hand grenades. With expectations running high, at practice they also cursed louder when their bats didn’t connect, until Coach Peters ordered them to save their voices and just hit the ball. Although no one noticed, or found the words to say so if they had, the Redbirds also started making eye contact more often, and as dusk fell after practice the last men on the field bagged their equipment with quiet reverence.
It would have been hard to pick an MVP for the Redbirds’ final game. Every player had a decisive moment of greatness — some in the field, some running bases, some at bat — and the shoulder claps and high fives penetrated the parchment of the late summer sun and rewrote the team’s constitution. By then, if Andrew’s badminton racquet weren’t seen among the jumble of balls and bats, his teammates might’ve wondered where it was.