At practice Thursday afternoon, I worked with a few more pitchers on their motion, ran double-play drills with the middle infield, and gave advice on different offensive situations during batting practice. For the most part, the guys were all eager to learn, receptive to criticism, and grateful for the feedback.

There was only one kid—a right-handed pitcher with the last name Brock—who acted like he knew everything already, and I sensed him bristling when I suggested he didn’t have as solid a grasp on the mechanics as he should, but he wasn’t openly antagonistic.

His father watched the last half of practice, though, and I didn’t like the look he gave me, or the way he stood with his chest puffed out and his jaw jutting forward, or the way he yelled at his kid through the fence, basically telling him to do the opposite of what I was saying.

Virgil was there, sitting in the dugout, and when I was done, I sank down next to him while David finished up practice.

“Who’s the asshole?” I asked, nodding toward the guy.

“Brock? He’s nobody. Just one of those guys who thinks he’s better than everybody else because he’s bigger and louder. Ignore him.”

“He was interfering while I tried to work with his kid.”

“Yeah, he does that all the time. Always huffing and puffing about the lineup and where his son should be in it. He was on the team here way back when, long before your time. But he wasn’t good enough to be scouted for college ball and he’s still mad about it.”

“Oh.” I took some satisfaction in that.

“I hear David offered you a position.”

“He did.”

Virgil side-eyed me. “Gonna take it?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“You should take it.”

I chuckled. “And why’s that?”

“Because it’s where you belong. And if your dad was around, he’d say the same thing.”

I looked out at the mound and decided to give a voice to a feeling I’d kept buried far from the surface. “You don’t think he’d call me a quitter for leaving the game? He wouldn’t think I’d been weak?”

Virgil didn’t answer right away. “Is that what you think? That your pop would’ve called you a quitter?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. It was my choice to get out. I wasn’t fired or anything. I could have stayed and kept working on it.”

He remained silent.

“Maybe he’d think my real failure was giving in to the fear that nothing would land where I threw it ever again. There’s no room for fear on the ballfield. You tough it out. You try harder. You beat it. Or you don’t deserve to be there.”

Virgil looked at me, but I didn’t meet his eyes.

“You deserved to be there, son,” he said. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“What if it was? What if I was too sure of myself? Too convinced that the game owed me, rather than the other way around? What if God or the universe or whatever is out there decided I was just an asshole like everyone else and didn’t deserve the arm?”

My old coach had no answer ready, but he let me talk, which was maybe all I needed. These were things I’d never said to anyone. Only another ball player would understand it, but admitting this kind of stuff was not acceptable in pro sports. It showed weakness, and you had to be tough.

“My dad was a good man, Coach. The best. Why did I get the chance to prove myself in the majors, but he didn’t? And what would he say to me now that I blew it? I can’t stop feeling like I let him down.”

Virgil scratched his head. Shifted on the bench.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to unload all that on you. But lately I’ve been trying not to keep so much shit bottled up.”

“Yeah, that happens when there’s a girl involved.”

I had to laugh. “Right.”

Practice ended, and I rose to my feet. “I should take off. I wanted to try to talk to Chip Carswell about his offer from Clemson before he goes home.”

“Good. Good.” Virgil nodded.

I’d already started to walk away when he spoke again.

“I know what he’d have said, Shaw.”

“Huh?” I turned around.

“Your dad. You asked what he’d have said to you. I know what he’d have said.”

“What’s that?”

“He’d have said, ‘Get up, son. Dust your ass off. The game’s not over.’”

I wasn’t sure what he meant. “What game? My pitching career?”

He shook his head slightly. “Your life. You’re not done showing ’em what you got, kid. But you gotta quit hiding. That’s what he’d say.”

I thought about that for a minute. Was he right? Would my dad have been more ashamed that I’d been hiding out than the way I’d failed on the mound? But baseball had been everything to him. What could I ever do that would even come close? “I’ll think about it. Thanks, Coach.”

“Have a good night, son.”

Just for the hell of it, I treated the Brock’s asshole dad to my best menacing glare before catching up with Chip on his way to the parking lot.

“Hey, Carswell, wait up!”

He turned, shifting his bag higher on his shoulder. “Hey.”

“Nice job today. Your motion is already improving.”

He smiled. “Thanks. I really appreciate the help.”

“You talk to the scout from Clemson yesterday?”

“Yeah. A little.” He hesitated. “They made me a pretty good offer.”

“You gonna take it?”

“I don’t know.” He looked back toward the field. “My mom wants me to.”

“It’s a great place to play.”

“Yeah.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a second. “South Carolina is just kind of far.”

“It’s not that far.”

“Yeah, but . . . my mom’s on her own since my dad died. It doesn’t feel right to go so far from her and my sister.”

I nodded, folding my arms over my chest. “I get that. My mom died when I was young. When I left, I had to leave my dad and my little sister too.”

“You did?” He looked at me in surprise, and it struck me that he didn’t have to look up—he was almost as tall as I was.

“Yeah. I can’t say that I felt as guilty as you do at the thought, but—”

“But you got drafted.” He shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips. “In the first round. You had to go.”

“I did, because I felt in my gut that it was what I was supposed to do,” I said. “A good pitcher trusts his gut.”

He nodded, chewing on his lip again.

“What’s your gut telling you?”

“To play baseball,” he admitted. “To go. To take the chance, because I might not get another one.”

“Then you should go, not because your mom or your coach or even I tell you to, but because your instincts are telling you to—you start ignoring that voice, it’s gonna stop talking to you.”

“Yeah. I hear you.” His eyes dropped to the ground. “I think my dad would’ve wanted me to go too.”