Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 44

morning, the ball seemed to settle into his hand as if it had been waiting for him.

As he threw, he noticed a groundskeeper’s boy; maybe ten years old, standing near the foul line, watching him with the kind of fixed attention only children and scouts possess. The boy wasn’t shy; he simply stared, fascinated by the way Brown’s pitches bent and dipped.

Brown finished a set and nodded toward him. “You ever seen a curve like that?”

The boy shook his head. “No, sir. It drops like it’s falling off a table.”

Brown walked over and handed him the ball. “Feel that. Not the fingers; everyone talks about the fingers. Feel the seams.”

The boy turned the ball in his hands, brow furrowed.

“It’s the pressure,” Brown said. “You learn how to make the ball think it wants to fall.”

The boy looked up at him, eyes wide. “Can anyone learn that?”

Brown considered the question. “Anyone can try. But some things come from the way you’re built, and some from the way life builds you.”