A High Five for Glenn Burke Read online

  Zoey lowers the front window. “You really do look hilarious,” she says.

  “We want vids, man,” Grace says, leaning across the front seat.

  I clap my cleats and then raise my arms and sway from side to side like I would at a concert.

  They both laugh.

  “See you tomorrow, Zoey,” I say. “Go kick some bot butt.”

  She knocks the car door and double-dimple grins. “Go kick some goofball, baseball butt.”

  5

  EPIC!

  I’m over by the batting cages watching my teammates get ready for practice. Ben-Ben, Jason, and Luis are sitting on the grass along the first-base line, while the rest of the Renegades, including Webb and Coach Rockford, are behind the backstop. The only ones who aren’t here yet are Malik, Brayden, and Brayden’s dad—Coach Noles—who became an assistant coach when Coach Trent went down.

  I pull the sleeves of my shirt down over my ankles and take a breath because right now, I’m still thinking about what I said to Zoey or, rather, what I almost said to Zoey.

  I’m telling her tomorrow. That means, tomorrow’s the day. Tomorrow’s the day everything changes, and I do mean everything.

  I spot Brayden’s dad’s car pulling into a spot and start walking around the far side of the batting cages until I reach the end of the fence down the left-field line. Then I wait for all the Renegades to be by the backstop.

  “Let’s do this, Silas,” I say when they finally are.

  I take off running toward the infield with my arms straight up over my head and my cleats pointed toward the sky. I’m moving my arms back and forth the way I’d kick my legs if I were swimming because I loved how funny this looked when I practiced it in the mirror in Mom and Dad’s closet.

  Ben-Ben spots me first as I’m approaching third base.

  “Dude!” He points. “Dude!”

  “Check out Silas!” Luis shouts. “No way!”

  I rotate my wrists so that my cleats move in all different directions and sway my arms like I did for Zoey and Grace when I got out of the car.

  “Ha!” Jason shouts. “Silas!”

  “Epic!” Malik raises his arms.

  I spin around and wiggle my butt.

  “You’re such a weirdo, Silas!” Theo says, laughing.

  “I know, right?” Kareem says. “Such a weirdo.”

  All the Renegades—including the three coaches—are now standing and looking my way, and everyone is smiling or laughing.

  Halfway down the third-base line, I stop and stand on one foot. I hold out my arms like I’m trying to keep my balance and rock in all directions because this move looked hilarious in my parents’ mirror, too.

  “You da man, Silas!” Webb shouts.

  I bounce-walk the rest of the way down the third-base line, and as I do, Luis and Ben-Ben are laughing so hard they’re literally rolling around on the grass. Before I reach the plate, I stop and slowly bend forward until my cleats almost touch my toes. Then I stand back up, lean left, right, backward, and then wobble and stumble across home.

  “Epic!” Malik races up and puts his baseball cap over my head, which is still in my pant leg.

  I start hopping on one leg, but as soon as I do, the cap falls off. When I try picking it up with my cleats, I can’t grip it. Then Webb gives me a gentle push, and when he does, I pretend he shoved me hard, fling the cap into the air, and fall over. Then I roll onto my back, raise my arms and legs, and shake them.

  Everyone’s laughing. I love hearing all the Renegades laughing.

  6

  WEBB IN CHARGE

  I put my uniform on the correct way for the team stretch, which is how we start every practice. Malik’s my partner, and right now we’re working our hamstrings, the last muscles we stretch before running and conditioning. For hamstring stretches, one person lies on the grass on his back with his leg straight up, while the other person leans in and slowly presses the leg a little higher. All the Renegades take stretching seriously, even though we like to goof around, talk, and eat.

  I’m lying on the grass on my back, and Malik’s pressing against my heel. With his free hand, he’s eating a blueberry muffin, and he’s eating it the way he always eats his muffins, first the stump, then the top. I can tell the muffin he’s holding is loaded with blueberries because they’re glistening in the sun, just like Malik’s eyes.

  “Dude, what are you staring at?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  “What are you staring at?”

  But before I can answer, he shakes his head so that some of the crumbs fly out and land on me.

  “Nasty!” I say, swatting them away.

  “I’m sharing my muffin with you.” Malik laughs, and more crumbs shoot from his mouth. “Never again can you accuse me of hogging my muffin tops.”

  “Switch it up, Renegades,” Brayden says.

  At every practice, a different player leads the stretches, and today it’s Brayden’s turn.

  I hold out my hand so Malik can pull me up, but when he takes it, I grab his arm with my other hand and pull him to the ground and jump to my feet. I then brush the crumbs still on the front of my jersey onto him.

  “You can never accuse me of hogging my muffin tops,” I say.

  He swats them off.

  “How’d you come up with that upside-down uniform idea?” Malik asks, rolling onto his back and raising his right leg.

  “How do you think?”

  “YouTube,” he says.

  Malik knows I spend most of my non-baseball-playing, non-sleeping, and non-going-to-school hours on YouTube.

  I rest his ankle on my shoulder, lean forward, and slowly push his leg toward him. “I found this video of a New York Mets player from the 1980s dressed like that,” I say. “Everyone thought it was the funniest thing ever—the players, the announcers, even the other team.”

  I found the video accidentally, which is how I find most things on YouTube. A video ends, the next one autoplays, and I end up watching it. That’s what happened with this. I was watching baseball-blooper videos, and after one, the video of the Mets player started.

  That’s how I discovered Glenn Burke last year. I was watching highlights of the 2017 World Series—when my Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers—and after one video, a video about the Astros–Dodgers rivalry from the 1970s to the 1990s started. Back then, they were in the same division in the National League. Then a video about the Los Angeles Dodgers teams from the 1970s began to play, and then a video about Glenn Burke came on.

  “Other leg, Renegades,” Brayden calls out.

  I jump back so Malik can drop his right leg and raise his left, but before I put his ankle on my shoulder, I grab his sunglasses out of his glove and put them on over my cap.

  “Who am I?” I ask. I pretend I’m trying to catch a pop-up and shield my eyes from the sun with my hand. “I got it! I got it.” I then watch the make-believe ball fall to the ground. “I don’t got it.”

  Ben-Ben and Luis are stretching beside us. They both bust out laughing.

  “Dude, I’ve never lost a ball in the sun during a game,” Malik says.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” I say.

  Malik holds up a fist. “Never!”

  “Webb’s going to go nuts the first time you do,” I say.

  “Never going to happen.”

  During games, Malik sometimes wears his sunglasses on top of his cap because he likes the way it looks. Ben-Ben, Luis, and some of the other Renegades do the same thing. The coaches can’t stand it. They say if you’re going to wear sunglasses, wear them on your eyes or don’t wear them at all. I know it’s only a matter of time before someone loses a ball in the sun while their sunglasses are on top of their cap, and when that happens, I want to be in a galaxy far, far away.

  “How funny would it be if it happens when your mom is ringing her cowbell?” I say, laughing.

  “Never going to happen,” he says again.

  Malik’s mom sometimes brings a cow
bell to our games, and he hates that she does. Whenever she rings it, he covers his face with his glove. It can get pretty annoying, and one time last year, a bunch of parents from the other team asked her not to ring it as much … And none of the parents from our team stood up for her.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” Webb says, waving us over. “Let’s bring it in.”

  We bring it in by the safety fence in front of the first-base dugout. I sway from foot to foot because I’m never able to stand still during these minimeetings.

  “We have two big games this weekend against the Thunder,” Webb says.

  “After which the Renegades will be seven and one,” Theo says.

  “Yeah.” Kareem holds out his fist to Theo, but Theo leaves him hanging. “After which … after which we’ll be seven and one.”

  “We go one game at a time,” Webb says. He blows into his hands and then tucks them into the pouch of his blue Renegades hoodie. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  Theo and Kareem are right. We should be 7–1 after this weekend, but we really should be 8–0. The only game we lost was against the Fury right after Coach Trent got hurt. If we do sweep the Thunder this weekend, we’ll be in first place with a two-game lead in the standings. Even if we go only .500 the rest of the way, we still make the playoffs … But the Renegades are not going only .500 the rest of the way.

  “We do go one game at a time,” Coach Noles says, “but heading into the bye week on a hot streak isn’t a bad thing.”

  “Hear, hear,” Coach Rockford adds.

  We don’t have games next weekend because of Easter, but we still have practices on Tuesday and Thursday.

  “A few housekeeping items before we start our station work,” Webb says. “As you know, I’m trying not to change things too much from the way Coach Trent ran the show. But I am making a few tweaks here and there, and I’m making one of those tweaks right now.”

  “Uh-oh,” Theo says, smiling.

  “Yeah, uh-oh.” Webb nods and smiles back. “Coach Trent let you text him if you couldn’t make a practice or game. No more. If you can’t make a practice or game, I want to hear from you. Not your mom, not your dad, from you. I get a phone call, not a text.”

  “Why the change?” Coach Noles asks.

  Webb looks at Coach Noles. “Because that’s the way I want things done,” he says.

  “No reason?” Coach Noles says.

  I’m swaying from foot to foot a little faster. It’s weird when Coach Noles and Webb go back and forth like this. It’s not the first time they have, and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Ben-Ben, Luis, and Malik have all said something about it, too.

  “If you can’t make it to a practice or game,” Webb says, “I want to hear it from you.”

  “I don’t see how it makes much of a difference,” Coach Noles says.

  “Then it shouldn’t matter.”

  Coach Noles folds his arms. “Does this new rule apply to coaches’ kids? And coaches’ nephews?”

  Webb pauses. “It most certainly does,” he says. “Rules apply to everyone. Full stop.”

  “Hear, hear.” Coach Rockford gives a thumbs-up. “Renegades are responsible.”

  When Coach Trent got hurt, it was never a thing that Webb became the head coach and Coach Rockford stayed assistant coach, because Coach Rockford didn’t want to be head coach. But when Coach Noles became an assistant, I’m pretty sure he thought he’d have more say. When he was a parent in the bleachers, he was always shouting at Coach Trent to bring in Brayden to pitch and to make changes, but Coach Trent rarely listened, and Webb rarely listens now.

  “We’re taking five laps around the field today, gentlemen,” Webb says.

  “Five?” a few kids say at the same time.

  “You heard me,” Webb says, pulling his hand out of his pouch and holding it up. “It will help keep you warm out here. Five sprints.”

  That was another one of Webb’s tweaks. At the start of practice, Coach Trent always had us jog a lap or two around the field, but Webb makes us sprint.

  “I for one want to see you pushing yourselves out there,” Webb says. “Go hard. And then when you finish, check in with Coach Noles.”

  Coach Noles waves his clipboard. “I have your individual assignments,” he says.

  “We have four stations this afternoon,” Webb says. “Hitting—”

  “Hitting, agility and speed, infield, and outfield,” Coach Noles interrupts.

  Webb pauses again. “Hitting, agility and speed, infield, and outfield,” he says. “As you go from station to station, we’ve targeted specific skill areas we want you focusing on. Put in the extra work this afternoon.”

  “Hear, hear,” Coach Rockford says.

  “Now I’ve got one more tweak.” Webb holds up a finger.

  “You just said it was only one tweak right now,” Ben-Ben says, smiling.

  “One tweak then, one tweak now,” Webb says. “Renegades, take a knee.”

  He waits for everyone to kneel.

  “Everyone here knows how I feel about the taunting,” he says. “I’d prefer you didn’t, but if you’re getting it from the other team, I’m not going to stop you. But I am putting a stop to the monkey taunts. No more monkey-in-a-tree chants, no more monkey sounds, and no more monkey scratching.”

  “Why not?” Theo asks.

  “Because people might think you’re being racist,” Webb answers.

  “We’re not being racist,” I say.

  “We know you’re not.” Webb motions to Coach Rockford and Coach Noles. “But someone else might think that you are.”

  “How’s it being racist?” Theo asks.

  “Making monkey gestures and making monkey sounds is racist,” Coach Rockford answers.

  “How?” Kareem asks.

  “When fans taunt black athletes with monkey chants, those fans are being racist,” Coach Rockford says. “When soccer fans do it, the clubs get penalized.”

  “But that’s not why we’re doing it,” I say.

  “We know you’re not,” Webb says again. “On the Renegades, we have black kids, brown kids—”

  “A black coach,” Coach Rockford interrupts.

  “A black coach,” Webb says, motioning to Coach Rockford. “We have kids from all over. But all it takes is one person.” He holds up a finger again. “If one person thinks we’re being racist, we’re being racist.”

  “Hear, hear,” Coach Rockford says. “Perception is reality.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Webb says. “If one person decides that it is an issue, it becomes an issue. So in order to avoid having it become an issue, we’re not doing it anymore. Full stop.”

  I stand as soon as Webb says “full stop” because I can only take a knee for so long.

  “Wait,” I say, shaking out my legs and smiling. “There’s one more thing.”

  Malik starts to crack up because that’s how well he knows me, and he already realizes what I’m about to do. I’m about to imitate Webb. I used to imitate Coach Trent all the time—the way he kicked at the dirt when someone made a mental error, the way he chewed his gum, and the way he stood in the dugout with his arms folded and hand on his chin—but this will be the first time I’m imitating Webb in front of everyone.

  “We’re taking five laps around the field today, gentlemen,” I say in a deep voice. “Five sprints. Push yourselves. Go hard.”

  Everyone’s laughing.

  “I for one want to see you putting in the extra work this afternoon.” I swing my arms and clap like Webb when he’s coaching third. “Renegades are ready. Renegades are ready!”

  Webb smiles and pumps his fist at me.

  I needed to lighten things up and get us back into a baseball-playing frame of mind. That’s what Glenn Burke would have done.

  7

  GLENN BURKE WAS …

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, leaning against the side of my workstation. I check my door again to make sure the light in the h
allway is still out.

  Everyone’s asleep and has been for a while. Mom was already asleep when Dad and I got home from practice, like she said she’d be, which is why my dirty baseball clothes are still on the floor and I didn’t get yelled at for it. Semaj was also asleep. I was glad she was, and so was Dad, but he would never admit it. Only Haley was awake. She did splits on the kitchen floor while Dad and I ate the chicken-salad sandwiches and mufſins Mom had brought home for us from the Jump & Grind. Dad did let Haley have a piece of his muffin even though she’d already brushed her teeth, but only after she pinky swore not to say anything to Mom.

  I stare at the laptop that’s sitting on my knees. I’m reading the same article I’ve read over and over and over these last few weeks, the one about Glenn Burke from way back in 1982 that ran in a magazine called Inside Sports.

  There’s so much more to Glenn’s story than what I shared in class. I didn’t share the part about his secret, the secret he kept from his family, his friends, and his teammates. And I didn’t share the part about when his secret began to get out and the whispers around him grew louder and louder and louder, how Al Campanis, the vice president of the Los Angeles Dodgers, called Glenn into his office.

  Glenn wasn’t married, and most of the other players on the team were. Back then, the Dodgers wanted their players to be married. It fit their image—clean-cut, family-friendly, and all-American. So Al Campanis offered Glenn thousands of dollars to find a girlfriend and get married.

  “Al, I don’t think I’ll be getting married no time soon,” Glenn told him.

  Glenn Burke was gay. That was his secret. That was the secret the Dodgers knew and didn’t want anyone to find out. It didn’t matter that he was their five-tool talent who was supposed to be the next Willie Mays. And it didn’t matter that he was their starting center fielder for the opening game of the World Series against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

  The Dodgers couldn’t have a gay player on their team. The Dodgers couldn’t have a gay person in their organization.