Sliding into Home (8 page)

“A girls’ baseball team? Right,” Tara said. “And who would we play?”

“There’s always the Hoover boys’ team,” Mandi said with a grin. “The Hawks, right?” She nudged Joelle.

Joelle had to smile back. She could just imagine Coach Carlyle’s reaction to
that.
“Nah,” she said. “Not enough of a challenge for us.”

L
ater that afternoon, Joelle couldn’t stop thinking about a whole team of girl baseball players. Was that really such a crazy idea?

But like Tara had said, who would they play?

When the Colorado Silver Bullets was formed, there were no other professional women’s teams. So who did
they
play? Joelle wondered.

She went into the den, powered up the computer, and logged onto the Internet. The Silver Bullets had to have a web page. Sure enough, they did. Joelle read about the team’s history. It looked like they started out playing against men’s minor-league, semiprofessional, and college teams.

There were a lot of other interesting baseball links on that site, too, including a page on women’s baseball leagues and another one on girls’ baseball leagues. Joelle could hardly believe her eyes. In Rhode Island there was a whole league just for girls ages five to eighteen. It was called the Pawtucket Slaterettes Girls Baseball League. Joelle soon found there were leagues in Canada, Japan, and Australia, too.

But definitely not in Greendale.

Joelle sat back and drummed her fingers on the desk.
Well, why not?
she thought. If they could form an all-girls’ league in Rhode Island, why couldn’t they form one here?

Joelle jumped into action. It was such an amazing idea, she had to call Jason. Right that second.

But as usual, her brother wasn’t home. Joelle was getting used to his annoying answering machine by now.

She cleared her throat and tried to make her voice sound older. “Hello, I’m with the U.S. Census Bureau,” she said after the beep. “I’m calling to see whether Jason Cunningham is
still alive!
You’re never there when I call and you never call me back, either!” Then she rushed on, “Hey, there’s a website I want you to check out. It’s
www.womenplayingbaseball.com
and it’s got a whole bunch of information on baseball leagues for girls. Hey, Jason, do you think I could try to start one here in Greendale? I was—”

Beeeep!

The answering machine had cut her short. Joelle glared at the receiver. “Call me!” she shouted into it. She knew Jason wouldn’t hear that part, but it still made her feel better to yell at him.

Joelle hung up the phone and sighed. She couldn’t just sit around and wait for her brother to call her back. Maybe Mandi knew something about women’s leagues. Her aunt had played in one, right? She pulled the scrap of paper with Mandi’s number from her jeans pocket.

“Hey, Joelle,” Mandi answered. “I’m really glad you called. Leah and I had fun this morning.”

“So did I,” Joelle replied. “Listen, I was just on the computer,
looking at the Women Playing Baseball website. Did you know that there’s a whole baseball league for girls our age in Rhode Island?”

“No. Really?”

“Really. So what would you think about trying to start one around here?”

There was silence on the other line. “Are you serious?” Mandi asked finally.

“You said you’d play baseball if you had a chance, right?”

“Well, yeah. But—”

“But what? They won’t let girls play on school baseball teams in this town and they put the girls on separate teams in the summer league. So why not start our own league? That way,
we
can make the rules.”

“Joelle, we’re kids. None of us has a clue how to do something like that.”

“So? Maybe we can find out. I can e-mail the Slaterettes president in Rhode Island and see how they got started.”

It was a long shot, Joelle knew. But no more of a long shot than getting on the Hoover Hawks.

“Well, okay,” Mandi said slowly. “I guess it’s worth a try.”

In the background, Joelle heard Mandi’s mom calling her to set the table for supper. Joelle quickly said good-bye to Mandi and started typing her e-mail right away.

Dear League President
, she wrote. She chewed the inside of her cheek, trying to figure out what to say next. It was almost as hard as her letter to the newspaper. But that had worked out okay, right?
Short and to the point,
Joelle told herself.

By the next morning, Joelle had received a response.

“You want to start a whole new baseball league?” Elizabeth stared at Joelle in disbelief.

It was Sunday afternoon. Elizabeth and her father were cleaning up the lunch dishes while Joelle sat on a bar stool at their kitchen counter.

“Sure. Why not? If they won’t let girls play on the boys team, why not start a league that’s just for girls?”

“A baseball league that’s just for girls?” Mr. Shaw turned to face Joelle. He had on gray sweats and a navy T-shirt that said World’s Greatest Dad. “That sounds interesting.”

Joelle told the Shaws about the Pawtucket Slaterettes Girls Baseball League and the information she’d found on women’s baseball.

“Hmm.” Mr. Shaw put his towel on the cabinet. “I wonder if there would be interest in a girls’ baseball league here in Greendale.”

“I bet there would!” Joelle cried. “If it was really an option. The thing is, most girls just play softball. They don’t even think about it. Girls play softball and boys play baseball. But it doesn’t have to be that way!”

“Joelle’s right.” Mr. Shaw turned to Elizabeth. “I bet you never even considered playing baseball until she moved here, did you, honey?”

“Nope,” Elizabeth replied. Her back was to them as she wiped the table.

“But you could.” Mr. Shaw was beginning to sound excited now. “There are probably other girls around here who’d play if they had a chance.” He crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “I wonder what we’d have to do to get started.”

“We?”
Joelle said eagerly. “You mean, you’d help us?”

“Are you kidding?” Mr. Shaw’s eyes were all lit up like a little kid’s at Christmas. “Baseball has always been my game. In fact, when Elizabeth was five or six, I coached her T-ball team. Right, honey?” He gave his daughter a nudge with his elbow.

Elizabeth seemed to be wiping the table extra-hard. “Yep,” she mumbled, keeping her head down.

“You’d definitely need coaches,” Mr. Shaw said. “I could help out there.”

“Really?” That morning Joelle’s parents had promised to help with the league however they could, but her dad had told her he was too busy right now with his new job to coach.

“That’d be great, Mr. Shaw!” Joelle said. “I talked to a girls’ league president in Rhode Island and she said we’d need managers and sponsors, too.” Joelle’s dad had said
maybe
Bear Foods could sponsor her team.

“You’ve already talked to a girls’ baseball league president?” Mr. Shaw asked. He pulled out the bar stool beside Joelle and sat down.

“Just by e-mail,” she said.

Joelle filled him in on the message she’d received from the Slaterettes president. He listened intently to everything she said. Elizabeth went to rinse her sponge in the sink.

“Do you have any of those e-mail addresses?” Mr. Shaw took a pad of paper and pencil from a kitchen drawer.

Joelle shook her head. “Not on me. But I printed them out at home. And I know you can get them from the Women Playing Baseball website.”

Mr. Shaw wrote the information down. “Have you talked to your P.E. teacher about any of this?”

“Well, no,” Joelle answered. “Actually, I just came up with the idea yesterday.” She glanced at Elizabeth. “Besides, I think Ms. Fenner’s kind of busy with softball. I doubt she’d have time to help with a baseball league, too.”

“You never know,” Mr. Shaw said. “Maybe you should talk
to her. Even if she can’t help, she might know other people who can. Don’t you think so, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth turned off the water faucet. “What?” she asked. “Oh. Ms. Fenner? Yeah, she’d probably help out.”

Joelle frowned. Her friend was acting kind of weird. What was wrong?

“Well, the first order of business is to find out how many girls we might be talking about here,” Mr. Shaw said.

“We could set up some sort of meeting for anyone who’s interested,” Joelle suggested.

Mr. Shaw nodded. “You’d have to do some advertising for that,” he said.

Joelle turned to Elizabeth, who seemed to be busily buzzing around the kitchen, putting away stuff in cabinets. “Maybe we could get together with Mandi and Leah and Tara to make some fliers or something,” Joelle said.

“Mmm-hmm,” Elizabeth replied.

“Well, great. While you girls figure all that out, I think I’ll go do some Web surfing.” Mr. Shaw grabbed his notepad, kissed the top of Elizabeth’s head, and bounded into the den off the kitchen.

“Wow. Your dad’s really into this, isn’t he?” Joelle said with a smile.

“Yeah. I guess.” Elizabeth lowered her eyes as she slid onto the stool beside Joelle.

Joelle stopped smiling. “Elizabeth, what’s wrong? Don’t you think a girls’ league is a good idea?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Sure. But I told you, Joelle, I’m not a baseball player. Not like you and Mandi and the others.”

“But you can play. I’ve seen you. You’re good.”

“Not really. But that doesn’t matter. You went and got my dad all excited about the idea, so now I pretty much have to play, whether I want to or not. I’ll end up making a fool out of myself.”

“You will not!” Joelle argued. “Besides, I’m sure there’ll be lots of girls who’ve never even played at all. That’s the point. To give everyone a chance to play.”

Elizabeth picked up a pencil and doodled in the margins of the newspaper that was lying on the counter.

“You’d
like
baseball if you gave it a chance, Elizabeth. I know you would,” Joelle insisted.

“Maybe,” Elizabeth said.

“Didn’t you have fun at the park yesterday?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“But what? Look, just wait until the organizational meeting before you decide anything for sure, okay? If you really don’t want to play, you don’t have to. No hard feelings. Honest.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You never give up, do you, Joelle?”

“Nope,” Joelle answered with a grin. “Never!”

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Elizabeth said finally. “I’m sure that’ll make you and my dad real happy.”

Joelle hustled down to the gym before band. She wanted to catch Ms. Fenner between classes and see what she thought
about a girls’ baseball league. But there was a substitute teacher in Ms. Fenner’s office. Disappointed, Joelle headed across the commons area to the band room.

“Hey, Joelle.” Kailey caught up with her along the way. “It’s so boring in the third clarinet section now that you’ve moved up in the world. I sit by Rachel Morris now. She isn’t nearly as interesting as you are.”

Joelle laughed. “I miss you, too, Kailey.”

“Well, I know how we can hang out together more. You can join the
Echo!
”

“Kailey, I already told you—”

“I’d give you really good assignments,” Kailey hurried on. “You could even be the sports editor. None of us are into sports much, so nobody really wants that job. But you’d be great!”

For a split second, the idea of writing sports features sounded fun. But then Joelle came to her senses. “Thanks, Kailey, but I can’t. I just don’t have time right now.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have time?” Kailey asked as the girls turned a corner. “I heard you’re not hanging out at the baseball field anymore. You’ve got all kinds of time!”

Joelle hesitated. “Well, I’m working on sort of a big project,” she said. She looked around to make sure no one was listening, then leaned close to Kailey. “We may try to start a girls’ baseball league.”

Kailey’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Me and Elizabeth Shaw and a couple of our friends are working on it. We don’t know if we’ll be able to do it, but we’re sure going to try. So that’s why I don’t have time to write for the paper now.”

Kailey looked impressed. “That sounds cool,” she said. “Hey, maybe you could write an article about the league for the
Echo!
”

Talk about never giving up
, Joelle thought. Kailey was worse than she was!

“No, really,” Kailey said as they continued down the hall. “That way you could get the word out to the whole school at once.”

Kailey had a point there. Joelle had already written a letter to the Greendale paper. Maybe writing one article for the
Echo
wouldn’t be so bad. And if it would help the league …

“All right,” she said finally. “But just one article.”

“So I talked to Mandi last night,” Joelle told Elizabeth as they sat down together at lunch. “We’re all meeting at the library tonight to make fliers.”

“Okay.” Elizabeth opened her milk and took a swallow.

“Okay? Does that mean you’ll come, too?” The way Elizabeth had been talking yesterday, Joelle wasn’t sure she would.

“I like the idea of a girls’ baseball league,” Elizabeth said, shrugging. “And I really like those other girls. So I’m willing to help you and everything. I’m just not sure I really want to play.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Joelle said as she picked the lettuce out of her taco and popped it into her mouth.

Elizabeth would come around. Joelle was sure of it.

That night, Joelle and Elizabeth met Mandi, Leah, and Tara at the library as planned. The librarian unlocked one of the small conference rooms for them, and the girls spread out around the oval table.

“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” Mandi said.

Leah opened the large black book she had brought with her. It was one of those fancy sketchbooks from an art supply store.