The Game of Life

By letsimagine42

Disclaimer: I do not own the sandlot nor any of the subsequent movies. I only own what you do not recognize.

Summary: This summer all Jamie Tyler wants to do is enjoy baseball, the sunshine, her friends and the sandlot. But when she finds out all of her friends "grew out" of playing baseball with her at the sandlot, she's all by herself. But when she gets clocked on the head and suddenly transported back to the boogey-down '60's, something bad and good all at the same time is bound to happen.

Author's note: Of course it's a clichéd story idea. I just wanted to fool around with it a little, tweak it, experiment with it. I'm going to try and make this a fairly good "cliché" story and turn all those cliché moments upside down. I enjoy taking stories and turning them upside down; it's what I do best. So, with that said, please enjoy.

"Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball could be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or the ball." --Jim Murray

Last Day of Class, Valley Middle School, June 28, 2007

There was five minutes and eighteen seconds left until the final bell. I sat at my desk, tapping my pencil idly against the desk. The clock was running slow, and so was the bell system in the school. The teachers liked to fool would with us kids, making the summer much farther away than it really should be.

My friend Gabby threw a ball of paper at me, missing my head (her likely target) and hitting the desktop instead. I picked it up and read it: Four minutes to summer! I looked back at her and smiled, and then turned back to the paper and scribbled my answer, which was some dumb question that I can't remember even now. I threw it back.

"Students," crowed my teacher, Mrs. Alexander. She stood up, fixing her perm and smoothing out her green corduroy blazer. She was old, like fifty, but she had the energy of a twenty one year old and loved trying to get us pumped up. "Everyone here at Valley Middle School hope you enjoy your summer holidays and that you spend your time in a useful manner. As the seventh graders you are, next year you shall be…"

"Come on, come on," I whispered, staring hard at the clock. It was moving slower than slow. I started tapping my pencil again and I looked back at Ryan and Vanessa, who were sitting together in the back of the classroom. I looked back at the clock.

"Remember to do your summer assignments and do them with your immense intelligence…"

Two minutes! Two minutes to summer!

"…All papers are due here on the first day of school, the fifteenth of September…"

One and a half minutes! I shifted in my seat, poised for the paper-throwing we had planned the day before. When the bell rang, we would all throw whatever papers we had on our desks into the air.

"Ready?" whispered Anthony, my other best friend.

"Three…" mumbled Jess, who was next to me.

"Two…" called Vanessa from the back.

"One!" I shouted.

"Yeah!" We threw our papers into the air and then scrambled for our summer homework, which kind of ruined the effect. Either way, we still did what we wanted to do, and there was still paper on the floor.

I raced to the door, beat only by Matt. I yanked open the door and we all fell into the hallway into the wave of students.

Let me introduce myself. I'm Jamie Tyler. I have nine friends, best friends in fact. We've been friends since fourth grade, some of us older or younger than each other. There was Vanessa, Jess, Gabby, Anthony, Matt, Chris, Ryan and Joe. Together we made ten, and we had a love (or when it came to me, a passion and a craving) for baseball.

One time in fifth grade, Ryan, Gabby, Vanessa and I had rode our bikes down to the east side of town, the side without the developments and the apartment buildings, like our side of town. We rode down the sixties style neighborhood, with a drugstore, lots of mom and pop stores, and a sandlot. We officially claimed the sandlot in fifth grade for ourselves and fixed the place up. After that, we've played baseball there every summer, all day, every day, every hour.

We ran outside, racing each other to our bikes. I came in third, mostly because Anthony and Matt were the two fastest. I shoved Vanessa out of the way in fun and I leaped over the fence, landing neatly on the other side, where my bike was chained.

"Who's ready for summer?" shouted Ryan, punching the air in his excitement. He was blond and freckled, and he was like an Energizer Bunny, he just kept going and going and going. He was a motor mouth, too. He loved to talk.

"I sure am," said Gabby, leaning against the bike rack while unlocking the Master Lock on her chain. "No more tests!"

Vanessa grinned and agreed. "Yeah, no more being harped on about the whole 'get a good score or die' thing." She unlocked her bike and wheeled it out.

The rest of us did the same, getting on our bikes and wheeling towards the sandlot, or at least I thought we were. We shouted goodbye to various friends and shouted taunts at the oh-so-popular blond ponytail group that talked with high pitched squeals and giggles punctuating every sentence.

We rode down the Hill, which was a large hill in the center of our neighborhood, in one tightly knit group. I was up near the front, with Gabby and Vanessa and Jess flanking me on either side.

"Ready for a summer of baseball?" I said when we turned right, towards the sandlot's neighborhood. "I so psyched about this. What if the Little League comes over and challenges us?"

"Jamie," said Gabby, shaking her head a little. "You live in a TV show. The Little League does not give a damn about us."

"Yeah, James," said Joe. 'James' was his nickname for me. "The Little League doesn't even know we exist."

"I know that," I said. "But what if they actually do? That would be awesome!" I swerved, avoiding a wayward trash can cover. "Anyway, who's ready for some baseball?"

I thought I saw Ryan and Vanessa exchange glances. I tossed it off my shoulder like nothing, because they always looked at each other like that. I always thought that they would eventually get together and date, but they would never admit that to each other. I mean, we were only twelve and some of us thirteen, and did it matter very much?

The sandlot's fence came up on our left and we turned in. We pulled into the left field warning track, tossing down our bikes and then heading as a group to the pitcher's mound, where we would officially pick our positions for the summer.

"Okay," I said once we got there. "Who's got first pick?"

"I want to say something first," said Matt slowly, always being the bearer of bad news. "We…we, Jamie, think that since it's the summer of eighth grade, that -- that we should not play baseball every single day."

I looked at him, confused.

"What Matt's saying is," said Anthony, taking over, "that we want to get out more. You know, like go to parties and hang out at the Igloo and talk to our friends…"

"But aren't we friends?" I asked him, looking around at the group. "And besides, who needs those joints, anyway? We have the sandlot!" I honestly wanted them to realize that this was important to me. And I wanted them the realize that without the sandlot this summer, I was going to be a little insane. This year had been really stressful and I didn't want to be concerned with the "In" crowd just because we were going to the eighth grade. I know I sound dramatic, but I really, really, really want to stay here this summer.

"Look, James," said Joey, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking guiltily down at the ground. "We don't want to do this anymore."

"Gabby," I said, turning to her and gesturing at her with a baseball in my hand. I was looking for support and she knew it. "You want to play baseball this summer, don't you?"

She shrugged and said, "Maybe on the weekends. Or sometimes during the week."

Oh, snap. She wanted to do the whole Igloo thing, too. This is so out of line right now. I looked at all of them, confused. It was Jessie who stepped up.

"Jamie," she said, sounding brave and scared at the same time, like she didn't know who to side with, "we're not kids anymore. We don't want to be kids anymore. We want to get out there."

I sighed and shook my head. "Guys," I said, searching for the right words. "This is baseball. Baseball. We've been playing it every summer, all day, every day. We've got sweaty, dirty, whatever. But you want to quit?"

"Yes!" they all said together.

"Fine, fine." I squeezed the ball in my hand as hard as I could to fight back the anger. "One more game, though. Just…one more game."

They agreed, though a little more reluctantly than I would've expected. We drew positions, me getting catcher this time. I got the equipment and started strapping it on. I hooked the last strap and stood up, the scarred plastic creaking in protest from a month of nonuse. I grabbed the dusty glove and walked to home plate, getting ready to warm up Matt, the pitcher. I was being stupid and I wasn't wearing a helmet, mostly because I was just warming someone up. Everyone, including my baseball guru Dad, advised against warming a pitcher up without a helmet.

"Jamie!" The call made me turn my head, and then I felt a hard thing whack into the side of my head. I fell back, landing in the hot dust.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. There was burning on the side of my head and now it was throbbing. I breathed in and heard voices, probably my friends standing around me like dummies, wondering when I was going to wake up. I brought a hand up to my forehead, and it felt lightweight, like it weighed nothing. I touched my temple gingerly and winced when I pressed against an egg-shaped bump.

"Jamie, darling," said a voice. "Are you all right? Speak to me, pumpkin."

Wait a minute. My friends would never call me darling or pumpkin. My parents didn't even call me those things, because my father was strongly against any pet names ever since that study conducted by the Eagle about "pet names harming mental state."

"Jamie?" Another voice, different this time.

I opened my eyes and at first everything was blurry. Suddenly things came into focus, and I was staring straight back at Mrs. Peterson and my English teacher, Mr. Maxwell! Getting over my shock just enough to say something, I said, "What…happened?"

"Darling," said Mr. Maxwell, "you were putting your mother's swan vase on the shelf when you slipped and it hit your head."

I sat up, looking around. This was definitely not the sandlot and not my house. "Yeah. Where is my mom?"

"Dear, I'm right here," said Mrs. Peterson, a flicker of concern flashing across her face. "You don't recognize me?"

I scooted back a little and I suddenly noticed I was wearing a flowered sundress! Oh, no they did not. They didn't change my clothes or something, right? This wasn't a prank cooked up by Anthony and Ryan? "I recognize you, Mrs. Peterson," I said.

She looked confused for a second. "Honey, I haven't been a Peterson since I was married to your father," she said, placing her hand on my hand.

Mrs. Peterson and Mr. Maxwell are married?!

"Jamie," said Mr. Maxwell. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Jamie Tyler," I said, taking my hand away from Mrs. Peterson's.

Concern flashed across his face, too. "Your name is Jamie Marie Maxwell," he said. He put a hand on my forehead and felt for fever. "No fever…"

"What year is it?" asked Mrs. Peterson, looking hopefully at me like I actually knew the answer. The last time I checked, her hairdo had been out of style for forty years and I know for a fact that girls do not wear flowered sundresses anymore.

"Uh…" I stalled.

"Honey, it's 1964."