"STEEEEEEEEEEEEERIKE THREE, BATTER OUT!" the umpire called.

"Yeah! Go Yankees!" Percy cried, shouting at the TV.

Nico munched half-heartedly at some microwave popcorn. Grover chewed on a tin can. The Stoll brothers gave each other high-fives. All five of them were crowded around the teeny tiny television in the Poseidon Cabin, courtesy of some stealthy smuggling by Connor and Travis.

I rolled my eyes at their antics. Boys will be boys, I reminded myself. If only they weren't so… I don't know… loud. Obnoxious. Immature. All of the above.

"Hey," Nico said thoughtfully after watching a few more wind-ups, pitches, and STEEEEEEEEEEERIKES! "Wouldn't it be cool to have a Camp baseball game?"

"Hmm…" The idea got me thinking. Still pondering, I shut down my laptop and decided to go have a visit with the Activities Director.

"Chiron," I began. "I have an idea. A new camp activity."

He looked up from the pinochle table, where he and Dionysus were obviously in the middle of a game.

"Annabelle Chess, what do you need?" Dionysus snapped. "This better be good enough to interrupt our game."

"Baseball," I almost shouted. "We should play baseball."

..0..

The Athena Cabin was organizing the entire production. We picked teams, gathered equipment, the works. And then it was time for the first practice.

I had played softball a couple of times before, and it really wasn't all that different from baseball, but a lot of the campers had been too focused on staying not dead to learn a simple sport.

"Travis, get the bat back."

"Connor, the glove goes on your hand."

"Nico, you swing that bat like you're trying to decapitate a monster."

"Maybe I am," he snapped.

Never mess with the Ghost King armed with a baseball bat. Not a good choice, my friend.

"Annabeth!" I spun around and found Clarisse was jogging towards me.

"Hey," I smiled. Clarisse had seemed rather bitter all day. She wasn't the captain of her team, which made me suspect that her anger was directed towards the Apollo Camper in charge.

"Chloe Mynx just came down with the flu," she informed.

"Crap. We need to find a replacement captain." I replied, half joking.

"That would be why I am here."

So Clarisse. But what can I say? She'd make a good captain.

"Good luck. You're gonna need it squaring off against our team."

"Yeah right, Chase." She rolled her eyes and jogged back to her own team…

"Annabeth!" Percy called. "We need a team name."

I thought… Hmm… This would be interesting… "The… Mammals?" I asked. This would be tougher than it looked.

"TEAM HERMES!" Connor and Travis shouted simultaneously.

"Um… No," Nico rolled his eyes. "We have to think of something that isn't completely and totally lame."

"We tried," Travis sighed.

"Um… I got nothing." I, the Great and Terrible Annabeth Chase, was defeated. For now, anyways. "Let's get back to work."

Clarisse and her team – I had heard her yell "TEAM ARES, SWING HARDER!" and assumed that that was what they would be called – were going over some hard-core hitting drills. I winced as baseballs cracked against thick metal bats. Beating those buff Ares campers was gonna be tough.

A Hephaestus camper named Elza brought me a sketch. "It's a new bat. Celestial bronze. Acts as sports equipment and a weapon against deadly monsters!"

"Nice job!" I told her. "Run this to the forges and put the plan in action. It just might work…"

Even though we had five days until the big game, we were in a time crunch. And children of Athena need time to plan. Time crunches don't fit in well with our schedules.

" Everyone. Let's get to work. I want the Hephaestus, Hades, Poseidon, and Hermes cabins on hitting drills. The rest of you, partner up and play catch."

The Apollo, Zeus, Demeter, Dionysus, Morpheus, Persephone, Nemesis, Aphrodite, and Ares cabins were all a part of TEAM ARES.

Team Yet-To-Be-Named consisted of the Athena, Hephaestus, Hades, Poseidon, Hermes, Hecate, Janus, Eris, and Harmonia. The children of the other gods and goddesses had elected to just watch the game.

"Kata, get the arm back when you throw," I instructed a Hecate camper. "Nice, that's a lot better."

"Elsie, don't be afraid of the ball," Connor called, exasperated, to his half-sister.

Meanwhile, a daughter of Eris was getting into a heated debate with a child of Harmonia. Whose idea was it to put the children of two polar opposite goddesses on the same team? Oh… mine. I thought maybe they'd… play nice.

"Come on! Like, everyone knows that Aphrodite got stuck with Hephaestus because she was too ditzy to get a better guy." Luceffa Simon grinned maliciously.

"Got stuck with Hephaestus?" Audrey Kelley, a vicious looking Hephaestus camper, seemed ready to claw Luceffa's throat.

"But Aphrodite is our grandmother. You are so not allowed to insult gods, and definitely not grandmotherly gods!" Susie Minert looked ready to cry.

"Hey, hey, hey. Play nice guys. Susie and Audrey, you guys go work on hitting drills."

Score one for Team Annabeth. No within-team blow-ups yet. It's looking good.

Nico was helping a little girl – Jeyna – who happened to be his newly-discovered half-sister. She was only ten, but I could tell she had some killer batting skills. Must run in the family.

Percy was demonstrating how to throw a baseball to some younger Hecate and Janus kids. The Janus kids looked rather inquisitive, or maybe they were just messing with him.

"Do you like swinging the bat left or right?"

"Which kind of bat is your favorite?"

"Why don't you use a wooden bat? Aren't wooden bats better? Do you think wooden bats are better?"

Percy just smiled and shook his head. "Ask questions after I show you how to do this," he commanded. Ah, what leadership.

"Okay guys, time to pack up and go back to your cabins. Practice will resume tomorrow after dinner. Great job, everyone!"

As I started towards the Athena cabin, Clarisse gave me a devious look. "Good luck, Coach."