SUNSHINE POV
"You didn't tell me he was your boyfriend." O'Niall snapped at me from behind the dugout. We had just arrived after an extremely long drive from the Valley and we had no time to stop and get settled.
I realized that I probably should have told Kenny not to mention that Benny and I were in a relationship before we got there since he was the one that yelled out "It's the hottest couple in the baseball world!" when he saw us pull up.
The boys that practiced with Benny weren't too impressed to see him there knowing his batting was going to show them up for sure.
Benny was going to be staying with Kenny for a few weeks until he figured out if he made the team and what to do from that point on, but Benny was happy to be reunited with his friend, no matter how bad he possibly made his chances.
"It doesn't mean he's not a good player."
"It's a conflict of interest Toni, same as if I had my son come and tryout."
"It's a conflict if he's not good and you put him on the team."
He rubbed his forehead in aggravation. "Toni I made the exception and brought him in mid-tryouts and now people are going to think it's because you two are together."
"Who cares what they think? Let him prove his talents on the field."
"Look I understand what you're saying but this is a business and happens to be my job. If people can find any reason to complain and make excuses for why their kid didn't make the team, this is going to be it."
I completely understood why he was upset that I didn't tell him, but this is the reason why I didn't. He would have assumed that I was asking him to bring Benny to the tryouts only because we were dating.
"Tryouts were supposed to start ten minutes ago can we just forget about this until they're over. I'm telling you once they see him play there will be no question as to why he's here."
"Fine but you stay far away from him at all times." I raised my hands to tell him that was fine with me and let him walk past me to begin the tryouts.
"Alright boys, head out to your primary positions." The boys took off making a line at each of their main positions except for Benny. He wasn't sure where to go, Benny rotated every position, he wasn't sure what he was best at.
"Problem son?"
"Uh."
"Benny, go to short stop." I told him, he looked at me and nodded taking off towards the field. I could feel all the coaches eyes piercing a hole in my head. "He's never been to a tryout alright?
Cut him some slack. At the sandlot we rotate all positions." I knew I shouldn't but I felt like an ass coming up with excuses for Benny not knowing his primary position.
None of us had ever been to a real tryout before and it wasn't his fault if he wasn't expecting to pick only one position but still I felt like I was a pushy mom trying to make excuses for why
her mediocre son wasn't doing well.
I needed Benny to prove his worth, and fast.
BENNY POV
I felt like and idiot, I should have just ran to any position but I had to stand there like a compete moron looking all confused.
I filled the extra positions and I never really got fully comfortable in one position, I knew I could perform anywhere but it suddenly hit me that I was trying out with some really good players, and they all probably had been playing only one position their entire life.
"You're dating Toni?" A voice asked from behind me. It was tall lean redheaded boy, he looked nice enough but after years of handling Phillips, I was skeptical about any rich kid.
"Yeah, we've been together since we were twelve." I answered.
"Twelve? Jesus, how did that happen?"
"Huh?"
"C'mon, five years? You guys must have broken up at some point." I shook my head getting slightly annoyed with him. "So it's safe to say that she's the only girl you've been with?" He was teasing me, and although it was lighthearted I still got a little pissed off. The other guys were listening to us and I knew it was probably weird for my to only have ever been interested and dated one girl but.. .
"She's all I need. All anyone would ever need." I didn't mean for it to sound sexual, but apparently thats what he meant when he asked if I had only ever been with one girl.
They cat called and ooooo'd at my statement which I only ignored, they were being immature, and despite being raised with Ham and Squints it made my skin crawl.
I took my position waiting for the play to be called out and the ball to be hit when I heard from behind me "Thanks for confirming our suspicions."
"What?" I demanded turning around just as the ball was hit. It bounced and hit me in the leg and rolled off to the side.
"Rodriguez what the hell are you doing?!" One of the coaches yelled at me. I was embarrassed and angry at myself for letting them distract me, but I was also mad at what they had said.
"Sorry." I called back getting back into position as the boys snickered.
The ball was hit again, and this time I played it clean and threw it to first before heading to the back of the line. Sunshine was standing off to the side with another coach who held a clip board, she looked at me with a raised eyebrow but I only waived her off.
I ran to the back of the line, realizing that this line was long, there were at least twenty other boys trying out for shortstop so if that was my only chance, I might have just blew it.
"Toni is a good looking girl." I was broken from the thoughts by a blonde boy who moved from his position to come and stand in front of me. "She's a good looking girl, they're going to make comments no matter who her boyfriend is, don't take it personally."
"I'm not taking it personally." I snapped at him. "It's Toni that I'm trying to stick up for."
"Easy, I'm on your side." He said, "My girlfriend is a cheerleader, she's always getting hit on and stuff."
I wanted to tell him that there was a difference between Sunshine being one of the authority figures at tryouts and boys making comments, and his girlfriend wearing a skirt and boys making comments but I guess there was no point. If Toni was a cheerleader rather than a ball player I would have the same anger I do now.
Toni watched from the foul line with a clipboard and wrote down what the other coaches had to say. We went through the line about three more times, each play I made cleanly, and we were then given a break.
"Shortstop Benny? I always expected to see you in centre field." Kenny said coming up behind me.
"Toni told me to go to shortstop, but I'm with you, I think I'd be doing better in the outfield."
"You haven't screwed up yet."
"Are we going to do any hitting?"
Kenny nodded, taking a sip of water. "Yeah, that's what we're going to do for the rest of practice, hitting drills."
"Drills?"
"Yeah, hitting, bunting, slap bunting, pepper, and so on."
I stopped him there. "Whose pitching?"
Kenny shrugged. "Depends on who they ask."
I looked over to where Toni stood with the coaches then back to Kenny. "Why doesn't Toni just pitch to us?"
Kenny laughed, but noticing my serious face he stopped. "Benny come on, they're not gonna let Toni pitch to us."
"Why not? she's good enough"
"Yah she is, you and I know that, but they won't let her because she's a girl. Do you know how badly they'll want to cream the ball if she pitches? And how angry they're going to get if she strikes them out? There aren't any girls in this league and so it doesn't make sense to have us hit off a girl if we're not going to in a game."
"I don't get it. Toni is better than any boy here."
"But she's not a boy. Don't you remember how badly we all wanted you to strike her out when she first came? How badly we all wanted to hit off her? It completely threw us off and we lost all our focus on mechanics and just wanted to hit the ball. We sucked."
Kenny was making sense, When we played against Phillips there was such a desire not to fail that sometimes we just forgot all about our mechanics and swung completely willy nilly.
However, it still bothered me that they considered her a distraction.
"Does anyone respect her around here?" I asked
Kenny softened at that and lost his playful nature. "Hey come on, you know I didn't mean it like that."
"Not you Kenny, but guys have been making comments about her this entire time. She's a factor in deciding if we make the team, doesn't that mean anything?"
Kenny shook his head. "Not to them. Look I love Toni, and I have the upmost respect for her, but until she proves her skills they're not going to stop with their stupid comments."
"I thought she showed her skills already."
"Benny, at the sandlot it's different, looking better than Phillips isn't hard, but she's surrounded by guys who have been playing their entire lives. It doesn't matter if she's as good as they are she has to prove that she's better or they're never going to change their minds."
I didn't realize what a bubble we seemed to live in. The best competition we ever faced was at the annual community tournament, and we were always head and shoulders better than the rest of them, Toni was the only one of us to play on another team, before the sandlot, it didn't take long for her to change our minds but we were still pretty young and impressionable. These guys had probably never seen a girl play ball before and had developed an opinion on it.
"Are you going to be able to get through the rest of the tryouts?" I nodded, and he gave me a wide Kenny smile before hitting my shoulder with his glove.
SUNSHINE POV
I couldn't tell if Benny was impressing the other coaches, they were marking him on a tough scale, that I knew but they didn't show any kind of emotion, and I thought it was inappropriate to ask.
He did great in his hitting, he hit almost every single ball over the fence, the only problem was that, so did a lot of the other boys.
When tryouts ended, the didn't talk to me about Benny either, they just took my clip board and went off to their cars so they could discuss the cuts.
In frustration I kicked on of the buckets, not realizing it was half filled with balls.
"Dammnit." I snapped, before bending down to pick them up.
"Here let me help." It was the Adam kid. . . .last name Annex I think, couldn't remember if he told me so himself or I had read it on the roster list.
"It's fine." I told him.
"It's okay."
I slammed the ball I was holding into the bucket and glared at him. "If you're going to kiss someones ass Adam, I suggest it be one of the coaches."
"Jeez." He said picking up the last few balls. "Didn't realize you were in a bad mood. I hope you weren't evaluating me today with that kind of attitude."
I immediately felt bad, and a little bit worried and embarrassed, hopefully if he was cut he wasn't going to blame it on my poor attitude. "You're welcome, by the way." He took off then towards a group of boys that happened to be watching our encounter.
"Fuck." I snapped.
"Toni, language." Kenny laughed coming up behind me, Benny walking in step with him. "What did Annex, have to say?"
"He was just helping me pick up the balls" I muttered.
"You okay?" Benny asked.
"No. I'm pissed off. One minute I'm of good use and they value my opinion and the next they're excluding me from choices because I'm bias."
Kenny smiled throwing an arm around me and leading me out of the field. "Hey once they see Benny's talent they'll let you off the hook."
"They didn't see my talent today?" Kenny ignored him and continued.
"They have to treat you like shit so they team doesn't think your bias either."
He had a point. "I guess you're know it's still early. You want to do something tonight?"
"We have a day or two until the next tryout, I say we get drunk."