Doug drove over to Southern High School, parked in the student lot, and walked inside. The building was surprisingly bright and airy for a public school. The lockers and door trim were painted blue and orange. A huge poster beside the office with baseballs painted on it read simply: "Go Hawks." In the main office, Doug went through the usual motions of handing in his file to the secretary and receiving a class schedule and locker assignment.
'Just another day at the office,' Doug thought as he headed to his first-period class.
He spent the first three periods of the day getting to know the school's layout and the general vibe from the student body. Everyone in the little school, it seemed, was talking about the steroid scandal. The punishment the seniors had received was a topic of debate; some thought it was unfair of them to be benched when colleges were scouting and others felt that justice had been done. Doug went to the cafeteria at lunch to keep an ear out for more gossip, but opted not to go through the lunch line. He'd broken his diet already by eating doughnuts for breakfast and that greasy square pizza was definitely not a healthy option.
After the day's last bell rang, Doug went to his locker to collect his cleats and baseball mitt. Both items were battered from his days as a high school outfielder and playing in the department's summer softball league, but he wasn't about to give either thing up until he absolutely had to. He spotted a couple of other guys carrying mitts; he followed them first to the boys' locker room. Doug swapped his sneakers for cleats since he had yet to be issued a uniform.
Outside, he assembled on the field with the rest of his new teammates. The coach stood in the center of the circle, whistle around his neck and clipboard in hand. He began calling off names, but came to a screeching halt when he noticed Doug, clad in a cutoff sweatshirt with a T-shirt underneath it, tight jeans, and baseball spikes.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
Slipping into his usual tough-guy undercover persona, Doug hooked his thumbs into the beltloops of his jeans. "Doug Rose," he said. "I'm new."
"No kidding," muttered the kid next to him, eyeing Doug's long hair and earring.
"You got somethin' to say to me, ya little twig?" asked Doug.
"All right, all right, shut up," said the coach. "I'm Coach Gavin. You better adjust that attitude of yours, kid. It may work out for you when you're smackin' into other people at some punk concert, but it don't fly out here."
Doug was mildly impressed that the guy even knew what slam-dancing was.
"You ain't practicin' like that either," Coach Gavin went on. "Run on back to the locker room and grab yourself a spare uniform from the closet. Oh, and take that thing outta your ear too. No pierced ears on my team. Got me?"
"Yes, sir," Doug mumbled.
He walked back to the locker room and discovered the storage closet. When he opened it, he saw a disorganized mound of jerseys, caps, and baseball pants. He kicked off his cleats and stripped himself down to his T-shirt and underwear, tucking his earring into the back pocket of his jeans. Finding a jersey was simple enough, as the sizes were clearly printed on the tags. Pants, however, were another story. He couldn't find a waist size indicated on any of the pairs, so it became a matter of trial and error.
Roughly 20 minutes later, Doug jogged back to the field, where the rest of the team was still standing in a circle.
Coach Gavin gave him a tight, fake smile. "Nice of you to join us, Mr. Rose. Okay, fellas, thanks to your new friend here, we're gonna run 10 laps around the field today. Not just the basepaths, the whole thing." He blew his whistle. "Let's go!"
Doug fell into the back of the line and started off at a trot, then moved faster.
'Maybe this physical won't be too bad,' he thought as he reached the halfway point of the first lap.
By lap four, however, his feelings were completely changed. He was breathing like an asthmatic and even the short guys were lapping him. He couldn't wait for practice to end...