The Stoneville Tigers were doing their best to lose their season opener. Ahead two runs to the visiting Ridgefield Coyotes’ one, Davis had thrown a knuckleball, hoping the pitch would lurch just out of bat’s reach. But instead of veering off, the ball went right in the middle of the strike zone and then over the centerfield fence. Now it was the bottom of the ninth, all tied up and with two outs. Matthews was at bat with one ball and two strikes, Whitehouse and Donovan were on-base, and Jeremy was still dead. 
	
Max, who sat alone high up in section 201, didn’t want to think about his brother. He wanted to think about the game and the Tigers’ chances at the state playoffs and which players would go pro after the season was over. 
	
But staring at Matthews tapping his cleats with an aluminum Louisville Slugger just made Max think about the black no-slip shoes sitting on the front porch, and how Jeremy left them out there because he didn’t want to track kitchen grease from Milligan’s Bar on Mom’s wood floors.  
	
“That’s awfully nice of you, hon,” Mom had said when she first noticed. It wasn’t until later, when Max and Jeremy were walking to last season's closer, that Jeremy told the truth.
	
“I don’t give a damn about the floor,” he said. “I’ve been scrubbing dishes all night. But she’d never let me hear the end of it if she slipped. Even if she died from the fall, she’d find some way to nag me about it.”
	
Matthews steadied himself and braced the bat over his shoulder. A left-handed hitter, Matthews had often been the bane of the opposing teams’ defense. 
	
The Coyote pitcher steadied and threw the ball right down the middle. 
	
[i]Crack[/i]. 

The ball sailed backwards over the press box and landed with a [i]thunk[/i] in the parking lot. 
	
Max let out a breath. Foul balls were the specter that held over him each ballgame, their shadow somewhat lighter up here in the nosebleeds. The ticket he’d bought put him in the lower section, but it was down along first base and just past the protective net. 
	
“It’s your teeth,” Jeremy had told him, sitting up in the same spot with a half-drunken Budweiser in one hand and dry peanuts in the other. “Mom and Dad spent so much money making them come out right, you don’t want to risk breaking them.”
	
“I don’t like things coming at me,” Max said. “At my teeth or otherwise.” 
	
Jeremy chortled. “If you were British, that wouldn’t matter.” 
	
The pitcher let loose the next ball. Matthews watched it whiz by, just barely above home plate. The umpire remained silent, but the whole stadium understood.
	
Two-two. 
	
An indecipherable set of symbols flew from the catcher’s fingers. The pitcher shook his head until an agreeable one came his way. After a quick glance towards Whitehouse and Donovan, the latter of whom had been inching ever further from second, the pitcher took position.  
	
“I really wish you were sticking around,” Max had told him. “You like coming here.”
	
Jeremy shrugged. “They got plenty of ball in Chicago. Not as cheap, but still fun for us devotees.” 
	
Max shook his head. “I’m not. I can’t even remember if we still play Mulvane anymore.” 
	
“You like it enough,” Jeremy said, flinging a peanut into his open mouth. “You’ll at least come to next year’s opening. Just for that first-game magic.”  
	
Max glanced over towards the empty bleachers and a discarded box of popcorn lying further down the row. 
	
“I guess you were right about that,” Max said.
	
[i]Crack[/i]. 
	
Max turned just in time to see the ball bounce towards the shortstop, Donovan almost to third by the time the ball hit the Coyote’s glove. 

In a rush, the shortstop flung it to second. The promise of extra innings seemed to whisper through the anxious crowd, a long battle in place of the clean-cut ending every sports movie promised.  

But the ball flew too high, over the second baseman’s head and his outstretched glove. 
	
Max and the rest of Ulysses Arthur Stadium got to their feet as Donovan passed home plate, and the Tigers’ bench flooded the field to dogpile their teammate.

Max stood and clapped with everybody else, his hands connecting a split-second out of tandem with the crowd’s. But with each celebratory whoop and joyous shriek below, a ghost of a smile eased across his face.