Plunking Reggie Jackson Read Online Free PDF Page A

said, but you’re still full of it. You have to be technical.”
    â€œHow’m I bein’ technical?”
    â€œWell, it’s just one big body of water, right? And Florida just sticks out in the middle of it. Am I right?”
    â€œGoddamit, Quintero, havin’ a freshman roommate is one thing, but there’s no way we can get behind a hick. You understand?”
    â€œYou just have to be technical,” Jamie repeated. Quintero was the only freshman on the trip, but he was a good player and a good kid. Coley liked him.
    Let them argue about the ocean , Coley thought. By this time he was on the balcony, listening to their quarrel from a distance and with only a portion of his brain. He only knew how free he felt. He was going to pitch in paradise tomorrow, and his father was nowhere around.
    He looked to the west, where the silvery water was visible in slivers between the hotels and parking lots in the late-afternoon sun. When Jamie and Rico came out to join him, he said, “If you want the whole truth, what we’re lookin’ at is Tampa Bay.”
    â€œSay what?” asked Rico.
    â€œThis is Tampa Bay. The Gulf of Mexico is farther out. I doubt if we can see it from here.”
    Rico attempted to save face by saying, “Okay, Tampa Bay, but it’s like part of the gulf, okay? I mean, it’s all part of the same thing.”
    â€œIt’s all part of the same thing,” Coley said, still staring at the multitude of sailboats docked along a distant marina.
    â€œSo you ain’t so smart after all, huh?” Jamie said to Rico.
    â€œPiss off. It’s all part of the same thing.”
    Before supper the coaches took the team—all eighteen members—for a stroll along the beach. Coley and Rico waded in the edge of the clear surf and tossed tiny shells across the surface of the active waves in a fruitless attempt to make them skip.
    â€œI got a letter from the coach at Eastern,” Rico was saying. It wasn’t easy to understand him since his mouth was half full of a Snickers bar.
    â€œWhat did you say?” Coley asked him.
    â€œI said, I got a letter from the coach at Eastern.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œHe says they can’t make any promises about a ride,” Rico replied.
    Coley shrugged. He dropped down to try and sidearm another of the tiny shells, the same way he might drop down to intimidate a left-handed batter. “It’s early, bro; it’s only the first of March.”
    â€œHe also says they might offer me a half ride.”
    â€œThat’s not unusual for baseball scholarships. You know that.”
    â€œIt doesn’t do me any good to know it.”
    â€œCan you get that crap out of your mouth?” Coley asked him. “I can’t understand what you’re sayin’.” He sidearmed another shell but watched it turn over like a feather in the stiff sea breeze.
    Rico swallowed the last of his candy before he said, “It doesn’t do me any good. Not a half scholarship. You know I can’t afford it without a full ride.”
    â€œAnd I’m tellin’ you, it’s too early to worry. We’ve got the whole season for scouts and coaches to watch us play.”
    â€œYeah. Easy for you to say. You can get any scholarship you want.”
    That was true. Coley was a coveted commodity among the network of college and professional scouts. But he said again, “There’s still plenty of time, Rico. You never can tell what might come along. There’ll be scouts from Eastern, Western, ISU, the U of I, all over the place.”
    Rico was stubborn, though. He said, “What everybody wants is power. Power pitchers, power hitters. That’s what everybody is lookin’ for.”
    â€œNot everybody.” Since Rico was only five feet nine and 145 pounds, Coley could understand his apprehension. “If that’s all people wanted, there wouldn’t be any place in the big