Pyramid Scheme at the Plate

The baseball card pyramid on my nightstand was seven tiers high—a literal shrine to my social standing at Creekwood High. Bottom layer: freshmen who still wear their backpacks on both shoulders. Top tier: Tyler Davis, varsity shortstop, whose hair defied gravity in ways that made physics teachers cry.

"You're not actually gonna try out, right?" Marcus said, sprawled across my bed, failing to notice he'd crushed a rookie card. "That's, like, suicide for your dignity."

"Watch me." I laced up my cleats. "I've been practicing with Dad's pitching machine since, like, February."

Marcus snorted. "Your dad's Bull?

"His name is literally 'Bull,' Marcus. He's a mechanic. He played college ball."

"Your dad is a literal bull?" Marcus grinned. "That explains so much about your anger issues."

I flipped him off. "See you at tryouts. Unless you're scared."

Marcus sat up. "Okay, first, I'm not the one trying to enter the tiger's cage with a pocketful of steak. Second, that was, like, three metaphors mixed together."

Cut to tryouts, where I'm standing at home plate,Varsity Coach Miller watching like I'm about to detonate something. Behind him, Tyler Davis and his pyramid of jocks are doing that thing where they silently communicate with their eyebrows.

First pitch: I swing so hard I spin myself into the ground.

Second pitch: I check-swing and somehow hit the catcher's shin guard.

Third pitch: I actually make contact. The ball sails toward left field, keeps sailing, and lands somewhere in the parking lot.

Silence. Then Coach Miller yells, "Who taught you to hit like that?"

"My dad," I said. "His name's Bull."

Tyler Davis raises both eyebrows. "Bull?"

"His name is literally Bull," I said, suddenly exhausted. "Can we move past this?"

After tryouts, Marcus found me sitting on the bleachers, staring at my baseball card pyramid—I'd knocked it over that morning, and the cards were scattered everywhere. Some metaphor there about destroying the thing you built to measure yourself against.

"So?" Marcus asked.

"So." I pulled a card from my pocket—rookie Bull Marino, Dad's college year. "You should come practice with us. My dad says you've got a natural swing."

Marcus stared. "Wait, really?"

"Bull," I said.

"Your dad's name?"

"No, I'm saying you're full of—" I laughed. "Yeah, really."

We walked home together, and somewhere between talking about tryouts and making Marcus promise he wouldn't use his terrible batting stance in front of Coach Miller, I realized something: I'd spent all year looking up at the pyramid, wondering how to climb it, when maybe I should've just been knocking the damn thing over.

Next year's card pyramid was going to have way more important cards in it. Starting with whoever Marcus became, and whoever I was turning into too.