Guys Read: The Sports Pages (21 page)

I read that the event was going to be on the first floor, right near the main entrance on Thirty-fourth Street. Which would be perfect, since a kid with twenty-eight dogs probably wouldn't get too far into the store before being Tasered or something.

As soon as we got inside, I saw that a crowd had gathered and was snapping pictures like crazy as Derek Jeter held up a bottle of his cologne and smiled. His giant dimples looked so ridiculously deep and hungry that I thought one of them might try to take a bite out of a nearby journalist.

“So, what's the plan?” asked Nick. “We need to make sure that we can collect the dogs again and get them back to …”

“This is the plan,” I said as I took some beef jerky out of my pockets and whistled to get the dogs' attention. I let go of their leashes and then threw the beef jerky right at Derek Jeter.

He caught the jerky in the air (lucky catch) and made a face as he recognized me. But a moment later he was buried by dogs. The room exploded with shouts, I heard the sound of breaking glass, and I knew my work here was done. I laughed and took off running, with Nate close behind me shouting about how we never should have done this. But he just didn't know a good revenge plot when he saw it. As much as I'd have loved to stick around and see the chaos, to see my brilliant plan working like a charm, I also didn't want to get caught.

“I'm out, I'm sorry,” Nate said.

“What? Now? When we're so close to victory?” I had come over to his house to hopefully smooth things over with his mom for the whole dog thing. But we were out on the stoop, and it looked like he didn't even want to let me into his building.

“Look, you're losing your mind. And you got me grounded for
six months
for that dog stunt! I might not get to play basketball next year, either, at this rate. Plus, my mom might even lose her license! And where did it even get you anyway?”

He had a point. The fallout from the dogs was not what I'd expected. The whole thing had made headlines, of course, but not in the way I'd hoped. The next day there'd been a huge article in the
New York Times
about it, featuring a giant picture of Derek Jeter holding one small dog in one arm and hugging a huge Dalmatian with the other. I had stared at it for a long time, sure that his dimples were mocking me.

The article went on to glorify Derek Jeter as some kind of hero. I mean, sure, instead of freaking out, he actually ran all over the store helping to corral the dogs even though he could have just stood aside like most celebrities would have. But that still doesn't make him a hero, does it? And, yeah, maybe he did run out into the heavy traffic on Thirty-fourth to snag a little Yorkie terrier right before it got flattened. But still, I mean, if I had done that, I probably would have gotten stoned to death in Central Park as punishment for holding up traffic. But because it was Derek Jeter, he's now getting some sort of humanitarian award, and PETA was even quoted as saying, “Derek Jeter's the best thing that has happened to dogs since nonkill animal shelters were started.”

And to top it all off, his cologne apparently got a ton of press and everyone bought it, and now I can't walk down the street without smelling
Stolen
wafting off every guy I pass.

What gives? He could do no wrong!

I just didn't get it. Derek Jeter could probably steal from poor people and then burn all their money right in front of them and roast a pig over the fire and not share any of it with them, and then, not only would people not be upset about it, but he would probably get awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for it all.

It seemed the only way I could take down Jeter was to catch him in the act of doing something terrible. So that's exactly what I planned to do.

“Just this one last time, please. Then I'm done, I swear,” I pleaded to Nate.

Nate sighed. “Wes, no. Let it go.”

Just then a racquetball bounced off my head, and someone walking down the block said, “Catch, Shin-Breaker!” at least two full seconds after it had already hit me.

Nate grabbed the doorknob with his one good arm and slammed the door closed. I sat down on his stoop and wallowed. I thought I saw an image of Derek Jeter's face in the craggy concrete sidewalk the way some crazies claim to see Yogi Berra's face in their toast. I picked up a dirty plastic fork lying on the ground and started jabbing it into Jeter's face over and over again until all that was left gripped in my hand was a splintered chunk of dirty plastic.

The final plan would need to be epic. I mean, Derek Jeter had already made me the laughingstock of my school and ruined my chances of ever being class president or being able to get through a single day of middle school without getting taunted mercilessly. But since then he was now also pretty much responsible for me losing my last remaining friend. I hadn't thought he could make my life any worse than he had a couple months ago, but I guess there really is one thing that Derek Jeter is good at: destroying kids' lives.

So my next plan would need to be good. It had to work or else he would win like he always did. It also would need to involve a direct face-to-face meeting with Jeter. Luckily, I knew he had a soft spot for charities. It also helped that I had a lot of free time on my hands, thanks to having no friends and basically being a social leper at school.

Setting up a huge celebrity charity event isn't as hard as you'd think. For one, I knew how to contact Jeter's people due to the whole baseball-hitting-my-face incident that had started all of this. And I used the dog angle to hook him. I also called Nate's mom and, after apologizing profusely and promising to get her business some much-needed positive publicity, she agreed to help me set it up. You see, she would be one of the sponsors, along with PETA, the Humane Society, and several other animal charities. Nobody with a soul can say no to animal charities. Luckily for me, Derek Jeter was good at pretending to have a soul.

I challenged Jeter to a charity race between him and me around the bases at Yankee Stadium. The race would be for fun and entertainment; the real winners, as far as most people were concerned, would be the charities. But I knew better. People would still be interested in the outcome of the race. And I was going to win the race, by any means necessary, and expose him as the old, slow, washed-up player that he'd become.

The race was scheduled for right before Game 1 of the American League Division Series. Because Jeter had pretty much been the Yankees' star player ever since I'd placed that curse on him, he'd carried them right through to another appearance in the postseason. I think it was, like, the Yankees' nine hundredth play-off series, but who even knew anymore? They'd won (or purchased, really) too many to count.

I cursed Doctor Zanzubu Zardoz. He and his stupid voodoo Klingon magic would likely win Jeter another World Series and his first league MVP, and thus another record to go along with them. It was no wonder that Derek Jeter was in such a great mood the day of the race.

“Hey, how's the eye?” he said to me with a huge grin as we both approached home plate. People around us took pictures, the crowd cheered, and several kids with dogs on leashes near the dugout started chanting Jeter's name.

I scowled at him. I'd show him soon enough. I'd show them all.

There was some media there, but not as many reporters as you might think, as well as the charity sponsors, the corporate sponsors who would be providing the money to the charity of the winner. Nate was there, too, which had surprised me. I mean, given that his mom's kennel was one of the local sponsors and everything, it made some sense that he'd snag tickets to the game but he pretty much hated my guts now, or so he had implied when he decided to sit at another table by himself at lunch ever since the Macy's incident, so I was still surprised. He stared at me from his spot near the visitor's dugout, watching with a look on his face that I can only guess was morbid curiosity.

“Are you ready?” Jeter asked me with a smirk as we stretched on either side of home plate.

I said nothing. I could tell he wasn't taking this seriously. Well, he would be soon enough.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'll keep it close.”

I scoffed at him.

What Jeter didn't know was that I'd been training for this nonstop for a week, running sprints in our apartment building hallway. Apparently, some neighbors eventually complained, and my parents were assessed a $250 fee. Just add that to the list of ways that Derek Jeter had screwed me over, I guess. But the point is, I was ready. I knew Derek wasn't going to take this seriously; and before he knew what was happening, I'd have won, making him look like a fool. Right then, standing next to Jeter, I needed to just beat him at
something
.

“Everybody ready?” the host asked.

We both nodded. Instead of firing a starter pistol in the air, they had arranged for the sound of a ball hitting a bat to be played over the PA. The sound played, and we were off.

I fired out of the starting gates like a rocket. My feet had never moved faster. Heading into first base I was sure I had to have had like a ten-foot lead on him by now. As we rounded first, me on the inside and Jeter on the outside, I glanced over and saw that he was actually right next to me. I hadn't left him in the dust at all. He was keeping pace with me, and I could tell that it was incredibly easy for him. Even with his, like, forty-five-year-old-man legs, he was merely jogging lightly to stay on pace with me.

What had I been thinking? It didn't matter how many sprints I had done. He's a professional athlete. Of course he was going to be able to keep up with me. The truth hit me like a baseball bat cracking my forehead, and nothing could have made me angrier in that moment. He needed to look clumsy, washed up like an old dishrag named Gormley that had too many holes in it to be useful anymore. Instead, he was going to look like the guy who let a little kid win a silly race for charity. A hero. Just like he always did.

So I did the only thing I could think of to make him look foolish.

I tripped him.

We approached second base, and I swung my right foot over subtly in an attempt to clip his heel and make him fall flat on his face. And I did clip his heel. But it was like kicking a hunk of iron. He hardly missed a step, whereas I went flying face-first into second base.

The crowd gasped, and then some of them laughed. He'd done it again! I couldn't believe it. I lay motionless, facedown in the dirt, covered head to toe in embarrassment, listening to several thousand people shift awkwardly in their seats.

My life was over.

The crowd started applauding, and I looked toward home, expecting to see Jeter at the plate posing with the president's daughters and accepting a special citation from the United Nations for services to humanity or something. But he wasn't. He had stopped running and was standing next to me. He held out his hand.

“That was a pretty nice slide,” he joked. “But the race doesn't end here.”

I could tell from the look on his face, on the faces of everyone in attendance, that they knew I'd tried to intentionally trip him. And yet here he was, acting cool as a cucumber about it, like we were best pals. My initial gut reaction, which had been to reach out and slap his hand away and try to kick him in the shin, faded into the dirt underneath me.

And for the first time since the whole ordeal began, I think I finally made a good decision.

I grabbed his hand and let him help me up. I smiled at him and then laughed like it was all just some joke. And the crowd laughed like they were all in on it, like we were all best buddies. Jeter and I finished the race side by side, touching home at the same time.

Then Derek Jeter did what he does best, which is to be the most beloved figure in all of sports. He announced that he'd personally be matching all money given to all of the charities involved, and then doubling it.

As music started playing over the loudspeaker and the grounds crew started getting the field ready for the game, Jeter pulled me aside.

“Listen,” he said, “I know you must still be pretty upset about the way that foul ball thing played out.”

“How could you tell?”

He laughed. “Right, well, I just want you to know that I
am
sorry. For the way I reacted in the dugout and the way the whole thing played out for you. And I know you're a Red Sox fan, which I can deal with, but how about I hook you up with tickets to every Red Sox/Yankees game played here at the stadium for life?”

I couldn't keep the smile off my face. So I just smiled and nodded dumbly. Then I said, “I'm sorry, too.”

Derek Jeter shrugged and smiled again, that stupid, likable smile, and then he walked away.

“Nice race,” someone behind me said.

I think Nate had meant for the comment to be sarcastic. But I just laughed and shrugged and said, “I think I've just realized something. Something huge.”

“What's that?” Nate asked.

“That all of this hasn't really been Derek Jeter's fault after all. I mean, if I was down 0–2 in the count, I would have done the same thing. I'd have battled through every single pitch to keep the at bat alive. I can't blame Jeter for hitting a foul ball. And how could he have controlled where it was going to go, or what it was going to do, after he did?”

For the first time in … well, probably since
that
night, Nate grinned.

“I was wondering when you might figure that out,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah, and I think I'm beginning to finally realize whose fault the whole thing really is. I think I've known all along, deep down, but just didn't want to admit it to myself,” I said.

“Good!” Nate said. “I'm glad you've finally realized that you've had no one to blame but yourself for all of this …”

“What!?” I said, shocked at his assumption. “No, not me!”

Nick gave me a look. I ignored him.