Chapter 11

Over the last couple of years, Mom had stopped coming to my baseball games. She said it made her 'too tense.'

Now she seemed to show interest in seeing me play. I guessed she probably felt bad, because Dad went to coach the Blue Belles, and there was no one to come to my games.

Felik and Grigor found out that we were training on our own almost every day and started bringing their friends to help us. Mitko would work with April and Olive on pitching and catching. But we also got Zoya (the young woman who gave us ice cream and turned out to be a very classy hitter). They'd divide us into small groups and work on particular skills.

At first, there were just five of us show up. Then Rosie, Susan, and even Harper came. Stefanie was the last to join. She accused us of trying to exclude her f