Charlie crosses home plate, tosses his helmet on the ground and sits with the rest of his team. The day is beautiful. The grass is cool. He lays back to bask in it.
When he lays flat on his back, he exposes his robot parts. He's normally disconnected for baseball. But not today. Immediately, his teammates crawl on top of him like ants on an abandoned Popsicle.
"What is it?" one boy asks.
They poke at the foreign object.
"It's an iPod Nano!" a blonde-haired boy with a runny nose says authoritatively in between batting practice swings.
"Uh uh!" another boy disputes. "It's a game."
"I just farted on you," a third boy tells Charlie.
Charlie shields the pump with his hands when they begin to touch it more liberally, but he says nothing. Eventually they're distracted by a foul ball that lands nearby and Charlie is again left alone in the grass.
A year ago, Charlie would have proudly showed off his pump to his team like a bride-to-be shows off her new diamond engagement ring. "Hey guys!" he'd yell, "wanna see my pump?"
Lying back down again in the grass, this time Charlie pulls the bottom of his jersey taut when it lifts to reveal his mysterious circuitry.
Later in the day I asked Charlie if all the attention over the pump bothered him.
"No," he said. "I just didn't like getting farted on."
