Well, it was a night that Halima would never forget.  She couldn’t believe she had caught the ball and then, just to hold onto it took all of the effort she could muster.  Halima was an avid baseball fan and not a bad player as well.  At that moment she knew that all of her hard work practicing baseball with her Little League team had finally paid off.  After it was clear that Halima was not going to let go of the souvenir, the fans around her backed off.  Then, after a moment, they began to clap, then cheer.  Halima, never one to shy away from the spotlight, stood up on her seat in the centerfield bleachers and held the baseball high above her head for all to see.  She had just caught the game-winning home run in Game 4 of the 1999 World Series.  It was the proudest moment in Halima’s young life, but it came after a lot of struggle.

Halima was the only child of a loving family that had immigrated from the old country.  She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and quickly found that she was different from most girls at her school.  She was a sports fanatic-and she was a Muslim.  Her parents taught Halima what they knew from the Quran.  They taught her about the Prophet, how to pray, and the difference between right and wrong.  Halima learned these things, but her real love was baseball.

It all began on Halima’s sixth birthday.  Her parents had just moved into the new neighborhood and threw a party.  They invited some of Halima’s school friends over to their tiny one-bedroom apartment.  One of her schoolmates, John, gave her a baseball glove.  She didn’t know what was it was at first, so John’s dad showed her how to put it on.  His name was Jim and he had a hearty laugh.  The kind of laugh that shakes the house and makes others turn their heads just to see what is happening.  Whenever something was just slightly funny, Jim’s laugh could be heard throughout the entire apartment.  Halima liked Jim’s laugh a lot.  She watched carefully as Jim slipped the tiny glove on his massive hand.

“Look here Halima.  This is how you put the glove on.  It’s stiff right now because it’s new, but eventually it will soften,” Jim said as he pounded the glove with his fist.  Pop!  The glove made a snapping sound.  Halima’s parents were startled.  Why would such an ugly thing captivate Halima?  She was surrounded by tea sets, Barbie dolls, stuffed animals and cute clothes from the Gap.  Yet she stood there soaking in everything that Jim said while staring at the glove.  Then Jim asked his son to toss him the ball.  The boy threw the ball and Jim made a perfect basket catch with his free hand spread under the webbing of the glove.  It looked so smooth and fun that Halima had to try.  Jim peeled the glove from his hand and placed it onto Halima’s outstretched fingers.  It was a perfect fit for Halima-and she admired it for a full minute before Jim’s voice broke her trance.  “OK Halima, are you ready to catch the ball?”  She nodded somewhat unassuredly.  Jim gently tossed the ball so that it landed directly into the webbing of her glove.  The weight of the ball forced the glove to wrap itself around the hard sphere and Halima felt the joy of her first catch.

From that moment on Halima took her glove everywhere she went.  To the grocery market when she went shopping with her mom.  To school in her backpack so that she could take it out during recess and lunch.  To the mosque where she stored it in the shoe rack during her Sunday school class.  She even kept it under her pillow at night.  Gradually, she learned the rules of the game.  She learned from kids at school-usually boys as well as baseball books she checked out from the library.  Her parents had no idea what baseball was.  To them, the sport seemed to be a waste of time.  It offered little in the way of exercise.  Professional ball players were overpaid and had bad habits such as spitting and chewing tobacco.  But her parents loved Halima and decided to allow her to develop her baseball skills.  They bought her a bat and a batting helmet.  Her mom even played catch with her in the living room of their apartment.  “Throw it harder mom,” pleaded Halima.  Her mom threw the ball as if she were tossing an egg without trying to break it.  Halima rolled her eyes as she caught the ball.  “No mom, you have to throw it overhand like this”-and she made an overhand motion.  This time her mom threw the ball over hand, hard.  It sailed passed Halima’s glove, through the living room window, and down three stories onto the street below.  After that there was no playing catch in the apartment.

One day Halima, at the age of nine, came home from school with a yellow flyer in her hand.  “Mom, mom” Halima blurted, all out of breath.  “I want to sign up for Little League.”  Halima’s mom looked at the flyer that described baseball tryouts for Little League and then she looked at her unusual daughter.  “Are you sure?” she asked, secretly hoping her answer would be no.  Instead, Halima nodded her head enthusiastically.

Little League tryouts are different depending on where you live in the country.  The type of skill you must possess also depends on your age.  If you are only five and live in Brooklyn, you just need to catch a few balls tossed to you underhand.  If you are nine, a little more is expected.  On the day of the tryouts, a large crowd of boys and girls and adults appear on the grandstands as if they are scouting a new prospect for the professional teams.  Some of the older kids lean onto the wire backstop making it cave in a little.  A large man stands at home plate and hits baseballs to you.  You are positioned at shortstop and you must catch the ground ball and throw it as hard as you can to first base-where another large man stands.  (When you are only nine, any man with a bat seems like a large man).  Halima had never tried this before-she was accustomed to little kids throwing the ball to her in the playground at school or perhaps her mom tossing the ball to her in the apartment.  When it was Halima’s turn to take the field, she could feel a hundred eyes staring at her, which made her nervous, and she began to sweat.  The first ball hit to her froze Halima in her tracks.  Yet the ball was hit so slowly it stopped on the infield grass before it reached her outstretched glove.  When she realized the ball had stopped moving, she ran to it, picked it up, and fired it to the first baseman.  The ball took three hops before it reached its intended target.  Halima could hear a couple of boys behind the backstop laugh.  “She can’t play,” said one of them.  The other balls hit to her either sailed passed her or took funny hops.  Many of the balls ended up in left field.  The man with the bat was getting ready for one last hit when Halima heard a familiar voice.  “C’mon Halima, you can do it.”  It was Jim.  She could recognize that voice anywhere.  The man at the plate hit a sharp line drive at her.  Halima caught the ball just in front of her nose.  The small crowd clapped as Halima raced off the field.  She was relieved that tryouts were finally over.

Halima Meets Rania

“Halima, Halima, . . . HALIMA!” her mother shouted.  “What?” said Halima still half-asleep.  “Get up! You will be late for school.”  Halima was pretty tired these days because of baseball practice.  The team, called the Pirates, consisted of four girls and eight boys.  The kids had attended practice twice a week for the past three weeks and were getting ready for their first big game in ten days.  Halima hated practice.  At the start of practice was a series of stretching exercises where everyone would attempt to touch their toes without bending their knees.  Then there were calisthenics.  Everyone had to perform 50 jumping jacks and a certain number of push-ups and sit-ups.  The final part of the warm up was a run around the four backstops of the practice field. By the time she was ready to start playing baseball, Halima was worn out.  Everyone took turns playing different positions.  Halima liked the outfield the best.  If a ground ball reached the outfield, she had enough time to react and get her glove on the ball.  Her throwing arm was not in good shape, however, and she was not very accurate in getting the ball to the cutoff man.  There were other rookies on the team as well, but they seemed to be better than Halima.  They practiced with their dads on the weekends and hung out with other baseball players after school, sharpening their skills.  The only thing Halima enjoyed about Little League baseball was the fact that her coach was her friend, Jim.

Halima’s parents just didn’t “get” baseball.  They loved Halima, but had no desire to learn the game and could never help Halima practice.  Because Halima lived in an apartment, there was little opportunity for her to play with other kids.  Her apartment complex was filled with old folks, infants or single people.  When times were tough during practice, Halima thought of Jim’s laugh and encouragement and she refused to give up.  She was not a quitter.

Halima had something else that changed her life.  She began to understand Islam.  Her parents had been taking her to the local mosque every Sunday for the past four years but, before, Halima just learned things by rote.  She learned the Arabic alphabet.  She learned a few short suras.  She memorized the names of the prophets.  But she had not felt God’s presence.  One day she met a girl at her school named Rania.  Rania was in the U.S. to get some medical treatment.  She had to use crutches because her leg was amputated.  She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time during the war in Palestine.  She was quiet and she looked small for her age.  Rania opened Halima’s eyes to a world beyond baseball.

Rania became friends with Halima but thought that Halima was a puzzle.  At recess, she watched Halima play ball with other kids.  She enjoyed the spirit Halima possessed, a certain vitality-as if she had no cares in the world.  Rania herself was obsessed with what was happening in her homeland.  She worried about her relatives, about her older brother and his involvement in the Intifada.  “If Halima only knew what was really happening in the world, she would not be so happy,” Rania thought.  After a few weeks, Halima asked Rania to spend the night at her apartment.  The two girls talked until late at night.  Halima talked about baseball and how she was learning to get in front of the ground ball and drop to one knee to field it.  Rania talked about her family back home in Ramallah-the dreams she had of one day growing up to be a doctor to help the people who suffered so much.  Halima grew quiet as Rania talked about her dreams.  They seemed so big compared to her own.  Halima had never thought about growing up and what she wanted to be.  Nor had she considered what it would be like to help others on such a grand scale.

Halima began to understand Islam more and more.  She decided it was important for her to wear the hijab to show her modesty.  This was especially a big deal because her mother didn’t wear a hijab and she respected her mother tremendously.  But Halima just felt it was the right thing to do.  She felt it was an important part of Islam.

The first day she showed up to baseball practice with a scarf on her head under her baseball cap, the other kids just thought she was trying to make some sort of fashion statement and ignored her.  When she came to the next practice, she decided that she would tell Coach Jim about her decision to wear the scarf as part of her religion.  Jim said, “Halima, you’re a good hardworking kid.  I respect your decision to wear what you want.  You have to know that other kids on the team may make fun of you because they won’t understand. There will even be some adults that will put you down.  Are you prepared for that?”  Halima had already thought about that, but when Jim said it, the words had a greater impact.  It meant that she had been right to brace herself in case people said difficult things to her.  She paused a moment, swallowed hard, and said, “Yes, Coach, I understand.  And this scarf will not stop me from becoming a great player.”  Jim smiled.  He had always liked Halima and was beginning to respect her quite a bit.

Halima worked harder than ever to hone her baseball skills.  As she did so, she became an ace outfielder and began to swing the bat with power.  At first, some of the other kids on the team found it difficult to talk to Halima because of the scarf.  They eventually forgot about the scarf and appreciated her as a friend and a good player.  Then a game arrived one Saturday.  Halima put on her uniform and used a scarf that matched the team colors for her head.  As usual, she sang the Star Spangled Banner and raced out to center field to take her position.  But instead of hearing the umpire shout, “Play ball!” she saw the opposing coach conferring with the umpire.  Then the umpire called out, “Number forty four.”  Halima was stunned.  This was not normal.  She was number forty-four.  As she jogged to home plate, she could hear the people in the grandstands talking in soft voices.  She began to sweat.  She looked up to the stands and spotted her mother and father and Rania with quizzical faces.  The umpire, dressed in black, looked down at Halima.  Halima’s coach had also come to meet with the umpire.  The umpire said, “Number forty four, you are out of uniform.  The opposing coach has lodged a complaint and I am afraid that you must remove your scarf.  If you refuse, then you will not be allowed to play.”  Halima was stunned.  Why did it matter that she had a scarf?  Jim said, “Ump, you know this is not right.  They don’t want my player to play because she’s good.  This is an excuse to get her off the field.”  The umpire stood his ground and Halima walked dejectedly back to the dugout.  Coach Jim then motioned for his entire team to come to the dugout.  “What’s happening coach?” They all seemed to be saying at once.  Jim told them the umpire’s ruling.  Then he said, “Look, I will leave it up to you guys.  If you want to continue without Halima, you can.  But if you want to stay here and refuse to play without her, raise your hand.”  One by one, all her teammates raised their hands.  Then Coach said, “You know this might mean that we forfeit the game.”  One of the players said, “We don’t care, coach.  If Halima doesn’t play, we don’t play either.”  Halima was amazed.  She was sad that she would cost them the game.  But she couldn’t believe how much her teammates respected her.  The umpire came over to the dugout and said, “Alright Jim, have you found a replacement for your centerfielder?  Let’s get this game started.  We’re running late.”  Jim said, “We refuse to play without her.”  The umpire was not happy, but kept his face expressionless.  He went out to home plate and began to announce to the fans that the Pirates had forfeited the game.  In the middle of his announcement, a small man with a mustache interrupted him, “Hold on Al.  Let’s talk for a moment.”  Al, not accustomed to being interrupted, was about to get angry until he saw who spoke to him.  It was the president of the league.  After a short meeting between Al, the coaches, and the president, Al emerged to make another announcement.  He was quieter and there was a hint of red on his face.  “It has been decided that number forty four will be allowed to play.  We will begin the game in five minutes.”  Cheers erupted from the Pirates’ dugout and all of the fans in the stands.  In the game, Halima went three for four and stole home plate.  Her team won the game and Halima felt as if she was on cloud nine.  Rania was very proud of her friend.  When Rania got home, she thought, “It will be very difficult to tell her the bad news.” 

Rania Has Bad News

It started when Rania returned home after spending the night at Halima’s house.  She found herself tired and thought she just needed a couple days of rest.  Her leg, which had been healing nicely after the operation, began to ache.  Later, she started to get high fevers.  At that point, Rania’s parents took her to the doctor and, after some blood tests, it was confirmed-Rania had leukemia.  She would begin chemotherapy sessions within a week.  When Halima learned about Rania’s illness, she cried.  Without knowing it, Rania had been a source of strength to Halima.  Rania was her window to another world.  A world where people were struggling to survive- a window of harsh reality that Halima had been shielded from.  Now, Rania’s illness brought that reality crashing into Halima’s life.  She too may feel the loss of someone close to her and the thought of that was devastating.

After school one day, Halima summoned up the courage to visit Rania.  She had been to Rania’s house many times before but this would be different.  Rania’s mother was happy to see Halima and led her directly to Rania’s room.  “Rania, you have a visitor,” said her mother.  “Is it Halima?” Rania replied excitedly.  Halima stepped into the room and saw that Rania was wearing a hat because her hair had fallen out from the chemo.  She looked like she had lost some weight and her eyes were sunken.  Rania asked Halima about baseball and how her team was doing.  Halima told her that she had missed a few practices and she didn’t feel much like playing baseball.  “Why? Why would you miss baseball?  You love the game and you worked so hard to be the starting player,” questioned Rania.  Halima just shrugged her shoulders and looked down.  Then Rania took a breath and said, “Listen, Halima.  I never told you this but when I learned that I had cancer, I felt awful.  The doctors talked to me and told me that I should be strong and positive and all of that stuff.  I was pretty down.  Then I thought of you.  You have been strong since the first day I met you, Halima.  I thought if I was Halima, I would try to beat this thing.”  Then Halima looked up at Rania, with tears steaming down her face.  Halima hugged Rania and said, “OK Rania, I will try to be strong.”

Halima was strong.  She worked harder than ever to be the best ball player her Little League had ever known.  She made shoestring catches in the outfield.  She had the highest batting percentage on the team.  She was not just playing for herself anymore.  She was playing for Rania as well.  Then, one day Coach Jim had a surprise.  Somehow, he got extra four tickets to go to game four of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves.  He wanted to take his whole team but he couldn’t, so the team had to draw lots to see who would get a ticket.  Incredibly, Halima was a winner.  She raced home to tell her parents that she was going to the World Series.  Then she called Rania who was at the hospital getting treatment.  Rania said that she would watch the game and, hopefully, would see her on T.V.  Halima laughed and said, “Yeah, may be.”

On the day of the game, Halima could barely contain herself.  She was ready an hour before Jim arrived with the van to pick her up.  When she climbed into the van, Jim said, “Did you bring your glove?  You’ve got to have your glove in case you catch a ball.”  “I got it, coach,” said Halima grinning.  The game was a pitching duel.  The Atlanta Braves had a cadre of great pitchers that Ted Turner had put on the team, and they were pitching well.  But the Yankees, like so many other times in their fabled past, were the dominant team of the Series so far.  Jim had tickets for seats in the center field bleachers, which allowed Halima to have a perfect view of how the pitchers threw.  She couldn’t understand how anybody could hit one of those pitches.  Some of the balls were hurled at over 90 miles per hour.  Then, in the eighth inning, the Yankee Jim Leyritz was at bat.  The Atlanta pitcher threw the ball right down the middle, but a little high, and Leyritz hammered the ball.  At first, the ball seemed far away from Halima, but it quickly gathered momentum.  Halima noticed that some fans around her started to stand on their seats.  She too quickly scrambled to stand on her seat.  The center fielder of the Braves ran back to the wall and, almost instinctively, Halima felt that the ball might come her way.  She felt the sweat pouring out of her gloved hand.  She imagined she was in a game at her home park in Brooklyn.  As the ball came down, she stood on her tiptoes and felt the weight of the ball catch the webbing of her glove.  She also felt what seemed to be a hundred people leaning on her, causing her to fall from her seat.  But, luckily Jim was there to make sure she did not hit the cement.  She used her other hand to protect the ball and then she knew the ball was hers.

Rania was glued to the television set in her hospital room.  She saw Halima stand back up on her chair and show the baseball smiling.  “Yeah! All right, Halima.  Way to go!” she shouted.  The nurse scurried in to see what was the matter.  “My best friend just caught a home run at Yankee Stadium,” Rania said to the nurse.  “Oh that is wonderful,” replied the nurse, obviously wondering if Rania was hallucinating.  That night, Rania slept better than she had in the past month.

The next day, Halima came in to see Rania.  She told her all about the game.  The hitters, the players, the seventh inning stretch.  Rania was so happy.  Then Halima opened her backpack and gave Rania a box with a ribbon on it.  Rania said, “What is this?  It better not be what I think it is.”  “Just open it,” replied Halima.  Rania opened the box and, there it was, the baseball that won the 1999 World Series for the Yanks.  On it, was written: