By the fourth inning, the screen on my phone had gone dim in the heat. I held my hand over it between pitches so I could see what I had done to my own son.

E5, the app said.

The ball had come hard to Owen at third. He dropped to one knee, got the heel of his glove under it, then let it kick toward the fence. The runner from second scored. Owen chased the ball with his cap coming loose and threw toward first after the runner had already crossed.

I had watched the whole thing through the little white square of the app, my thumb ready over the buttons. Hit. Error. There was no third choice that meant my boy had tried.

I pressed error.

Coach Bell said nothing. He kept one foot on the grass and one on the chalk, looking toward the pitcher as if the inning might improve if he did not turn around. Owen came in after the third out with his face red and his glove folded against his stomach.

“Mom,” he said as he passed behind my chair.

I looked up. He had stopped only long enough to say it. His teammates were already filing past him toward the bench, their cleats ticking against the concrete.

He did not ask what I had put down. That was worse.

“It was a tough hop,” I said.

He nodded once.

Across the aisle, Mark Duffy was sitting with both hands around a bottle of water. His son, Eli, played shortstop for the other team. Mark brought the folding table to the jamboree and stayed afterward to carry the coolers. The week before, I had seen him follow Eli across the parking lot after an 0-for-4 game, the boy ten paces ahead of him. Mark carried both bat bags. He did not call for Eli to wait.

In the fifth, Eli came up with a runner on first and nobody out.

The second pitch came in low, and Eli chopped it toward the hole between short and third. Raul moved two steps to his right and fielded it on his backhand. He had time to set his feet. He did not. The throw sailed past first and struck the fence. Eli reached second. The runner who had been on first kept going to third.

On my phone, the app waited.

Hit. Error.

Raul had fielded the ball. I entered error, then second on the throw.

Mark came around the end of the bleachers while Eli was taking his lead from second.

“What did you put for that?” he asked.

“Error, then second on the throw.”

He held his water bottle at his side. “Eli hit it in the hole.”

“Raul fielded it.”

“He had to hurry.”

“The throw put Eli on second.”

The pitcher came set. Eli took two steps off second and bounced once on the balls of his feet. He was quick. Mark mentioned his steals only when somebody else asked.

“It was a hard play,” Mark said.

“It can still be an error.”

“You saw it from here. You had the angle.”

I looked at my phone. The small red E sat beside Eli’s name. Owen had got his body in front of his ball, too, before the hop found the thin part of his glove.

“I saw it,” I said.

Mark looked past me toward third base, where Owen stood with his knees bent and his glove open.

“Look,” he said. “It matters for him.”

The next pitch bounced in the dirt. The runner from third came home. Eli took third while the catcher ran to the backstop, and I marked the wild pitch before the pitcher had the ball again.

“He hasn’t had one all weekend,” Mark said. “He keeps looking at the app after every game.”

“It all matters for them,” I said.

He looked at me.

“Owen had one earlier.”

“He did.”

“And you gave him the error.”

“Yes.”

Mark put the bottle on the bench between us.

“Why would you do that?”

Because the ball had hit Owen’s glove and gone through it, and he had known before I entered anything. Raul had looked toward the bleachers after his throw, waiting to learn what the adults would call it.

“He made an error,” I said.

Mark gave a small laugh. “He’s your kid.”

In the dugout, Eli had his helmet on his knee. He was looking at the dirt beside his cleats, not at us. Mark followed my eyes and then looked away. He rubbed his thumb along the loose edge of the label.

The next batter squared to bunt. Coach Bell had both hands on his knees in the coach’s box. Eli stood at third with his weight forward.

I could change Owen’s call. Two taps would do it. I could change Eli’s after that.

The bunt stopped just inside the third-base line. Owen charged, picked it up cleanly, and threw in one motion. Eli was already on his way home. The batter was two strides from first before the ball left Owen’s hand. The batter’s foot reached the bag before Raul’s glove closed around the throw.

Eli scored.

My phone waited.

Mark was still beside me.

“He made the play,” Mark said.

“He did.”

I entered bunt single.

Mark watched Eli disappear into the dugout. His face had changed. He picked up his bottle and folded the loose edge of its label beneath his thumb.

“I shouldn’t have come over,” he said.

He went back to the bleachers.

Owen walked toward the dugout after the inning with dirt on both knees. As he passed me, he slowed.

“Did you change mine?” he asked.

“No.”

He took off his cap. His hair was wet against his forehead.

“Of course not,” he said, and kept walking.

Coach Bell called to him from the dugout. Owen did not turn. He threw his cap against the bench before he went inside.

At home that night, his uniform lay in a heap outside the laundry room. I found clay packed into the seams of both knees and stood at the sink working stain soap into the white cloth. On the counter, Owen’s phone lit up twice with messages from the team thread and then went dark.

Owen came into the kitchen carrying his glove.

“You gave their kid a hit,” he said.

“The bunt?”

“He got on because I was late.”

“No. The batter beat the throw.”

He pressed his fist into the pocket of his glove and closed it around his hand.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“On the bunt? Nothing different. He beat the throw.”

“So that wasn’t an error.”

“No.”

“You could have said mine was a tough hop.”

“I did.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”

The stain soap had dried white along the heel of my hand. I rinsed it away before either of us spoke again.

Owen pulled his hand from the glove. “I knew it was an error.”

I turned off the water.

For a moment he stood there with his mouth pressed flat. I had seen that face the afternoon he came home from school and said somebody else had been picked to present.

I put my hand over his on the counter. He let it stay there, though he did not look at me.

Instead he looked toward the back door, where his cleats were drying on the mat.

“Can we go early tomorrow?” he asked. “Before warm-ups?”

“If you wake me.”

“You’re always awake.”

“I’ll bring the bucket.”