“Here,” he says, reaching down to his feet and handing me the scorebook and a pen tucked inside the spiral binding.
“It’s for me?”
“I remember you used to keep a book during spring training.”
“You do?”
“You were always in the stands, even during the split squads, exhibitions, whatever. Hard not to notice.”
“It was my job.”
“No, it wasn’t. You had all the video and biometrics stuff recording. It wasn’t your job to sit there and keep score of a game that didn’t even count.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I agree, finally, not even sure why I didn’t want to admit it. “It makes me feel like I made it.”
He doesn’t seem to understand.
“When I was five, my dad taught me how to keep score sitting in front of theTV. And when I do it now, it’s like I’m talking to that little girl, telling her we made it.”
The umpire signals play ball.
Yeah, I made it.
Chapter 10
CHARLIE
The ballpark isn’t crowded and, while it’s warm and sunny, there are enough clouds and an occasional breeze to make it the perfect afternoon for a baseball game. The last time I watched a game from the stands was earlier this year. The Dodgers retired my number 8, but I could barely bring myself to watch the game from up in the suite they gave me for the day. It was all still too fresh and I still resented the hell out of not being out there on the field.
This feels completely different.
Just a few yards away from the action and, for a bunch of kids out there, the dream is still very much alive and close enough for them to touch it. Teams generally send their best prospects to the Arizona Fall League and most of these kids have a real shot at making it to the Bigs.
And three of those kids are definitely the ones we’re here to watch. After Archie Esposito set down the other team one, two, three in the top of the first inning, Xander Greene led off with a single and promptly stole second base. The next kid, one of the Red Sox prospects, flew out to center and the Phillies future second baseman struck out, and now Cole Davis is at the plate, two outs, runner in scoring position, and the pitcher, a fireballer that might make a great pitcher one day, as soon as he cancontrol exactly where his 101-mph fastball will end up when he lets it go.
The first pitch is high and tight, sending Davis sprawling backward into the dirt as he just barely avoids taking one to the head.
Standing up, the kid replaces the batting helmet that went flying to the ground when he took cover.
The sparse crowd gasps and some even boo.
“Control your stuff or get off the mound,” Frankie mutters from beside me.
“Restraining yourself?” I ask. I can feel her vibrating beside me, like she wants to leap to her feet and shout at the kid out on the field instead of composing herself.
“I’m a professional,” she grinds out.
“Are you?”
“Barely. There’s a reason I watch most of the games from my office. No one can hear me losing it,” she says, as she carefully marks a ball into the little box for Davis’s at bat on her score sheet.
“I didn’t know that. You ever get this heated for me?”
Fuck. Her talent for innuendo is apparently contagious.
She just snorts, though, her attention still mostly on the game in front of her. “All the time.”
“Really?”
