A Season of Daring Greatly

by Ellen Emerson White

  She nodded, and strode out to the mound. Most of the fans were not happy to see her back out there—but, the fans were not her problem. Marcus threw down to second, the ball went around the infield, and then Owen tossed it to her with an exaggerated underhand motion.

  “The hell’s the matter with you?” she asked.

  Owen pointed defensively at home plate. “Yell at him, not me.”

  Well, that figured. “He told you to piss me off?” she asked.

  Owen shrugged, and went back to his position. “Hey, lady, I’m just here to play baseball.”

  And so, god-damn it, was she.

  Fifteen pitches would be plenty. The batters were going to be cocky, after the disaster of the first inning, and she knew they would come out hacking.

  No need for strikeouts, even though it would be emotionally satisfying. But, economy and precision would be much more helpful.

  The first batter swung at a ball out of the zone, and she knew she didn’t have to be too perfect—it would be enough to give him pitches that looked more tempting than they actually were.

  He grounded to short, and the next guy hit a fly ball that Hector caught without having to move more than a step or two, and it had only taken her six pitches to get two outs.

  If she had been hitting, she would have assumed that the pitcher was feeling shaky, and let a few go by. But, instead, the third guy swung right away and fouled the pitch straight back—which meant that he was on the baseball a lot more than she wanted him to be. He let the next one go by, but it caught enough of the outside corner for the umpire to call it a strike.

  Marcus wanted her to put a four-seamer up at eye level, and the guy checked his swing, but not quite enough, and the infield umpire rang him up for strike three.

  Nine pitches. That was fine.

  She walked off the mound, noticing more cheers than boos this time—but, it still felt like the bloom was very much off the rose, insofar as the fans were concerned.

  “Good work,” Marcus said.

  “Did you tell Owen to annoy me?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “It was effective,” she said.

  He nodded again.

  “That’s more like it,” Adler said, when she came into the dugout.

  “I still have six pitches to go, sir,” she said.

  He looked amused, but shook his head. “Nope, you’re done. Chavez, send Kordell back out here, when you get down there.”

  Sofia nodded, and motioned for Jill to follow her.

  When they walked into the clubhouse, Caleb was pedaling the bike without much energy, and staring at his phone. He grinned when he saw them.

  “How many more runs you give up?” he asked.

  Jill ignored him, heading straight for her locker, unbuttoning her game jersey along the way.

  “Adler wants you back in the dugout,” Sofia said.

  “So, I don’t get to stay for the striptease?” Caleb asked. “And I mean tease.”

  Sofia didn’t even look at him, already getting out the massage supplies and ice.

  “Whatever,” Caleb said, got off the bike, put his phone on the top shelf of his locker, and headed for the door.

  “Wipe that bike down,” Sofia said. Snapped, really.

  “Isn’t that your job?” he asked.

  She shook her head, not smiling.

  “Whatever,” he said, and smacked a towel over the seat and handlebars, then dropped it on the floor and left.

  “He’s something else, isn’t he,” Sofia said.

  That was for sure. Jill reached for some alcohol wipes and cleaned the bike much more aggressively, then tossed the wipes in the trash, and picked up the discarded towel, putting it in the laundry cart.

  After which, she went into the training room, and washed her hands—at length.

  “Think you got rid of all the cooties?” Sofia asked.

  “Well, he was breathing the oxygen in here, unfortunately,” Jill said.

  Sofia nodded, and picked up a can of air freshener, spraying some around. “Better?”

  “Maybe a little,” Jill said.

  But, so far, this had been one hell of a bad night.

  CHAPTER 24

  By the time she got back out to the dugout, it was the seventh, and they had eleven runs—and Aberdeen had twelve. But, Scott homered with two on in the bottom of the eighth, Andrew slammed the door in the top of the ninth—and they, improbably, won the game, fourteen to twelve.

  She had no interest in signing autographs, but there were enough children waiting so that she had to stop, after exchanging some low-energy high fives with her teammates out on the field. If the kids had sat through that entire marathon of a game, they deserved autographs. But, she signed as quickly as possible, being careful to take the time to smile at each child, since it wasn’t their fault she had been so terrible out there.

  “Hey, Ladybug, you want to come out with us tonight?” Dimitri asked, when she was finally able to escape into the dugout. “Blow off a little steam?”

  Boy, would she ever. And it was nice to be invited. “I think I have to go let the media savage me for a while, first,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you guys up.”

  He shrugged. “Between eating, and showering, most of us will probably still be here. And if people want to go ahead, I’ll wait and give you a ride.”

  “Okay, thanks. Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Moynihan’s,” he said. “Sound good?”

  A bar in town, which she had heard was kind of a dive, but the place usually attracted a lot of players, so it must be halfway decent. “Sure,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Jeremiah was waiting for her in the corridor, looking concerned.

  “We have a pretty full house down in the media room,” he said. “Do you want me to get you out of it?”

  Yes, and double yes. “I stunk up the joint tonight,” Jill said, and pulled out her lip gloss. “I might as well own it. Let me just go brush my hair, and I’ll be right there.”

  “You sure?” Jeremiah asked. “It’s easy enough to say you’re getting treatment in the trainers’ room or something.”

  It would be very easy—but, also, cowardly. “No, it’s okay.” She put the lip gloss away, then felt to make sure her hair was reasonably well in place. “I’ll get cleaned up, and then come right back.”

  She went down to unlock her dressing room, wishing she could take the time to shower and change—but, that could wait. She sent a quick “I’m going to go out for a late supper with some of the guys” text to Mrs. Wilkins, adding that one of them would give her a ride home, afterward, and Mrs. Wilkins wrote back, “Okay, have fun.”

  Would they wait up for her to get in? Probably. So, she texted that she would probably be quite late, and not to worry. Mrs. Wilkins’s response was, again, to have fun, and be safe.

  Her phones were exploding with even more messages than usual, but the “Buck up, little princess!” text from Theo was the only one that made her smile. She answered the tiny few from people who really would care about whether she was okay, and then went back to where Jeremiah was—patiently—waiting.

  The media room was, indeed, packed—to the degree that she wondered whether a bunch of reporters who hadn’t originally planned to come to the game had headed over to the park after hearing about how badly she’d been rocked in the first inning. Sharks in the water.

  And the questions were harsh. What had gone wrong, why had she pitched so badly, whether tonight was the reality of her as a pitcher, with everything else she had done so far just being a fluke, and so on. Someone even asked if she was ashamed by her performance.

  What kind of question was that? She saw that Jeremiah was about to intercede, but shook her head. Adler and Mr. Brayton were both standing in the back of the room, and she shook her head at them, too.

  “All that happened here is that I did a lousy job of pitching,” she said. “So, I’m disappointed that I didn’t have better results, b
ut, no, sir, shame is definitely not part of the equation.”

  The guy was squirming a little, but he was from one of the major sports networks, and didn’t seem to want to go away quietly. “Do you think tonight has shown that even the most talented female baseball players can’t compete with men?” he asked.

  The second inning had been pretty damn good, as far as she was concerned. “If you want to spin it that way, you can,” she said, “but, it would be”—stupid—“facile.”

  “Okay,” the guy said, “but—”

  No, she wasn’t in the mood for yet another follow-up. “I think people have been missing the point for weeks now,” she said. Years, even. “I don’t actually represent all women. I’m one athlete with, you know, a certain skill set, and whether I end up succeeding is going to be a combination of all sorts of factors, and gender really doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “So, do you think—” a different reporter started.

  She decided to cut him off, too. “The whole idea of women wanting to take over professional baseball is—” Cliché might not be the right word, but it was the right concept. “It’s a complete trope. Anyone who ever picked up a bat and glove has probably had a fantasy of playing major league baseball, but it’s a combination of hard work, luck, and an—I don’t know—accident of genetics. I mean, if I were precisely the same pitcher, but a foot shorter, even this outcome would be unlikely.” Oh, hell, was she going to crush the dreams of millions of diminutive children by saying that? “It’s possible, of course,” she said, “but I would need to have been born with considerably more talent to make up for it.”

  Some of the reporters looked befuddled, and some looked intrigued, but all of the cameras were, for damn sure, still running.

  People were jumping in with follow-ups, but she raised a hand to wave them off, because, damn it, she was on kind of a roll here.

  “It’s about getting to play baseball, period,” she said. “There are little girls out there, who would rather play baseball, instead of softball, and they’re either discouraged—or outright not allowed to do it. People just want to be able to have fun, and play the game, without it being such a ridiculously big deal.”

  “What if the girl players aren’t good enough?” someone asked.

  Yeah, because every guy who had ever lived was an innately gifted baseball player. “Well, a lot more of them are going to be good, if they get a chance to play for years, instead of being locked out by the time they hit junior high,” she said. “So, maybe it would be helpful to—I don’t know—reframe the entire discussion, and just talk about having more opportunities for everyone, instead of this stupid”—okay, she’d gone ahead and said it—“idea that women are only interested in sticking it to the guys, and keeping some of them from being able to play.”

  Some of the reporters’ eyes seemed to be glazed over, but others were listening with obvious interest.

  “It’s supposed to be the American pastime,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to let the other fifty percent of the population actually get a chance to play, if they want. And the fact that I was terrible out there tonight has nothing to do with what any other female player might do on some different night.”

  It was slightly embarrassing to have gone off in such an impassioned way, and she took a sip from the water bottle on the table.

  “Do you want to elaborate?” someone asked.

  Isn’t that what she had just been doing? At considerable, tendentious length? “Let’s call it food for thought, and leave it at that,” she said.

  “Yes,” one of the magazine reporters said, “but I’d love to hear—”

  “I think poor Mr. Brayton has been wanting to contribute to the discussion, and it’s his team,” she said, motioning towards the GM. “So, instead of having me monopolize the conversation, why don’t we let him take it from here.”

  Mr. Brayton nodded, and came up to the podium table, pausing to shake her hand as she passed him on her way out.

  Adler felt into step with her as she left the room. “Are you a Democrat, Cafferty?” he asked.

  Such a peculiar man. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Although I want to keep, you know, an open mind, depending on the issue.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “That’s going to make it a lot harder for me to vote for you someday.”

  What? “I’m not going to go into politics, sir,” she said.

  He smiled. “Check back with me in fifteen or twenty years, let’s see where you are then.”

  Maybe they should bet a significant amount of money on that one, because he was definitely going to lose.

  After she had showered and changed, she found Dimitri waiting in the clubhouse, along with Scott and Danny.

  “There you are,” Dimitri said, standing up. “Were they tough on you?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. It wasn’t much fun. But, it’s not like they were wrong about the way I played.”

  “Yo, man, everyone has off nights,” Danny said.

  With luck, that was all it had been—but, it was hard not to have doubts.

  Nicky was busy cleaning up the remnants of the post-game spread. “Sorry,” he said apologetically. “You ate before, right?”

  No, but no point in making the guy feel as though he’d screwed up, even though she seemed to be missing out on meals constantly. “I’m fine, thanks,” she said, and helped herself to a banana from the counter where the fruit was kept. Also, presumably, she could order some food at the bar.

  “You ready to head out?” Scott asked.

  She nodded. “Who else is coming?”

  Dimitri was checking his pockets, to make sure he had his keys, his wallet, and his phone. “Mother drove a bunch of them over already. I’m not sure how many of them ended up going.”

  That was surprising. “Marcus hangs out at Moynihan’s?” she said.

  Dimitri laughed. “God, no. But, you know how he is—he wants to keep an eye on people.” He looked at the three of them, and shook his head wryly. “Hell, I feel like a chaperone myself tonight. This is just going to be fun, right, guys? Don’t any of you get too blasted.”

  Scott, at least, looked like he might be old enough to drink, but she wasn’t sure if she and Danny would even get served. It would still be nice to hang out for a while, instead of going to the Wilkinses’ house, and sitting around alone downstairs for the rest of the night.

  The place lived up to its reputation—crowded, noisy, dimly lit, cheap pitchers of beer, somewhat sticky sawdust on the floors, and free bowls of peanuts and popcorn. There seemed to be a higher percentage of comely young women than one might expect—which made sense, for a bar that also attracted baseball players. Or, maybe it was a chicken and egg situation.

  The other guys had already taken over three big booths in the back, near the pool table. As they walked over, she could see Hector, Eduardo, Schwartzman, Jackson, Raffy, Jonesy, Ramón, Owen, a new reliever up from the GCL named Mike, and—oh, swell—Caleb. Marcus was sitting with them, but managing to make it seem as though he was staying slightly apart. He also appeared to be the only one who had gotten a soda.

  When the waitress came over to take their orders, she and Danny drifted over in the direction of the pool table, to avoid having to show their IDs.

  Not that the waitress didn’t know, Jill assumed. In fact, when she casually ordered a club soda, the woman just gave her a look, and said, “Unh-hunh.”

  Jill did drink the club soda, but she also let the guys pour her a beer, and was perfectly fine with it when they kept topping off everyone’s glasses, including hers.

  “Dude, you know you hate this,” Jackson said to Marcus. “Why do you put yourself through it?”

  “I want to make sure everyone gets home in one piece,” Marcus said, not even looking up from his iPad.

  “Den mother!” Owen shouted, and clinked glasses with everyone within reach.

  The beer supply kept coming—and when the waitress wasn’t around, Jill made sure to dr
op more than her share of money on the table, noticing that all of the highest draft picks—with big bonuses—did the same. Even Caleb, to give him a tiny amount of credit.

  Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be out drinking—but, she was having a good time. The conversation was loud, and energetic—and maybe kind of rambling and pointless—but, still fun.

  Young women joined them frequently, but since, luckily, none of them came on to her, Jill didn’t care one way or the other. More than one of her teammates was clearly making a special new friend—at least, for the evening—and since it all seemed very consensual, what was the harm? Besides, it wasn’t any of her damn business.

  The beer didn’t seem to be having much effect on her—probably because she was, you know, tall. She did go to the ladies’ room at one point, and maybe stumbled a little—and was vaguely aware of Marcus focusing on her. But, she ignored him, because it wasn’t like he was in charge. She could have a couple of beers, if she wanted, damn it.

  When she found her way back to the table, the guys were talking and laughing about the game.

  “You really sucked tonight, Cafferty!” Caleb said. “It was embarrassing. Good thing Eddie and Mikey bailed your ass out.”

  The bullpen had been great—although the hitters were the ones who had pretty much saved the day by scoring so many runs.

  “Do you even know how to throw a curveball?” Caleb asked.

  “Doesn’t look that way,” she said, and this time, she topped off her own glass.

  Caleb laughed. “Next stop, GCL! And it’s hot down there.”

  She did not want to spend the rest of the summer roasting in Florida. “Maybe, yeah,” she said, and took several gulps of beer.

  “They’ve gotta be slamming you on ESPN tonight,” Caleb said.

  The Internet was almost certainly destroying her, too.

  “The WNBA must be looking mighty tempting right about now,” he said.

  “Hey, come on, Kordell,” Hector said. “She just had an off night. Give her a break already.”

  “But, she seriously sucked,” Caleb said. “I mean—”