Throw Like a Woman

by Susan Petrone

  There was a locker with her name on it in the locker room. A white and blue uniform was hanging in it. After her talk with Scott, he had directed her out there and then let her use his office so she could change. When she had put on the Indians jersey and hat at the press conference, it had felt like a prop for a play. As she put on her uniform, the idea became more and more real that she was now a legitimate member of a professional baseball team and she was suiting up for a game that was only hours away.

  Jersey, pants, belt, socks, her own cleats, hat. This was it. She was in uniform. Her own clothes she folded and stacked neatly on the extra chair in Scott’s office with her shoes underneath. It was like being at the doctor’s office.

  Stuart had said the other players usually showed up at the ballpark around 2:30 or 3:00, and it was almost 1:30 already. Scott pointed her in the right direction before he returned to his office. She tried not to notice his little sigh of resignation when he saw her clothes folded on the extra chair, but just went straight down the dark tunnel to the field.

  Classic Park felt cozy, like the cuddly little brother of a big-league stadium. She spied Stuart sitting in one of maybe half a dozen chairs along the wall out in foul territory by right field. He had said he’d meet her in the bullpen, and it took a moment to realize that Classic Park was so small that the bullpen was the foul territory in right field. He was waiting, so she jogged across the field to him. The grass felt springy under her feet, like it was ready to play with her.

  “Hi,” Stu said as she neared him. He didn’t seem put out at all by having to wait for her. Quite the opposite—it was almost as if she had interrupted his quiet moment. He stood up. “You ready?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I asked Archie, our reserve catcher, to come and catch your bullpen session. He should be here any minute. Let’s throw a little to get you warmed up.”

  “Okay,” Brenda replied and trotted a few yards out to right field. She wasn’t sure how close she should start. Too close, and he might question her ability to throw farther or harder. Too far, and it might look like she was overcompensating or didn’t know what she was doing. “Except I don’t know what I’m doing,” she mumbled to herself and the right field grass. “Not really.”

  Stu threw the ball, and she caught it. The familiar sound of a baseball landing in the pocket of a glove, the hard, compact feel of the ball in her hand, those were things she did know about. She threw the ball back, perhaps a bit harder than necessary.

  “Easy,” Stu said as he caught it. “Give your muscles a minute to warm up.” They played catch for a few silent minutes. Stu was a lefty, and before each throw he would almost imperceptibly pump his throwing hand back twice before releasing the ball. It wasn’t enough of a motion to add any velocity to the throw—it was just a quirk. “What sports did you play in high school?” he asked.

  “Um, I didn’t,” Brenda said, feeling somehow ashamed that she had spent most of her free time in high school in the art room.

  “Okay.” Stu was a little odd, but he seemed pretty non-judgmental. She thought she could get along with him. “I understand your dad taught you to pitch.”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “I watch Charlie Bannister too,” he said.

  Archie, the reserve catcher, showed up. The first thing that struck Brenda was how like Andy he was—they had the same type of stocky build, the same blondish hair, the same look of reserved introspection. But Archie was huge, and he didn’t look a day over twenty. It seemed impossible to think that her own son could grow that much in eight years. Seven years—Andy was going to be thirteen in just a few weeks.

  Archie was polite but seemed a little nervous as Stu introduced them. “Hi, welcome to the team,” he said, with a hint of an accent that she later learned had its roots in southern Kentucky. Stu wanted her to throw from the mound, just to give her a feel for the park. As she walked toward the pitcher’s mound, she heard Archie say to Stu, “I’ve never caught a woman before.”

  “She’s not going to get estrogen on the ball, Archie. It’ll be okay.”

  As the rest of the team arrived at the ballpark, it appeared some of them did seem worried about stray estrogen or the unholy effects of double X chromosomes, because most of them gave her a wide berth. A few said a quick “Hi,” and that was about it. With most of the clubhouse filled with young men in varying stages of undress, Brenda realized her options were limited to Scott’s office or the dugout. She chose the latter. Each of the other players had his own ritual. Some were doing warm-ups—light calisthenics, stretches, or a couple of slow-jog laps around the outfield—while others played catch or just seemed to hang out shooting the breeze. The one thing that kept going through Brenda’s mind was how young all these guys were. They were professional ballplayers, but they were just boys.

  She heard someone walking up the dugout steps, and another player walked past her to the field. He smiled and murmured a polite “Hola” then trotted out to run a couple of laps. The back of his jersey read “Diaz,” and she realized he was Eduardo Diaz, the teenage phenom shortstop the Indians had signed at the ripe old of age of sixteen. So he had to be, what, seventeen now? A baby, just a few years older than Andy.

  Stu had worked with her for almost an hour, going over her mechanics and motion. Now, sitting in the dugout having had a long workout and feeling pretty darn warmed up, she felt conspicuous, as though the rest of the team would think she was a slacker because she wasn’t doing anything. A few more stretches wouldn’t hurt her, but the closer it got to game time the more nervous she became. The only place she could think of for a pit stop was Scott’s office.

  His door was open, but she knocked anyway. “Excuse me, may I just use the restroom in here?”

  Her new manager’s expression told her he was being disturbed, even though he said, “Sure.” Scott stood up, stretched, and walked to the door. “Take as long as you need. How’d the bullpen session go with Stu?” he added.

  “Great, thanks. He’s a good coach.”

  Scott took a step as though he was about to leave, then stopped. “One thing to know about Stu, he’s very superstitious,” he said.

  “A lot of ballplayers are,” Brenda replied.

  Scott lowered his voice just a bit. “He has the usual superstitions about not stepping on the foul line, not messing with a hot streak. He likes ritual. But he has this other superstition where if you touch him then he has to touch you back.”

  “Has to? That sounds more like a compulsion.”

  “It’s a superstition,” Scott said in a voice that made it very clear she was to refer to it as nothing else. “Every once in a while, some joker decides to mess with Stu and they touch him and run away or jump into their car so he can’t touch them back. It drives him nuts. I trust you aren’t that kind of person.”

  “No, I’m not,” Brenda said.

  “Good. Oh, and your phone was ringing earlier,” he added as he shut the office door a bit harder than necessary.

  She wasn’t sure if she entirely liked her new manager or if he liked her, but his protectiveness of Stuart was at least a point in his favor. Anybody who sticks up for the oddball can’t be all bad. Of course, she was the new oddball in the organization, and Scott didn’t seem all that interested in sticking up for her.

  Was she wrong for wanting to be part of this or was the system wrong for not making room for her? “I don’t even know if I want to be here,” she mumbled as she checked her voicemail. She had two messages. The first was from Jon, asking if he could run the bases or go into the clubhouse after the game. She had no idea. How many of the other players had kids old enough to run the bases? It was questionable whether most of them were even allowed to drink legally. The second message was from David saying that she had a photo shoot for the Bam! sports bra scheduled for Monday—the team’s travel day. While the rest of her team would be ge
tting on a bus and driving to Iowa after the Sunday afternoon game, she’d be getting on an airplane, flying to New York, doing the photo shoot Monday morning, then flying to Iowa to meet up with the team for the game on Monday night.

  David’s message said it was “all cleared” with the Captains’ front office. Even so, she couldn’t imagine Scott would be too happy about the idea of her not traveling with the team on her first road trip. But the Bam! endorsement was part of the ticket to security. “Whatever it takes,” she murmured as she picked up her glove and headed for the dugout.

  Adele and the boys, and Robin, Dan, and Lindsey were all at the game that night. Actually, judging from the phone calls and emails she had gotten in the previous two days, just about everybody she had ever met was in attendance, except perhaps for Ed. She heard a couple players mention the big crowd and didn’t think it was her imagination when most of them glanced at her when they said it, as though she was responsible for putting more butts in more seats.

  She was the first woman to play for a major league organization. Okay, she understood that. But was that reason to buy a ticket to a game you wouldn’t have bothered going to otherwise? Was she that much of a freak show or were people just waiting to see if she’d screw up? In the moments before the team took the field, she felt like she might treat the crowd to the sight of a rookie throwing up.

  Just before the National Anthem and the start of the game, the entire team gathered in the dugout, waiting as the PA announcer first called out the starters for the opposing team, the Lansing Lugnuts, then the Captains’ starting lineup. Brenda was standing behind Archie, staring into the navy blue “9” on the back of his huge jersey. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Nervous?” he asked.

  “A little,” she replied.

  “You look green.”

  “Okay, a lot.”

  “You threw a good bullpen session. You’ll be okay.”

  Brenda’s “thank you” was drowned out by the beginning of the National Anthem, when every other player was at least making a polite show of staring at the American flag waving at the far end of the ballpark. Brenda found herself staring at the bodies in the stands or sitting on the grassy little hill out in right field. Now that she was here, the enormity of the situation, the sight of a packed stadium staring at her, judging her, was almost immobilizing. They were expecting—what were they expecting? A flamethrower of an arm? A miracle? At the moment, she was so overcome with nerves she wasn’t even sure she could move her right arm.

  The National Anthem ended, the home plate umpire yelled “Play ball!” and the starting players jogged out to their positions. Brenda sat down between Archie and one of the bench players, a skinny kid with curly brown hair sticking out from under his cap. He had an Adam’s apple the size of a goiter. Brenda had to stop herself from staring at it, even though the guy was tall enough that his neck was practically at her eye level. No doubt he was used to comments about it because he muttered, “My mother says I’ll grow into it.”

  Brenda felt herself blushing as bright as a ripe tomato. “It’s Lincolnesque,” she replied and got up and moved to the far end of the bench. Stuart had introduced her to another relief pitcher, a dark-haired guy with ridiculously broad shoulders. Cody Farnhurst. There he was. She reasoned that if she stayed with another relief pitcher and followed his lead, she’d end up in the right place at the right time. Brenda took a seat next to Farnhurst, who didn’t say anything but promptly scooted a few inches away from her. Lovely. Apparently she had managed to offend two teammates in less than five minutes.

  Once the game started, Brenda just tried to watch and stay out of the way. The Captains’ starting pitcher was having a good game, and the score was tied 1-1 at the end of three innings. That’s when Brenda noticed a few—but not all—of the relief pitchers heading out to the bullpen. Scott was at the end of the bench, seemingly looking at everything and everyone but her. Brenda stood up. Stu was closer and, quite frankly, friendlier, so she went over to him and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Should I go out to the bullpen or stay here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low in case the question was as dumb as she feared it was.

  “Yeah,” Stu replied, giving her arm a light touch back, “this would be a good time to go out there.”

  She followed him out to the bullpen. They had to run the last few yards to get seated and out of the way before the next inning started. The sight of Brenda’s jersey, emblazoned with her last name on the back, caused an audible wave of chatter among the crowd, as well as a few cheers (although she figured that was probably Robin, Dan, and Jon) and a scattering of boos. Both the cheers and boos gave her another round of stomach-churning nerves.

  The bullpen was open on two sides, with just a row of chairs and a stand with a cooler of water tucked into the L-shaped alcove made by the right field wall. Brenda quickly sat down in the closest open chair without even looking at who she was sitting next to.

  “Getting a little close there, aren’t you, cougar?” Farnhurst sneered. A couple of the other players snickered.

  Brenda’s heart was pounding. What do you say to the bully on the first day of school? She had to remind herself that these were just young men. Boys, practically. Compared to her, they were babies. “It was an empty chair,” she said without looking at him. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  The sounds of the ball game were going on around them, but everyone in the bullpen seemed more interested in watching the growing animosity between Brenda and Farnhurst. No one said a word or even seemed to notice what was happening in the game. Then Stu broke the tension by saying: “Hell Whipper, if Haversham was a cougar, she’d be playing for Kane County,” which made everyone except Brenda and Cody laugh.

  She did her best to ignore Farnhurst, although the nickname “Whipper” kept running through her head. Stupid nickname for a stupid jerk, she thought. If he wanted to dislike her simply because she was female, fine. She didn’t need him. At this point, the only people whose opinion mattered were her coach and her manager. And while she needed to stay on speaking terms with the catchers, the rest of the team could go pound salt.

  Farnhurst was going on about “this chick I always hook up with in Davenport,” and how big her tits were and the other guys in the bullpen were asking if she had any friends, etc. etc. It was locker room bragging moved out to the bullpen. How much of it was normal bullpen conversation and how much of it was to get a rise out of her, Brenda didn’t know. At a certain point, she stopped listening, instead trying to focus entirely on the tight, angry little ball of anger bubbling inside. That was the only thing that made sense.

  Neither Scott nor Stuart had indicated whether or not they would put her in that night. Still, Brenda had a feeling. With all the hype surrounding the press conference the day before and a packed ballpark to watch a team that wasn’t even playing .500 ball, there really was no way they wouldn’t put her in.

  She already knew she wasn’t like any other player on the team, but the root of her presence on the roster had become clear. Other players were here to win ballgames. She was here to sell tickets and hopefully not embarrass the team while doing so. That really was it. When she looked at her situation in this light, she wasn’t the least bit surprised when, in the bottom of the sixth inning, with the Captains down by two, Stuart told her to start warming up.

  There was the buzz rumbling through the stands again, louder than before. Seeing her up and throwing seemed to make every fan in the place want to start talking and pointing at the Captains’ bullpen. And when Stu sent her out to the mound at the top of the eighth inning and the PA announcer said: “Now pitching for the Lake County Captains, number twenty-nine, Brrrrenda Haaaaversham,” the crowd noise swelled. It was no longer possible to distinguish cheers from jeers, it was all just sound. Somehow that made it easier to shut out. It was like being back in college and trying to cram for a test while a party was g
oing on down the hall.

  Somewhere along the first base line, in the family section, Brenda knew that Jon and Andy and her mom were watching. At least two of them surely hoped she did well. It seemed like Andy would be happier if she failed and went back to the insurance company, back to being his mom and nothing else. But there was no turning back now. The only problem was, as she walked to the mound, it felt like her brain was moving farther away from her body with every step. Every limb was numb with fear.

  The starting catcher, a guy named Diego who looked too young to shave, tossed the game ball out to her. She had a sudden wave of new terror—what if she didn’t catch the ball when he threw it? Just catch the ball, catch the ball . . . With an arm that no longer felt attached to her body, Brenda raised her glove hand and managed a respectable catch. There, there was the ball in her hand. It was brand new, with smooth, unscuffed white leather and perfect seams. Normally, the feel of a baseball in her hand was comforting, its compact solidity reassuring. This one felt like a walnut. She looked up at the umpire, almost ready to say that there was something wrong with this ball and she needed another one. The instant she took her eyes off the ball in her glove, the sound of the crowd came sweeping back.

  Diego was in his crouch, waiting for her to throw a few warm-up pitches from the mound. The umpire was waiting. Her team was waiting, the other team was waiting. Apparently seven thousand people in the stands were waiting. Throw the ball.

  She took a warm-up pitch. It wasn’t a hard throw, but it made it across the plate. As soon as Diego tossed it back, she went into her windup and threw another one. Then another. There, this was something for people to watch. A woman pitching a baseball. That’s what they all came to see, wasn’t it?

  After about five pitches, the first batter of the inning stepped into the batter’s box. He was another baby, all of these guys looked like children. This was professional baseball? Brenda knew she had to focus, tried to muster up the anger that had been bubbling up inside her only minutes ago, but couldn’t. She was too wired, too nervous. Then the umpire yelled “Play ball!” She had to pitch to him.