Throw Like a Woman

by Susan Petrone

  “Great,” Farnhurst said. That asshole. As she thought the word “asshole,” Brenda felt a surge of power zip through her arm. Ed wasn’t the only jerk in town. There was also Cody “Whipper” Farnhurst. Whipper. You could almost see the quotation marks in the air when you called him that.

  As she started her warm-up throws, Brenda could feel the fear and doubt start melting away, replaced by pure, beautiful, reliable rage. When it was time to take the mound, she strode out of the bullpen without the pounding fear she had had in the first game. This time, she felt invincible. This time, as she looked at the first batter, the sight of a player who was only a handful of years removed from her oldest son seemed almost ludicrous. How could she have ever been afraid of him?

  As she went into the wind-up, Brenda could see the tunnel of invisible light reaching from her hand to the catcher’s mitt as clearly as the graceful curves of the Centennial Bridge that rose up just beyond the right field wall. And when she threw, she knew that ball wasn’t going anywhere but into Diego’s catcher’s mitt. And it didn’t.

  Brenda struck out the first batter, got the second batter to pop up, and struck out the third batter. Three up, three down. When she walked down the three shallow steps into the dugout at the end of the inning, Scott looked at her and nodded. “Nice work, Haversham,” he switched the chaw in his mouth from one side to the other. “I’d keep you in for the ninth, but I don’t wanna push our luck.”

  Brenda just said, “Okay,” and took a seat on the bench next to Brody, that night’s starting pitcher. He nodded politely to her. “Thanks for keeping the lead. I need a W,” he said quietly.

  The guys on the team didn’t seem to do a whole lot of extraneous talking. So she just said, “No problem,” and spent the rest of the game in silence. Silence was starting to be her standard operating procedure. The Captains closer, a burly kid named Antoine who was likely to be called up to Class AA any day, shut down the River Bandits to close out the ninth inning and save the game. While the rest of the team was high-fiving and congratulating each other, Brenda went to wait on the team bus.

  The team was staying at the Quad Cities Inn a few miles from the park. It was a low, gray two-story motel that looked short on frills but appeared reasonably clean. As the team got off the bus and got their room keys, Brenda hung in the background. All of the other players had a roommate. As manager, Scott roomed alone, but even the coaches, Stu and Brian, the hitting coach, roomed together. When Scott handed Brenda her key, he said, “Haversham, no wild parties, okay?” to a chorus of snickers.

  It seemed best not to respond. Instead, she went up to her room, which featured two double beds about twelve inches apart, a dresser, a chair, and a window. The bathroom seemed to be an afterthought, as it was about the size of a closet. It was tiny, but for two nights it would be just fine.

  It was close to 11:00 p.m., and Brenda found the conflicting pangs of hunger and fatigue setting in. She ought to just go to bed, but she had just pitched a great inning. A laminated, two-page “Get to Know Davenport” brochure on top of the dresser listed a pizza and pasta place about a block down from the motel, and suddenly the idea of a glass of wine and maybe a salad sounded magnificent. She quickly changed her clothes, grabbed a book and her room key, and headed for the door.

  As she walked down the concrete steps of the stairs at the end of the hallway, she could hear talking and laughing from the parking lot. Just about all of her teammates appeared to be in the parking lot or already walking down the street. Brenda had always thought of professional baseball as men playing a boys’ game, but sometimes she’d look at her teammates and think they were boys playing a men’s game. Out of uniform, in their own clothes, they looked . . . normal. They were just a bunch of guys, no longer teenagers but not really adults, out to have a good time. Brenda fell into line behind Jason, Farnhurst, and Diego, the catcher. They didn’t say “hello” and neither did she. In fact, she wondered if they even noticed her walking behind them. The pizza and pasta place was called Shenanigans, and it was located in a beautiful building that looked to be from the late 1800s. But while the outside featured gorgeous masonry detailing around the windows and door, the only sign of that beautiful design inside was a scuffed maple floor that looked as though it could be original.

  It was less a restaurant than a café, with small tables in the front by the door, booths along one wall, and a deli-style counter and kitchen along the other wall. They were open late and the menu board behind the counter listed inexpensive pizza slices, pasta, and sandwiches, plus beer and wine. No wonder the team ended up there.

  The place wasn’t too crowded this late on a Monday night. A lingering couple was in one of the front tables and a small group of older guys was in one of the back booths. Brenda had to laugh at herself as she sat down at one of the tables. Those “older guys” were probably her age.

  Jason, Farnhurst, and Diego took over the booth closest to her and ordered two beers and a glass of wine. It didn’t surprise her that Jason was the wine drinker. Other Captains players were slowly coming in. Brenda ordered a salad and a glass of Chianti before things got too busy and settled in with her book. She found that she could bear the solitude pretty well. It was the feeling of being treated as invisible, as nothing, that was disturbing.

  Her teammates were a little loud. Archie, baby-faced Eduardo Diaz (wasn’t there a curfew for seventeen-year-olds?) and a few of the outfielders who hadn’t yet deigned even to say hello to her were in the booth behind Jason and Co. They were horsing around, joking about the evening’s game. Diaz had turned a stupendous dive-summersault-and-throw double play in the ninth inning that had stopped a couple River Bandit runs and certainly saved the game. At one point, Farnhurst practically stood up in the booth and reached over to the other booth so he could give Diaz a noogie on the head. Brenda had to wonder why boys felt the need to give congratulations by physically abusing each other.

  Farnhurst sat down awkwardly and knocked over Jason’s glass, spilling red wine all over the table and the front of Jason’s blue and white striped shirt. “What the hell, Cody?” Jason snapped. “This was my only good shirt, man.”

  “Oh, sorry bro. Here,” Farnhurst said as he started grabbing napkins to wipe up the mess.

  Brenda couldn’t help but watch as Jason began scrubbing away at the red wine on his shirt with a handful of napkins. Advice was pouring in from the other players in both booths: “You gotta soak it in hot water,” “We need to find an all-night Laundromat,” and “Call your mom.” She knew his scrubbing away with a dry napkin was only going to make the stain worse. She went over to the counter and asked the server for a glass of soda water with no ice and a dry service towel.

  “You gonna rescue them?” the server asked as she handed over the soda water and towel.

  “I kind of have to,” Brenda replied. “They’re my teammates.”

  Brenda went back to her table and laid the towel on it. “Jason,” she said, then repeated his name a bit louder to be heard over the sound of half a dozen young men chattering about how to clean a shirt. The sudden silence was a little unnerving. “Give me your shirt,” she said.

  “Damn, cougar. You don’t waste any time, do you?” Farnhurst said.

  Brenda sighed back her annoyance. “Give me the shirt and we’ll get the stain out.”

  Now it was Jason’s turn to squirm under everyone else’s gaze. It was only when Brenda said, “Oh for crying out loud, I’m a mom” that he stood up and walked over to her table. He unbuttoned his shirt and handed it over. She had to admit he and his Adam’s apple still managed to look dignified in just a wine-stained white T-shirt and jeans.

  Brenda spread the shirt on top of the towel and doused the spill with soda water. Then she grabbed the salt shaker from her table, unscrewed the lid, and began sprinkling a layer of salt on top of the stain. “Could you get another salt shaker, please?” she said, looking up from th
e shirt for the first time. All of the other players, even Farnhurst, were crowded around her table, watching. For once, they actually seemed glad to have her around. “Okay, let this dry and then wipe the salt off of it. That should take the wine with it. And . . . yeah, tomorrow I’ll teach you how to get bubble gum out of your hair.”

  •◊•

  Excerpt from the transcript for Today in Sports with Charlie Bannister, ESPN, August 4:

  Charlie: Good evening baseball fans. The trade deadline passed us by four days ago, and we’re starting to see what the new additions bring their new clubs. Second baseman Ray Kowalski has already made a big impact on the White Sox’s defense, including turning a spectacular double play against the Blue Jays last night. With Bob Chambers on third and Marty Walsh on second, and Toronto down by two, the Francisco Ruiz line drive looks like it could tie the ballgame. But check out Kowalski’s beautiful dive. One nonchalant behind-the-back toss to Harry Tagiashi and Walsh is out at second. In a much quieter move yesterday, the Cleveland Indians sent reliever Ed Robinson down to the AAA Columbus Clippers. Who they’re making room for, I can’t say.

  Chapter Twelve

  •◊•

  The next day, when she got on the team bus to go to the ballpark, Jason said, “Hi, Mom” and it didn’t sound ironic. A few other players said “Hey, B” or gave her a little upward nod the way they did to each other.

  They had two more games in Davenport, played a three-game series in Peoria, and then headed back to Cleveland. It was too early to call it morning but too late to call it the middle of the night when they finally arrived in the parking lot at Classic Park. A few of the other players had their own cars, which they had left in the lot, and a smattering had girlfriends or roommates waiting to pick them up. Because she hadn’t started the trip with the rest of the team, Brenda’s car wasn’t waiting for her. Instead, she had Robin, who was leaning against the hood of her car with an amused grin on her face.

  “I feel like that girl in Bull Durham,” she said as Brenda walked over to the car. “The one who ends up getting married.”

  “You’re the most chipper groupie I’ve ever seen,” Brenda replied and threw her duffel bag into the back seat. “But I thank you for picking me up at this ungodly hour.”

  This was the only day off for another ten days, and Brenda wanted to make the most of it. She had envisioned getting a few hours of sleep then spending the day with the boys, maybe puttering around the house and doing some laundry and cleaning and just being home. Instead, she dropped her duffel bag on the kitchen floor, laid down on the sofa, and slept until noon. She woke up expecting to see her family but instead found a note from Adele:

  Welcome home! We decided you needed your sleep. The boys are at camp. I’ll be over later to make dinner. How does halusky sound?

  Love, Mom

  Her mother’s halusky—potato dumplings that were the ultimate Slovak comfort food—always sounded wonderful, but Brenda had been gone a week and was looking forward to doing something normal, like making dinner. When the boys were younger and it seemed like the laundry and chores and chauffeuring would never end, there had been many days when she wished someone would sweep in and do everything for her. Now all she had to do was go to work and come home. Was this how fathers and husbands sometimes felt? Extraneous?

  Extraneous or not, the few hours of solitude before the boys came home from camp were more enjoyable than she wanted to admit. It had only been a week, but somehow the house looked different. All of the things wrong with it—from the garage that needed painting to the sagging front porch to the gutters hanging on by a thread—seemed to stand out. If she was careful, the endorsement money would fix all of that with enough left over for a nest egg. She just had to stay focused on playing.

  Once the boys got home from camp, it was impossible to be focused on anything but them. Jon talked a mile a minute, wanting to hear all about what life was like in the minor leagues. Even Andy seemed interested in hearing about some of the games and the players. And when her mother arrived, Brenda let her make dinner and tried not to feel too left out.

  The Captains had a ten-day home stand, and Brenda and the boys settled into a routine. She got them out the door to the sports camp in the morning then typically went back to sleep for an hour (she couldn’t always go to sleep right away after a night game). Then Adele came over and stayed with the boys in the evening. Some nights Brenda pitched an inning. Some nights she didn’t. But she threw every day and was spending some time in the weight room at the park and knew she was getting stronger. And better. When she did play, she was consistently getting swings and misses. Between Ed, Farnhurst’s insistence on calling her “cougar,” and the pain in her lower back after long rides on the team bus, she had plenty to keep her angry.

  It seemed like the summer could go on like this indefinitely when she got a call from David on a Wednesday afternoon. She was on her way to the ballpark for warm-ups and a bullpen session before the game. Although she never wanted to be one of those people who chatted on their phone while driving, she had already learned that when her agent called, it was a good idea to answer.

  David’s voice sounded silkier than usual as he said, “Are you sitting down, Brenda?”

  “Yes, I’m sitting. I’m driving to the ballpark.” She didn’t mean to sound snotty but it came out sounding that way all the same.

  “This is the last time you’ll need to go to Classic Park,” he cooed in a voice so gentle that Brenda thought perhaps she had been fired or demoted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re going to the AAA affiliate in Columbus for a couple of games, and then The Show.”

  “Holy crap balls . . . Are you serious?” She meant to pull over but instead accidentally accelerated and almost ran a red light. She jerked the car to a stop and took a deep breath. “Okay. Tell me.”

  “They’re moving you up. This is your last game with the Captains. Tomorrow you report to the Columbus Clippers. If you do there what you’ve been doing for the Captains, next stop is Progressive Field,” David purred. “Chimelewski will be calling you in a little while but I wanted to give you a heads up.”

  “Thank you . . .” There was so much to say and nothing to say. She was moving up. Brenda drove the rest of the way to the ballpark with the steering wheel clenched so tightly that her knuckles ached when she finally parked and took her hands off the wheel. She had to sit for a moment, just sit and think. This was the goal, wasn’t it? If she wanted security for her and the boys, this was the next step. This would do it. Major league salary incentives and more endorsement deals, she thought, making a conscious effort to silence the part of her that hated advertisements and selling things, the part that felt like a mercenary and a sellout.

  “I’m not selling my soul,” she said out loud, and this thought was enough to propel her out of the car and into the players’ entrance. Once inside, she found Scott in his office/her locker room.

  “Congratulations,” he said when she knocked.

  “Thanks.”

  Scott stood up to leave so she could change. “Suit up, but I’m not going to put you in tonight. They want you to have a fresh arm tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” she replied. Brenda went through what had become her pre-game routine—suit up, stretch, and do a slow jog around the field once or twice, throw fifteen or twenty pitches to Archie, then wait in the dugout for the team to be introduced. Things went along as they had at the other home games. She ended up standing in dugout next to Jason again during the National Anthem.

  “Good to be back home, huh?” he said.

  “Yes, yes it is,” she replied.

  “Hey, congrats. Go up there and kick some ass.”

  Well, word got around quickly. “I’ll do my best.”

  “You’d better,” Jason said, then added with a slight grin that made his Adam’s apple shrink away to almost
nothing. “I have a little sister with a sweet swing. She oughta get a chance too.”

  Once the game was underway, she took her standard spot in the middle of the bench, out of the way. Archie came over and plopped his six-foot-two-inch self down on the bench next to her.

  “How come you aren’t like, dancing around or something?” he asked.

  “There’s a baseball game on,” Brenda replied.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me while you were warming up,” he said incredulously.

  Telling anyone on the team seemed like bragging, even Archie, with whom she had developed something of a friendship, or at least a positive working relationship. “Sorry, thanks for all your help. You’re a good catcher.”

  “Thank you. I hope we play together again someday.” Archie sounded like he really meant it, and when Brenda said, “I hope so,” she meant it too.

  She watched from the dugout as the Captains lost to the visiting Fort Wayne Tin Caps 3-2. During the game, most of the other players sat down next to her at one point or another to say congratulations and chat for a moment. It was a different kind of being apart from the rest of the team. A couple weeks earlier, none of these guys wanted to have a thing to do with her, and now any of them would trade places with her. She couldn’t fault them.

  Knowing that she wouldn’t go in that night made the game easier to watch. She didn’t have to worry, didn’t have to conjure up an adrenaline-inducing surge of rage, all she had to do was sit and enjoy the game. After the final out, as the other players were grabbing their mitts and batting gloves, Brenda stayed in the dugout, just leaning against the railing. The empty ballpark, with its orderly rows of seats all focused center into a wide green bowl, held a certain intangible allure. She was moving up to much larger ballparks and doubted they would be so inviting.