The harsh interruption pushed Stephanie to silence.
Without hardly moving, he spoke slower. “I’d hoped you would trust… and believe in me.”
Stephanie hugged his arm. “Oh, Ryan,” she said softly. “I do trust you. I believe in you Darling.”
“I’m the mountain you can climb and believe in,” Ryan confirmed, looking up into the mass of earth, his words strong, bold. “I can do it. If you believe in me, I can do anything.”
How much should we take out?
Stephanie considered her husband judiciously.
“You’re right,” Ryan declared. “If we’re going to do this—take this risk—we need resources. We can’t half ass this. We need to go all the way.”
Stephanie nodded. Doubt no longer tormented her. She stood fortified in her faith.
Ryan took Stephanie in his arms. “Baby, we can do this. Good food will help me recover.” Slowly he released her and slightly turned away. Gazing up, looking across the mountain peak, he said, “I need better food and I can’t have the pressure of our bills constantly weighing on my mind. I gotta focus… and finish what I started.”
Ryan and Stephanie tried to get Aunt Dorothy to stay at their house but the woman wouldn’t budge.
“I belong here,” she steadfastly declared. “You two have your lives to live and a child to worry about. Go. I’ll be alright.”
“I’ll be getting back to the ball club, Mama.” Ryan kneeled before the despondent woman. “But Stephanie and little Mitch, they’re going to be checking up on you, okay?”
The following day, Ryan departed the home of his childhood. A heavy heart accompanied him. His mind preoccupied with the future, his resolve and commitment to the triumph of his ambition became stronger. Three days later, arriving in Lockhart and joining the team, he believed he would achieve the greatness he sought after.
Summer heat splashed all around. Mechanically, Ryan and Stephanie packed the baby into the car and set off to the bank to do the unthinkable: take money out of their savings account.
Ryan planned to return to the team the next day.
“How much should we take out?” Stephanie asked, barely able to mouth the words.
Once they drew out the money and used the funds, there would be no way of turning back. No safety net. If Ryan refused to ask for help in the past, he wouldn’t do so now if their plan failed.
Ryan sat rigidly in the driver’s seat, unmoving.
“Honey?”
“I’m thinking,” replied Ryan.
Stephanie reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently.
“If we take out twenty-five thousand, it’ll cover all of our bills and still leave enough to eat comfortably until the season ends.”
Uncle Mitch’s death created the impetus, a compulsion burning inside of Ryan. A fire leading him toward the terrifying decision to go all the way and draw out money to fund his career.
A question gnawed at Stephanie: “Should we take such a risk… when your arm… is hurting?”
Ryan and Stephanie sat quietly looking out into the bright summer sunshine. Little Mitch made noises in his car seat behind them.
Stephanie softly drew in her breath, not wanting Ryan to notice her apprehension. We have to be united on this, she said within her mind, fighting the impulse to implore Ryan to stop the car. She wanted to beg him to turn around and drive back home. To forget everything.
Instead, in a soft voice, she quietly said, “Okay.”
Sitting in front of the banker’s desk, the entire experience came in bursts of dull light and fuzzy images to Stephanie.
A short while later, having made the overdue mortgage payment and bringing the account current, they drove to the supermarket.
Every item in the grocery store took the image of a predatory kill. Roaming down each aisle, Ryan felt like a vulturine hunter on the pursuit of prey to feed his young.
Pushing the cart full of groceries, Ryan managed a quick look in Stephanie’s direction. He wasn’t sure if he saw fear or relief on her face.
No longer a game
Fixing the rundown car brought comfort to Ryan. He worried about Stephanie and the baby breaking down somewhere.
Concern for the most basic of life’s needs—food, shelter, security—disintegrated inside of him; new, bigger fears replaced them.
An enormous wave of stress descend upon Haddox. He saw a tremendous wave—thunderous and powerful—emerging out of an expansive ocean of debt and flooding over his family.
It was a desperate mission—a mission he could not fail in fulfilling.
The game he loved since his childhood became a wild contest revealing life’s winners and losers, displaying the line between the strong and the feeble.
Baseball was no longer a game in his heart.
Rather, it was a torment, harboring great danger. In his mind, he looked at things in their most basic form.
To him the batter at the plate took on a sinister shape. He saw the bat in the batter’s hands became an actual club, an instrument of violence the batter could literally use to attack his family.
Like the matador, Haddox stood straight and true on the mound, hiding the baseball he held in his hand like the weapon of the bullfighter. Tilting forward, he lurched backward, tirelessly firing the ball toward the catcher’s mitt.
Nightfall covered the land when Ryan pulled the newly repaired family vehicle into the driveway.
“I’ll get the baby,” he offered.
Stephanie softly mumbled, “Thanks, Honey.”
After setting the baby down to bed, he found her standing in front of the kitchen sink looking out the window. He hugged her tightly.
Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to get lost in his embrace.
Desperately needing her support, Ryan thought back to the day’s events. There, in the heavy darkness, he began to kiss her face all over.
No matter how hard he tried, the nagging thought entered his heart—Are we right or wrong?
Even though everything he’d done felt wrong—getting the money out of the bank, spending their future to solve today’s problems—another part of him told him he’d done the right thing.
Money
Ryan arrived at the ballpark the following day.
Nikolai Borelli stood in front of his locker.
Without a word, the men embraced.
“I’m here if you need me,” whispered the catcher to his pitcher.
Ryan looked down. “I do.”
After the game, the pitcher and catcher grabbed a few beers. At a club called “Warning Track” the men began tossing back beers in earnest.
“When no one on this earth cared for me, he and Aunt Dorothy took me in, Soldi. All I have I owe to them. To him…”
A deep calmness came over Borelli. Putting his hand on his pitcher’s shoulder, he answered in the only way he knew how. “He was your dad, man. Your dad.”
After drinking away another few hours, Ryan told his catcher about the greatness of his dad. Taking a drink of his beer, he finished, “I loved him.”
“You were an artist in his eyes,” Borelli put an arm around Haddox.
“He supported me all the way.”
Contemplative quietness gripped the men.
Going back to sipping their beers, lost in thought, they sat in near intoxicated bond.
After tacking another swig from his bottle, Haddox turned to Borelli. “Your nickname.”
“Yeah, what about it?” Borelli guzzled his beer.
“How’d ya get it?”
Borelli got a far off look across his features. “My old man. I’d just turned… fourteen, trying to make the high school team.” A half snicker escaped him. “I had the arm to throw clear across the damn world… but I couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. God I sucked. My old man got an idea. My old man is one of the smartest men I know. He set a plywood board behind second base. He put up a cutout of a second baseman covering the base and everything. But, instead of a glov
e in front of second base, on the plywood he taped a hundred dollar bill.”
Haddox smiled.
“He said I could keep the hundred dollar bill if I hit it. But… if I missed, I owed him ten pushups. At first, I got real bulked. Then, after a couple days of pushups, I hit the damn thing. Hell, you woulda thought I won the fuck’n world series or something.”
Nursing the drink, Borelli put the bottle down slowly. “After about a week… the old man stopped the game. I asked him why. He said, ‘You broke the bank. I had two-thousand bucks put away for your college fund, or your future. It’s gone. You’re money, Boy.’”
“Sly dog,” whispered Haddox, still smiling.
“Yeah. I used the money for college, like he wanted.” Borelli lifted an arm to call over the bartender. “Two more. Me and my friend here.”
After the bartender put the bottles in front of them, Borelli finished his story. “Dad gave me the nickname ‘Soldi.’ It stuck. Everybody started calling me ‘money.’ Then, just Soldi.”
Haddox picked up his new bottle of beer and extended it in front of the catcher. “To the greatest dads in the fuck’n world,” he said, painfully.
“Right, Man,” said Borelli, clinking his bottle.
Both men drank a big drink.
Pitcher and catcher.
I have to say no
His belly full, Haddox prepared his body for the homestretch.
Ryan went through his pregame warmups. Catching the fastball and tossing it back to him, Borelli noticed the power in his arm.
Brimming with confidence, Ryan faced the Kingston Stags.
Kingston, the only team in the Independent Mountain Conference out of Kansas, started the season slowly, falling to last place. Finally getting over some early season troubles, the Stags were on a 25 game tear going 18-7.
The home crowd’s raucous excitement pounded through the stadium, supportive of the team’s recent surge and the great seasons the squad’s two leading pitchers were having.
Stacked to an early 3-1 lead, Ryan cruised into the 8th inning nursing a 4-2 lead.
After the first batter grounded out, Nelson Wells, the Stags right fielder came to the plate. Hitting third in the lineup, the right fielder’s hitting had dropped in recent weeks.
Three pitches later, the count at 1-2, a standoff took place. Ryan’s ailing arm and Wells’ toughness resulted in four straight foul balls ensuing.
Pain flaming through his shoulder, Ryan stepped off the mound and rubbed up the ball. Wild and full of liquor, the crowd’s roars filled every corner of the stadium.
Stepping back on the rubber, Ryan shook off Borelli’s curve ball signal. Still feeling strong, despite the pain ripped him to shreds, eagerness to end the game got the best of him. Reaching back, the agony didn’t allow Ryan to get on top of the ball. The fastball laid flat—no movement—over the plate.
Wells turned on the pitch.
A resounding crack cut through the crowd’s screams.
Silence overtook the stadium.
Ryan didn’t even bother to glance back as the ball continued its climb and disappeared into the night air.
“If I leave you in, the next run puts you in the loss column.” Ramsey had expected Ryan’s welcome. Ramsey and Borelli studied Haddox carefully.
Wiping away the sweat with the back of his arm, Ryan said, “It’s my game, Sonny.”
Respect—admiration—flooded the manager and the catcher. Ramsey gave the pitcher a pat on the back and the catcher rubbed up the ball before slamming it into Ryan’s glove.
“You pitch—I’ll catch,” declared Borelli.
Having little more than a sub curve and an ice-cold change up, Ryan retired the next five batters and walked off the mound gaining his 10th win.
Icing his arm in the clubhouse, Ryan discovered his arm—while still painful—possessed a fresh resiliency.
Stephanie, Baby, you were right. I needed to eat and feed my depleted body.
“Good game, Ryan,” said a familiar voice to the side of the trainer’s tub.
Holding the ice pack wrapped around his shoulder and arm, Ryan turned to see the smiling face of Carson Porter. “Thanks,” he replied carefully.
An awkward silence ensued until Porter asked softly, “Have you given my offer any thought?”
“Not here,” Ryan said quickly, returning his attention back to treating his arm. “We can talk later.”
An hour later, Ryan sat in Porter’s car.
Developing cloud formations crossed the pinkish, orange sky, bathing the land with a colorful shade. A chill stuck in certain pockets of the air, besieging the dog day heatwave currently dominating the weather.
Calmly he said, “I’m not interested.”
Porter didn’t move. He responded in an almost gentle manner. “It’s your call. I ain’t no salesman. I just want to remind you: the decision you make right now will play a big part in the rest of your career.”
“I’ve thought about this a lot,” responded Ryan, reflexively. “The answer’s no.”
6th Inning
The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid.
—Don Drysdale
Pitching is the art of instilling fear.
—Sandy Koufax
“I have something to tell you.”
Lydia stopped sipping on her chasteberry, herbal tea. Although she also liked ashwagandha, chasteberry tea provided her many health benefits. Since high school, she’d been a dedicated partaker of its wellbeing remunerations.
“What is it?”
“We… We took money out of our savings.”
“But I thought—”
“It’s our only chance to…”
“Your only chance?”
“To… give Ryan… a true chance to make it as a major league pitcher.”
Lydia set her cup down. Upon deliberation, she put her hand on Stephanie’s knee. “I know it’s none of my business.” Biting her upper lip her face clouded over. “I like Ryan. I do. But Honey, you need him to help you and the baby more.”
“He does. Lydia, he works hard. He’s always practicing and… trying to improve.”
“I know. But his actions need to be directed at making ends meet… putting food on the table… getting your child proper medical treatment.”
Stephanie felt ashamed. Looking down, she went silent.
“I’m sorry, Steph. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No,” Stephanie said, wiping away a tear. “You’re right.”
Stephanie trusted Lydia. The friends shared much of their lives together.
“It’s like… when I don’t see Ryan… when he comes home from a road trip, or when we’re sharing time together… Lydia I still have… strong feelings,” Stephanie sobbed. “I realize that I’ve got to think of my baby too…”
A flood of emotions cut through her. Tears escaped her, the salty moisture running down her rose tinted cheeks abundantly. Hurriedly, she wiped away the wetness.
“Oh, Honey,” Lydia said, in a soothing voice.
“No, no, I’m fine,” Stephanie assured her. “I’m a big girl.” Forcing a smile, she said, “Let me get you more tea.”
A year and a half before, on a warm, muggy night, they sat on the hood of the car in front of Gemstone Mountain.
Her mind drifted back.
“I’m having a baby.”
Ryan didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.
“Your baby. Our… baby.”
At first, Ryan stiffened, slightly. Then, in suddenness, he took her in his arms and blurted out, “I love you, Stephanie.”
Above his movement, his words surprised her. Ryan normally didn’t come out and profess his emotions to her directly. “I love you too, Darling. I love you so much.”
They held each other and looked down at the lights of Brownsville, lost in their thoughts.
Minutes later, Stephanie said, “We must plan, Honey. Right?”
&
nbsp; “We will plan, Baby.”
“No, I mean financially.”
Ryan’s body become rigid. Sluggishly, he released her.
“What is it?” Her voice sounded fearful.
He didn’t answer.
“Honey, please.”
“I’m a ballplayer. I’ve never lied to you, Stephanie.”
“I know, Honey. It’s just…” Gathering her thoughts, she considered how to formulate her words before going on. “Ryan, I never said you lied. You've been honest. The whole time.”
Reviewing how truthful he’d been to her made Stephanie realize how much she loved Ryan. Many women would’ve left a man who spoke so direct to them.
Ryan didn’t treat her badly.
Since birth, she'd been made to feel special, hearing all the affirmations a girl needed to grow up and become an independent woman. By the time she came of age, she faced womanhood free to plot her course, demonstrating the intelligence and aptitude to realize her prospects.
However, Ryan entered her life and changed everything, unraveling her carefully constructed plans. The previous men she'd dated were nice and came from good families. None possessed Ryan’s qualities.
Physical qualities.
Without question, animal magnetism attracted her to Ryan, permeating her recesses. She found it impossible to contemplate ever leaving him.
“You're a good man, Honey,” she heard herself remark, shifting her body to pull closer to his and share their warmth against the cool night air. The texture of her voice shocked her. She wanted to say more, but didn’t know how. “You've never lied to me,” she repeated.
Satisfied, Ryan returned his arms around her.
They lay in each other’s arms. Neither speaking, looking down at Brownsville's lights.
At last, she said, “I love you, Honey. We'll be okay.”
It was one of the many lies she told herself to defend her emotions.
Arcadia, Texas sat in the panhandle and fielded a team that consistently competed for the Independent Mountain Conference championship, year in and year out. West of Amarillo and the Palo Duro Canyon, Arcadia Stadium often absorbed the heat of the region, offering the Arcadia Titans a distinct home field edge over opponents.
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