Clenching down on his wad of gum, Ryan slowly placed his hands on the bat handle and dug back in, fully intent on defending the plate.
What ensued left the delirious crowd on its feet. Six pitches later, the count 2-2, Ryan managed to foul off four straight pitches.
Then, with Ryan expecting more heat—either a fastball or a hard slider—Estrada brook off a nasty 12-6 curve that bent him at his knees.
I can’t go down looking! Ryan screamed in his mind.
Even though the curve caught him off-guard, Ryan managed to stop himself from becoming flat-footed. Remaining square to the pitcher, he got a good look at the spin of the curve and judged its drop.
Keeping his head down on the ball, he swung… and missed!
Hanging his head in anger, Ryan made his way slowly to the dugout, refusing to sneak a glance at Ramsey. A sinking perception came over him. I won’t get a better chance. All I needed was a hit to help my cause.
The crowd in a frenzy, Kyle Faught, the Panthers’ leadoff batter, dug his cleats into the dirt and wagged his bat at Estrada.
Sitting at the right corner edge of the dugout bench, Ryan rung the towel he’d draped over his head, not able to watch. Emotionally drained, physically exhausted, the throbbing in his shoulder pulverized his sanities.
On the field, a battle of immense proportions ensued between Estrada’s power slider and Faught’s propensity for getting on base. Estrada’s 1.67 ERA, equal to Faught’s .326 batting average, created a titanic clash of wills.
Eight pitches later, the count full, Estrada fired a slider that cut through the black of the outside part the plate.
Faught swung in defense, the bouncing ball hit weakly to second base.
The game ended, the Lakers victorious, 3 to 2.
Avoiding everyone, especially Ramsey, Ryan showered quickly and left the park soon after. Thankful he wasn’t stopped, just wanted to get home, Ryan emerged from the stadium and made his way slowly to where Stephanie sat in the car quietly waiting. Getting in, he breathed a heavy sigh.
Without a word, Stephanie started the car and drove the car out of the nearly empty parking lot.
It wasn’t until half way home before they spoke.
“You hardly looked up at us all game,” Stephanie said, bluntly.
“It was a tough game.”
“No, you always find time to look up in our direction. Today… it seemed like you wanted to pitch… alone. Why?”
Ryan didn’t answer, looking out the window at the road.
Minutes later, Stephanie asked, “You’re not going to answer? Ryan I’m as much involved in this as you are. We all are—even the baby.”
“I felt the arm go today. It’s a global tear, I know it is.”
Stephanie sat in the dark, unmoving. Moments later, she emitted soft sobbing, but didn’t say anything.
“That ain’t all,” Ryan said, without emotion. “Borelli knows.”
“Knows what,” Stephanie asked, through her sobbing.
“That my arm’s… fucking dead.”
“You told him?”
“No,” Ryan answered, slightly frustrated. “He catches me. Before anybody, he’d know.”
Stephanie’s sobbing turned hysterical. “So, then—He’s told Ram—”
“No,” interrupted Ryan, more frustrated. “He hasn’t said anything to anybody. He’s my friend.”
Both went quiet. Strangely, Stephanie stopped crying. Only the car’s drone and the baby’s gibberish in the backseat heard.
Ryan looked out at the dark countryside passing in the car’s window. Sadness flooded over him. All of his life he’d believed one day he’d be a Panther pitcher.
With each passing day, he believed less and less.
All of his dreams decayed into dust.
Nothing compared to Stephanie’s disenchantment. Since she’d met him, her schooling, her life, her entire identification, had been put on hold. Her commitment toward helping him achieve his goals her singular purpose.
In the back of her mind, she questioned the logic of her decision.
Ryan pulled the car into the driveway and shut it off.
After a few seconds of sitting, unmoving, Ryan mustered up all of his strength and got out of the car. He managed to open the back door and say to Stephanie, “I’ll take him, Baby.”
Entering the house seemed to Ryan like entering a vacuum.
Stephanie busied herself getting the baby’s crib and nightclothes ready.
In deep contemplation, he sat watching over little Mitch in the living room. In the stillness of the night, Ryan replayed every pitch of the game he’d lost.
Little Mitch looked up at his father, smiling on and off as if trying to cheer him up.
It didn’t work.
Before he knew it, tears streamed down Ryan’s face.
I blew a chance to get closer to the major leagues. I had a chance to win the game… but I couldn’t get it done.
From all sides the fire enclosed on them. Black smoldering clouds reached out to them without mercy, in the distorted contour of a fire-breathing monster.
Gripping his son in the heavy blanket he’d wrapped him in, Ryan readied to fight through the flames. Yet, the faster he moved his legs and the more power he put into his efforts to push through the blaze and the debris, the tighter the fire wrapped its flames around them.
“Ryan! Ryan!”
Opening his eyes, he noticed the sheets and most of the blankets were on the floor.
“Wake up! It’s just a nightmare,” Stephanie called out to him, in a loud but calming voice. “Wake up, Honey!”
Drenched in sweat, his fists clenched in desperation, his spirit deflated, Ryan lay in Stephanie’s arms powerless to prevent the anxiety of the Southern Side-by-Side from burning him beyond all recognition.
The bus moved northwest, climbing the elevation of Colorado’s ascending terrain, drawing closer to Chief Stadium, the site where the Saranac Chiefs played.
Pushing past the piñon-juniper woodlands and sagebrush, the players riding in the well-worn bus caught the scent change to the crisp wholesomeness of the ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, lodge pole pine, and aspen woodlands.
First, the Panthers faced the tough Saranac Chiefs. A dangerous team possessing a toughness encompassing their entire roster, the Chiefs came into the series 2 games behind the first place Dragons, a game and a half behind the second place Lakers, and a half game behind the third place Panthers.
After Saranac, the Panthers squared off against the first place Dragons in a final series where perhaps the Independent Mountain Conference would crown its next champion.
On the strength of Chuck Hornsby’s two hit gem, the Panthers widened their standings lead on the Chiefs with a narrow 2 to 1 victory.
In the next game, however, the Chiefs evened the series at 1-1, winning 9 to 7. The game saw three home runs hit. Two by the Chiefs’ power-hitting first baseman, Alessandro Sanchez.
That night, lying in bed at the hotel room, he recalled his last talk with Stephanie.
“If you’re injury—if it’s a global tear—how can you pitch?”
“I’ll figure out a way, Baby. Don’t worry.”
“I have to worry, Honey. How will you pitch?”
What’s it gonna be?
The following afternoon, during team batting practice before the third game of the series, Ryan spotted Carson Porter and made his way toward him.
Standing next to Porter, Ryan went about nonchalantly shagging flies.
To his credit, Porter didn’t say anything, letting Ryan make the first move.
After making a catch, Ryan lightly threw the ball back into the infield. Straightening back up, he moved closer to the outfielder. Carefully, he asked, “It won’t show up on a drug test?”
Porter gave him a shrug. “No. But you’ve only got to get through two more games, right?”
Ryan didn’t answer.
“Look,” Porter half turned in his direction, “do yo
u want the pain to go away or not?”
Heavy consideration left him numb. “Yeah,” he said, his answer revealing his plan. “I only got two more games… left.” He hated having Porter know his mind.
Coldly, Porter said, “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”
At the man’s mercy, Ryan felt compelled to continue exploring the option he most dreaded—using drugs to deaden his pain. “Don’t narcotics show up in the urine?”
“Don’t catch the start or the end of the urine stream. Introduce the urine cup in the middle of your stream.” Porter exhaled loudly. “At any rate, this ain’t an opioid.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s called, ‘sugar,’ and it won’t show up on the drug test. Not in a million years.”
Ryan shagged another fly. After throwing the ball back, he returned to talk with Porter. “I’ve heard of it.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the men. Only the field’s noises reached their ears: a regular crack of the bat, the sound of a baseball smacking into a glove, and the steady yelling and laughter of the players.
Porter finally broke the quiet. “What’s it gonna be? You want the stuff or not?”
A fierce battle took place inside Ryan. On the one hand, he wanted—needed—the drug. On the other hand, he hated drugs, and the entire stigma they implied.
“Hey man, what’s it gonna be?”
Ryan pushed away the bed covers and got up quietly, careful not to wake up the three men sleeping in the room. Entering the bathroom, he closed the door before turning on the light.
Setting the vial and syringe on the vanity countertop, he stood there looking down at items.
Not sure how long he stood there, Ryan reached for the vial…
Game three against the Chiefs proved to be another nail biter. Dalton Young managed to enter the 6th inning with the score deadlocked at 3 to 3. After surrendering a leadoff home run, he retired the side.
Down by a run, the Panther bats got hot and put runners on first and second with two outs. Then, Estephan Rodriguez drove a 2-2 slider into the right center field gap, giving the Panthers a 5-4 lead.
Young didn’t return to the mound in the seventh.
John Catton went out to attempt to get 3 outs and relinquish to Diego Zepeda, the Panther’s closer.
Despite loading the bases, Catton got out of the jam by sneaking a 1-2 fastball by the Chief’s left fielder, Martine Garza.
Zepeda came in the following inning and, after yielding a one out single, retired the last five Chief batters he faced to close out the 5 to 4 win.
In the clubhouse, Young couldn’t contain his excitement. He’d gone ahead in the side-by-side contest and now held his destiny in his hands. If he won his last game, he’d be the winner.
Ryan got out of his uniform, eager to wash away his guilt.
He’d sat on the bench in the corner of the Panther dugout and deep in his heart he’d rooted against his team to lose. A Panther loss equaled a Young loss, and meant a win for him.
There ain’t enough soap and water to wash away this guilt.
No matter how hard Ryan scrubbed, the shower couldn’t help him feel clean.
Stephanie’s ringtone broke him out of his thoughts. Laying on the bed, he grabbed his cell phone.
“Ryan?”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t call. You always call after the game. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, sitting up. “I’m sorry, Baby. I forgot.”
“You’re by yourself?”
“The guys… they went out. I’m alone.”
A long silence on the other end. Cautiously, Stephanie asked, “Did he… Did he win?”
His desire to see Young lose bothered him. Hearing the same craving in his wife’s voice bothered him immensely.
“He won,” Ryan answered, trying not to sound dejected.
He heard Stephanie’s sharp intake of breath.
“Honey,” he quickly said, trying to interrupt her distress, “it’ll be okay.”
“How?”
Her sob neutralized him. He sat still, unsure how to calm her.
“If… he wins his last game,” Stephanie declared, “you have to win your last two to win the contest.”
Ryan ran his hand through his hair. He didn’t know what to say.
“Ryan,” Stephanie pleaded, “we’ve taken a big risk. Most of our savings is gone.” There came a trembling in her voice, a thoughtful desperation, buried in a whisper. “We have to win.”
“I told you I’d win, didn’t I?” Before he knew it, he apologized for the sharpness in his tone. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Baby.”
Stephanie tried to stop crying but the tears and sobs continued. Tightly gripping the phone, she held little Mitch tighter to her bosom.
“Look, Honey, I hear the guys coming. I’ll call tomorrow, after the game, okay? Don’t worry, Baby. Everything’ll be okay.”
Throwing the phone to the side, he pulled the blanket over his head. He marveled at the convenience of the lie. He hadn’t heard the guys coming.
Loser
“Come on, Ryan! Come on, babe! Get the leading lady!”
In full windup, Ryan leveraged his hips and bent his back. Reaching up to get on top of the ball, he fired the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning.
Excruciating burning flashed through his shoulder.
“Streee!” Raising his arm, the home plate umpire signaled the count 0-1.
After the Chiefs’ ace southpaw, Paulo Martinez, retired the Panthers 1, 2, 3 in the top of the first inning, Ryan knew he would need a great effort to defeat the southpaw flamethrower.
Disregarding the pain, he gritted his teeth and spun a slow curve over the outside shade of the plate.
At the last moment, Manual Torrez, the Chief’s shortstop, checked his swing and evened the count 1-1.
Every pitch, every batter, inning by inning, the pain intensified.
Deep-rooted in his shoulder, the pain elicited his mind to replay the other night’s scene in the hotel bathroom.
His mind saw his image through a fog, holding the vial in his hand. He was amazed by its lightness.
So light and so powerful.
It can wipe away a lot of my agony. All I gotta do is slam it into my median cubital vein and I can make the pain bearable. It’s the only way I can pitch the last two games and win the contest.
“When you jack-up, be careful to make the hit good. You don’t want to get an arterial nick.” Carson Porter shook his head slightly. “You do that and you won’t be able to pitch for a while.”
Ryan hated taking drugs. All of his life, he hated needles and didn’t like the feeling of being dependent on anything or anyone other than his own abilities. To be contemplating using drugs now sickened him.
Sweat poured out of him. His muscles lamented every movement of his delivery, as if they’d become averse to the discipline of his art. His heart and mind somehow still loved the game of baseball, his muscles—his entire body—hated the game.
“Streee!” shrieked the umpire.
The bang of the ball smashing into the mitt, the umpire’s call, the crowd’s rage against his strike—these elements helped him overcome the intoxicating torment saturating his shoulder muscles, leaving him weak and near insentience. Momentarily, his eyes lost focus and dangerous vulnerability overtook him.
If my eyes can’t focus, I could be killed by a line drive.
The count 1-2, he considered wasting a pitch.
Anticipating the same thing, Borelli signaled for a change up in the dirt.
Haddox shook off the sign and finally Borelli signaled heater.
Why he’d decided against using the drug defined him as a man. It fit his character.
I’m not a fucking druggie. I don’t jack-up!
Fortified in his heart, he reached back and fired an 88-mile an hour fastball straight at the center of the mitt’s outsized pocket. Even though he’d
struck out the first batter, his arm was already in flames.
In fits of sheer agony, he went over the past few days. Repeatedly he’d considered using the drug. Finally, after another bout of soul-searching and reflection, he’d giving up on the idea.
The raucous Chief crowd, desperately looking for a reason to scream and yell, whooped it up when Ryan gave up a two out walk.
Alessandro Sanchez came up to the plate, brimming with confidence. Driving a 2-1 curve deep to short, the crowd erupted again when Kyle Faught committed a fielding error put runners on first and second.
Trying not to show his frustration, Ryan focused his mind on the next batter, the Chief’s power-hitting left fielder Martine Garza.
Batting fifth in the Chiefs’ lineup, Garza’s main purpose was to discourage an opposing pitcher from pitching around Sanchez. This season, Garza’s 35 homers, stood just behind Sanchez’s 42. Both minor leaguers were bonafide major league power hitters and perhaps the most dangerous power-hitting duo in the minors.
Garza’s toughness as a “clutch hitter” well renowned around the league. His clutch hitting played a pivotal role in the Chiefs climb in the standings.
It’s only the first inning and already I’m in a fucking jam.
Dizzy from the pain, he weakened and contemplated quitting. An instant later, anger replaced his downcast spirit.
Surrounded by the roar of the Chiefs’ crowd, Ryan whispered in rage, “I’m not a quitter. Goddamit, I won’t quit now.”
Focused in concentration, Ryan didn’t notice Borelli walk to the mound and stand looking at him strangely.
“What is it?” asked Ryan.
“They stole our signs… last game,” Borelli said. “We’ll go to three signals.”
Ryan nodded. “Alright.”
“You okay?”
Ryan gave him a long hard look.
Borelli moved closer.
Everything inside of him told him to give in and throw in the towel. Fervently, voices in his head screamed at him, No more! You’ve done your best. Enough is enough!
“Yeah,” Ryan heard himself answer. Giving his catcher a strong nod, he declared, “I’ll pitch. You catch.”
Paint Black Page 15