by Sierra Dean
Finally Alex signaled for a straight-up fastball, and Tucker gave the nod. Frank Richie squinted from under the brim of his batting helmet, and for a moment he and Tucker locked eyes. Richie raised one brow and smiled, a leering, cold grin. Tucker didn’t like the cockiness of the batter’s smirk.
Tucker mouthed the words Strike out, and Frank Richie’s smile faltered. He readjusted his grip on the bat and cracked his neck side to side. Alex must have seen the change in attitude as well because the smile shifted from Frank to the catcher, and Alex winked at Tucker.
It hadn’t been Tucker’s intention to play dirty and get into Frank’s head, but whatever worked was fine by him. If a player didn’t have enough spine to keep his shit together in the batter’s box, he deserved to get struck out.
So Tucker struck him out.
And the next two batters as well.
Back in the dugout there was a lot of back patting and some high-fives, but no one said much else to him. He took his place on the bench, and Alex—who had batted in the previous inning—came to sit next to him. Tucker kept his cap pulled low over his eyes, trying to ignore the pulsing throb in his forehead.
“You feeling good?” Alex asked.
“Headache.”
“Arm is okay?”
“Yup.”
Alex pressed a paper cup of Gatorade into Tucker’s hand, and they leaned back on the bench, watching as Ramon clobbered a home run out of the park. The handful of Felons fans in the stadium cheered louder than Tucker thought possible—or maybe he was just tuned to the right station to hear them—and the dugout erupted in raucous celebration. It was one run, but it was a run they had the Yankees didn’t.
After their run, the Felons played like they had a fire lit under their asses. The next man up—second baseman Jamal Warren—hit a ground ball that rolled past first. He ran like hell for second to get the double—not an easy feat given his bulk—and was forced to slide into the plate. When he got to his feet, though, there was a limp in his step.
Tucker lifted the brim of his cap, staring at the scene on the field like it was a frozen tableau. He looked for Emmy, but she was already bounding up the stairs and meeting the third base coach at second so they could see what had happened.
Emmy was crouched in front of Jamal, squeezing his ankle with her delicate fingers. She was watching Jamal’s face for reaction, as she did with Tucker whenever she stretched out his arm. What she saw on the second baseman didn’t relieve her because she got to her feet and addressed Chuck and the third base coach.
There was a lot of head shaking, specifically Jamal, who was jerking his chin back and forth with his arms crossed over his chest. If anyone watching at home was hoping to lip-read some f-bombs, they’d be having a field day with the big man.
Chuck touched Emmy’s arm, but she inclined her head toward Jamal and crossed her arms to mirror the player’s. Tucker knew how stubborn she could be, and he’d learned firsthand she wouldn’t budge an inch if she thought a player’s health was at risk.
If she wanted Jamal out, Jamal was coming out.
Moments later Emmy appeared to win the standoff because Chuck pointed to Jon Harper at the end of the bench and waved to him. Jon Wade, the team’s renaissance man who could play every damn position on the field including pitcher, grabbed a helmet and ran out to second to pinch-run for Jamal.
Emmy and the big second baseman walked through the dugout and into the clubhouse. Jamal cursed the entire way but was also walking with a very obvious limp, so Emmy scolded him to “Stop being such a big baby.”
Tucker wanted to follow them, to make sure Jamal didn’t throw the same fit Tucker himself had upon being yanked from the game. But Tucker couldn’t leave. He had to be ready to go back in for the next inning, and Emmy was a professional. She obviously wasn’t worried about Jamal, nor did she have a reason to be.
He sighed and turned his attention back to the game.
Problem was, now he had no gum and no Emmy. He was fresh out of good-luck charms and still had six innings left to pitch.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“This is horseshit.” Jamal stalked back and forth in the training room, his rage losing some of its impact because of his new limp. “You can’t keep me out of the game.”
“You know what, Jamal? I don’t care.”
“Say what?” He stopped pacing and stared at her.
Emmy kept a cool veneer, her hands on her hips. “You have an ankle sprain, and I need to get an x-ray to make sure there’s not a fracture. Do you know what happens when a bone splinter migrates?”
“No.”
She ran a finger across her throat, the universal symbol of death. Yes, it was overly dramatic, and yes she was lying—the chances of a bone splinter existing or migrating were slim to none—but she did what she had to in order to get him to listen.
It worked, because Jamal obediently sat on the table.
“Am I going to be okay?” he asked, no longer brimming with moody hostility.
“You’ll be fine, just stop griping and let me do my job.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Emmy patted him on the shoulder and extended his leg out on the table, removing his shoe and sock while probing the injury with her fingers to see if she could detect any breaks. Nothing felt too concerning, and she was sure he’d only bent it the wrong way while sliding. Ice, stretching and a day or two on the bench and Jamal would be fine.
“It doesn’t feel broken, but I’m going to schedule you for an x-ray so we can be sure.”
He nodded forlornly.
Emmy made the appropriate appointments for Jamal while typing up some quick notes so she wouldn’t forget any of the finer details of the injury. Since legs and ankles were the biggest worry for fielders, she needed to document everything about the injury in case it caused reoccurring issues down the road.
With her notes made, she returned to Jamal. “You want me to take you out to the clubhouse so you can watch the game while we wait for the x-ray?”
“Okay.”
She gave him a pair of crutches and helped him out to the main clubhouse area where a bank of leather chairs faced several television screens. Most were already tuned to the game—using the stadium’s own feed since home games were blacked out in local markets—while the others showed updates from games around the country.
Since the local feed was from the stadium itself there was no listed score, just alternating camera angles without any commentary. She didn’t even know what inning they were on. She picked up the remote and changed one of the other TV channels until she got to ESPN.
Top of the fifth, the score was still one nothing in their favor. “We’re still winning,” she told Jamal.
He confirmed the score and nodded, then looked back to the live feed before doing a double take. “Emmy, look at that.” He pointed to the box score on the TV.
“Yeah. One nothing.”
“No.” He turned his body fully in the chair and pointed more enthusiastically, jabbing the air with his big, meaty hand. “Look at the count.”
Tucker had a pitcher’s count, two strikes one ball, and there were already two out. He was one strike away from another three-up, three-out inning. Those stats, and Jamal’s sudden interest, made her really look at the box.
The Felons had three hits for their one run, and one walk. The Yankees were showing zeroes. All zeroes. No base on balls. No hits. Nothing.
She stared at Jamal, and he must have seen her comprehension because he gave her a wide-eyed nod. As they watched, Tucker threw the third strike, and the Yankees were out for the fifth.
Emmy sat down in the chair next to Jamal and scrubbed both hands over her face, her attention now locked on the live feed.
“Four more innings,” she remarked, her tone edging with excitement. “I mean…a lot of stuff can happen in four innings.”
“Yup.”
What they didn’t say—what baseball superstition demanded they couldn’t say—was that T
ucker was five innings into a no-hitter.
Hell, he was five innings into a perfect game.
If he could make it through four more innings without a Yankees batter getting on base—either by hitting a ball or getting walked—he might be the twenty-fourth pitcher in the history of baseball to have one.
One man in twenty-four.
The odds were against him, of course. Perfect games were rare enough people still got excited to see them happen, and getting out twenty-seven batters in a row was nearly impossible.
That said, he’d already gotten fifteen of those twenty-seven out.
If he could get out twelve more batters either by strikeout, ground out or fly out…he would do it.
“Have you ever…? Have you ever seen one?” she asked him.
“Never in person. You?”
“Yeah. Sox had one against Seattle while I was with the team.”
“You think he can do it?”
Emmy stared at the TV, watching a replay of the last strike. The camera was tight on Tucker’s face as he observed Alex’s calls. A slight shake of the head, his mismatched eyes alert and focused. When he threw the strike, he looked completely calm and in control.
“Yeah,” she whispered, as if speaking too loud might somehow distract Tucker. “Yeah, I think he can.”
The color had faded out of the sky, going from a purple, to deep blue and all the way to black by the time the top of the eighth inning came in.
He had to get through two more innings and he’d have pitched a complete game. Coming off a major head injury and playing all the way through his first game back… If this didn’t prove he deserved to stay, he couldn’t think of anything that would.
He’d so finely tuned out the noise of the stadium he could have heard a pin drop. It seemed as if there were no noise at all, just the throb of his pulse in his ears and the feel of the ball in his hand.
Just him, Alex and the batter. Three people who ruled the world from the time Tucker threw the ball to the moment Alex caught it. In that eighth of a second, the rotation of the Earth ceased and time itself froze.
He read Alex’s call and gave the nod. Pulling up tall, he took a deep breath and gazed into the basket of his glove. The ball looked as small and simple as an egg in his hand. How was it something so little could define so much of his life?
Tucker lifted the glove to his face, inhaling the smell of leather and oil. The stitching on the ball tickled his fingertips as he shifted his hand into position to throw a proper changeup.
The pitch sailed into the strike zone and was met with a hard, solid crack as the bat made contact, sending the ball high into the sky. Tucker dropped his hand and pushed his hat up off his forehead, watching the ball travel in slow motion towards the centerfield bleachers.
It could go either way—fall as a pop fly or travel over the wall as a home run. Tucker covered his brow with the flat of his hand to blot out the bright spotlights and tracked the arc of the ball as it began to fall.
He and the centerfielder realized where it would land in the same moment. Barrett had already been running but adjusted his track, moving to the left and hauling ass in line with the ball. At the last instant he dove hard, sliding face first across the outfield grass. Tucker couldn’t breathe.
When the man stood again, he raised both hands, the ball held firmly in his glove.
Tucker whooped loudly. He bent double, bracing his hands on his knees, and the crowd booed in response, but it barely registered. It didn’t matter. They’d gotten the out and were one man closer.
The next two were basic strikeouts, and another one-two-three inning closed out.
He walked back to the dugout but noticed there were fewer back pats and high-fives. Ramon squeezed his shoulder, but aside from that the atmosphere in the dugout was downright chilly.
When he sat on the bench, the players closest to him got up and walked away with polite smiles.
Alex was the only one not avoiding him. The catcher took the place on the bench beside him, shucking off his catcher garb like an exoskeleton. “Still feeling good?” Alex asked.
“Definitely feeling the love.”
Alex grunted but didn’t dispute how Tucker had become a pariah.
That was the kind of respect he got for striking out, what…twenty guys? Tucker ran through the numbers in his head, and then, for the first time in the entire game, it dawned on him what was happening.
He hadn’t struck out twenty guys. He’d struck out, or gotten out, twenty-four opposing players. Every single one who had come up to face him. As if to confirm his suspicions, he finally looked up at the big, bright scoreboard.
A line of zeroes lit up the whole Yankee line.
“Fuck.”
“Just figuring it out?” Alex patted a batting helmet down on his head and pulled a bat from the bin marked with his number.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
Alex laughed. “Are you fucking with me? You and I both know you never discuss it. Ever.” He slung the bat over his shoulder.
Tucker had been so busy focusing on getting through the game he hadn’t even realized what he was doing. Every out had just been a step closer to finishing the game. He hadn’t processed that all of those outs were adding up to something spectacular.
Something perfect.
That at least explained why everyone was avoiding him. No one wanted to be the guy who ruined his winning mojo by saying or doing something to distract him.
His hands started to shake, and he looked around the dugout, trying to find something solid to focus on.
“She’s still with Jamal,” Alex said.
Tucker knew where Emmy was, because she wasn’t there. Maybe it was for the best, since he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get through the last inning if he was worried about what Emmy was thinking.
The bottom of the ninth could totally destroy him. Just because he’d gotten through eight straight innings of a no-hitter didn’t mean anything, because there was a whole section of baseball history dedicated to perfect games being ruined by the twenty-seventh man up to the plate.
There was even the infamous Detroit game where a bad call at first base had destroyed Armando Galarraga’s bid for a perfect game.
Now that he knew what he was in the midst of, the thousand and one different ways it could be ruined were swirling through his head. Four balls, a base hit, a double, a triple, a home run. For every one of the three players who would come up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, those possibilities existed.
Christ, he could get too nervous and hit a player with a pitch. A beanball would be the worst thing to happen, but it was a possibility, and it would kill his chances.
There was no way he could do this.
He rubbed his wet hands on his pants and took off his cap, running his fingers through his sweaty hair. His forehead was beading with perspiration, and he suddenly felt like he was stewing in his own juices.
He also might throw up the second he got up to the mound.
The top of the ninth yielded one more run for the Felons, but went by too quickly for Tucker’s liking. In every inning before, he was excited to get back out on the field and prove he was still him. Now there was something really meaningful on the line, something more than just a complete game, and he felt frozen in his seat.
Alex geared up after his run-scoring at-bat, and clapped Tucker once on the back. “You can do this, buddy. Nearly there.”
“Mm-hmm.” Tucker nodded stiffly.
He followed Alex onto the field and took rigid steps towards the mound. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. It was the bottom of the lineup. At any other time this would have felt easy. Now it was like standing at the base of Everest and trying to make the summit without oxygen.
He needed to remember how to breathe, because the pitching he could do, but not if he passed out.
Watching the bottom of the ninth was worse for Emmy than watching a horror movie where the killer might
leap from the closet with a knife at any moment. Tucker was still keeping his cool, looking as focused as ever, but Emmy was sure her hands were shaking so badly she could have made martinis.
Jamal had refused to go to the hospital, choosing to postpone his x-ray to stay and watch the game, so Emmy had stayed with him in the clubhouse. But after the first out and the following two strikes at the bottom of the ninth, she couldn’t stay downstairs anymore.
“I have to go out there,” she told Jamal.
“Take me with you.”
She bit her lip, wanting to shoot down the idea and force him to stay put, but how could she deny him seeing it? He’d never witnessed a perfect game in person, let alone from the dugout. Injured or not, she’d be a monster for robbing him of that experience.
Emmy helped him from the clubhouse, through the passage and up to the dugout. Mike and Chuck gave her a curious look, but neither of them commented on Jamal’s reappearance.
They understood what was happening.
She handed Jamal off to Jasper, who helped the big man find a place near the fence. Every man in the dugout was clustered near the fence or along the steps leading up to the field. There was no sound among them, the cheers of the inning’s second out having faded away.
One more batter stood between Tucker and his perfect game. One man with a sub .200 batting average who looked like he was about to wet his pants was the last gatekeeper of the Yankees’ offense. Tucker was staring at the batter, and the batter was staring back. The last thing Emmy wanted to do was distract him, so she hung back, peeking between the shoulders of the tall, bulky men who were wedged together in a line.
In her head she sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, reminding herself three strikes were all it would take for this last out. And the Tucker she knew could throw three strikes with his eyes closed.
The first strike caused a murmur of excitement to ripple through the dugout. Everyone, from the highest paid player to the fourteen-year-old bat boy, was practically vibrating with excitement. When your job consisted of playing one hundred and sixty-two games a year, it was rare for anything to cause such a stir. But Tucker was doing something special, and everyone in the dugout was on high alert, as giddy as children on Christmas morning.