by Sykes, V. K.
“Sweet slide, man,” Colisanti said with an ear-splitting grin.
“Bring the run home, now, Jimmy.”
Ryan gave a couple of desultory swipes at his uniform to knock off some of the dirt, then jogged back to the dugout, slapping high fives with his teammates there. He’d had a quality at-bat, drawing a walk against a pretty tough pitcher. And his hard, clean slide had resulted in an error and a chance for the Hornets to score the tying run. But it was spring training and nobody cared a whole lot about winning and losing these games, so Ryan knew the front office brass wouldn’t be all that impressed. And what he’d just done paled in importance when stacked up against the pitifully weak throw he’d made to the plate in the fifth—one so lame that it had allowed a run to score easily. While not officially an error on the scoresheet, that throw constituted a big, black mark just the same.
One he sure as hell didn’t need.
But he sucked it up anyway, smiling and joking with his teammates, while inside he tried not to stew about all the shit going wrong in his life.
* * *
TAYLOR HAD BARELY taken her eyes off Locke for the entire game. While her job often involved unpleasant tasks, watching him sure wasn’t one of them. Truly, the man was just freaking yummy, with his sexy, deep-set eyes, square jaw and jet black, close-cropped hair. A big guy—the media guide said six-four and two hundred fifteen pounds, which Taylor suspected was all well-toned muscle—Locke had spent years chasing down fly balls with the liquid grace of a panther. Until, that is, his knees started to go south on him.
Now, when she watched him laboring to cover left field, not getting to balls that he would have cruised to snag effortlessly in the past, she saw little trace of the fluid defender he once was. In fact, it was the consensus around the league that the Hornets had only kept Locke in the lineup last year because their number one outfield prospect had been deemed still not ready for prime time.
This year, Taylor strongly suspected it would be a different story. The understudy, a big, strong kid, had been getting as much playing time as Locke this spring, and he looked pretty damn ready now. Unless her radar had suddenly thrown a circuit breaker, Ryan Locke was about to become expendable to the Pittsburgh Hornets.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Or another woman’s, in this case.
She had Locke’s stats down cold even before she spent more time reviewing his background last evening in her Clearwater hotel room. Numbers were Taylor’s best friends—probably because they were constant, unchanging, and entirely predictable. She’d always been able to remember numbers and manipulate them in her head with an ease that had made everyone from her high school math teachers to her Wharton School professors ask her why she hadn’t chosen to pursue a career in higher mathematics.
That career path had never been an option. By the time she was eleven years old, Taylor had known exactly what she wanted to do with her life, and it didn’t involve pure mathematics or physics or engineering or any of the other lofty professions she’s been encouraged to study for. She had a much more interesting way to use numbers—a way to help her fulfill her dream of one day managing a major league baseball team. And not just any major league baseball team. The Philadelphia Patriots of the National League, to be specific. Her father’s last team. The team she’d loved with a burning passion ever since she could remember.
She refocused her attention on the field. When Locke had laid off the vicious slider that had almost nicked the corner of the plate, Taylor hadn’t been surprised. Ryan Locke could do a lot of things well on the ball field, but one thing he did better than almost anyone was reading a pitch. He would consistently refuse to swing at balls off the plate, even balls that were so close that some of them would inevitably be miscalled as strikes by the umpire. In the game, that talent was called having a good eye. But it was also about having discipline and guts. If there was one thing players hated, it was getting called out on strikes—standing there like a dummy with your bat on your shoulder as the umpire punched you out. So, for most players, if a pitch was somewhere close to the plate they took a rip. Not Ryan Locke.
The key stat when it came to Locke, at least as far as Taylor was concerned, was his on-base percentage. With an OBA regularly north of .340, Locke had long been one of the better run producers in the National League. Even last year, playing hurt a lot of the time, he’d scraped together an OBA of .330 to go along with his fifteen homers and sixty-seven ribbies.
The man was slow as hell these days, but damned if he still didn’t have fire in his gut. He might have struggled to second on that hit and run play, but he gave the slide everything he had and not only prevented the double play but caused a error—an error that had ultimately led to the tying run being scored. Yes, he pretty much threw like crap, but did she care? If she had her way, he wouldn’t be throwing balls more than a few dozen feet from now on.
Only one question remained in Taylor’s mind. Could Ryan Locke play first base? More to the point. Would he?
* * *
THEY WERE LEAVING him out there for the whole game. That hadn’t happened even once this spring, and Ryan knew it wasn’t happening today for no reason. Everything that went down in spring training did so for a reason. All March, he’d been playing left field for three or four innings while the kid in line for his job played the rest of the game. Now, here it was the bottom of the ninth and he was standing in left, his knees aching and the backs of his legs still burning from that slide in the sixth. What the hell was going on?
The extra innings of work today could mean nothing good. In fact, it was a virtually unmistakable signal that he was on the trading block. That the Hornets were showcasing him for the scouts and maybe even the GM of another team that had no doubt travelled to Cal Torrance Field to check him out.
It had to happen, didn’t it? I can barely run and I can’t throw worth a damn anymore. And the kid’s ready—you’d have to be blind not to see it.
As much as Ryan knew this dark day could come, and in fact inevitably would come, he still rebelled against its early arrival. He’d given the Hornets seven great years. Okay, five great and two pretty decent—and he could still hit. He could still snap line drives into the gap. He could still bang out fifteen or more homers a season. And he could still get on base better than ninety per cent of the guys in the league. With those skills, at thirty-three he should have another five or six years left in the majors. Maybe more.
Should have. Those were the operative words. But who was he kidding? His days with the Hornets and the National League were close to done. What good was it to be a run producer when too many defensive lapses cost your team big time? His future—if he had a future in baseball—was as a designated hitter in the American League, and he was just thankful that the AL had adopted the DH format all those years ago. It was a Godsend for players like him—guys who could still hit but couldn’t play a defensive position on a regular basis anymore.
And after seven years in Pittsburgh, he’d finally put down some roots. Devon had too, telling him it felt like home. His daughter had gone through a rough time—a nightmare time—after her mother took off, and Devon’s short stint of living with Ryan’s mother had been a complete disaster. His daughter was still far from happy, though Ryan wondered if it was even possible for a fourteen year-old girl who’d been abandoned by her mom to be happy. Whenever she came home from boarding school she grumped at him, and he worried that she was putting only half an effort into her schoolwork. But at least she had some friends in Pittsburgh, along with a comfortable, familiar house and a housekeeper who she didn’t completely hate. Given what had happened in the past that seemed about as much as he could hope for.
And now it was looking like he’d have to uproot her again. What if the Hornets traded him to the Angels, the A’s, or the Mariners? Moving to the west coast would mean yanking Devon out of her Westchester County school. No way would he have her spending the school year on the other side of the continent from
him. At least in Pittsburgh, it was less than an hour and a half flight home, so she could spend weekends with him whenever she could get away and he was playing a home series.
The thought of finding a new school for her—one she’d actually accept—made him sick to his stomach. She’d fought him tooth and nail last year over going to the highly-rated and expensive Westchester school in the first place, but she’d finally settled in. Round two wasn’t something he even wanted to think about.
As the Patriots’ shortstop slid into second, easily beating the catcher’s throw for a stolen base, Ryan gave himself a big mental kick in the ass for his daydreaming. The Patriots’ best hitter, Jake Miller, stood at the plate, a brawny powerhouse of muscle and talent. Even from left field, Ryan could see the grimly determined look on the big slugger’s face. It might only be an exhibition game, but there was still team and personal pride involved. And, in his case, he sure as hell didn’t want to look like a chump in front of a bunch of scouts.
Act like a veteran, Locke. Play as if your future—and your daughter’s—depends on the very next pitch.
3
TAYLOR HADN’T PLANNED on watching the entire nine innings. Fully expecting Ryan Locke to be pulled after the fourth or fifth, she’d been pondering how she was going to manage an apparently innocent and casual conversation with him.
As if any meeting could be truly casual or innocent after that brief and electric connection between them at batting practice.
She couldn’t help feeling the occasional ping of regret that her job required steering clear of some of the sexiest and often the most decent and honorable men she’d ever met. Not that there was an iron clad rule preventing a front office employee from dating a ballplayer, but it was just a bad idea all around. Taylor had never done it. Not once in her seven-year baseball career. Dating a player from an opposing team brought with it the possibility of sharing sensitive team information across pillows—it was as simple and straightforward as that. And hooking up with some guy from your own squad carried a whole other set of equally thorny problems, especially for someone like her since she was in a position to make, or help make, decisions about players’ futures.
She gave her head a shake and returned her attention to the field, watching the Patriots’ studly Jake Miller stride to the plate. And since when had she started thinking of ballplayers in sexual rather than statistical terms? Unfortunately, she knew the answer to that one.
Since Ryan Locke.
It wasn’t just the smoldering look he’d given her with those bedroom eyes, or his obvious physical magnetism that heightened her awareness. There were hundreds of sexy ballplayers out there, a hefty portion of them unmarried, too. But there was one thing about Locke that not a whole lot of other players seemed to have.
Maturity, for lack of a better term, and it was wildly attractive.
So many ballplayers were anything but mature, carousing through life like they’d be forever young, rich and famous. Not Locke, though. The intensity of his gaze, the set of his jaw, the way he carried himself—everything spoke of a man who’d seen his share of life’s ups and downs and had come out the stronger for it.
Then again, maybe it was mostly her imagination, because she was definitely no expert on men, except when it came to how they played baseball.
Her glance flicked to Locke out on the field, flexing his knees as he pounded the palm of his glove. His body language evoked grim determination, something not exactly the norm in spring training games. It appeared he expected the ball to come his way in left, despite the fact that Jake Miller usually pulled it to the right side of the field. The Hornets’ coach had positioned Locke deep and shaded toward center, an implied sign of respect for Miller’s awesome batting power.
The pitcher wasted no time in challenging the Patriots’ slugger, delivering a fast ball that was headed for the outside corner of the plate. Miller swung hard and caught the ball almost on the end of his bat, sending a liner past the shortstop’s outstretched hand, into center-left. With the center fielder shifted to the right, it was clearly Locke’s ball to field, even though it skittered through the grass well to his left side. Taylor sucked in a breath, figuring the ball might get past Locke, and that would easily bring the Patriots’ runner home from second with the winning run.
But against her expectations, Locke took four long strides and extended his arm to sweep the ball into his glove. Slightly off balance, he quickly righted himself as Harmer, the runner, raced to third base and started to make the turn towards home. Locke reached back and fired the ball, but instead of coming on a hard, low line out of his hand, it travelled up in an unfortunate arc over the shortstop’s head to land in the infield, bouncing in one high hop toward home plate. Harmer slid over home plate in a cloud of dust before the Hornets’ catcher could corral the ball. What should have been a very close play had been far from it.
Though she was happy about her team’s win, Taylor maintained her focus on Ryan Locke. He’d sunk down into a squat, head lowered, as soon as the weak throw landed in the infield. Only now had he pulled himself back up and started to jog slowly toward the Hornets’ dugout. Even from where she sat, Taylor could see dejection written in both his eyes and the set of his mouth, and a sharp pang of sympathy rolled through her. His wounded duck of a throw had cost the Hornets the game. Worse yet, Locke had done it in front of scouts’ assessing eyes, showcasing a disturbing weakness.
Though he was still about thirty feet from the dugout, Locke furiously hurled his glove inside. As Taylor quickly moved through the thinning crowd so she could see in to the Hornets’ bench, she couldn’t help noting that the glove throw was a hell of a lot better than the one he’d just made from left field. When he tore down the dugout steps, Locke immediately grabbed the big red Gatorade cooler in a bear hug. Though the coolers usually weighed a ton, he lifted it like it was empty plastic. A second later, the bulky container shot through the air, bouncing once as it hit the dirt in front of the dugout and then rolling out onto the field. One of the ball boys jumped out and gave chase as green Gatorade spilled out from an obviously leaky top.
A handful of fans around Taylor started to laugh at the colorful projectile. Locke was hardly the first player to take his frustration out on an oversized drink cooler, but he might be in line for the Guinness record for longest toss.
It looked like the Hornets players were amused, too, but Locke brushed past them and disappeared into the tunnel that led to the visiting team’s clubhouse. From the rigid set of his broad shoulders as he retreated, Taylor surmised that the attack on the cooler hadn’t assuaged his anger over his nightmarish throw.
While Hornets’ management wouldn’t appreciate the scene and might even fine Locke, Taylor thoroughly approved of his display of rage. It showed her that Ryan Locke still had fire in his gut. A whole blazing cauldron of it if today’s game was any indication. From his hard slide into second base to his Gatorade tantrum, it was clear that Locke would do anything to help his team win. Even though it was just a spring training game, the guy had busted his ass out there all day like it was playoff baseball.
Ryan Locke was far from the perfect answer to her team’s first base woes, but he was close enough for Taylor.
As she headed up to the concourse, she weighed the pros and cons. Pushing Dembinski to make this deal could make her name but it could just as easily break her, given that Locke was an aging player with several significant liabilities. Did she have the guts to possibly stake her future on one risky bet, a bet that could derail her upward progress within the Patriots’ management ranks?
Of course, the whole exercise would be academic if Ryan Locke had no interest in converting to a different position on the field. If Locke was going to play first base for the Patriots, he’d have to be at least reconciled to it, and preferably enthusiastic. Otherwise, the experiment would surely fail, since there was nothing more damaging than a disgruntled, unhappy ball player. So, the first step to avoiding that failure would b
e trying to gauge Locke’s willingness to make the change.
Which meant sounding the guy out.
And if she was going to sound Locke out, it would somehow have to be innocuous and oblique. Unfortunately, for an idea person, Taylor hadn’t quite managed to figure out how she was going to pull off that particular trick. And while the thought of a one-on-one chat with Ryan Locke was enticing, and not just because of the career opportunity it presented, it was also vaguely unsettling for reasons Taylor refused to think about.
* * *
THERE WASN’T A single guy in the Hornets’ clubhouse that hadn’t ragged on Ryan about his Gatorade toss. Not that it was that big a deal. Hell, as long as you didn’t accidentally knock some unsuspecting soul on his ass, the manager treated that kind of assault on an inanimate object as a tolerable prank. The bosses as well as the players tended to look at it as evidence of a guy’s intensity and dedication to winning. And even though it was only spring training, Ryan still hated losing.
Unfortunately, his dedication and commitment didn’t mean jack to management at this point.
The Hornets had started the year by giving him a pretty long leash, even though he understood they didn’t fully appreciate everything he’d done for them during his years in Pittsburgh. But baseball was a business—a brutal business—and for the team’s top management, the bottom line was the ultimate measurement of success, as much as or more than winning championships. And the bottom line for players was simply the sum of their statistics. Team statistical gurus pored over about six million statistical inventions—at least it looked that way to him—using esoteric categories with crazy acronyms like oWAR and DSR to judge player performance.