Page 14 of The Battery
Leo squatted back down. “All hellfire and brimstone today, I see. All right. Sliders. Let’s go.”
Another five minutes and ten sliders. I expected a second critique afterward and was rewarded appropriately. Leo stood back up and stretched his legs. “Shoulder plane isn’t level.”
“Yeah? What else? My pinky didn’t extend out far enough?”
Leo threw down his glove. “The fuck is with the attitude, Hill?” The venom in his voice snapped me out of whatever juvenile tantrum burbled up from my belly.
I held up both my hands, an apology on my lips, but remembered his earlier direction. “You’re right. You’re right. Shoulder plane. Got it. What next?”
Leo picked up his glove and lowered himself. “Fastballs. Let’s do sixty feet now. And remember—”
“Shoulder plane. Yep.”
More drills and critiques for the next twenty minutes. My anger rose and fell like swells in the ocean. Leo didn’t budge from his “fuck you” attitude that I was starting to get comfortable with, in a strange way. By the end of those twenty minutes my arm fatigued, and Leo noticed.
“All right, last one. I gotta get going. Give me one more,” he hollered to me.
“Fastball?” I asked as I fished a ball out of the bucket.
“Anything you want.”
I turned out my lower lip. “Really? Anything?”
“Hey, Hill?”
“Yeah?”
“I really hate repeating myself.”
All right, jerk.I felt a sudden ballooning of pride. All I had done since joining the Riders was the usual pitches. Steady, reliable. Expected. Leo wanted anything, so why not give him something different?
I danced my fingers across the ball to find the right seams. Gripped it in a funny way by using the tips of my fingers instead of the flat of the pad.
I wound up, extended my leg, and put the last of my waning energy into the throw.
It zipped toward Leo’s glove with zero spin. It fluttered on the whim of the air currents, unguided by any spin. In the lightning flash of the throw, I made out Leo’s hesitant movement of the glove, unsure of its direction. Just as the ball neared him it broke wide and Leo reached to catch it, missing entirely. The thing sailed onward where it arced to the grass and then slammed into the sidewall.
He stood and pulled his cap off. “You never said you could throw a nasty knuckleball.”
His face showed genuine surprise. I played it off as nothing, but inside, I felt a thrill of delight. Knuckleballs weren’t used asmuch as they had been in the past, mainly because all of the greats were dead and gone. That, and the unpredictability paired with the divination of magic numbers to predict outcomes, didn’t pair well.
“Where did you learn that?” Leo asked. His voice had lightened. Gone was his guttural grunt, replaced by a smooth tenor.
“Been practicing for years. Even threw them in the minors. Anyway, good luck on the road, Spartan.”
I left him there on the outfield. I smiled the entire way back to the dugout.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leo
The Savannah Libertineswore uniforms of sky blue and metallic silver, a cool complement to the navy blue and bronze of the New England Riders. I had always thought their colors were bright and cheerful, and it was reflected in many of the players. Strange how a zeitgeist could form in the microcosm of a sports team as the spirit of it compelled each new member. Hell, even the fans. A few of them were dispersed now throughout Riders stadium, cordial as a proper southern waitress at a diner.
I fell into an easy rhythm with the starting pitcher. A veteran, we spoke to each other instinctually. He knew me from my days in the Brawlers, and I him from the Riders. We understood each other’s styles and the ease with which we worked surprised neither of us. Our battery held strong, and the Libertines only got one run out of the first three innings.
Now, at the top of the fourth, it was Cody Hill’s turn to show his meddle. Already on thin ice, he wouldn’t have many more games to prove his worth. Not only in the forty-man, but on the actual field.
I didn’t know if he had the power to separate work from pleasure. Maybe it was something everyone learned as they got older. I didn’t know how to teach that, since it came easily enough to me. All I could show Cody was how to play the game, how to lean into the relationship with the catcher. Everything else was fun, sure. But it meant nothing if the ball didn’t hit the glove.
