Page 28 of Batter Up!

“I totally agree,” I said with a laugh. “That was really awesome to be recognized. That kid even knew my position.”

“Holy crap, now, that’s awesome!” Hayden said as we got closer to the bakery.

“What is?” Ian asked.

"Look at the sign," Hayden said, pointing. We all looked up in awe as we took in the freshly painted white letters popping against the red brick building. "Batter Up!" was spelled out in neat, clear lettering, but the icing on the cake - pun definitely intended - was the exclamation mark. The owner’s creativity definitely extended beyond the kitchen. To capitalize on the baseball theme, they had the designer use a baseball and bat to make up the exclamation mark. After taking in the clever signage, the window display drew our attention down. "Where every dessert is a homerun!" was painted on the crystal clear glass, beautifully framing a tantalizing display of some of her sweet treats.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "The baker really is a baseball fan!"

“Damn. They are closed. It's only open 7-3,” Antonio said with a scowl on his face while looking at his watch and realizing it was after 4 p.m. “Must be nice to only have to work a few hours.”

“Well, you’ve gotta think. It’s probably an old lady working here by herself,” I explained.

“How do you know she’s old? Have you come here without us?” Hayden asked with one hand on his hip and an accusatory glare in his eye.

“No. I don’t know why, but I see an old lady making all these delicious treats. My aunt is the baker in the family, so I think of someone like her,” I said with a shrug.

“You know, the last team I was on had a few neighborhood moms sponsor us, and they would bring us treats and feed us. Maybe this baker would sponsor us!” Neil said with a lick of his lips.

“I guess we’ll have to come back another time.” The disappointment in Trent’s voice was very evident.

As we were walking away, I saw a petite woman with red hair going into the bank across the street. “I’ll be right back.” I didn’t even bother to see what my teammates' reactions were as I ran across the street. I heard a horn honk as a car almost hit me.

The door for the bank was closing behind her, and I quickly opened it. “Red! Hi!”

The woman turned around, but she was not who I had hoped to see. She was a little taller than she appeared from further away, and I could tell from up close that she did not have natural red hair. She smiled at me, but I felt deflated. “Sorry, wrong person.”

“I can be whoever you want me to be, stud,” she cooed while batting her eyelashes.

“No, thanks,” I said, walking back out the bank door and towards the apartment.

“Dude, what is your obsession with redheads?” Trent asked when I caught back up with them.

“He found this amazing woman with red hair but didn’t get her name or her number,” Hayden explained to them. “I met her, and to be honest, she was pretty awesome.”

“So you run after every redhead and almost get hit by a car, trying to find her?” Ian asked.

“I’m going to find her,” I said with false confidence. It had been a couple of months since I had seen her, and I was wondering if she had been just passing through.

The next day, I got to the stadium a few hours early. I was catching for Kevin Swick for the first time in tonight’s game, and I wanted to watch his last start as well as watch more film about our opponent. The guys all made fun of me because I liked to watch film with the coaches while we sat on the bus, but I loved feeling prepared. I was really learning a lot of things from our head coach. After an hour of watching film with Coach Snyder and Coach Mack, I went into the weight room. It wasn’t anything fancy with a few treadmills, a few lifting machines, two cardio machines, a squat rack, a wall lined with free weights, and med balls. I decided to do some cardio and got on the stair stepper. I gave a chin nod to our second baseman Dominic and our shortstop Ben, who were taking turns spotting each other on the free squat rack.

“How’s it going, Stone?” Dominick asked.

“Pretty good. Feel good about tonight.” I replied as I adjusted the difficulty on my machine.

“Good,” Ben said as he added more weight for Dom. “I’m really liking this team.”

Dom grunted, “Don’t get attached to anyone. We move up and down so much at this level. I came from the Crawford Lions, and I was moved up five times and kept getting sent back down. I even went up to Triple-A once, but I didn’t play. I was fine getting traded because it was different from going up and down. I think I'm the oldest at 27 in this league.”

“That really sucks,” I said, “but it’ll be worth it when we make it to the show.”

“If we make it,” Ben retorted. “Only about ten percent of players make it to the majors, so out of all of us on this Raptors team, only three of us will make it.”

“That’s shitty odds,” outfielder Jordan Woosley sighed heavily from where he was getting off of the treadmill. “If I were a betting man, I’d say Keegan Tucker and Antonio Walker will be two of those three. Maybe Ian Baxter, too."

“Fuck, Baxter doesn’t have the drive or the dedication to put in the effort,” Jude Fox said from the corner as he did some stretches. “My money is on Stone.”

“Really? Thanks, bro,” I said, shocked, as I gave him a head nod.

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