Page 1 of Chasing Headlines

Prologue

Olivia POV

Ifell in love for the first time when I was seven years old. Not with a boy. Boys had cooties and talked about . . . gross things. No, my first love wasn't like that.

It happened the day Mom left. The first time. She came back a few times over the years, but the version of family life that was rainbows and apple pie had come to an abrupt end—at least as far as her children were concerned. Whether it was as “abrupt” to our father, who can say?

So on that particular day, my older brother found himself stuck. Babysitting. When he needed to be at baseball practice.

Before Curt Milline became a major league pitcher with the multi-million dollar arm, he was just my big brother. Part tyrant, part protector. And after mom, well, part life raft. He could be the biggest bully, and the sweetest teddy bear. I don’t know how the two sides of him lived in harmony inside his skin.

He was, still is, ten years older than me, and this particular day—set during the early part of his senior year, the pinnacle of his high school career—baseball practice was no joke. Our father was at work, Mom was MIA. He had no choice but to bring me with him.

Not a solid decision, most things considered. But being his age, now, and knowing baseball players the way I do, I get why he did it. Just was poorly executed on his part: no iPad, no snacks. What was a seven-year-old girl to do besides fall in love?

This was, naturally, before NBfO, the “No Baseball for Olivia” regulation was proposed, written and ratified—without my consent. I have words for this patently pedantic policy and what the mildly misogynistic men who tried to run my life could do with it. And if it rhymed with “dove it up their mass,” I’d never tell a soul.

So, there was seven-year-old me, alone and bored, sitting on a blanket outside the dugout—watching baseball practice. I found myself mesmerized. The crack of the bat, the surprise of the ball flying through the air. It seemed so tiny, sometimes I’d lose it. Only to hear the triumphant shout—and see a boy holding up his glove. Everything about it was exciting. My worry over my mom slipped away. I didn't want to play brick breaker on my brother's flip-phone.

I was smitten. With baseball.

Running, throwing, batting, every play was amazing. Since then, I've written dozens of articles as a school reporter, and it's impossible to capture how truly remarkable the sport has always been.

Two hours, I sat there . . . Several of Curt’s teammates spoke to me, explaining parts of the game. I remember being patted on the head, something only my brother did. One guy even gave me his hat.

“There you go, little Livvie. Can't be part of the team without a hat.”

When practice was over, Curt held my hand all the way back to the car and took me for ice cream and hamburgers. I asked if I could play baseball, too.

“Girls play a different game,”was his reply.

He meant softball, I'm sure, but the words stuck with me.

The day my brother entered the International Major League draft was the day baseball became the official Milline family business.

And, as I told my mother once: I would always be a Milline.

So then why the NBfO rule? The answer to that began and ended with my stubborn, completely unfair, mostly-overprotective, pain-in-his-daughter's-behind father.

Unfortunately for me, he's a former team co-owner turned IML operations exec. So, if someone could keep me away from professional baseball, it would be my dad.

Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t really keep a school reporter away from her college baseball “beat”.

And guess who signed up her freshman year to be the school's news and social media correspondent for all things baseball?

The number one candidate for disobedient daughter of the year.

Me.

As one might have guessed, my second love was a baseball player. I fell hard for a dark-haired, green-eyed shortstop on my high school team with a measly .220 batting average. He liked his hair long, and so did all the other girls who hung around and batted their eyelashes at him.

I'm sure it was my witty sense of humor and stunning good looks that caught his attention. For about the ten minutes I held it. During that time, his idea of flirting consisted mostly of asking questions about Curt and whether he'd come to see our team play.

And when I was honest about his chances with that kind of a batting average and his overall ranking? Yeah, the next day his arm and his lips were all over Madison Castlehoffer—whose dad owned a bunch of luxury car dealerships in the county.

I'm sure he's hocking cars for Mr. Castlehoffer, now. But, really, with so many ballplayers to ogle, who has time to settle for a guy with a .220 batting average? He did have pretty eyelashes. And the view when he shimmied into his batting stance wasn't, ahem, bad, either.

My dad gave methelecture when I was fifteen about dating baseball players. I’ve heard it so many times over the years, it’s occasionally hard to remember the first one. But subsequent ones have become so identical, it might have been comical. Except for it being so maddeningly unfair and asininely absolute!

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