Page 48 of The Third Baseman

It was at that point my concentration was once more interrupted.

“So I heard something interesting,” started Ace, who’d slid a couple of spaces along the bench from his seat as starting pitcher.

The thing about the dugout – you sat where you wanted – but the one rule was to always save a space next to the water cooler for the starting pitcher.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Stone jumped out of the way of the second pitch.

“Are you gonna share it or keep it to yourself? Because honestly, man, I don’t care. I’m trying to watch Fields and see if I’m right about left field. Just let me know whether I need to listen or not.”

Ace leaned forward. “Yeah, there’s something up with his hip.”

“Right, ‘cept it’s his leg.” The left field guy, whose name I didn’t actually know, was now stretching his quad. Definitely something up with his leg.

“Hip, I’m telling you.”

I pinned Ace with stare. “Why are you here?”

“Told you, I heard something interesting.”

“Then spit it the fuck out!”

Stone was now swinging his bat around, working his shoulder and getting ready to resume his position.

“Alright! So anyway, you know how we’re flying to Miami tonight?”

“Yes.”

“And you know how we’re staying at the same hotel?”

“Fuck, I hope this story gets better,” I muttered.

Smash. Stone drove the ball straight through the left fielder, who missed it. The center fielder sprinted after it, scooped it up from the ground and hurled it over to the Pirates’ third baseman, who caught it a second too late. Stone was grounded on third.

“It does! So King was hitting on the chick who’s in charge of room allocation, because he wanted to get his room with a balcony overlooking the beach, because he’s got this thing about fucking on a balcony to the sound of the waves.”

I groaned at that announcement. I could give a fuck what the rookies got up to, but as the most senior member of the team, I also had a responsibility to make sure that they were a) safe and b) didn’t do anything stupid enough to get us reported to the media and/or the league.

“Watson, please tell me you’re not doing anything stupid?”

He ignored me and continued. “She said no, the allocations have already been made to the players and it’s against policy to change. So he thought he’d do it himself, and stole a copy of the room numbers when she wasn’t looking to see if he could find someone to switch with his garden view.”

I turned to him. “Watson, I really don’t know where you’re going with this, but I can tell you now it’s neither interesting, nor a good story. Or one I care about.”

“Just wait, I haven’t got to the best part yet.”

“Oh, goodie.” I clasped my hands together in the way my two-year-old niece did when she spied a brownie, and then focused back on the field.

“And you have an ocean view.”

I side-eyed him. “I know you know better than to come over here and ask me to switch my room.”

“I’m not,” he paused, and I thought maybe that was the end of the shittest story ever, but no… “You know who else has an ocean view?”

I stared at him. Maybe if I didn’t respond he’d get to the point quicker.

---