Page 31 of Unwritten Rules
He walks off, leaving Zach without an invitation to whatever block party he’s probably throwing for the entire population of Cincinnati—minus Zach.
Zach isn’t starting the game, and neither is Eugenio. So they sit next to each other on the packed dugout bench, pushed closer together by the number of players, and then out on the field to stand for the anthem, Zach taking his hearing aid out as fighter jets scream overhead in a flyover.
The stadium is loud, fans cheering as each player is introduced. There’s enough ambient noise that Zach doesn’t want to put his hearing aid back in, so he cups it carefully in his hand. “Can you let me know when they say my name?” he says to Eugenio, who’s standing next to him. “Just nudge me or whatever.”
Eugenio nods, and when they get to Zach, he wraps his hand around Zach’s forearm, squeezing twice, an old signal. It surprises Zach enough that he takes a second to start waving, taking his cap off and gesturing to the handful of Miami fans who bothered to attend.
“Got a couple of Oakland faithful here,” Eugenio says, when they get back to the dugout, after a thunderous burst from the Gothams fans at his introduction, and a healthy scattering of boos from what are probably Philadelphia loyalists.
After that, it’s a baseball game. A few players hang out at the railing, nudging each other, gesturing to whatever’s happening on the field. Zach doesn’t need to hear their exact conversations to know what they’re about—the stuff players talk about whenever they get together, the rhythm of it comforting and familiar. Others come and go out of the tunnel between the clubhouse and the dugout, some of the starters who’ll only be in for one inning already done for the night, loud in their intentions to go get drunk.
He and Eugenio don’t say much to one another beyond commenting on this pitch or that, and it feels the way it did back in Oakland, a nostalgia settling over him like warm summer air.
“I’m going to go stretch out,” Eugenio says, and heads off, gear in tow.
Zach moves to the dugout railing, trading war stories about facing a quirky ace pitcher back in the day with St. Louis’ third baseman, who asks if Zach played for Oakland.
“Yeah,” Zach says, and braces for questions about Eugenio. About how he left Oakland, the rumors that he demanded to be shipped out of town. About how they were friends, that they werecloseuntil they weren’t.
“Gordon, man, that guy sure can swing it.”
Relief washes over Zach. And he tells him about the time he saw Gordon hit a ball so far out of their spring training practice field, it shattered a car windscreen.
Zach goes to get loose in the fourth. He stretches in the tunnel, watched by blown-up black-and-white pictures of Bluestockings’ greats, then makes his way to the bullpen.
They have him paired with Garza, a young pitcher on the Pittsburgh Rivers. He isn’t that tall for a pitcher, probably listed as six foot and actually that height, unlike Eugenio, who’s listed at that but a few inches shorter. And he hurls fire into Zach’s mitt.
“Save some of it for the actual game.” Zach pops up, walks over to Garza, who laughs, though his eyes wander toward Zach’s ear.
“I saw you taking it out when we were on the field for the anthem.” Garza takes off his glove. He’s missing the last two knuckles of his middle and ring fingers, replaced by a set of black and gold prosthetics with his number on them. “Accident when I was fourteen. Didn’t think I’d get to play, but here I am.”
And he stands a little straighter as he says it, like he’s challenging the stadium around them to disagree.
Something about it makes Zach match his posture. “Yeah, I guess here we both are.”
“I was hoping, if you were okay with it—” Garza tugs on his jersey a little “—if you were up for doing a swap.”
“Sure, come find me after.”
Out on the field, it’s loud, though not as loud as it was earlier in the game, elation worn off. Zach waits until the inning break, then sets up behind the plate.
And proceeds to catch one of the dullest innings of his career. The hulking Toronto first baseman goes down on three pitches. The Crowns’ sure-handed shortstop, who hits well for a shortstop, which is to say adequately, pops up, and Zach catches it in foul territory. The third out takes longer, Garza missing twice with his curveball and then finally delivering a changeup that the batter smokes—right at the second baseman, who’s sober enough to field it.
All told, three up, three down, and Zach wonders if his parents at home missed it. If they got up to answer the whistling teakettle and didn’t see it. And he feels the same—the slow boil leading up to the game and then a quick anticlimactic release.
“Good inning,” someone says, when he gets back to the dugout, like it took effort to achieve three outs against players wobbling in their cleats.
He does his normal cool-down stuff after, though he brings a beer and a feeling of unplaceable disappointment with him into the shower.
He’s changing into his street clothes when Garza appears. They take a couple of selfies together.
“Here.” Zach signs his jersey and hands it to him. It’s still clean, having not even worked up a sweat.
“Are you sure?” Garza asks. “I mean, you don’t want to frame it or something?”
And Zach doesn’t particularly want a reminder of how deflating this was staring at him from his living room wall. “Just remember this next time I’m hitting against you.”
Garza laughs and tells him he’ll strike him out on something good.
