Page 6 of Unwritten Rules
Outside he finds half their starting rotation, a handful of relievers, and a few other catchers on the patio, though Eugenio isn’t there with them.
A few packs of chicken are sitting out, along with a pile of unshucked corn, a tub of store-made potato salad, a stack of tortillas, and a half-moon of fresh cheese. Near it, a clump of cilantro stands in a red Solo cup full of water.
“What’s with the—” Zach nods to the cilantro.
“Morales swears that’s the best way to keep it fresh.” It’s Hayek, their third starter, who is, as ever, accompanied by Montelbaum, their fourth. “No idea if it does. That shit tastes like soap.”
“Where is Morales, anyway?” Zach asks. Because it would be better to have Eugenio there than to have him somewhere else. To see what he’s like with a few beers in him or to observe his chemistry with their pitching staff and for exactly no other reasons. At least none Zach will admit to.
Montelbaum leans over, plucks a piece of cilantro, and eats it, stem poking out of his mouth like a skinny green straw. “Tell him to come over if you want to see him that bad.”
Like Zach meant something by it, something obvious and unguarded.
He doesn’t get a chance at a denial, because one of their pitchers brings out speakers and starts blasting reggaeton loud enough to feel through the concrete. A few guys dance, and more start clowning on the guys dancing, and more start clowning on the guys who are clowning on the ones dancing. He grabs a beer from a cooler full of them, uncaps it with a bottle opener sitting out, then does another for Braxton, their first starter and the team’s biggest star, who has an empty.
Braxton’s sitting on the periphery, away from the noise, scrolling through his phone, unperturbed by Hayek and Montelbaum, who are now fake wrestling on the concrete patio, or by Johnson, who is assembly-lining chicken by the grill. He grunts a word of thanks for the beer, which from him is practically an open declaration of love.
“Hey,” Zach says, and Braxton rolls one of his massive shoulders in a move that means, generally, “What’s up?” and “How’ve you been?” and, “My offseason was great, thank you for asking.”
Zach sits, drinks his beer, watches the sun lower itself, the shimmer of light at the horizon. Around him, guys talk shit and rile each other up, the cadences familiar even if he can’t discern the particular insults.
One of their relievers comes over, Giordano, who is about as loud as Braxton is quiet. “Quit being boring and come dance.”
And Zach is about to tell him to fuck off, when Braxton shakes his head.
“C’mon, baby, don’t be like that,” Giordano says, and it’s a tease, Zach knows it’s a tease, especially because Braxton goes a little pink in the cheeks, delighted, like someone paying attention to him is anomalous for the guy who’s been the face of the franchise for years.
“You know I can’t dance,” Braxton says.
“Everyone can dance after a couple beers,” Giordano says, though Zach’s never seen him drink anything but Gatorade or water.
Braxton doesn’t protest further, and Zach expects that’ll be the end of it, until Braxton clicks his phone so that the screen locks and gets up.
He’s right. He can’t dance at all, but he sort of sways a little, shimmying. Giordano apparently finds it delightful and fake spins him around. It’s fun, loose, easy, the way guys are with one another in the clubhouse before the grind of the season takes effect.
Zach goes and examines the chicken on the grill. And especially doesn’t examine how, the last time he went and danced—or more accurately, went and drank at a club and watched other people dance—he left alone, paranoid that someone recognized him, or worse, recognized him and took pictures.
“Do you think it’s done?” Johnson asks him, gesturing to the chicken, which, if it gets any more done, will be burned, and when Zach tells him it is, he moves it to a plate.
The corn should go on next. Zach sets up with a bag and removes the husks and silk, letting it blow away in the cool evening breeze, the way he used to do on his parents’ back porch every Labor Day.
Johnson drops down, sitting next to him, holding out a beer to replace the one Zach emptied, and he’s off and talking.
Zach gears himself up to have this conversation, again, with all the new guys and the coaching staff, and possibly the media if they have new beat reporters.
“I can’t hear you very well unless you’re facing me.” Zach points to his ear, and Johnson looks as if he should be seeing something, but of course, there’s nothing there, since Zach took out his hearing aid before he went swimming and didn’t bother to put it back in. “I don’t know if Martinez mentioned it, but I don’t really hear out of this ear.”
Johnson does the face, surprise and then the suppression of it, before saying, “Guess I didn’t notice earlier.”
“I wear a hearing aid. I’m just not wearing it right now.” Zach digs his finger in his ear, which hasn’t dried completely from the pool or from his post-swim shower and is itchy from moisture. “What were you saying?”
“Just wanted to say thanks for helping me calm down.”
Zach shrugs. “It happens.” Which, it does happen to pitchers, almost constantly. Ballplayers exist minute to minute, even if their mental skills coach tells them not to. And pitchers are weird on top of that, the way that Zach’s mom’s cats are weird: diffident, needy, prone to freaking out for no apparent reason. A good portion of Zach’s job is smoothing their metaphorically ruffled fur so that they can play some freaking baseball. A skill that can’t be measured by analytics, no matter what the Oakland Elephants’ front office likes to claim. One he won’t know if Eugenio has until he sees it in action.
“Happens to me a lot,” Johnson says.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ll throw again in a couple days. See how you’re feeling. Thing about spring training is that you’ll have some time to work up to being good. No one expects you to be perfect right out of the gate.” Something that Zach doesn’t actually believe, not with a school bus full of pitchers there, with other catchers eager to take his spot, including Eugenio. But he doesn’t need to tell Johnson that.
