Page 83 of Unwritten Rules
He stands out on the field with the other starters before the game, listening to a local celebrity mostly not butcher the national anthem, his heart rate starting to kick up. Eugenio’s standing in a row of Gothams players in their away gray uniforms,New Yorkin script across his chest, and he looks—
Right at Zach, unsheathing a grin at him before nodding like Zach should be taking this perfunctory act of patriotism more seriously. After the rituals of the anthem and the first pitch and a local school kid telling them it’s time to play Swordfish baseball, they play.
Zach sets up behind the plate, receiving the warmup pitches Womack throws. His sinker looks like it’s got weights on it, dropping reassuringly, and he sits the first two Gothams hitters down without much drama.
And then there’s Eugenio.
He strides into the batters’ box, his bat resting on his shoulder, exuding purpose. He’s been to the barber since the All-Star Classic and has the kind of shave that leaves a rime of stubble. He’s got his batting gloves on, though Zach has seen him hit barehanded in recent games. When he peels one glove off, adjusting it, the nails of his left hand are painted a bright Gothams orange.
He’s never worn his pants particularly loose the way some players do; he told Zach once that he worried about clipping the hems under his spikes while he’s running on the base paths, to which Zach said, “When did you learn how to run?”
But now they’re tight enough that they’re daring someone to say something about it, to send the old-man baseball commentariat into a frenzy about respecting the game and being classy and not flashy, as if players didn’t practically paint theirs on in the ’80s.
And Zach is grateful for his catcher’s mask, for the Miami heat to excuse his flush. But he’s waited long enough to call a pitch that the umpire actually says, “Play!” like Zach has somehow forgotten they’re in the middle of a game. Which he kind of has.
He drops a couple signs he knows Womack will shake off, before settling on a sinker. Womack delivers one on the inside edge, low and close to Eugenio. He jumps back a little in a possible attempt to convince the umpire that it was a ball.
“Striiiiike,” calls the ump behind them, punctuating it with a declarative point of one finger.
“Where was it?” Eugenio asks.
“It caught some plate,” Zach says.
Eugenio glances back at him, eyebrows raised into the brim of his batting helmet. “Oh, it’s like that?”
Players talk to one another during games. About the weather. Food. The nebulous dimensions of the strike zone. But Zach’s mind pulses with only one question: if this will be the only context in which they see each other. If Zach’slaterfor when they’ll discuss things has transmuted tonever. If he’s too late.
Zach puts down a sign for a pitch he should be hoping Eugenio pounds into the ground for the final out of the inning, but wants him to foul off instead, prolonging this for as long as possible.
Womack arranges himself into his windup, coiling and firing, and it’s a pretty pitch, a beautiful pitch, thrown exactly where Zach wants it, dropping reassuringly as it comes toward him at home plate—or would if Eugenio didn’t swing and hit it with enough force Zach can feel it in his teeth.
Swordfish Park is a cave, a lingering testament to the ability of team owners to promise economic revitalization and deliver poured concrete. It’s four hundred feet from where Zach is squatting to the outfield fence, and it takes the ball only a few seconds to reach there. Only a few seconds and an eternity, as Eugenio stands in the box watching to see whether this will be a home run or a high fly ball—the sharp ringing crack of it a victory or a wasted effort.
The ball clears the fence, dropping into an area holding a few fans who scramble after it. And Eugenio doesn’t do anything except for tossing his bat behind him, a calculated way of telling Zach and the entire Swordfish team exactly what he thought of that pitch.
Enough to rankle Zach, refocusing him on the game. “Aren’t you gonna move?”
Eugenio glances back at him, the gleam of his teeth, the fullness of his lower lip, amused, incredulous, before beginning his slow trot around the bases, first to second to third and back home again, Zach standing aside and letting Eugenio tap the plate with his cleat, hands raised up in praise to a God Zach knows he doesn’t particularly talk with.
The score stands tied by the time Zach is up to bat. Eugenio’s behind the plate, and Zach doesn’t say anything. Not about his nails or the first pitch he calls, a fastball that misses high and outside, one that Eugenio tries, and fails, to frame for a strike. Or about the next two that miss outside either.
“Whoever taught you to frame,” Zach says, after another pitch the ump deems a ball making a four-pitch walk, “you should really let that guy have it.”
And Eugenio laughs at that, his big familiar laugh and says, “Aren’t you gonna move?” loudly enough that the ump probably hears it too.
From there it’s a tense game, especially when the next batter drives Zach in. Miami clings to a one-run lead going into the ninth, something that always speeds Zach’s pulse.
The first two Gothams hitters make for quick outs.
But of course Eugenio’s up this inning, batting third, having slapped a double into the outfield on his last plate appearance and drawing a walk before then. Zach calls for three successive sliders, two that hit the edge of the strike zone, one outside that’s a ball. And he’s thinking about calling for another, when Eugenio says, “Those weren’t strikes last inning.”
Zach doesn’t glance back at the ump, who probably heard him. “Maybe you need more practice framing.”
“You offering?” Eugenio steps out of the box. He strips off his batting glove, wrapping his hands around the neck of the bat, ten bright orange fingers a distraction. And Zach feels a roll of heat with it, the kind that has nothing to do with squatting in the Miami humidity for nine innings.
He calls for a fastball, up and in, opposite from where he called the sliders, a clear strike to anyone who might question why Zach is getting calls Eugenio isn’t.
Not that it matters, when Eugenio swings and misses for the final out of the game. He drops to one knee in the dirt, next to where Zach is similarly set up. “Had to get me some time, I guess.”
