Page 70 of Wild Pitch
“Yes.” After a second, Starr adds, “What for?”
Miller chuckles next to me. Meanwhile, I have to resist the urge to facepalm. The cowboy is a big fan of deflecting serious moments like this, even at the expense of appearing ditzy. But it’s always on purpose, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s to hide his nerves.
It’s funny because two months ago I wouldn’t have imagined him as capable of feeling nervous. He always seemed so confident, bordering on cocky.
As if reading his mind, Beau puts a hand on Starr’s shoulder. “It’s time to throw it.”
“Oh shit,” Lucky Rivera whispers from nearby.
Instead of pumping his fist in the air, Starr tilts his head and asks, “Why now?”
“Because we need a statement and this is the right team to make it with.”
Our starter pitcher turns around, sweeping his eyes all across the dugout as if trying to gauge where everyone else is at. He gets nods, cheers, fist pumps, claps. It might be just me but he seems to pause for longer when his eyes find mine. A single sunbeambathes half of his face, making that eye shine like someone’s applying CGI effects on the man, while his other eye is darker. Goosebumps break all over my skin and I jerk my head in a furious little nod for lack of anything better to do. My lungs recover the ability to work when his attention moves on.
He points at someone at the end of the dugout. “What doyouthink?”
The noise quiets down as we collectively turn to who Starr is referring, and it’s none other than our catcher. Logan is getting fit with his gear right after his at bat ended in an out.
“I would’ve liked to wait,” Kim says with a little shrug. “But if our manager says you’re ready, then I’m also ready to catch whatever you throw.”
“Aww yeah!” someone shouts, and the commotion resumes.
“I’m good now, Garcia.” Miller rotates his shoulder and stretches his neck. “I’m so ready to party.”
“‘Kay, but don’t get hurt.”
That’s when the inning ends and it’s time to go on the defensive. “Let’s go,” says Logan while picking up his helmet and mitt. He high fives the rest of the team on the way out and it distracts me enough that I don’t notice when Starr leaves the dugout.
I glue myself to the railing, stepping on a stool that is here precisely for the shorties of the team and staff. Logan jogs over to the mound where Starr is fixing the dirt with his foot, and all the while the rest of the players take their positions on the infield and outfield. The Eagles’s next batter is the first in their three-hole, and he gets ready as the Wild battery confers behind gloves. I’ve never been able to read lips but I know these baseball boys have eyes like, well, eagles, and can even steal signs if someone’s not careful.
But how I wish I could hear this conversation.
It ends in both of them bumping their gloves on each other’s chests before Logan heads over to the home plate and settles down. We’re so quiet that the umpire’s voice callingplay ballreaches my ears.
The counter starts ticking and the first pitch ends up being a two-seamer close to the batter’s chest. The Eagle player has to jump back to avoid it, even though Starr’s control is so uncanny he’s yet to beanball anyone in his entire pro career so far. The easy strike makes us all tenser, somehow.
Is the cutter next?
No. Another fastball. This time the batter doesn’t swing and it ends up being a ball. I try to grab tighter onto the railing and my plastic gloves make an uncomfortable squelching sound. Sweat is pooling inside of them, yuck.
“Strike!”
Crap, I missed it.
No one’s making a big deal out of it, so it couldn’t have been the cutter, right?
Everyone’s eyes are laser trained on Starr as he catches the ball from Logan. As the counter starts again, Starr shakes his head at Logan’s signs not once, but twice. I swallow hard but that doesn’t push my heart back down from my throat to its rightful cavity.
Good gravy, this man’s gonna kill me. And since when do I speak like a southern lady?
“C’mon,” I mutter to myself.
Starr’s pitching form is a thing of beauty. A lot of pitchers focus on keeping their windups economical so they can last longer, but that’s because they don’t have the tree trunk thighs that Starr has. Not that I’ve worked for other teams, but we do have eight pitchers in the roster at any given time and literally none of them works out their legs anywhere as hard as Cade Starr. It’s like the cowboy is training for a life or death raceagainst a mustang. He’s lucky also that his genes have given him calves that are also thick with muscle apt to keep up with the power in his thighs, and he has the most flexible joints in the entire team.
I don’t exaggerate. Part of my job is to keep track of ridiculous things like that, and Starr is the most hypermobile in the team. The athletic trainers keep a special eye on him for this reason, to make sure he doesn’t hurt his joints by hyper extending them during training or play.
Now, I watch him lift his right leg in a way that would make other pitchers exhaust themselves. His left foot rises to tippy toes that tip him forward. Meanwhile, his left shoulder and arm turn into a supple whip behind him and the ball shoots off his fingertips like a bullet. But it’s dropping way too much to be the cutter I’ve seen in practice.
