Page 8 of Wild Pitch
“Ugh, just go.” I swivel on my heels and pretend like I intended to go to the women’s restroom all along.
Inside, I meet my red face through the mirror and press my lips tight. “Pitchers,” I spit out like it’s a curse. They all tend to be annoying and I thought we’d got rid of the worst after Ben Williams got traded. But now I don’t know how I’ll survive awhole season of Cade Starr when I keep putting my foot in my mouth in front of him.
CHAPTER 4
CADE
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and hold it in my lungs until the scents are imprinted in my brain. Sweat, grass, sand, leather, and a faint touch of Icy Hot seep all the way into my system. It’s not like I stop training during the offseason, but it hits different to do it at a gym or in my house than at the team’s training field. And what makes this even better is that today is pitching practice, baby.
“Starr.”
I twitch just a little but I’m sure he notices. Logan Kim isn’t an All-Star catcher for no reason. His eyes are scary because they don’t miss a thing and they have the power to light up an outfielder all the way from home.
“Are you aware what us forming the first battery in practice means?”
Popping an eye open, I say, “That I’m finally being recognized for my talents?”
“That we’re shit out of luck and stuck with you.” He nods sagely and I shrug. It’s kind of a dig but at the same time it isn’t—the truth be like that. “So, keep in mind that everyone’s watching and pitch your best ball from the get go or go home.”
“I can’t run home if I’m pitching,” I shoot back, dripping with sarcasm.
He makes a big show of sighing while he puts on his catcher’s cage back on his head. Even stops halfway to look back at me once more, shaking his head like a whole drama king. Maybe once his knees make him retire he can audition for a play.
As he settles back in his place and does some minimal stretching, I toss the ball in the air without paying much attention to it. I don’t need to move my head to catch sight of the onlookers in the periphery. This is supposed to be pitching practice, but none of the other pitchers are even close to ready for the mound. They’re huddled under the shade with the pitching coach, all watching me.
On the other side, the manager, at least half of the training staff, and part of the medical team, also have their peepers trained on me.
I lift my glove to hide half of my face so they don’t see that I’m smiling like I should star in a horror movie, pun intended. After clearing my throat, I wipe my face clean and hide the ball with my glove.
Everyone and their mom knows that I pitch a mean and clinical fastball. It’s the reason I was drafted straight out of high school into the minors, and moved up to the majors in a year and some change. But being able to land a hundred miles per hour fastball wherever the hell I want as a southpaw isn’t as effective as someone may think against professional batters whose sole purpose in life is to hit it out of the park.
Sadly, I’ve struggled a lot more with the curveballs. It’s why I’ve been a closer most of my professional career. Most starters have about three different balls they can play mind games with, and I’ve managed to secure a couple of serviceable curveballs that get me enough strikes and outs to justify my five-millionsalary. The problem is that I just haven’t mastered one enough to make it a real weapon.
However, my personal trainers and I have been busy in the offseason. Rather than pitching something reliable but boring, like my fastball, I’m better off showing them what I’ve been working on—even if it’s far from perfect.
“That’s been way more than fifteen seconds!” a female voice shouts from the dugout.
Slowly, I turn to Hope Garcia right as she hides behind her boss. She’s been avoiding me ever since the cozy restroom chat the other day, like she’s embarrassed at her own actions. I guess she couldn’t contain herself anymore, huh?
“Yeah, dude. This isn’t the nineties. Just throw the damn ball,” Lucky heckles with his characteristic megaphone voice. That’s when I notice that the fielding practice hasn’t even started, and they’re also peeping like little kids around the fencing.
It’s like the whole team wants to know if I can cut it as a starter or not. Ha, another pun right there.
I take my sweet time winding up like there are cameras trying to capture the motion of every muscle group. My pitching form is a bit weird, like me I guess, because I naturally lift up my right leg a lot more than average. It helps me hide my hand from the batters to really make them guess where the release point is going to be. But it also makes it hell for catchers.
Not this jerk, though. Kim’s glove whips up right in time to catch the best pitch I’ve thrown in years.
I land half turned away from him, which means the first reactions I gather are from the bench.
Ah, damn. No one’s impressed.
Wait, Garcia is. Her eyes are as wide as a cartoon’s. Maybe this wasn’t terrible.
Except that Kim rips off his mask, throws it in the dirt with way more aggression than necessary, and gets up to stride over. His eyebrows are so tight that they form three vertical lines in between.
That’s not the expression of a happy catcher. I spread my feet wider to brace myself for impact.
Good call because he smacks my chest with his glove hard enough to topple a building. “Acutter? Really?”
