Page 2 of Double Play

“You done lost your mind, boy.” On occasion, Dwight enjoyed slipping into Southern slang—just for effect. “Nina Stark ain’t got nothing to say about me gettingcalledup.”

“Not Nina. The girl with her. MaggieBlythe.”

Dwight called up the image of the girl next to Nina. All he got was lots of dark curly hair and a slight build. “Okay. Never heardofher.”

“She’s the Friars’ new whiz kid.” Lieberman opened the door a crack and peered out. The San Diego Friars was the Catfish’s parent team, the one they all aimedtojoin.

“Whiz kid? What does that mean? That ain’t a real jobtitle.”

“She’s Director of Player Analysis or Data Acquisition or something like that. She has some new theory about which players should get bumped up to the majors, and when. It’s all based on a computer model shecreated.”

“Acomputer model?” Sounded sketchy to him. The Moneyball theory of baseball—analyzing data—only went so far. “Doesitwork?”

“You know Dean McFarrin, the catcher they just called up from Single A? He’s batting .300 and no one ever heard of him before. She called it. The Friars are testing her theories out at the lower levels before bringing her to SanDiego.”

“She’s experimenting on us?” Dwight folded his arms across his satin-covered chest. Generally speaking, he got along with everyone. But he was starting to dislike this girl before he ever even met her. Experimenting with people’s careers, their dreams, their lives—it didn’t sit wellwithhim.

Then it occurred to him—was she the reason he hadn’t been called up yet? He was past ready for The Call. The fact that he was still here treading water in Kilby…shit, he couldn’t even deal with it. If he thought about it too long, his blood started to boil. He didn’t belong hereanymore.

Even Duke, the Catfish manager, agreed. Every time Duke put his name in the lineup, he seemed surprised to see him there. “You again? What is this,GroundhogDay?”

Even though Dwight prided himself on his positivity, it was getting old. Trevor Stark, Mike Solo, Caleb Hart, Eli Anderson, they’d all gotten called up. It washistime.

And some chick with a computer program was standing in his way?Hell.No.

“All I know is that I don’t want her or Nina to see me in a wig and a dress,” Lieberman wassaying.

Dwight dragged his attention back to their current predicament—stuck in a hospital room hiding from two attractive women. There was something very wrong with that picture. And it had a lot to do with the shortstop currently scratching hisDisneywig.

“Let me ask you something, Beebs. Have you asked Ninaoutyet?”

Lieberman turned red. Everyone knew he had a crush on their former teammate Trevor Stark’s little sister, but he clung to the illusion that it was a deep dark secret. “Um…Ithinkso?”

“Huh?”

“Well.” Lieberman walked to the wall and bonked his forehead against it a few times. “I did call her a couple days ago. And I mentioned that I was going to a charity dinner and that I had to give a speech.” He bonkedagain.

“Yeah,andthen…”

“Then she asked me about the speech, and so I recited it to her, and then she had to get off the phone because her roommate just got home with mushroom pizza. Maggie’s her roommate, bytheway.”

Dwight squinted at his teammate, trying to plumb the depths of Lieberman’s incompetence. “So you never invited her? But you rantedather?”

“It wasn’t a rant. It was a very well-reasoned speech about the importance of sports forunderprivilegedkids.”

“Sounds like a rant. How longwasit?”

“Not long…” Again with the bonking. “No more than an hour, tops, but that’s taking into account all the times I re-read a section because she had feedback on it. Okay, I suck. I knowIsuck.”

“It’s okay, man.” Dwight squeezed the shortstop’s shoulder. “I have a plan. We can do this thing. We can make it happen. Nina likes you, this isn’t rocketscience.”

“You don’tknowthat.”

He actually did know that. Dwight had a knack for reading people. As a relatively large black man, he’d found reading people’s signals to be a real survival skill. He knew when to cross a street because a girl walking ahead of him was getting nervous. He knew when to pull out his legendary high-voltage smile that always put people at ease. He knew when a woman was interested, and when she just wanted to bag aballplayer.

Nina was definitely interested in Lieberman. She’d taken a job in Catfish Stadium selling cotton candy, after all. His theory—she wanted to be close toLieberman.

“Listen, man, I’m going to make this easy for you. We’re going to go out there and talk to Nina and this girl Maggie. We’re going to invite them out. Double-date style. We’re going to converse with them the way human beings do. No stress, allright?”

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