The crowd around her chuckles and I hear their laughter from the mound. I should be pissed. I should want to flip her off and have her ejected from the game, but deep down in my soul, I know she’s right. My curve ball sucks ass today and Bishop won’t leave it alone. My arm’s a fraction late. My brain’s five steps ahead of my body and none of it is lining up.
I look for his signal as the rookie waggles his bat, eager for another mistake on my part.
Of course he calls another curve.
Fuck the curveballs, bro.
I hold his gaze a second longer this time and give my head the slightest shake staring him down, refusing to take his call. Maybe this time he should trust me instead of the other way around.
After a lengthy standoff between Hop and I, he shakes his head and signals something I can agree with.
Fastball.
Yeah, that’s better.
That I can handle.
I wind up and fire a fastball that paints the outside corner. The umpire’s right arm shoots up.
“Strike one!”
The crowd roars and once the noise dies down, I hear the mystery girl once again. “Atta boy,” she says, like she’s rewarding a dog for learning a trick. “See? That’s growth.”
My lips twitch before I can stop them.
Whoever is heckling me from the stands had better be worth looking at, because right now she’s got more of my attention than the rookie at the plate.
She wants to see growth?
I’ll show her what growth really looks like while she screams my name.
“Relax your shoulders,” she adds, almost conversational now. “You look like you’re trying to bench press the stadium.”
I don’t need another fucking coach, sweetheart.
I roll my shoulders once, and then again, more out of irritation the second time because I fucking listened to the mystery woman and rolled them the first time. What the hell am I doing? She’s not my coach and she’s not the trainer yet here I am standing on the mound in front of thousands of people heeding every word she says. Surprisingly though, my shoulders loosen a little which causes me to blink.
Huh.
I set myself again nodding to Bishop’s second fast ball call. There’s no overthinking this time. No running through mechanics and no arguing with myself. I just throw the ball. It leaves my hand clean, cutting through the air with that sharp satisfying snap I’ve been chasing all inning. Bishop’s glove pops as it lands dead center.
“Strike two.”
The batter shifts, stepping out, resetting, suddenly not nearly as comfortable as he was thirty seconds ago.
“Well will you look at that? He’s not a train wreck. There’s a goddamn pitcher in there. Toot, toot, motherfuckers!” The crowd around the her laughs and this time I crack a smilebecause damn, I’ve got to hand it to the mystery woman. That’s my kind of humor. Pretty sure I’ve shouted similar words at my television while watching games. I huff out a breath that’s dangerously close to a laugh and then remind myself to focus this last pitch.
One more.
I’ve got this.
Toot too, motherfuckers!
That voice. Her voice. It’s still there in my head as I throw the ball and watch as the pitch snaps into Bishop’s glove with a crack that echoes loud and clean.
“Strike three!”
The crowd erupts into a full-body roar that I ride instead of fight as I step off the mound. My chest expands, breath finally coming easy as my teammates start moving, the inning over, the out secured.
