Change-up

EVEN THOUGH HE WAS ONLY FOURTEEN YEARS OLD
, Stevie Thomas considered himself a veteran of sports victory celebrations. He had been to the Final Four, the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and the U.S. Open—in both tennis and golf. He had seen remarkable endings, miracle shots, and improbable last-second heroics.

But he hadn’t seen anything quite like this. He was standing just outside the first-base dugout inside Nationals Park, the home stadium for the Washington Nationals, and even though the game had been over for several minutes, the noise was still so loud he couldn’t hear anything Susan Carol Anderson was shouting in his ear.

“Mets … clubhouse … press box …,” he managed to make out over the din. Since she was starting to pick her
way through the celebrating Nationals and the media swarm surrounding them, he guessed that she had told him that she was going to make her way to the clubhouse of the New York Mets and then meet him back in the press box. She was taking the harder job—talking to the players on a team that had just suffered a shocking defeat. His job was easier: talking to the winners.

The ending of the game had been stunning. With the National League Championship Series tied at three games all, both teams had sent their star pitchers out to pitch game seven: Johan Santana for the Mets, John Lannan for the Nationals. Both had pitched superbly, and the game had gone to the ninth inning tied at 1–1.

Nationals manager Manny Acta brought Joel Hanrahan, his closer, in to pitch the ninth, a bold move in a tie game. And it seemed to have backfired when Carlos Beltran hit a two-out, two-run home run to give the Mets a 3–1 lead. In came the Mets’ closer, Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez, to get the last three outs needed to give the Mets the pennant.

He got two quick outs, and it wasn’t looking good for the Nats when shortstop Cristian Guzman hit a weak ground ball. But somehow Mets all-star shortstop Jose Reyes booted it, allowing Guzman to make it safely to first base. Clearly upset and distracted by the error, Rodriguez then walked Ronnie Belliard, bringing Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals’ best hitter, to the plate.

Guzman began dancing off second base, stretching his lead each time Rodriguez looked back at him. Second baseman Luis Castillo kept flashing toward the bag, as if
expecting a pickoff throw from Rodriguez. Sitting in the auxiliary press box, Stevie was wearing headphones that allowed him to hear the Fox telecast.

“Rodriguez and Castillo need to forget about Guzman,” he heard Tim McCarver say. “Right now K-Rod has one job, and that’s to get Zimmerman out.”

“But if the Nats double-steal, the tying runs would both be in scoring position,” play-by-play man Joe Buck said.

“True,” McCarver said. “But I’m telling you, there is
no
way Guzman is risking making the last out of the season trying to steal third. He’s not that much of a base stealer to begin with.”

Rodriguez finally focused on the plate and threw a 97-mph fastball that Zimmerman just watched go by for strike one. Again Guzman danced off second base. This time Rodriguez whirled and did make a pickoff throw as Castillo darted in to take it. Guzman dove back in safely.

“That tells me Guzman has gotten inside K-Rod’s head,” McCarver said. “You don’t risk a pickoff throw in this situation. The only man in the ballpark he should care about right now is Zimmerman.”

Rodriguez threw another fastball, and Zimmerman fouled it straight back to the screen.

“That one was ninety-seven too,” Buck said. “He doesn’t seem
too
distracted.”

“Zimmerman was about two inches from crushing that ball,” McCarver said. “You see a batter foul a fastball straight back like that, it means he
just
missed it.”

Rodriguez came to his set position again. Guzman was
off the bag once more and Rodriguez stepped off the rubber. Everyone relaxed for a moment.

“Zimmerman has to look for a fastball here, doesn’t he?” Buck said.

“Absolutely.”

Rodriguez set again, checked Guzman one more time, and threw. Stevie glanced at the spot on the scoreboard that showed pitch speed, and saw
98
. Rodriguez had thrown a fastball, and Zimmerman had in fact been looking fastball. This time he didn’t miss it. He got it. He got
all
of it. The ball rose majestically into the air and sailed in the direction of the left-field fence. Mets left fielder Daniel Murphy never moved. The ball sailed way over the fence, deep into the night, and complete bedlam broke out in every corner of the stadium. The Nationals had won the game 4–3 and the series 4–3. Shockingly, they were going to the World Series.

The auxiliary press box was down the left-field line, and Stevie and Susan Carol had seen Zimmerman’s shot go right past them heading out of the park. As 41,888 people went crazy, they had joined other members of the media who were scrambling to get down to the field and the clubhouses.

There had been no point trying to squeeze onto the elevators, so they had dashed to the ramps—which weren’t too crowded, because most of the fans were still standing at their seats, celebrating. The Nationals were on the field, spraying one another with champagne—which someone had brought out from their clubhouse to allow them to
celebrate in front of the fans—so the media was directed down the tunnel to the home dugout and stood just outside it watching the celebration.

“I guess when you go seventy-six years between championships, you’re entitled to go a little crazy,” a voice shouted behind Stevie.

He turned and saw Bobby Kelleher, his friend and mentor, standing there with a wide grin on his face. Kelleher, a columnist for the
Washington Herald
, had been sitting in the main press box and had apparently just reached the field.

“Is Walter Johnson smiling somewhere?” Stevie asked Kelleher, referring to the Hall of Fame pitcher who had been the Washington Senators’ star in the 1920s and their manager when a Washington baseball team last played in the World Series—in 1933.

“My guess is someone will claim to have
spoken
to him by tomorrow morning,” Kelleher said, still shouting because the noise had abated only a little bit. “It’s hard for people to understand how remarkable this is. Washington’s always been a town that either had no baseball or played
bad
baseball.”

Not one but two teams had left Washington—the original Senators left town in 1961 to move to Minnesota; then an expansion version fled to Texas ten years later.

“Where’d Susan Carol go?” Kelleher asked.

“Mets clubhouse,” Stevie said.

“Figures,” Kelleher said. “She’s always willing to take on the tough jobs. That’s where Tamara went too. I have to
write the Nats. I mean, seventy-six years without a pennant. Not to mention that this team lost a hundred and two games a year ago.”

Tamara Mearns was Kelleher’s wife, a columnist for the
Washington Post
. The two of them had taken Stevie and Susan Carol under their wing when the teenagers won a writing contest and were awarded press credentials to the Final Four in New Orleans.

That was a weekend that had changed Stevie and Susan Carol’s lives forever. They had gotten off to a rocky start: the wise-guy kid from Philadelphia clashing with the seemingly wide-eyed Southern belle from a small town in North Carolina. But they had stumbled into a plot to blackmail a star player and had worked together to nail the bad guys, starting them on what had often been a bumpy road to media stardom.

Since then they had found trouble at the U.S. Open tennis tournament and the Super Bowl; been hired and fired by a cable TV network; and, finally, settled into part-time work as writers—Stevie working with Kelleher at the
Herald
, Susan Carol working with Mearns at the
Post
.

They had even managed to cover several major events in recent months—their second Final Four, the U.S. Open golf tournament, another U.S. Open tennis tournament—without ending up on the front page. That had been a relief—their parents had been threatening to never let them out of their sight again after the scandal at the Super Bowl—but also a little bit disappointing. Stevie didn’t want to think himself jaded at the age of fourteen, but a
couple of times he had found himself forgetting to tingle when he put on his press credential to cover a big-time event.

But now, standing in the sparkling new Nationals Park, surrounded by fans who were still screaming their heads off with joy, listening to what felt like the hundredth playing of “We Are the Champions,” and looking at the happiness on the faces of the players, Stevie realized he was in the middle of a genuinely tingle-worthy moment. As he was soaking it all in, he heard Kelleher shouting at him again over the noise.

“Just work the clubhouse,” he said. “See what you find. I’ve got to focus on Zimmerman. Anything else in there is yours unless Sally wants it—but I think she’s writing a what-this-means-to-the-city piece.”

Sally was Sally Jenkins, the
Herald’s
other sports columnist, whom the paper had stolen from the
Post
for big dollars a year ago. Jenkins was so good Stevie wasn’t sure he was worthy of reading her stuff, much less working with her. He followed Kelleher and the onrushing cameras, notebooks, and tape recorders up the ramp into the Nationals clubhouse.

Not surprisingly, it was a mob scene inside. Stevie wasn’t two steps inside the door before he was sprayed with champagne. He knew from experience that he didn’t want to get hit in the eyes by the stuff, so he put his head down and tried to maneuver away from the mass of people in the middle of the room. The clubhouse was huge, with enough room for fifty lockers even though only twenty-five were
absolutely needed. Stevie had noted earlier in the series that most players had two lockers to themselves, with ample space around each locker.

He headed toward some breathing space in the back corner of the room. From there he would be able to see who was still spraying champagne and who was moving away from the melee and making themselves available to talk.

“Pretty wild, isn’t it?” Stevie heard a voice say behind him.

He turned and saw a player standing at a locker. He had a bottle of champagne in his hands but clearly wasn’t involved in the celebration. After seven games Stevie thought he knew all the Nationals players, but he was drawing a blank on both the face and the number, which was 56.

Apparently, the player noticed the blank look on Stevie’s face, because he stuck his hand out and said, “Norbert Doyle. You’ve never heard of me because I’ve never done anything.”

Stevie laughed and shook hands with Norbert Doyle, whose name sounded only a little bit familiar.

“Steve Thomas,” he said.
“Washington Herald.”

Saying the name of the newspaper always made Stevie feel very grown-up. Doyle smiled and nodded. “Of course, I should have known it was you right away. You’re one of the two kid reporters who keep breaking all those big stories. My twins are big fans of yours and your friend …”

“Susan Carol,” Stevie said. “Susan Carol Anderson.”

It would be a stretch to say that Stevie had gotten used
to being recognized, but it happened often enough that it no longer surprised him. This was a little bit different, though: an athlete knowing who he was when he didn’t know who the athlete was.

“How old are your twins?” Stevie asked.

“I think the same age as you,” Doyle said. “David and Morra turned fourteen in July. I’m pretty sure David’s got a crush on Susan Carol.”

“Who doesn’t?” Stevie said. “You should see the fan mail she gets….”

“Come on, Steve,” Doyle said, smiling. “I’m sure just as many teenage girls have crushes on you.”

“Not so much,” Stevie said, shaking his head. “But Susan Carol likes me, which makes me pretty lucky.”

“Norbert!” someone yelled from the middle of the room. “Get over here. You’re part of this too, you know!”

Doyle smiled and waved his hand. “Be right there,” he said. Turning to Stevie, he said, “That’s a stretch to say I’m part of this.”