The Heart Of The Game (5 page)

“Don’t mind us,” Sabrina said. Her gaze roved over Zoe. “Maybe you’d enjoy the game better if you weren’t watching it with a bunch of over-anxious wives. I have an extra seat down by Kaz’s family.”

“Not in a
million
,” Zoe said, using the American phrase she’d picked up from Alex. “I like the behind-the-scenes.” And, if she were to be honest, she liked being up, away from the crowd. She’d never understood it, but being closed in by crowds, being closed in by anything, made her throat constrict and anxiety grip her. Not something she was proud of.

At first the umpire’s calls about balls and strikes seemed arbitrary. But as Sabrina coached her and Zoe studied the pitches through the binoculars, she began to see the patterns and to recognize the strike zone. But her binoculars often wandered from the ball’s path and tracked over to Cody Bond. And stayed there for longer than she’d dare admit. In the second inning, when he jumped up and said something to the umpire, something anger-filled from the look of them both, Jackie sucked in a breath.

“
Not
a good thing to do so early in the game,” she said. “But Cody’s probably on edge. It’s only his tenth big league game and his first start. It can’t be easy being a rookie called up during the playoffs.”

“Jansen’s a fair ump,” Alana said, leaning closer to the window. “He’ll cut Cody slack. But only once.”

“Better pour me another of those magical cocktails you made, Jackie.” Chloe waved an arm behind her. “Scotty’s razzed.”

When the Giants scored three men across the home plate in the third inning, the atmosphere in the room relaxed. For everyone except Chloe.

Chloe shook her head as the first batter from the other team stood ready to hit in the next inning. “Scotty’s shaking off Cody’s signs.”

The next pitch bounced and hit Cody in the mask of his helmet. He tore it off and crouched, unmoving. Zoe held her breath.

“Is he okay?” she finally asked when no one said anything.

“He won’t rub at it, if that’s what you’re asking,” Chloe said. “Catchers get used to taking hits. But Scotty’s throwing hard, maybe ninety-nine miles an hour or better. That hurt.”

The umpire bent over, apparently checking in with Cody. Cody shook him off and donned his helmet. The umpire handed Cody a ball and he threw it back to Scotty.

Scotty pulled the ball in, lined up his body and threw a blazing pitch.

“Scotty looks like he’s surfing when he releases the ball,” Zoe said. “Pure effortless motion in that one moment.”

“Good eye, Zoe. Surfers and pitchers have a similar stance before a pitch release,” Jackie said. “A stacked stance. All great athletes, no matter what their sport, have that balanced stance. Stacked and balanced.”

Jackie’s brother was a champion surfer and although Zoe had only seen him surf once—when Alex had invited her and her sisters to a tournament in Hawaii—she recognized the stance in Scotty. Stacked was taking on a whole new meaning.

“Watch Cody throw when he returns a pitch,” Chloe said. “Watch his head. Where the head goes, the body will follow.”

“I always found it to be the other way around,” Brigitte purred in her soft French accent. “At least with
my
body.”

Chloe laughed, but snapped her attention back to the field. She laid a hand on Zoe’s arm. “See how when Cody’s in a full-on squat his back is straight and the glove is level? That’s the most efficient catching position. Catchers are defensive and in many ways, one of the most strategic players on the team.”

Zoe admired the ease that Chloe had in talking about baseball. Zoe knew polo, knew it well, and could talk about it with the same sort of ease. It struck her that balls played key roles in the games that fascinated people. The baseball and the polo ball were nearly the same size and traveled at similar speeds. But in polo, a ninety-mile-an-hour ball wasn’t usually flying only inches from an undefended player’s face.

As Cody snatched Scotty’s next pitch out of the air, a strange worry flooded her. Now she was the one being ridiculous—she didn’t even know the guy. And he knew his business or he wouldn’t be in the big leagues of the game. But rational thought didn’t dissolve the clenching in her stomach as she watched Scotty’s pitches blast toward him.

After about an hour and a half, the Giants were still ahead three to zero. But Scotty had allowed three players to get on the bases. One of the coaches had gone out to talk to him, but Scotty stayed on the mound.

The next hitter blasted a ball deep into the stands at the center of the field, and the crowd moaned along with Chloe. “He’s done,” she said. “Has been for about twenty pitches. His stubborn streak is his downfall.”

“And maybe ours,” Jackie said. “Walsh should’ve yanked him earlier.”

Scotty stood stony faced as a man walked out to the mound. Scotty shook his head and appeared to be arguing, but then he handed the man the ball and walked off the field without looking up. The man stood at the mound as a new pitcher approached from the side of the field.

Kaz Tokugawa, Sabrina’s fiancé.

“Kaz usually starts a game,” Sabrina said to Zoe. “But Walsh is an unusual manager. He doesn’t pay attention to old-school patterns. He just does what he knows will win.”

Everyone let out a cheer when Kaz struck out the next hitter, ending the first half of the inning.

When it was the Giants’ turn, the Dodgers’ pitcher struck out the first two hitters. Cody stood in the chalked-off area, ready to bat.

“Guess we’ll see what he’s got under pressure,” Alana said.

Zoe grabbed the binoculars from Alana’s hands and trained them on Cody. He waggled his bat and took a stance that screamed power. The pitch came faster than she could move the binoculars. He missed the ball. And then he missed another.

“He’s chasing.” Jackie took a big gulp of her drink.

“He’s hot,” Brigitte said.

“Too hot,” Chloe said. “He needs to pull back a bit. McPherson’s got his number, I’m afraid.”

Cody sliced at the next pitch, and the ball careened up into the stands just below their skybox.

“Maybe not,” Jackie said with a smile.

The pitcher shook off the catcher’s signs. Then he nodded and pulled his glove to his chest.

Zoe leaned her elbows on the windowsill and steadied the binoculars. Cody positioned his bat and then stood unmoving. Zoe could feel the power emanating from him all the way up in the skybox. He swung. At the sound of his bat meeting the ball, Jackie screamed.

“Yes! God, how I
love
that sound,” she hollered into the blasting cheers from the crowd as the ball sailed up, over the stadium, and then dropped toward the blue-gray waters of the bay.

Cody ran around the bases. The smile Zoe had seen earlier was beaming out for all to see.

But it wasn’t to be the Giants’ lucky day. Kaz was taken out of the game after throwing to only two hitters. Chloe told her it was because the next batter hit from the other side of the plate. Why that mattered, Zoe couldn’t guess. All the jargon and rules were starting to swim in her head. The pitcher the Giants brought in proceeded to walk two hitters. Before the game was over, the Dodgers scored three more times.

“Better call that hotel,” Brigitte said to Chloe.

“Or maybe a rental in Hawaii for the rest of the winter,” Jackie said with a shake of her head. “Come on, ladies. Time to remind our men there’s another season next year.”

“Good thing your wedding is only three weeks away,” Alana said to Sabrina. “We’ll need a celebration to jolt the guys out of their misery.”

Zoe knew a bit about the misery of losing. And wasn’t sure a wedding would do the trick.

Cody sat in the dugout, staring at the celebration among the Dodger players and brass out on the field. Reporters and TV crews were fighting to get microphones in front of the key players, and the Dodgers were stripping off their jerseys and pulling on National League Championship T-shirts that the batboys were tossing out.

Cody lowered his chin into his hands and swallowed hard. It didn’t matter that he’d played better than his best game, that he’d played error free. They’d lost. They weren’t going on. They weren’t playing the Series. Last night he hadn’t dared hope. But when the Giants made the final out, Cody realized he
had
hoped. He’d hoped all along. But hope and good playing hadn’t been enough.

He’d kept his best focus. Well, except for one moment before the game. Seeing Zoe watching him during warm-up from near the third base dugout had razzed him. Dazzled by her beauty, he’d taken Scotty’s next pitch in the crotch. The throbbing reminder was all it took to make him hone his focus and control and tune out everything but the game.

The homer he’d blasted deep to right in the ninth had also knocked in Matt Darrington, but it hadn’t been enough to win. Their hotshot third baseman, Jake Ryder, broke his bat on the next pitch and hadn’t beat out the Dodger shortstop’s throw to first. It was a rocket of a throw Cody could only admire. A throw that changed everything. The miracle of baseball was how life could turn in a heartbeat. But right then he wished the miracle had gone their way.

He wouldn’t be playing in the World Series. Not this year. He’d have to win his spot on the team if he wanted another chance next year. Aderro would heal and Thornton would likely be back. But there was a sliver of hope: Thornton was a free agent. The Giants would probably ante up, but there was always a chance they wouldn’t. A chance they’d see Cody’s level of play and bump him up to the starting roster instead. He’d bust ass during the offseason to make that happen. He sure didn’t want to finish out his contract in the minors, and the English lit degree he’d earned in college wouldn’t lead to any other career he could fall back on.

His standup triple in the sixth had felt good. Real good. But during the pitching change he’d glanced into the stands, something he rarely did. He’d thought he’d seen his dad. He froze, staring, and then a fan blocked his view. When he looked again, the man was gone.

Thinking about his dad had dimmed the thrill of his triple.

Cody could only say a prayer of thanks that he didn’t have the addict gene or an addictive personality or whatever had squeezed the life out of his dad and his brother. But as insurance, Cody had wrapped a tight cocoon of control and isolation around himself to make damn sure he didn’t slip toward oblivion. He’d carved out a new life, his way, well away from all the Bond-family drama.

He had a goal, one goal: be the best catcher in the MLB. When he stayed focused, the taunting voice that rolled around in his head dimmed to a whisper. But some days, if he didn’t keep his guard up, the ache moved in and gnawed at him. The voice and the ache were like a professional wrestling tag team. He could shut one down but not the other. On those days he felt the slippery fingers of loneliness grab at him. But he held to his plan and resisted the urge to call his brother in Montana. Or his sister in vet school. And forget about calling his mom. She’d just drag him back into her efforts to fake it and pretend they were all one big happy family. He sent flowers on her birthday and emailed occasionally, but he refused her invitations to join the family for holidays. That hell he could do without forever.

It was better to be a loner; he’d figured that out early. He could chart his own path. He had a career to focus on. So what if he shut down that place in his heart where the voice and the ache lurked? Relationships were for normal people, people who had sane families. He wasn’t one of those people. His family certainly wasn’t normal.

Cody looked back to the field, to the crowd of smiling, laughing players surrounded by their wives and families. He chugged a cup of water, then crumpled the cup and threw it against the wall. Watching the festive energy felt like watching ambulances circle after a train wreck.

A reporter waved from the edge of the celebrating players and beelined toward him.

He ignored the man’s approach, grabbed his glove off the bench and ducked into the tunnel to the clubhouse.