Boy's World

Derek Zumsteg

Back to Chapter Two

Chapter Three

In the Astros' camp this year there is a singular player. At six feet, not as tall as many, not as heavily muscled, fresh out of high school at 19, yet a standout prospect. Karen Moran is the first woman ever in Major League Baseball's minor league system. Her blond ponytail, barely touching her shoulder, is the only way to pick her out from the other talented recruits from across the world that have turned up in Florida this year.

Alan started to laugh, folding the paper so he could drink with one hand.

"Who writes this stuff?" Alan said.

"Why don't you shut your trap?"

"Do you discuss her with your imaginary friend later?"

Daughter of Astros pitching coach and longtime journeyman catcher Steve Moran, she was a two sport All-State player in Washington, excelling in soccer, softball and swimming, setting two state records in swim. Average grades hid a sharp mind --- she scored in the top 2% of all students on her SAT. She received letters from every athletic powerhouse in the country, recruiting her for any program she wanted, but she passed them all up. Karen wants to play baseball.

"That's really powerful the way you follow those long sentences with a simple statement like that. I thought you had to go to college to learn that."

"Don't come to my place, drink my beer, and mock my stuff."

Alan turned the page over. "Look at that picture, Steve. You like that?"

Karen was in mid-stretch, unwinding a fastball towards an off-shot Panamanian shortstop. "It's a great picture."

"It's a great picture that draws the reader into the article. Which is terrible."

"It's not terrible."

Alan finished his Dos Equis and set it down. "It's not as bad as a lot of your stuff, no. But it's a far sight from good."

"It got picked up."

"It got picked up because it was first, not because it was better than anything. What happens now that you've broken the story, and poorly?"

"I don't get it."

"Reporters will start swarming on this, paying attention to her, interviewing the same people, writing the same articles as you, filing better, faster stories than you, and they'll get picked up and you'll go back to drinking the sale beers on the left side of the aisle." Alan returned to reading. "There's always room to find another angle when you're shooting photos, but stories like this, there's only one angle, the trailblazer."

"I'm writing my next one on how well she's been preparing to make it."

Alan grunted.

"No one'll have that one for a week."

"Fine, you're the greatest reporter of all time."

Steve sat and glared. "It's good."

"Does it mention how good she looks?"

Steve looked off. "Yes."

"See, that's evident in the pictures. You shouldn't even write anything about her presence, about how she's got that charisma thing going on. Especially when she's mad." Alan tossed the paper to the floor. "Because you can't convey it, Steve, you're just going to screw it up."

"Thanks."

Alan handed Steve three fat manila envelopes. "I brought you something."

Steve started to page through them. They were Alan's camp photos, largely good stock photos he'd offer back for Media Guides, local news files, whatever. Alan was a great sports photographer, taking better and better photos on routine assignments out of spite for his editor and his exile in Florida, far away from art and media markets.

Steve stopped shuffling. "Sweet mother."

Alan leaned over and took the stack. "Isn't that great? That's probably the best series, right there. That's right after she got done putting on the clinic her second day." He flipped through them. "That's right after she fired that last one, that bizarre slow curve. She's starting to smile, before she looks to the coaches. And she's turning, and there, the smile's gone, look how she's staring at them. If this girl isn't in the major leagues by age 21 I'll eat my camera." He handed them back to Steve.

Steve stared at the photos, flipping through them slowly. There was something in the way she stood on the mound when finished, her mouth turning a lopsided grin, her stance tall and open. Steve thought of seeing her in the Oregon dusk, running full tilt with a ball and then, about to run into a defender, slip three feet to the left without losing speed or the ball to score on the goalie.

"I wouldn't take that bet," Steve said. "I may be another bad writer, but I'm not dumb."

Steve felt uncomfortable barefoot on the hard gritty surface around the pool. He wasn't in great shape, not in good shape, worked out a lot less than he needed to be to hang around poolside without trying to keep stomach in and muscles half-flexed. But he'd started attending regularly because he had discovered that Karen came here instead of lifting weights with the team, and worked on her own.

In the pool, switching strokes with each lap, Karen made the fitness swimmers and the wanna-be triathletes look terrible. In other lanes, they tried to speed up to keep from being embarrassed, and were already getting out of the pool early, clutching real and phantom muscle pulls, breathing so heavily Steve could hear them across the water. Steve took laps at his normal pace until his arms burned in the cool water. He got out and took a seat.

Karen marked off each lap at the same pace she'd started with. Steve shook his head, dripping heavily chlorinated water into his eyes. After some time, Karen pulled herself up, adjusted her slick black one-piece. She'd chopped her hair, and Steve couldn't stop staring at her wet, spiky head. Karen pulled off her goggles and looked at him.

"Have you ever seen a girl with short hair before?"

"I'm sorry, but you look like a porcupine right now."

Karen gave him a fake smile and turned.

"What's that on your shoulder?"

Karen, looking back at him over, peeled the left shoulder strap down on her one-piece.

"Title IX," Steve read, concentrating on the pale, water-beaded strip of shoulder and not the backwards look Karen was giving him or what, possibly, was going on in front of the suit. He looked up at her eyes.

"But you're not a college athlete."

Karen sighed, and the strap came back up. She started walking away on the balls of her feet, leaving bear-track wet prints on the gray turf.

Steve sat in the stands in Kissimmee and watched Karen pitch to major leaguers. It was part of some weird rotation he hadn't figured on, probably to test composure and talent in unexpected situations. Karen was feeding the marginal Astros a steady diet of nothing, breaking stuff across the plate for bad swings or cheap strikes, and in the stands Steve grinned widely. He was the only stringer to figure out where she'd reported today, and this was sure wire stuff, to be filed off his portable as soon as he could case a phone outlet.

Alan shook his head as he shot roll after roll of film. "She's making these guys look like they belong on the Brewers," he said. "Find out what she ate for breakfast today."

Steve grunted his assent without paying attention.

Biggio stepped into the box, bat on shoulder, looking at Karen. Karen stood on the mound straight and tall, and she reached up and touched the brim of her hat. Biggio stepped into the box.

Biggio was Steve's favorite player. A great batting eye, hit for power, a man willing to do anything to help his team, be it take a walk or armor his elbow and get plunked for the team over and over, take batting practice with blisters on blisters to work out of a slump, a catcher converted to second base who dedicated himself to becoming a Gold Glove fielder at the position, Biggio was everything Steve respected and loved in baseball, and a large part of the reason Steve covered Houston's minor league affiliates.

And Karen paid him the respect.

They worked back and forth, Karen working the outside pitches to set up inside ones, spotting the ball well, but Biggio let the outside pitches go and sat on the breaking pitches, and when Karen gave him the gas, Biggio swung through it and put it on the left-field fence. Karen came back, fed him the heat over and over, faster and faster, and Biggio rocked her again and again until Karen stepped off the rubber and shook her head, shrugged her shoulders.

Biggio laid his bat down and walked to the mound. Karen came off, toward him, and Biggio reached out, arm extended, and shook her hand. Karen blushed -- Steve could see it from the stands -- and Biggio said something to her. Karen smiled, nodded, school-girl like, and left the mound. Biggio returned to pick up his bat. Karen's dad came from across the field to pat her on the back, probably caution her, gently, against blowing her arm out at nineteen.

"Did you see that?" Steve said.

"I've got pictures," Alan said. "You think you can get a story out of that?"

"If I can't milk a story out of that," Steve said, "you can box me up and ship me back to Oregon."

Steve passed Karen up trying to make her way out of the stadium.

She was surrounded by girls who wanted her to sign whatever they had, balls, gloves, cards of other players, Alan's syndicated pictures of her, many without pens, and they wanted to shake her hand, give her a hug. Karen stood there, smiling, produced her Sharpie, caught Steve's eye, and waved.

She talked to every one who greeted her, signed everything offered to her, regardless of suitability for pen. Steve left her alone with her crowd.

Biggio was gracious in an off minute.

"She's got great stuff," he said. "I was impressed. It was a tough time up there. Some of these prospects, the high-rounders, they come in and they try to put you off the plate, throw some weak-ass heat by you. She's good. She's really good, and she knows how to pitch. You don't see that. Especially at her age."

"What'd you say to her?" Steve asked.

"I told her I'd back her up in a couple of years," Biggio said, and smiled.

Steve thanked him sincerely for his time and swallowed his awkward compliments.

Steve and Karen sat in her apartment, which looked exactly like Steve's apartment, largely empty, eggshell, sunlit, and new. The place still carried a faint smell of new carpet and spackle.

"This is crap," Karen said, pacing in the kitchen. "I should be playing in the independent leagues, looking to be recruited that way. I get this feeling like everyone's handing this to me."

"I don't hear that," Steve said. "Once they've seen you pitch, that's it for those kind of comments."

Karen sat up on the counter, bare legs across the sink. "Hey, yeah?"

Steve nodded. "I heard today they're going to send you to Auburn, maybe Michigan, even."

Karen perked up. "Yeah?"

"That's the word. You're not going to Rookie League, that's for sure. Be happy about that. That's all those people you hated when you first got here."

Karen looked back down.

"That's probably just my dad's pull."

"I don't think so. I think he's kept himself out of this." Steve took a long draw of ice water as Karen stared at a wall.

"Let me ask you," Steve said. "Why didn't you take a college scholarship and try to play baseball, maybe soccer, swim?"

"There's no future in those," Karen said, "and I don't care. I don't want to go to Washington State and be another student college star when I could break into the minor leagues and see if I could make it. I would have spent four years fidgeting, waiting for the chance I have right now. I can always go to college. The sooner I start on this thing, the better."

She leaned back into the cabinets. "Auburn. Wow." The setting sun flowed across her into the kitchen, and she closed her eyes and sighed.

"You're really going to pitch, then?"

"Yep. Hey, I came up with another good reason."

"Besides 'because fuck 'em?'"

Karen laughed. "You should know better than to ask me for quotes on days like that."

"I should, but I don't. What's the new reason?"

"Because a radar gun trumps a scout. If you can make that radar gun read 90, 91, 92, it doesn't matter if the scouts think you're injury prone or if they hold back on their evals because they don't think you've got the stuff to play the game. You'll get your major league try."

"You know what you're throwing now?"

"No idea," Karen said.

"Why you gotta lie to me?" Steve laughed. Karen smiled in the orange light.

"Sorry. Eighty and change?"

"When you went against Biggio we clocked you at eighty-eight."

"No kidding."

"And I've seen you pitch to these scrubs that piss you off, Karen, I swear you hit ninety when the JUGS guns are at the main complex."

Karen laughed. "Maybe."

"You're a great pitcher, Karen. Maybe when you hit the majors you won't be an ace, maybe they'll light you up like Norm Charlton, but I don't think so. I don't see it. You're unlike anything I've ever seen in the minors."

Karen looked away, out the windows.

"And I'm a terrible sportswriter. I've been slumming for so long, writing what I have to to make the deadline, stringing together anecdote and cliche to make the standards of the local papers, that I don't know if I'll ever be the columnist I wanted to be. I've lucked into this. But I'll do whatever I can for you. If you want me to softpedal this, give you the cushion, I can do that. Do you want to be the one already?"

Karen shrugged. "Why not me? No, wait. If not me, then who else? Why not me? I can do it, so I'm going to do it. I'm tired of this. If I'm going to be the first one in baseball, and the Astros are going to be the first team to play a woman, good for me and good for them. And I'm sorry no one else has done it yet, but you know, if I have to be first, then that's fine. I don't see anyone ahead of me."

"I'm going to ask you some time to rephrase that in a more quotable way."

Karen laughed and swung her legs around.

"Okay," she said.

"I understand what you're saying, but pitching?" Steve winced for her. "You can never count on pitching prospects. Even the best, healthiest prospects blow their arms out, never recover their velocity, never come back. Roger Salkeld--"

"I think I know myself well enough. My dad had a great arm, and he never got injured. In the shoulder, anyway. I know pitch counts, I keep close tabs on these things." Karen hopped off the counter. "And if my arm falls off, I'll learn to pitch with my right. And if my right arm falls off, I'll pitch with one leg and if I tear up my leg I'll learn to spit the ball ninety miles an hour at home."

Karen walked past to the couch, where she flopped down. "I am so tired," she said.

Steve stood. "I'll take off." He carried his glass to the kitchen sink to join the rest of the set.

"I read that thing you wrote about how much you like Biggio and our meeting," Karen said, eyes still closed, glass of ice on forehead. "That wasn't terrible. It was pretty good. Kind of sappy, but pretty good."

"Thanks," Steve said.

"Auburn, huh? Really?"

"That's what I heard."

"Call me later tonight," Karen said. "I'll give you your quotes without the swearing."

"Okay."

"You and Alan want to come to dinner with my dad tomorrow?"

"If you want."

"Yeah, I'd like you to meet him."

"I'd like that," Steve said, looking at Karen, eyes closed, chopped hair, lying boneless on the couch, sinking into the cushions with fatigue. "I'll call you later tonight."

"Auburn," Karen said. She smiled, just a little.

"If not Michigan."

"It'll be Auburn. I can't pitch like this every day."

Steve left, producing his cell phone, dialing Alan as he walked the sunset-lit drive from the apartment to his car.

"Not yet," Karen said.

To Chapter Four

about the author

Derek Zumsteg is dream is to mount a production of Goodfellas starring major league players. Imagine Omar Vizquel asking, "Do I amuse you?".