Boy's World

Derek Zumsteg

Back to Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Karen dug Michigan. Upstate New York had charm, but Michigan struck her like home. She spent the time between her brief stint at spring camp and the start of her first full season walking along the polluted Great Lakes, smelling the trees and industry, a tang on her tongue that was oddly comforting.

Steve bought popcorn and they headed for the theater. "So what happened?"

"He wouldn't take me out, even though I was past my pitch count. We yelled at each other in the locker room," Karen said, looking around. She was expertly disguised in a white T-shirt, jeans, and an Astros ball cap. "I'm tired of this from him. This is twice in two games. What does he think those counts are for?"

"That's no good."

"That guy's an asshole, I don't care. I've never gotten along with him." Karen shrugged and opened the theater door for Steve. "Age before beauty," she said, smiling.

Steve rolled his eyes. "How you doing up here? You mind us coming up, checking up on you? Do you want me to hang around?"

Karen stopped walking the aisle to laugh at him. "Do I look like a girl who needs you to hold my hand?"

"You did seem kind of lonely in Auburn sometimes. I'm just offering--"

"Whatever." Karen sat. "Let's talk about something else."

 

Throwing soft-pitch on the side five weeks into the season (Moran, P, 4-1, 2.29 ERA, 44 IP, 50 H, 5 HR, 8 BB, 41 K), Karen took the return and stepped off the mound.

"So what's the plan for me? Long-term."

He smiled. "We're keeping you a strict pitch count, trying to have you throw a lot of low-stress stuff a lot on the side, see if we can't get your speed up a little, keep you healthy. That sound good?"

"Yeah," Karen said.

"Now, short term, I want you to stop giving up hits all the time. It's okay to walk someone if it means you don't give up a double."

Karen shook her head. "Whatever," she said, and took the mound again.

"Plenty of players get told the same thing for years before they listen and it changes their career. Usually it's plate discipline. These power hitters swing and swing while we tell them to wait, and one year they start taking walks, their power numbers go up, they have career years. Don't wait until you're 30.

"You can't come at someone with a fastball on a 3-1 count and expect to blow it by them. You're going to learn this from me, or you're going to give up hits until you figure it out yourself." He shrugged and got back down into his crouch. "I'd prefer you listened to me, of course, because it'd be good for my career, but noooooo...."

Karen turned to throw him the heat but let the windup die, one less fastball rung up on her arm, and she followed through gracefully, no ball delivered.

"What the hell was that?" her pitching coach laughed. "Shut up," Karen said.

Karen came to the park on a beautiful spring day, the sun out and the air clean, smiling. She dressed early and jogged onto the empty field. "Woo! Yeah!" Alan yelled. He and Steve put their arms up and started to wave them from side to side.

"Heeey, Kaaaren, heeey, Kaaaaren...."

Karen stretched facing away from them, laughing as she did her beauty queens and Romanians. She jogged around the outfield the wrong way. "How you boys doing?" she yelled.

"When do they start serving the beer?"

"When I turn 21," Karen said. She tossed a ball up to them. Steve bare handed it and threw it back.

"Good luck today," Steve said.

"I don't need luck," Karen said.

"Then you're way ahead of schedule."

"You've seen me pitch this season. Do I need luck?"

"Hell no!" Steve yelled.

"Yeah!" Alan yelled.

"A'ight then."

Karen took batting practice with the rest of the team under her manager's glare. She drove doubles around the outfield and managed to poke one past the fence, but walked away shaking her head. The scattered fans applauded. Little girls waved for her, and Karen went over to explain that she couldn't sign before a start, and they'd have to wait. They waited.

The Beloit Snappers were easy prey for Karen's control. She threw them junk all day, and like the Brewers they hoped to become they swung at everything. She gave up a cheap hit an inning, struck out ten, and going into the seventh was pitching an easy shutout. "Why's she looking at the dugout all the time?" Steve asked. "What?" Alan replied, momentarily out of his MGD stupor. "Wake up, pay attention. Look at her."

Karen stood on the mound and instead of looking for the signs she was staring into the dugout. After a couple of seconds she stood and put a junk pitch past another no-hit Brewers farm player. The catcher tossed the ball back to her and Karen walked back up the mound, looking into the dugout, and then took the mound, looking into the dugout. "I don't get it," Alan said.

"Look how pissed she is," Steve said. "What's going on?" He looked at his score card. and ran his pencil tip along the innings. "Oh." "What?"

"Her pitch count. Again."

"I thought the Astros were going to enforce that with snipers." The Snapper grounded out on a slow sinker. Karen put slow pitches around the zone, giving up two hits to the more patient base-stealing no-hit clones, but escaped the inning without giving up a run.

"Get her," Steve said.

Karen came off the mound staring at the same place in the dugout, walking deliberately, her steps measured and heavy. Alan caught the whole walk on one long roll.

The Battle Cats manager scratched himself as Karen approached. He didn't look up.

"Why isn't anyone warming up?" Karen yelled at him. Others looked up and then away.

He shrugged. "You're pitching just fine." Karen stomped to a stop in front of him, arms on hips, totally blocking his line of sight to the field. "I'm over my pitch count." "If you'll excuse me, I need to see the field," he said. "Just finish it up easy."

"I'm tired. I'm not going back out there," Karen said. "Warm someone up." "Have a seat, ice the arm." He spit thin tobacco juice into a cup. Karen stood in his way and then went to ice her arm down, pulse roaring in her ear.

Karen walked back to the mound chewing on her cheek and face flush with anger. The batter stepped into the box. Karen stepped off the rubber, went to the rosin bag, tossed it back and forth in her hands and dropped it back down, rubbed the ball, walked back to the mound, and finally touched the rubber again. She watched the sign and then slow-tossed a ball into the dirt. Then she did it three more times, and the batter walked to first, his face a puzzle of confusion. Karen threw soft pitches into the dirt ahead of the plate until she'd walked in a run and the manager jogged to the mound, hand out.

"Don't ever do that again," he said. Karen slapped the ball into his hand. "Then don't ever do that again," she replied.

 

Karen had a darling little rental she obviously loved; she'd bothered to move into one room, with a couch and a bookcase filled with baseball: Ted Williams, Science of Hitting, Total Baseball, all that year's STATS, Inc books with her neat, tiny notations all over them ("Why did they draft this guy?") and fiction: Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Spanish, Kingsolver, all points between.

"There're rumors you're a lesbian," Steve said from the floor. Karen was sprawled on the couch, off arm dangling onto the carpet, eyes closed.

"Who cares, Steve? No one cares who's gay in the majors."

"You're in the spotlight."

"So's Shane Spencer." She let that float around. "What, do you want me disprove it? I'm tired."

"No, I'm pretty sure you're not."

Karen opened her eyes. "How?"

"I was up in Washington, remember?"

"Oh no, you didn't talk to Keith, did you?"

"Oh yeah. Lot of interesting things to say."

"You've probably been thinking of that ever since," Karen moaned. "Oh, no. Look, here's the thing. Everybody makes mistakes in high school. I went out with an idiot jock for a while, and I wasn't what he wanted in a girl. So I dumped him. This stuff he talks... no. I've never."

"Ever?"

"No," Karen said. "It's not that I don't like guys, I...I don't find anyone interesting. I can't date the players, I wouldn't want to, I could pick up boys on the road, give in to one of the eight thousand propositions, but what's the point? I don't need it."

Karen closed her eyes again. "I'm worried about tomorrow. I think I've blown it. My team already hates me, they think I'm some sort of freak, they resent me because I won't pitch over my count, and I have to leave, and then they lose. Organizations want pitchers who can play through the pain, gamers, tough veteran scrubs. They've got someone coming in tomorrow, a scouting guy. I think they're going to put me in my place. Dammit."

"You'll be fine."

"I hope. I need some sleep before I go in tomorrow."

"I'll call you after," Steve said.

"Thanks."

Steve put his cup in the sink and looked around the counter for his sunglasses. "So you're not going out with anyone?"

"What? No. Go away."

Steve stared at the colorful tins on the counter. "Then what the fuck are these cans of Andro doing in your kitchen?" To his right, he saw Karen bolt up and run into the kitchen.

"Get out of my kitchen." She started to shove him back. "What are you doing snooping around like that? I thought you were better than that. I liked you."

"Do you have any idea what that's going to do to you? You're taking that, and creatine.. it's going to eat you alive, you'll pitch balls a hundred miles an hour into the stands and your arm will fall off, and for what?"

Karen tossed him into the entryway and followed him in. "Get out of my house."

"What happens when you have to give it up, Karen? When you go back to being yourself? What happens when they find out? They will think you're a freak, and they'll be right."

They stood, nose to nose, unmoving. "Does your team know? No, wait," Steve said. "Does your dad know?" Karen stepped back and tried to slap him with her right hand, but Steve caught it. Karen got him with the other. She held her arm up, ready to nail him again.

Steve looked at her and turned, tore the screen door off its hinges, its plastic window cracking all across, and walked on out, leaving the screen bent like a helix on the steps, mosquitoes already coming across and in for Karen's performance-enhanced blood.

 

The organization man was shorter than Karen by a couple of inches but wore a nice Astros logo polo shirt, tucked in, and jeans that had probably been ironed. He stood as she entered, and Karen realized after a minute that he was Jim Stackert, assistant scouting director, and probably wasn't happy to be in Michigan on a social visit. Her manager leaned forward in one of the two mismatched oak chairs and worked on a wad of chaw.

"Good afternoon, Karen," Stackert said, shaking her hand. He looked at her like he was sizing her for a uniform, but one with a star on it. "Please, have a seat." He sat down at the manager's desk. "How are you doing, Karen?"

"I'm fine."

"How's your arm?"

Karen looked up. "I feel okay."

"I'm glad. I'd hate to hear you hurt your arm exceeding your pitch count." He paused. Karen couldn't figure if he was berating her or supporting her. "What are you weighing in at these days?"

"I'm one-seventy," Karen said.

"One seventy. One hundred and seventy." He clasped his hands on the desk. "Here's the thing. You're twenty, you're still filling out a little -- don't take that the wrong way, I mean you're working into being a pitcher, not -- never mind. But you're not one of these six-four, two-hundred pound fireballers you pitch with."

"No, I'm not."

"Not many are. Which is why you're on a strict pitch count. We've never had a woman in the system before. We're not sure how hard we can push you, or even if we should yet. I'm of the opinion we shouldn't. My goal, and everyone's goal, should be to see you have a successful career, not, say, blow your arm out in some meaningless late-inning macho bullshit contest."

"I understand."

"Good. I think you're one of the smartest pitchers I've seen in a long time, I knew you'd understand." He nodded. A long moment passed, and the manager spit onto the floor. "But that's really not why I'm here. I don't think you have anything left to prove at this level, Karen. I'm here to talk to you about your promotion to Kissimmee."

Karen smiled. "Cool."

"Can you leave us for a minute?" Stackert asked the manager, looking over for the first time since Karen had entered. The manager grunted and left. Stackert shifted back in the chair awkwardly. "I'm sorry about this--" Karen started.

He waved her off. "Don't think twice. I'm glad you're protecting yourself. I knew you were smart, we all know you're smart. Look, I want to be straight with you here. There was a lot of disagreement about bringing you in, but it's gone now. Everyone upstairs thinks you may be the second coming of Christ. We've got a great pitching coach in Kissimmee, you've met him during spring camp. He likes you a lot, he's eager to work with you."

"Great."

He nodded. "Yeah. I've been watching your lines down here, and I'm impressed. I think you're still giving up too many hits, but you don't give up any walks, and that's great. Having seen you a couple times, I think you tend to come at the batter more than you need to. Hitting's hard, you know that. When you come at them with all strikes--" he laughed "-- except when you bean them, yes, that's impressive, but maybe they'll swing at that fourth ball. I think you can work on that."

"Okay," Karen said.

"But if that doesn't work, fine. I like the way you pitch, it shows you've got..." he paused.

"Balls," Karen said.

Stackert nodded. "Not what I would have said eventually, but yeah. The only thing I'm genuinely worried about is your health. It's a good bet we're going to keep you on a pretty strict pitch count for another year or more, and then start to ease off it."

"To be honest," Karen said, "the only thing I'm worried about is my arm, too."

"Well, it's been good to meet you," Stackert said. He stood and extended his hand to Karen. Karen shook it, crushing his fingers in her grip. He smiled at her as his eyes watered. "I have to go take a look at the rest of the team --" he winked "-- or they'll feel left out."

"Thank you," Karen said.

"It's a pleasure."

 

"Welcome back to Florida," Alan said. Steve walked on out past the gate.

"It sucks to be back," Steve replied. "What'd I miss?"

"We killed two German tourists, executed some guy, a bunch of Cuban players came over on rafts and all got asylum, what else..."

"What a state."

"You look like crap."

"I had a fight with Karen."

"What? Why'd you do that?"

Steve moved his carry-on to the other shoulder and sighed. "I didn't mean to, it just happened. She had these tins on the kitchen counter, andro, creatine, just sitting there, like sugar and flour." "What? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. So we had a fight, she slapped me up, and here I am."

"What now?"

"Nothing now. I'll give her a call in a week, see if she'll talk to me. I can't believe this. I've eaten so many stories for her, spun her problems into human interest stories... and now this."

"Maybe she's embarrassed you found out."

"Whatever. I hope we got enough out of her, because maybe that's it for us. There's a good chance I don't ever see her live again."

"Nah," Alan said. "She got promoted to the Cobras yesterday. You got scooped."

Steve dropped his bag in the middle of the walkway. "Goddamnsonofabitch."

"Yup."

"I hope she likes men who beg for forgiveness."

"I bet she doesn't," Alan said.

To Chapter Six

about the author

Derek Zumsteg isn't one to brag, but he had the ideas for the last five John Grisham books. Derek is working on a two-fisted tale of espionage and major-league general managers, called The Wren Addendum.