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With a deep breath, and a quick text to Max informing him that I’m eating breakfast with the coaching staff, I exit my vehicle and enter the Seattle Olympians training complex just as I have every morning this spring. Except today there’s a buzzin the air. Today we’re playing the reigning national champion San Francisco Explorers. Last fall they swept us in the national championship, and today we’re coming in with a chip on our shoulders.
We’re coming in ready to win.
Sliding my sunglasses on top of my head, I wince at the overhead, fluorescent lighting, and swallow back a wave of nausea as I grab a tray and enter the cafeteria line. As much as I love to cook, and as much as I love when Maxwell cooks for me, there’s something about a breakfast buffet that hits different. Hotel breakfasts are my favorite – eggs and pastries and coffee that sat for too long – and this is no hotel breakfast spread, this is a baseball player’s breakfast spread: protein in the form of eggs, multiple kinds of bacon and sausage, and a yogurt bar with a wide variety of granola and fruit. For those of us not concerned about balance in our breakfasts there are baked goods and pastries, of which I help myself generously.
With a gluten free cinnamon roll courtesy of our nutrition team, scrambled eggs, bacon, and an extra cinnamon roll wrapped up and saved for later, I join the other coaches at a table in the corner, and am greeted with a round of hellos as I sit.
“The suits have more stuff for you,” Roger eyes me with a sidelong glance, a grumble in his voice. “I try to tell them you don’t need it, but they insist.”
More data.
More statistical analysis.
More computer models that are supposed to make my hitters intobetterhitters, or pitchers intobetterpitchers.
I remind the suits that great hitters,hall of fame worthyhitters fail almost seventy percent of the time. A three hundred batting average is nothing to sneeze at, and I’d be proud to have a team hitting in the three to four hundred range, butdata isn’t going to do that for us. Data can’t tell us when a hitter is having a bad day, or is experiencing pain that they try to push through. Computer models can’t tell us that the reason our best hitter struck out three times in one game is because they got bad news the night before, or woke up in a bad mood.
Data doesn’t know my hitters the way thatIknow my hitters.
“They can hunt me down if they need me,” I grin, and get a laugh from the guys at the table in return. “They know where to find me.”
A cup of coffee and bottle of water are placed in front of me on the table and every coach looks up at the intrusion. Even if I hadn’t seen the flash of ink on the arm reaching over my shoulder, I knew that Maxwell wouldn’t be able to keep his distance from me this morning. Heat floods my cheeks as a solid hand lands on my shoulder and gives a brief squeeze before letting go.
My eyes remain on my plate as I dig into my cinnamon roll, resisting the urge to stuff the whole thing in my mouth in an attempt to avoid conversation with the men at the table whose eyes are most certainly on me as Maxwell walks away. My phone pings and I take it from my pocket, glancing quickly at a text from Maxwell.
Your ground rules didn’t say anything about not making sure you’re hydrated.
When I look up from my phone, I find Maxwell at a table within my line of sight, smirking as my eyes meet his, one eyebrow quirking as if to say “your move.”
I’ll deal with you later.My response is read immediately, and then Maxwell starts to type, the bubble in the bottom of the screen indicating his incoming response.
Looking forward to it.
My phone slips from my fingers and clatters to the table,drawing all eyes to me and the flames licking at the sides of my face.
“Everything okay over there, Davis?” Roger eyes me from across the table.
“Just fine, sir.” Did my voice just go up an octave? I think it may have.
“Good. We’ve got a big game today, I need everyone focused. That includes all of you.”
Once breakfast is over, I find my way to my office, where I change into uniform and sit for a minute behind my desk, enjoying the silence of my office, knowing that down the hall in the clubhouse the guys are getting ready to take the field for batting practice, and I need to be out there with them. I lace my cleats and grab my cap, before stepping out onto the field for another day with this game that I love.
CHAPTER SIX
Ground Rule Double
MAX
Last fall,the Explorers swept us in four games to win the national championship, and we haven’t forgotten it. We played today like we were making up for lost time. Making it up to ourselves and the fans, and we sent the Explorers home with a shutout on their record, and ten runs in our own pockets. The celebration in the clubhouse afterward would make you think that we won the championship instead of a spring training game. Roger reminds us that this is in fact spring, and that we still have a whole season ahead of us.
“Harrison!” Luca calls across the clubhouse. “You coming out tonight?”
“Where to?” I ask, knowing full well that I’m not going out with the guys tonight, but also wondering what restaurant to avoid tonight.
“Fiorellas.”
Fiorellas has way too many of Sutton’s trigger foods on the menu so it wasn’t on my radar anyway. I found a place a few towns over that should keep us out of the public eye, and certainly far enough away from the rest of the team to keep our dinner together – our first date – private.
