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“You’re an idiot.”
Rush just grins, proving my point.
I called Dr. Ramos’ office yesterday, letting him know about the pickup game and asking if he thought it would be okay for me to play if I promised to have the ball pitched lightly. He made absolutely zero attempt at disguising his opinion.
“I want four solid weeks of PT before you start playing again, Bishop. You’ve been to, what? Four physical therapy sessions so far?”
“Five,” I corrected him. “But it will be six before Thanksgiving.”
He sighed. “Look, I can’t control what you do, but my opinion is that you should get through the end of the month and then let us do one more X-ray.”
And because I made a promise to myself that I was going to follow through on this rehab plan, I guess that means no baseball for Bam until December.
“Maybe I’ll umpire,” I offer. “But the last thing I want to do is just…sit on the bench.”
“You hear that, guys?” Rush calls out, drawing the attention of our players from where they’re focusing on various weight regimens. “Coach Mitchell’s gonna be an umpire.”
“Boo!” some of the guys call out, making me laugh.
“Kill the ump!” Tommy cackles, a phrase that’s been used plenty throughout history to highlight how often players and fans are mad at the game officials.
“We don’t joke about killing people here, Tommy,” Rush replies, though he has a smile on his face as he says it.
I shake my head, unsurprised by the bit of ribbing.
“I promise not to cross over to the dark side for more than just this one game,” I announce, pretending to take them seriously.
“Like anyone cares about your stupid game.”
I glance at Justin where he’s sitting in the hack squat machine, headphones in but clearly off if he’s been listening to the conversation.
“I’ll have you know that the CPPATDBG is one of the best games this town has ever seen,” I say, crossing my arms.
Justin raises an eyebrow. “The CP-what?”
“Please don’t ask him to repeat it,” Rush jokes. “I can never keep all the letters straight.”
At that, I grin. “The CPPATDBG,” I say again. “Cedar Point Pirate Alumni Thanksgiving Day Ball Game.”
Justin rolls his eyes. “Sounds lame.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“What is it?” Ruben asks, coming to a stop next to where we’re standing. “Like, graduated players or something?”
I nod. “That’s exactly what it is. Anyone who has ever played for the Pirates is welcome, and we split into teams and play the game we love in the place we loved it.”
“Can we play?”
I glance at Tommy and shake my head. “Alumni only. But you’ll get invited once you graduate.”
He grins. “Sweet. Then I can pitch to you and see if you can handle the heat.”
A chorus of ooohs fills the room, followed by plenty of laughter. This is one of my favorite parts of being on a team, the friendly shit-talking and muscle-flexing that happens in the down time.
Sure, the game itself is my true joy. There is nothing like the feeling of walking up to home plate and staring down a pitcher, knowing I’m going to hit whatever he sends my way. But the comradery, the silly stuff that happens during practice and when things are a bit less serious—I love that, too. Sharing it with this bunch of high school guys has been…a lot better than I ever could have expected.
“A bunch of old losers who can’t run around the bases anymore? Gimme a break,” Justin grumbles.
