He made his way out, grabbing his bat from the first base coach on the way. The coach leaned in and whispered somethingwhich earned him a solemn nod in return, before Stone took to the field looking way more relaxed than he had a minute ago.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered, “LEFT FIELD!”
A subtle raise of the bat over his head told me he’d heard.
As he stepped into the batters’ box, The Lions’ fans who’d travelled the distance to support us cheered even louder than the Pittsburgh fans had. For so early in the season, it was amazing to see just how many had made the journey. I was still used to Dodgers fans who weren’t known for traveling far, but there were usually so many spread across the United States that it didn’t really matter. Tonight, in fact, this entire stretch, our Lions’ fans had been out in full force, easily filling about twenty percent of the stadium.
This could have had something to do with Penn Shepherd, because since he’d taken ownership, along with the inordinate sums of money he’d spent, he’d made a promise to the fans to bring the glory back to the club. As part of this, he’d provided discount travel and accommodation costs to all away games, hoping to get as many fans attending as possible.
It was working, though it likely also had something to do with the fact The Lions were no longer bottom of the standings for the first time in over a decade, and there had been a renewed enthusiasm about the club.
Stone hit the first pitch foul and got into position again.
It was at that point my concentration was once more interrupted.
“So I heard something interesting,” started Ace, who’d slid a couple of spaces along the bench from his seat as starting pitcher.
The thing about the dugout – you sat where you wanted – but the one rule was to always save a space next to the water cooler for the starting pitcher.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Stone jumped out of the way of the second pitch.
“Are you gonna share it or keep it to yourself? Because honestly, man, I don’t care. I’m trying to watch Fields and see if I’m right about left field. Just let me know whether I need to listen or not.”
Ace leaned forward. “Yeah, there’s something up with his hip.”
“Right, ‘cept it’s his leg.” The left field guy, whose name I didn’t actually know, was now stretching his quad. Definitely something up with his leg.
“Hip, I’m telling you.”
I pinned Ace with stare. “Why are you here?”
“Told you, I heard something interesting.”
“Then spit it the fuck out!”
Stone was now swinging his bat around, working his shoulder and getting ready to resume his position.
“Alright! So anyway, you know how we’re flying to Miami tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And you know how we’re staying at the same hotel?”
“Fuck, I hope this story gets better,” I muttered.
Smash. Stone drove the ball straight through the left fielder, who missed it. The center fielder sprinted after it, scooped it up from the ground and hurled it over to the Pirates’ third baseman, who caught it a second too late. Stone was grounded on third.
“It does! So King was hitting on the chick who’s in charge of room allocation, because he wanted to get his room with a balcony overlooking the beach, because he’s got this thing about fucking on a balcony to the sound of the waves.”
I groaned at that announcement. I could give a fuck what the rookies got up to, but as the most senior member of the team, Ialso had a responsibility to make sure that they were a) safe and b) didn’t do anything stupid enough to get us reported to the media and/or the league.
“Watson, please tell me you’re not doing anything stupid?”
He ignored me and continued. “She said no, the allocations have already been made to the players and it’s against policy to change. So he thought he’d do it himself, and stole a copy of the room numbers when she wasn’t looking to see if he could find someone to switch with his garden view.”
