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It just meant one more player for her to fret over like an overprotective mother.
The guys asked her questions about the Sox, a few openly probing for dirty little secrets they thought might give them the upper hand during their first matchup a month down the road. Emmy demurred, telling them she didn’t train-and-tell. But she did imply their second baseman was crap at fielding grounders.
The owner brought them more pitchers, and steadily they all built up a healthy buzz.
“Let’s play a round,” Alex suggested, his deep voice a few octaves louder than was appropriate. No one in the bar seemed to care.
The guys were divided, a few cheered while a couple groaned.
“A round?” Emmy asked.
“Alex likes to play Greatest Player Names,” Tucker informed her from a few seats down.
“Like, naming the greatest players?”
“No, that would be too obvious,” Chet Appleton ex
plained, a Southern twang in his voice. “You have to pick the best names.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Alice said.
“How do you win?”
“You don’t really win. Once upon a time we played to see who’d pay, but that stops being fun when you’re all making a few million bucks a year.” Tucker shrugged, like Emmy would understand what it felt like to make a seven-figure income.
She did not.
“So what’s the point?”
“Basically you play until someone can’t come up with a name, then Alex gets bored and we stop playing.”
“I’ll start!” Alex crowed.
Tucker leaned back in his chair and gave Emmy a nod. She too leaned back. He mouthed the words Milton Bradley to her, then they both looked at Alex.
“Milton Bradley.”
Chet was next to Alex and offered, “Yogi Berra.”
That put Emmy next. “Um…Coco Crisp.”
Tucker smiled, and her heart went all fluttery.
Alice, who’d thought the game was stupid, suggested Homer Bailey. Though not a funny name, the group agreed it was a great baseball name and accepted the turn.
“Buster Posey,” Tucker added, going on the same vein Alice had begun.
“Catfish Hunter,” someone offered.
“Dizzy Trout!” Ramon said, going off the fish-named theme.
They went around the table twice, polishing off both pitchers in that time, until Chet was stumped. “I got nothing.”
“How about Chet Appleton,” someone said, then laughed.
The bar crowd had begun to dwindle—none of the major leaguers stayed up late during training—so even though it was still early, it felt more like closing time.
“I gotta go.” Alice got to her feet, the first to admit defeat and call it a night. “See you boys later.”
