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“Mm-hmm.” Tucker nodded stiffly.
He followed Alex onto the field and took rigid steps towards the mound. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. It was the bottom of the lineup. At any other time this would have felt easy. Now it was like standing at the base of Everest and trying to make the summit without oxygen.
He needed to remember how to breathe, because the pitching he could do, but not if he passed out.
Watching the bottom of the ninth was worse for Emmy than watching a horror movie where the killer might
leap from the closet with a knife at any moment. Tucker was still keeping his cool, looking as focused as ever, but Emmy was sure her hands were shaking so badly she could have made martinis.
Jamal had refused to go to the hospital, choosing to postpone his x-ray to stay and watch the game, so Emmy had stayed with him in the clubhouse. But after the first out and the following two strikes at the bottom of the ninth, she couldn’t stay downstairs anymore.
“I have to go out there,” she told Jamal.
“Take me with you.”
She bit her lip, wanting to shoot down the idea and force him to stay put, but how could she deny him seeing it? He’d never witnessed a perfect game in person, let alone from the dugout. Injured or not, she’d be a monster for robbing him of that experience.
Emmy helped him from the clubhouse, through the passage and up to the dugout. Mike and Chuck gave her a curious look, but neither of them commented on Jamal’s reappearance.
They understood what was happening.
She handed Jamal off to Jasper, who helped the big man find a place near the fence. Every man in the dugout was clustered near the fence or along the steps leading up to the field. There was no sound among them, the cheers of the inning’s second out having faded away.
One more batter stood between Tucker and his perfect game. One man with a sub .200 batting average who looked like he was about to wet his pants was the last gatekeeper of the Yankees’ offense. Tucker was staring at the batter, and the batter was staring back. The last thing Emmy wanted to do was distract him, so she hung back, peeking between the shoulders of the tall, bulky men who were wedged together in a line.
In her head she sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, reminding herself three strikes were all it would take for this last out. And the Tucker she knew could throw three strikes with his eyes closed.
The first strike caused a murmur of excitement to ripple through the dugout. Everyone, from the highest paid player to the fourteen-year-old bat boy, was practically vibrating with excitement. When your job consisted of playing one hundred and sixty-two games a year, it was rare for anything to cause such a stir. But Tucker was doing something special, and everyone in the dugout was on high alert, as giddy as children on Christmas morning.
The next pitch was a ball, and everyone breathed together nervously. They all knew how precarious this could be. One wrong move was all it would take for the whole thing to end in failure. A dozen silent—and one or two not so silent—prayers were shared among the team.
Emmy had one of her own, thinking, Dear Lord, you and I aren’t close, but if you just let him have this…
She didn’t know what to offer God, so she let the prayer drift off unfinished, hoping the Big Guy would know she meant well.
Another strike and the guys crushed closer together, forcing Emmy to move out of the way, lest she be bumped or trampled by their giddy movements. She climbed up the dugout steps for a better view and stopped next to Chet, who was shuffling with barely constrained glee. Every single person in the visitors’ dugout was a coiled spring, ready to rush onto the field once the last strike was thrown.
Emmy was churning with emotion. The baseball fan in her was riveted, waiting to see history unfold. Only a handful of perfect games had taken place at away parks, and this would be the first one new Yankee stadium had seen.
The part of her that was head-over-heels, completely in love with the man on the pitcher’s mound felt the cluster of nerves and fear he must be feeling right then. She wanted to reach out to him, comfort him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
At the last moment before he threw his pitch, he looked up, and his gaze landed right on her. Instead of freezing, she gave him a tight smile and nodded.
He could do this.
He would do this.
An invisible weight lifted off Tucker when he saw Emmy. He’d thought seeing her would distract him or make him falter, but now he knew how wrong he was. He’d needed her.
And there she was, the light at the end of the tunnel, giving him the last push. Any doubts he had slipped away, along with the catalogue of worries that had him imagining all the possible ways he could screw up this pitch.
Everything was going to be fine.
He let out a shaky breath, then inhaled deep and clear, the sweet grassy smell of the field filling his lungs. Closing his eyes, he held the ball and let the last twenty-six at-bats replay in his mind. He recounted every pitch, every catch, every swing of the bat. He only needed to make one more pitch. This wasn’t about the game anymore, it was about the ball in his hand and the path it would take from him to Alex.
He knew exactly what he’d done to get here, and now with Emmy watching over him, he was sure of what he had to do to make the last strike.
Raising his eyes, he looked at Alex and gave his friend a loaded grin. The batter shuffled nervously, clearly not loving the confidence the pitcher was showing.
