Chapter 7 #2
I was able to slip my dad a ticket for a better seat for today, so I’ve been able to step on the top row of the dugout and meet his gaze after every inning.
He seems happy being out here, watching me.
Watching Jayden. I first met his eyes after Jayden’s first at-bat, when he took the ball down the baseline for a line drive that got caught in the corner for a triple.
That’s what we worked on all week—his pull power.
I’ve finally convinced him to lean into it.
Jayden’s worry is that the other teams will start to shift on him, closing the gaps.
And that’s when we’ll open him back up a little, so he can spray the field.
It’s not a technique you can push on many players. Very few, actually. Guys get pegged as one or the other, pull or oppo hitters. Jayden’s special, though. He has it in him to be both on command. He just needs more time to put it into practice.
“Let’s go, Jay! Find a way!” My father’s voice sounds above everyone’s, even in a stadium with four thousand shouting fans.
There’s a familiarity in the way he calls Jayden out.
There may be more years on those vocal cords, but they holler Jayden’s name with the same inflection they always have. Forever his coach.
I prop my iPad on the dugout wall and pull up the sequence from Jayden’s previous at-bat.
It took a few swings for him to earn that triple, and the same pitcher is throwing to him, albeit with forty more pitches on his arm.
If Jayden can get to him now, they’ll pull the guy. He’s one double away from being done.
Jayden knocks the donut off his bat then flips it in his palm, taking a few swift hacks without the weight before glancing over his shoulder at me.
I flash him my pinky finger, my signal to guard the outside of the plate.
They know he has pull power, and their pitcher isn’t going to want to feed into that. But all Jayden needs is one miss.
“Wait for him to miss,” I mutter under my breath.
A bulky presence knocks into my side, and Jake spits on the dugout floor between us before he props a foot on one of the crossbars.
He’s dressed out to catch bullpen pitchers today while his dad is starting in the game.
Jake’s desperation to get his shot emanates from his body, as if he were dropped in a radioactive vat of chemicals that left him pulsing with superpowers.
“Strike!” The ump signals a zero and one count.
“Why’d he lay off of that? Swing at those, Jayden!” Jake grumbles.
“It was outside,” I point out.
“Pfft, so take it to the right. It’s a meatball. Fuckin’ . . . put me in, and I’d tag that shit.” He wipes away sweat from his forehead, his catcher’s helmet propped atop his head.
“Keep putting in the work, Jake. You’ll get your shot,” I say, a promise I can’t make but one I have to believe in because otherwise, what the fuck am I doing out here?
“Also, I told him to look to pull today, so he’s being disciplined at the plate,” I grumble.
I’m not defending Jayden so much as defending my process.
Also, Jake won’t get anywhere with a sense of entitlement.
Not out here, anyway. He’s already wearing the right last name.
If that hasn’t opened any opportunities for him, then it’s pretty clear he’ll have to stand out on his own.
He gripes a bit more, mumbling something about hitting so much last week that he’s got blisters, and eventually wanders back down the field to the bullpen.
Jayden, meanwhile, has worked the count to full, fouling off the last four pitches and pushing the Sugar Land starting pitcher into the eighties on his count.
“Come on, Jay. He’s gonna give it to you,” I whisper to myself, adjusting the edge of the iPad against my midriff as my eyes narrow on the ball being worked behind the pitcher’s back.
I glance at my father just as the pitcher nods, and smile when I catch my dad sitting on the edge of his seat with his hands balled together against his lips.
I look back to the mound as the ball sails toward Jayden, and everything plays out in slow motion.
It’s a skill I honed during college, first during my own at-bats, then refining while coaching the softball team during my grad years.
It’s the only place in life where I seem to be able to mentally slow down time.
The ball seems to have tight backspin, the axis slightly tilted, the angle perfect—it’s coming in right at his sweet spot.
My gaze flashes to Jayden’s thigh muscles as they flex, and I hold my breath as he rests his weight on his back leg before stepping at the ball as his bat whips through the air with the speed of a master’s sword.
The crack is so loud it manages to reverberate off the seats along the third baseline, and the home crowd collectively holds their breath as the ball climbs upward like a jet leaving the runway.
The only hurdle to clear is whether it stays fair or tips foul.
There’s no doubt it’s leaving the stadium.
I lean to my left, and the players near me do the same, the lot of us trying to drive the ball where we want it—fair.
Jayden is side-stepping his way to first, still clutching the bat in case the ump calls, “Foul!” Once it clears the pole and leaves the confines of Sugar Land field, Jayden flips his black Victus toward the dugout before continuing his well-earned trot around the bases.
“There he is,” I say to myself, noting the path of his ball while recording the stats that come up for his exit velocity and launch angle.
When I look back at the stands, my dad is standing with his hands threaded together atop his head.
He must have tossed his hat off in celebration.
The grin on his face is massive, and it’s not that he’s taking credit for helping build the swing that just did that, it’s that he feels blessed to be here to witness the result of hours upon hours of hard work.
To see Jayden be the guy we all knew he could be, the player we believed he was.
To break free from the bad decisions his brother makes, and to veer even further away from his father’s fate.
I just wish like hell that Adriel Sr.’s fate wasn’t so deeply tangled with my own.