Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lucas
Walk-up music thunders through the stadium on game day, rattling the bullpen fence, and I lean against the rail with my glove tucked under my arm.
From here, I can see the dugout and watch every cocky step Jake takes toward the batter’s box.
He adjusts his batting gloves like he’s about to perform surgery instead of hit a baseball.
Behind home plate, in the reserved section near Doug, Scottie’s on her feet. Wearing Jake’s jersey.
It’s all for image. Optics.
It bugs the living daylights out of me.
Jake’s agent is a few seats down from Doug, leaning forward in conversation like he’s already deep into some negotiation or another. Scottie isn’t looking at either of them. She’s watching the field, focused, composed, the way she always is when she’s working.
Jake digs into the box. The opposing pitcher starts him with a first-pitch slider that nicks the outside corner for strike one. Jake steps out, resets, spits to the side. The next pitch is a fastball, middle-in, ninety-nine with just enough tail to be dangerous.
Jake turns on it.
The bat hits the ball differently—a dull thunk that tells me he broke it. The ball climbs in a tight arc toward left field, and the outfielder doesn’t even bother turning his back to the infield. He just drifts, stops at the warning track, and watches it clear the wall by a good ten feet.
The crowd explodes.
Jake jogs the bases like he owns them, and when he gets back to the dugout, he hands his bat to the batboy and shakes his head. Yup. He cracked the bat.
I applaud with the rest of the guys in the bullpen. But because it’s Jake, I’m probably not the only one pretending to cheer for the guy.
Coop comes up next and ropes a double down the right-field line, sliding into second like he’s auditioning for a baseball commercial. The inning stretches on, a couple more hits, a sac fly, the usual early-spring chaos while pitchers are still finding their command.
When the third out finally lands in a glove, I sit back down on the bullpen bench and pull off my hoodie, the heat starting to get to me. The bullpen gate creaks open, and I glance up, expecting a batboy or one of the coaches.
It’s Jake.
“Left my backup down here,” he says to the bullpen attendant, tapping the rail. “Mind tossing it up?”
He leans on the rail, nodding toward the field. “How you liking the game, Fischer?”
“Nice hit, man. You’re gonna make my job easy,” I say, because I’m a grown man who can be civil to his secret girlfriend’s public boyfriend, dang it.
He chuckles. “No offense, brother, but I’m not thinking about you anytime. Not at the plate. Not off it.”
Jake and I resemble those videos of a chihuahua barking at a German Shepherd through a glass door, and then the owner opens the door, and the chihuahua whines, knowing it’s about to get devoured, but instead, the German Shepherd just looks down at the cowering little dummy and then snuggles with the owner.
Scottie’s the owner.
Logan would have a better metaphor, but I barely passed fourth-grade English, let alone college. This is as good as it gets.
“Got it,” I say, smiling. “Still, good hit.”
He snorts, takes the backup bat from the bat boy, and jogs back toward the dugout.
By the sixth inning, we’re up 5–2, and the bullpen phone rings. The coach answers, nods once, and hangs up.
“Start getting hot.”
I grab a ball and step back onto the rubber in the bullpen. Down the strip, Logan’s already up, too, rolling his shoulder, getting loose. If I’m going in the eighth, he’s going in the ninth.
I like our odds.
For now. While we’re still on the same team.
I don’t let myself think about what happens if that changes.
When the manager points to the bullpen in the eighth, I leave the bullpen to applause. Not walk-up music. Not fireworks. Just business.
Here comes the setup man.
The Arizona sun bakes my skin on the long jog to the mound. Vendors shout over the low hum of crowd noise. Somewhere near third base, a kid is banging a mini bat against the railing in a steady rhythm. The air smells like sunscreen, hot dogs, and dirt baking under cleats.
None of it rattles me.
This is what I’ve worked toward my whole life. Playing with the pros. Facing major league hitters. Having my name on the back of a jersey that kids wear to games. I thought it would feel louder. Bigger. Like the world would tilt the first time I ran in from the bullpen to protect a lead.
It turns out, pitching against the pros is still pitching. It’s still sixty feet, six inches from rubber to plate. The mound is still ten inches high, the strike zone still seventeen inches wide—if the ump’s as good as Bruce Fischer.
And I’ll keep throwing heat.
After a quick warm-up, I toe the rubber and look to the catcher for the sign.
The first batter is a veteran utility guy, known for working counts. I start him with a four-seam fastball up and in. Ninety-seven. He fouls it straight back.
My second pitch is a slider off the plate. He chases. Strike two.
He battles the next two off, spitting on a changeup that fades just below the zone. Full count.
I come set, feel the seams against my fingertips, breathe deep, and fire another fastball, this one painted on the outside edge. He watches it.
Strike three.
He doesn’t like the call, and maybe he shouldn’t. Bruce Fischer would have called it a strike, though—I know that much.
When his manager challenges the call, the automated ball-strike system confirms it: strike.
That’s baseball for you.
From the mound, I naturally glance toward the stands behind home plate. Scottie is on her feet with everyone else, clapping, her fire-red jersey intense against the dark blue seats.
Even that doesn’t get in my head.
I can’t tell if that’s a feature or a bug.
Because no matter what happens here, it’s not live-or-die. It’s win-or-lose. The only real stakes are rich people getting richer and which fans go home happy. Nobody’s life hinges on whether I hit my spot. Nobody’s future shifts if I blow a save in March.
Nothing I do on this mound will make Scottie swap Jake’s jersey for mine.
That realization settles over me as calmly as the next sign from the catcher.
I rub up a new ball and feel the raised seams under my thumb. The leather is warm from my hand. Familiar and comforting.
I look at Scottie for a split second before winding up, and she’s looking at me with more intensity than she did Jake, clapping, calling, “Go, Fischer!”
But she’s not wearing my jersey.
I could throw harder, faster. I could give this crowd something to talk about.
But I’ve been throwing ninety-eight my whole career, waiting for the right moment to let it go. I’m not doing it for a Spring Training crowd.
I’ll throw one-oh-two when the mound is all mine.
***
I finish my inning with one guy stranded on base but no runs, the lead maintained exactly as planned so the closer can do his thing. And today, that closer is Logan.
I exit to warm applause from the crowd, and on the way into the dugout, Coop is waiting for me.
He slaps my back. “Atta boy,” he says.
I high-five and fist-bump a couple of others jogging down the steps. And when I get to Jake, I’m not sure he’s even going to acknowledge me, but he surprises me by extending his forearm.
I bump it with mine.
“You didn’t blow it, TikTok kid! Good for you.”
With a chuckle, I nod. “Thanks, man.”
But a couple of the other big leaguers snort. “TikTok kid. I like that,” the starting pitcher, Rafi Martinez, says. “Good game, TikTok kid.”
Rafi is legendary and just told me I played a good game. Is it an “achievement unlocked” moment, though, if it came with a crappy nickname I really hope doesn’t stick?
“Nah, Fisch isn’t the TikTok kid. He’s the ReelDeal,” Coop says, and I groan.
Jake and Rafi laugh and slap my back. “ReelDeal. Even better,” Jake says.
“Are you guys old enough to be so peak Dad Joke?” I mutter, leaning against the dugout rail. We’re back at the top of the order, which means Jake and Coop are getting ready.
When Jake steps up to the plate, we have a runner on second and one out. The crowd roars, hopeful for another bomb.
The pitcher works him carefully—two sliders off the plate and a fastball up. Jake fouls one straight back, then swings through a changeup that dives out of the zone. He doesn’t like that.
Full count.
The pitcher freezes him with a cutter on the inside corner. Strike three looking.
Jake doesn’t move for half a second, then he turns slowly and walks back toward the dugout, jaw tight. He squeezes the handle of his bat so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t splinter.
“Shake it off,” I say, joining the others as Jake walks past us.
He doesn’t look at any of us.
It’s been years since I stepped up to the plate, but the stress there always felt different to me than it did on the mound. Pitching is an extension of yourself. Hitting is a reaction to someone else.
Jake’s whole life feels like one long reaction. To the media. To the fans. To the version of him they decided on or that his family pushed him to become.
I don’t know if he’s ever gotten a fair shot.
Coop comes up next and slaps a single into right, but the inning fizzles after that. Scoreboard still reads 5–2 going into the ninth.
Coop stands next to me at the railing and grabs a handful of sunflower seeds as we watch Logan jog in from the bullpen.
After a quick warm-up, Logan is on fire.
Three up, three down. His knuckleball is untouchable today—a weak grounder, a first-pitch flyout, and a strikeout looking. The last hitter never had a chance.
I’m yelling louder than any fan for Logan, and when he gets back to the dugout, I grab him and pick him up.
“There he is,” I say.
He shakes his head, but he’s almost smiling. “Don’t make it weird.”
I chuckle, letting him down. Then more quietly, I say, “Team Fischer.”
He looks at me for a second. Bumps his fist into mine. “Team Fischer.”