CHAPTER 27 DANNY
October hits, and we make the playoffs.
Our calls are fewer and farther between as I bond with my brothers on the Heat and we prepare to face each challenge leading to the championship that everyone said no expansion team would ever win.
We roll through the Dodgers in the division series. We win against the Phillies in the league championship.
I have more phone sex with Alexis.
And now we’re about to face the Astros in the World Series.
The World Fucking Series.
I never would’ve believed it, yet here we are. The first year of an expansion team about to prove we’re the greatest team in the league.
Not my first ring, but potentially the most significant one. The one that comes at a time when my life feels like it’s shifting.
We win the first two games, but the Astros come back and win the next two. Whoever wins four games first wins it all, and we’re all tied up at two games each when Alexis arrives back from her tour the first of November.
She’s in Los Angeles, though, and I’m in Chicago for game five.
We win.
We get one day off before game six.
I want to see her…but I know that now is not the time.
I can’t afford the distraction when we’re one game away from winning it all.
Besides, she’s been gone for six months.
I’m sure she’s busy at home with obligations, and I have a travel day back from Chicago followed by practice, a team dinner, and meetings where we’ll go over any adjustments we need to make as we head into the next game to hopefully close out this series at home.
By the time Saturday rolls around, we’re ready.
We’re fucking pumped.
And Alexis is here.
She isn’t allowed in the clubhouse this time before the game since it’s the World Series and the entire management team wants us focused, but she sang the “Star Spangled Banner” and I caught her eye from the dugout while she sang.
She’s fucking here.
And she’s wearing that sparkly Vegas Heat dress she had custom made, and I nearly fucking come in my pants the second I see her.
We’re up three runs to two in the top of the eighth when Rush takes the mound.
I sweep the dirt in front of and to the right of first base where I’m standing with the spike closest to my big toe on my right foot.
It’s something I’ve done since tee ball, an old superstition that if the game is going well, I sweep to the right.
If something goes wrong, I sweep to the left—a way to correct the error and start over, one of my many superstitions.
He tosses out strike after strike. The first batter tips two fouls before he connects, and the ball looms out high over center field. Johnny calls it, and he makes the easy catch. The second strikes out. The third hits a single right to AJ, who stops it and whips it over to me for the third out.
We don’t get any traction in the bottom of the eighth, but we’re still up by one run. If Rush can hold off the three batters here, we win.
His first pitch comes in a little low, and the ump calls a ball.
It’s nerve-wracking standing where I am.
Three outs. Three fucking outs, and we’re done. We’re the world champions.
Come on, Rush. Pull it together.
It’s a team effort, but right now, all eyes are on our pitcher.
He fires the second pitch right down the middle, and Josh Tucker swings and misses. He makes contact with the third a little too late, and it heads into the stands. Rush throws another ball, and then another strike. Batter one is out.
Two more outs. Two more outs.
Stay focused, Brewer.
Up second is Jordan Pittman, who hits a pop fly on the first pitch caught in right field by Duke Owens.
One more out.
One more out, and this season is over.
One more out, and the Astros are out of this one.
One more out, and we’re World Series champions.
One more out and maybe I’ll finally get my shot with Alexis.
Jose Cruz isn’t going to swing at a ball, though, and the first one Rush tosses to him is a little high.
The second is a strike, but he doesn’t swing.
But the third…even from here on first base, I can tell it’s coming in hot.
Jose swings and connects, and it’s a line drive heading toward third as he takes off running toward me.
Catch it. Catch it. Catch it.
The chant is in my head at our third baseman, Cooper Noah. If anyone can catch that ball, it’s him.
Despite the speed with which the ball is moving, it’s like everything moves in slow motion. I plant my feet and get ready to catch just in case Cooper misses.
It slaps against Cooper’s cowhide with a loud crack I hear even from here, and what ensues next is pure chaos on our home turf.
A mighty roar of celebration rips up from my chest as I toss my glove up into the air. I run across the field toward Rush on the mound. We both jump into the air at the same time to chest bump, and we hug and bounce up and down as the celebration begins.
Fireworks explode overhead, but even the loud explosions are no match for the screaming excitement of our home field crowd.
Nobody believed an expansion team could win the championship in our inaugural year.
But nobody ever put together a team quite like this, either.
Troy Bodine runs this ship, and when he was tapped as team manager, he vowed to put together a team of all-stars.
Given how he easily made friends in the years he played, it wasn’t hard for anyone he asked to agree to be on his team.
We wanted to be here. I wanted to get out of Colorado, and Troy made it happen.
I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else other than Las Vegas with this team.
Troy is celebrating with everyone in the dugout first before he makes his way onto the field, and he rushes across to join the band of brothers currently bouncing in time together in a circle as we scream through our pure joy and excitement.
There are smiles, fist bumps, high-fives, and hugs.
Everyone screams congratulations to one another on a job well-fucking-done.
This is what we worked our asses off for over the last nine months.
This is what we fought for. This is the exact moment we gave everything up for over the past year.
We were the underdogs—a brand new team to the league who was underestimated from the word go. But we just won it all.
This is it. This is victory.
And now…we celebrate.
As the group circle starts to break apart and reporters move in to catch our post-game reactions, Rush grabs the sleeve of my shirt to get my attention.
We’ve been planning for this moment all season.
We head together over toward the dugout to grab the giant Gatorade cooler.
We carry it together toward our manager, who’s talking to a reporter, and we move to flip it over his head to dump the drink all over him in a Gatorade bath celebration, but he ducks out of the way at the last second as if he could somehow see us coming.
The icy, orange liquid completely misses our manager and instead splashes all over the reporter who was just asking Troy questions.
My eyes widen as profuse apologies start to pour out of my mouth. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry!”
The reporter, a man from CBS, just stares between us and his suit as if he can’t quite fathom what just happened. Rush shares my sentiment, and Troy’s narrowed gaze on us tells me we’re going to be in trouble tomorrow.
But that’s tomorrow Danny’s problem.
Tonight Danny has exactly zero cares in the world.
And that’s why both Rush and I burst out laughing.
It’s also why, when I spot Alexis sporting a huge smile for her home team as she claps and dances to the music filling the stadium down on the field, I beeline away from the reporters itching to get a word with me and I lift her into my arms.
I’m not sure what prompts me to do it other than the fact that I’m so fucking in love with her and I need this moment to celebrate with her.
“Congratulations!” she squeals, and it’s almost as if she’s one of us with the way I can feel her vibrating with joy in my arms.
I lean down without thinking and catch her lips with mine. It’s too short, just a few seconds at most, but I feel her soften into me, and my heart races before I know I have to pull away.
“I think you might be our lucky charm,” I murmur close to her ear, and then I bolt away because I know there are reporters waiting to talk to me, and I have an obligation to answer their questions.
“It’s hard to put into words what this means to me,” I say to the first one who catches up with me, my eyes still on Alexis, who looks absolutely stunned that I just kissed her publicly. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
I’m not sure if I’m talking about the win or the kiss.
Either way, it’s been one hell of a night already, and the party is just getting started.