Page 1 of The Battery

Cody

P eople called him the Spartan. A titan of a man walked up to the plate as if he owned the stadium. The swagger. The confidence. His sheer presence commanded attention. Demanded respect.

I rolled my neck and put my back to him, Leo Papadopoulos—the Spartan. I felt his gaze hit me like a jolt of kinetic energy. I squeezed my eyes shut to center my focus. For a heartbeat, the glaring neon stadium lights darkened. The roar of the crowd booing the Spartan hushed.

Silence. Darkness. Just my will to strike him out.

My eyes opened. “ Fastball. High and inside ,” came an electronic voice in my ear.

Our catcher, Watson, had punched the command into his forearm-mounted PitchCom device.

I took to the mound, right cleat resting against the rubber as I twisted the ball inside my glove to find the right seams and grip.

Leo stood over six feet and carried his two hundred pounds of muscle well.

A manicured beard stuck out from the chin guard of his red helmet, square and medium length, freshly cut with a faded cheek line.

Spartan. He wore the blood red uniform of the Brooklyn Brawlers as if it were a cape for the classic loin cloth costume of a Greek soldier.

Concentrate, Cody , I told myself. Errant thoughts wouldn’t help me.

Home game. Second of a three game series. Top of the sixth. Two outs. Only my sixth game with the New England Riders and, thankfully, so far so good.

I imagined my new ranking after striking out the fabled Spartan. I could do this. Had to do this.

Wound up. Zeroed in on my target like a sniper.

Leg kick. Stride forward. Stretched. Released…

No. My thoughts electrified my body faster than my eyes could register. The moment the ball left my hand I knew something was wrong.

By the time I opened my eyes from the world’s fastest blink, I watched the ball speed toward the Spartan…

And then peg his left shoulder. He leaned away as the ball nailed him in the meat of his shoulder. He threw his bat, arms going wide as he took a single step toward me and mouthed the words, “ What the fuck? ”

My eyes went wide. I slapped my heart with my right hand four times. “ My fault. My fault ,” I mouthed.

Our catcher popped to his feet to bar Leo’s clear path to me.

The umpire lifted his mask to bark out a few commands.

The dugouts of both teams churned with unease.

Had I set a spark to the dry tinder that was the age-old animosity between New England and Brooklyn?

Watson’s firm guidance of Leo was successful—the Spartan jogged to first base while he regarded me with resentment.

The full-sleeve tattoos of both arms swung by his sides and I half expected him to give me the finger.

By the time I put my foot to the rubber, the agitation of the dugouts had quieted. No raging forest fire. For now.

“ Changeup ,” Watson told me through PitchCom. The Brawlers’ second baseman, Rivera, had stepped up to the plate.

Wind up. Release.

Rivera hit a weak grounder to the shortstop, who couldn’t turn the double play. Rivera singled and Leo made it to second.

Get your shit together , I demanded of myself. I always had the power to push out the noise. To hyper-focus. But something about Leo had thrown me off. I needed to find my center.

The next pitch came in. Another wind up. But no release.

Watson gave me the signal for a pickoff move. Directly behind me, Leo was stealing for third. I shifted my height and pivoted in a wild but controlled rotation. Found my moving target, like a BB gun trained on a traveling yellow duck for a carnival shooting game.

Fired.

But my aim was off again . Leo had been sliding headfirst toward third.

In horror, I watched as the ball left my hand and instead of sailing easily to the glove of the third baseman, pegged Leo in the freaking ass .

Time slowed. I sucked in a deep breath, prepared for the worst as my body electrified with fear and anger.

My gloved hand and my free hand went to my head as Leo came to a stop and leaped to his feet.

He was three strides toward me, all six-three, two hundred something pounds of Greek anger charging like a bull.

The Brawlers’ first and second basemen had emptied onto the field.

Behind me, I heard several of my teammates rally to my side.

The green and brown of the diamond now filled with Brawlers red and the blue and bronze colors of the Riders.

The umpire’s mask came off as his roar rose above the angered din on the field.

“I’m sorry!” I shouted at Leo. His charging faltered. Something in my tone, my face, conveyed my sincerity. The vengeance chiseled on his face cracked. “It was an accident. I swear to you. I didn’t mean it.”

Leo came to a stop two steps from me.

He’s a mountain , I thought.

With a simple gesture, Leo held out his left arm in a wordless command. His teammates stopped. I tried the same tactic but Riders floated around me like guardian angels, even if I was the dumbass rookie who hit the same player twice .

The umpire came between us. The Riders’ manager was on the field and calling to speak with the umpire.

Leo’s eyes hadn’t left mine. Close up, I saw they were the color of wet grass.

Somehow kind, but buried beneath the dark chevrons of his brow.

Sharp whorls of tattoos spun up from under his red uniform like frozen fire. His lips pursed together.

Heat blossomed in my belly and stretched long licks of flame into my limbs. I felt my eyes dilate. Years in professional sports and I had always controlled my urges. Yet here, in the middle of a televised game, desire sent me vignettes of all the different things I wanted this man to do to me.

Then he turned. Put his back to me, his right hand gently rubbing at the spot where my ball pegged him. No limp, thankfully. I knew he had missed all of last season due to an ACL tear. Here we were, at the beginning of May, and already the man had taken a hit.

The manager signaled for a pitching change.

My teammates called to me but I sped down the steps of the dugout and into the underground corridor that would bring me back to the bullpen.

I lightly pounded my left fist against the cool concrete wall as I walked the length of the hallway.

The roar of the crowd died away about halfway down.

For a moment, I was alone. I put my back to the cool wall and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

During spring training, I had been added to the Riders forty-man roster. In only a few short weeks into the new season, I was called up and began playing with the Riders by mid-April.

My dream. Everything I had worked for. A fantasy made reality.

I signed the one year contract in a blur. I received the usual incentives for bonuses if I met a certain threshold for saves, holds, maintaining a low earned run average. There was a performance clause. It had been a quiet voice in the background, barely a whisper.

But there in the silence between the dugout and the bullpen, that whisper screamed something fierce. The performance clause reminded me I could be sent back to the minors at any time if I dipped below a set of standards.

I pushed off from the cool wall and reached the bullpen.

“Cody Hill, the Spartan slayer!” someone shouted from the mezzanine overlooking the bullpen. There was a round of laughter from the fans, many of them kids with their arms hanging over the railing. I looked up but didn’t acknowledge them.

I approached the fencing that lined one side of the bullpen.

Most of the other relief pitchers occupied a row of plastic folding chairs.

Our closer, Weir, was throwing and ignoring me as I walked behind him to get to the chairs.

The other pitchers regarded me with a disdainful look.

Someone whispered a stupid line from a movie about Sparta to get the others to laugh.

I leaned against the railing, bracing my forearms against it.

Citadel Ballpark of Lexington, Massachusetts sprawled out before me.

The ubiquitous navy blue and bronze shades of the Riders washed over every surface.

Early May evenings around here could be temperamental, but tonight it was a tepid fifty-something degrees.

The stands were mostly full, given the undying feud between us and the Brawlers.

The melee that occurred last year only served to stoke the fans’ rage for Brooklyn.

Inwardly I chuckled—I probably gained a few fans of my own after hitting the Spartan.

“Hill,” one of the pitching coaches shouted. I spun around. “Call from the captain.”

I left my spot and ducked inside. The space was dedicated to some light exercise equipment: a fan bike, elliptical, an arm bike. A table was strewn with high-carb and protein-rich foods and enough water and soda to satiate the thirst of an army.

I put the phone to my ear, an archaic thing despite the newness of our stadium. “Cap,” I said.

“You okay?” Romo Moretti, center fielder, and our interim captain until management officially appointed him as one.

Our catcher, Hiroshi, had been traded during spring training.

It was like a gut punch to most of the Riders.

If people could call Romo the heart of the team, Hiroshi was its soul.

No one was surprised when management made Romo the captain.

While I had never played with Hiroshi, his impact as an outstanding catcher and brother to Riders players did not go unnoticed by the public.

“Yeah, Romo, I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

I sighed. Pulled off my navy-blue Riders cap and ran a hand through my unruly, light-brown hair. “I didn’t mean to hit him. I swear.”

“I know you didn’t. He does, too.”

My brow went up in surprise. “Really? How do you know that?”

“Captain’s prerogative. Listen, take it easy, all right? You’ve had great games so far. You just got rattled. I don’t blame you. The man’s an absolute beast.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. The Spartan held the record for most game ejections. Like Hiroshi, Leo Papadopoulos was a legendary catcher who could intuit hitters like a wizard reading a spell book. He was also quick to anger. Quick for physical confrontations. And I pegged the beast. Twice.

“You gotta brush it off, Hill,” Romo said. “Accidents happen, all right?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

“Why don’t you head home? Take the night. Rest up. We still have another game against the Brawlers tomorrow.”

My mouth had dropped open. All I could think about was the other relief pitchers and their snide remarks at my inability to handle emotion. They’d use it against me. I’d get knocked down a peg. They would—

“ Jeez , Hill, I can practically hear your seething from here,” Romo said. “Calm down. We’re not holding this against you. It’s all good. Just get home and get some rest. That’s an order.”

I couldn’t help but smile. He really was the heart of the team.

“Yes, sir.”