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Sam

J osie referred me to her spiritual guru, who had been meditating with me via Zoom for the last week.

I doubted it would help, but yep, I was desperate enough to try anything.

I continued training on schedule and added yoga to my routine.

I felt better than ever, especially when throwing during practice.

Unfortunately, I felt fine before the last rotten outing, too.

I no longer trusted my assessment of my abilities.

Kelsey texted mid-week and confirmed that she would be at the game.

I tried everything I could to avoid using her phone number to contact her for reasons other than the game.

I assumed she was younger than me, in her early twenties at the most, and I had just turned twenty-nine.

I didn’t have the best reputation with women, but it wasn’t the worst either.

After my last, mostly casual public relationship ended, I limited myself to my arrangement with Luna.

She would never take a bat to my car in front of the press, and when that had happened, the automatic assumption was that I deserved it.

And I’d decided a serious relationship wasn’t in the cards while I was still playing ball .

She had some concerns about whether she would be protected from balls hit into the stands, and I had assured her that she would be behind home plate and that there was a net that would protect her from foul balls.

She had also agreed to wait for me after the game, but we decided we’d meet up only if it were a good start.

I’d warned her that if things went bad, I’d probably be meeting with the trainers immediately after the game.

Kelsey: Excuse my ignorance, but how will I know if it’s a good start?

Me: There are a couple of tell-tale signs – the crowd will boo if it’s a bad start. The Boston crowd is unforgiving at best. But if we are ahead when I leave the game, that means the win is mine if they hold onto the lead.

Kelsey: Why won’t you stay in the game?

Me: If my pitch count is too high, there’s a greater chance I’ll make a mistake and lose the lead. Plus, we don’t like to overuse our arms.

Kelsey: Oh.

In the few brief conversations we’d had, I’d recognized Kelsey tended to go silent when she was over-whelmed or overthinking things.

Me: What are you thinking?

Kelsey: I’m just feeling a little dumb about the sport. I thought it was more about chance; I didn’t realize that so much strategy was involved.

Me: There is a lot of timing involved, and sometimes the ball spins differently, or the batter gets a better eye on it. Those pitches have the potential to become souvenirs. But sometimes, you execute a perfect pitch, and the batter still sends it deep.

Kelsey: Will you be able to see me where I’m sitting?

Me: Yeah, most definitely. Are you thinking of bowing out?

Kelsey: No, I already took the night off. It’ll be my first baseball game, so I’m actually excited.

Me: Good, I’m looking forward to seeing you. After the game is over, or close to the end, security will come to find you at your seat and bring you to me.

Kelsey: I guess by then, we’ll know if I bring you luck or not.

Me: I have a good feeling.

Kelsey: OK, GTG. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Me: See you tomorrow.

I felt as strong as ever when I took the mound on Saturday night.

In practice and while warming up, Coach Wall said I looked good.

I settled in, took a deep breath, and tossed a warm-up pitch before finding Kelsey in the crowd.

As the first batter came to the plate, my eyes found hers; her red hair was down and covered by a ball cap, and she had a baby strapped to the front of her in an infant carrier.

Our eyes held briefly before I tossed my first pitch.

So much made sense now, including her intense relief when we won the money playing Keno and her concern about safety at the game.

Was she a single mother? Was the father in the picture?

Her companion, with the same red hair, looked very similar, so she was likely her sister.

Why did I want to know everything about her immediately?

Was I still interested in getting to know her better if that was her son? Maybe.

My first pitch crossed the plate right where the catcher had called for it, and it was delivered exactly as intended. I let out a massive sigh of relief and dug into work. I retired the side quickly, and Coach Blanks patted me on the back as I took the bench between innings.

If I had suspected that Kelsey brought me luck, I was convinced when I remained perfect through the seventh inning.

By that point in the game, no one dared speak to me on the bench for fear that something they said would throw me off.

The next time I took the mound, she waved frantically at me, smiled at me like I’d solved world peace instead of just tossing a ball, and finished with a giant thumbs up.

Her sister was going nuts cheering next to her.

From her reaction, she understood what was happening.

The baby must have fallen asleep because I could no longer see his face; his body was turned towards Kelsey.

I didn’t know much about babies, and the inner dialogue ran through dozens of scenarios.

In some, she was happily married to some idiot who found it acceptable for his child’s mother to drive around Boston picking strangers up in her car – alone.

In other scenarios, she was babysitting for a friend, though that was unlikely. He was far too comfortable with her.

While I ran scenarios, I pitched better than I’d ever pitched in my entire life.

With my good luck charm in the stands, I made history with the twenty-fifth perfect game in league history.

As the team ran to celebrate on the mound, I watched as security escorted Kelsey and her sister to meet me.

I hoped she would wait for me since this wouldn’t be quick.

The media would tie me up for at least another hour.

Whatever happened, Kelsey needed to be at all my starts. I was already thinking about how I could make that happen.