“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Bob said as he threw the ball back. Brenda threw a dozen or so more pitches. Her curve was on, and the sinker appeared to drop about half a foot just before it hit the plate. She was feeling good, but not too good. Carl hustled her off the mound the minute some members of the opposing team showed up, saying that he wanted to keep his “secret weapon” secret as long as possible.
Sometime during the first inning, Brenda noticed Robin and her husband, Dan, in the bleachers behind the dugout. She caught Robin’s eye and gave a quick wave. Robin nudged Dan, and they both waved but didn’t call her name, thankfully. It was weird enough being the only woman on the field side of the fence. The other team and those watching the game kept stealing glances at her. Carl might as well have put a big target on the back of her jersey.
“What do you care what other people think?” she murmured quietly. She kept that silent mantra going until the seventh inning. With the Lightning down by three, Carl told her to go in. She wondered if Carl thought it was safest to send her in when they were down so she couldn’t blow a lead. “Be cool, Brenda,” Bob said to her as they rose to take the field. “We know what you have. Just get in there and throw strikes.”
“I’ll try,” Brenda replied. When she took the mound, Robin and Dan cheered loudly. A couple of warm-up pitches took the edge off her embarrassment. Then the manager of the opposing team walked over and started talking to the home plate umpire. The infield umpire joined in, and then Carl. She couldn’t hear the discussion, but instinctively knew it was about her. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, Carl waved her in to join the conversation.
As she got closer, she could hear the opposing team’s manager, a squat, round-shouldered sixty-something with a red knobby nose, saying, “It’s unprecedented.”
“There isn’t anything against it in the rules, Hank,” the home plate umpire said. “How old are you dear?” he asked Brenda. If he hadn’t had the look of a once-tall now-stoop-shouldered, kindly grandfather, she would have taken offense at being called “dear.”
“I turned forty in January,” she replied.
“She’s over thirty-eight, Hank,” Carl said, “and that’s all the rules say. They don’t mention sex.”
Brenda had to stop herself from saying, “Gender.” The issue here was gender. Sex was something she vaguely remembered as having brought about her two children.
“When did you put her on the roster?” the opposing manager asked.
“I added her to the online roster last Sunday night. Right before the deadline.”
Brenda briefly caught Carl’s eye. He had added her name to the roster before she had said she wanted to play. That was an unexpected vote of confidence. The manager tried every argument possible to prevent Brenda from playing. His nose went from red to a deep purple, and the way his jowls were flapping, she half-expected them to stir up a dust storm in the infield. There wasn’t any rule against women playing in the Roy Hobbs league—Brenda had checked the rules online herself—there was just the assumption that only men would play.
Finally, Hank talked himself out, and the ump called “Play ball.” Brenda trotted back out to the mound. Robin and Dan cheered again, and this time, some of the girlfriends and wives who were watching clapped a little too. The extra support from an unexpected quarter was kind of nice. The infielders had gathered at second base to chat during the interlude, while the outfielders just plopped down in the grass to wait it out. Brenda waited for her fielders to go back to their positions, then turned to face her first batter.
He was interchangeable with most athletic guys in their early forties—long arms, long legs, and a chest broad enough so you could read the full team name, “Loco Leprechauns,” in white letters on his Kelly green jersey. Brenda gave a quick glance down at her too-big jersey. She’d have to stuff her sports bra in order for the word “Lightning” to be fully legible across her chest. The fact that Mother Nature had given her wide hips and no chest helped the anger to start growing again. So did the cocky way the batter came up to the plate, glancing at Brenda and shaking his head with an “I-can’t-believe-this-crap” grin before taking his stance.
Bob extended one finger, signaling it to be low and inside. She saw the lines leading from her hand to her target, and then, as easily and on the mark as throwing a balled-up pair of socks down the laundry chute, she threw.
She would not soon forget the expression on the batter’s face after he had swung and missed the ball by a mile, but she still had to get the guy out. It only took three more pitches. The Loco Leprechauns’ dugout was eerily silent as the batter skulked back to the bench, as though they weren’t sure they had witnessed one of their own striking out to some woman none of them had ever seen before. It was only after she got the second guy to ground out and the third one to pop up that Brenda allowed herself to smile. This time, when Robin and Dan cheered, it wasn’t so embarrassing.
The Super Ladies Page 30
