The Hot Streak Page 12

  “And the batters are coming up bust?” Casey asked.

  He chuckled. “You might say that. I don’t know if the term comes from blackjack or poker or just baseball. But yes, you get the idea. He’s struck out five out of nine batters right now, which is a really good clip.”

  Casey nodded.

  “And he hasn’t given up a hit. If he goes through the lineup again like that, then we can get really excited.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Three innings of no-hit ball, that’s good, but if you can get through the lineup twice and still give up no hits, then you have a real chance to get all the way through the game with none.”

  “That’s rare?”

  “Very rare. Throw a no-hitter and you’re guaranteed your cleats or glove will end up in the Hall of Fame.”

  Casey wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but the man’s voice had a reverence about it that told the story. “You think Tyler has a chance to do that?”

  “It’s possible. The Cubs aren’t a very strong-hitting lineup. They have a lot of young free swingers, so they chase a lot of bad pitches. Hammond is smarter than they are and will toy with them like a cat with a mouse.”

  “Huh.”

  “Of course, no matter how good he pitches, it doesn’t matter if his team doesn’t score for him. If it stays zero-zero, it’s got to be tough on him. This park is so small, with the wind blowing like it is, it’s very easy to make a mistake and give up a home run.”

  “Oh.” Casey watched as the opposing pitcher took his warm-up throws before the bottom of the inning. “But the other pitcher has that problem, too, right?”

  “Right, that’s true.” The man turned and looked at her. “I’m Mike Garvin, by the way. I take it you know Tyler Hammond?”

  “Um, yeah.” She shook his hand. “I’m his girlfriend. Casey Branigan. So I’m still learning the baseball stuff.”

  “Oh, not a fan?”

  “I wasn’t, anyway. We met at my job, not his. I work for a magazine in Boston,” she explained. People never knew what she was talking about if she said she worked for a service bureau, so it was simpler to say she worked for a magazine.

  “Oh, outstanding,” Mike said, and he sounded sincere. “My daughter just graduated from art school and is doing an internship at a magazine. Hopefully it becomes a paying job soon, but I guess it’s like the Major League. You have to work your way in.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Casey, here comes your man again.”

  “So what are you writing down?”

  He showed her the clipboard. “I’m a scout. I’m tracking not just Hammond but a couple of other players.” He had a pre-printed page of notes on each of them and was adding to them in pencil. “Nowadays we pull the radar gun readings and such off the Internet, but nothing beats what you can observe with your own eyes. Right now, he looks pretty good. Best I’ve seen him pitch all year.”

  They continued chatting through the fifth inning, then Tyler made it through the sixth, still without giving up a hit. Mike whistled appreciatively as the last man swung weakly at a pitch in the dirt and went back to the dugout looking dejected. “Right now, no one in the dugout will talk to Hammond, you know.”

  “Why?”

  “Afraid they’ll jinx him. See, a no-hitter isn’t just about the pitcher doing great. It takes some luck, and ballplayers are superstitious. None of them wants to be the man who breaks his mojo somehow. One of the big superstitions is that you can’t use the words ‘no-hitter’ or ‘perfect game.’”

  Casey tried to imagine Tyler sitting in the dugout alone with no one talking to him. “He must be going nuts. So how come you’re not superstitious?”

  Mike grinned. “I’m not rooting for the Robins, you know.”

  Casey looked at him in surprise. “You! You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”

  “Well, I figure why upset my nice neighbor?” He shrugged. “But I’ll tell you something, if it looks like your guy there is going to do it, everyone in this crowd, even though they root for the other team, will get behind him and cheer because they want to see something rare and special. Everyone wants to see a historic event if they can.”

  He was right. Tyler got through the seventh without giving up a hit and Casey could feel the energy in the crowd. The next time he took the mound, there were some cheers for him, and as the first batter of the eighth inning went down on strikes, there was a fairly large roar from the crowd. Casey got goose bumps.

  After the second man hit a fly ball caught at the wall, she said to Mike, “Do you think he can do it?”

  “I know he has the ability to do it. The question is, will he do it?” Mike looked down at his clipboard. “The problem with all those strikeouts he throws is that he is already over one hundred pitches in the game. He’s probably starting to get tired.”

  Now that Casey looked at Tyler, he did look tired. His shoulders were a little slumped, and she saw Mad Dog was out at the mound talking to him. “Doggy is giving him a rest by going out and talking to him,” she said. That much she knew from things Missy had said before.

  “Yes. And calming him down after the previous batter almost hit a homer, which could have not only broken up the no-hit bid, but lost them the game since there is still no score. Madison’s a good catcher and they work together well.”

  Casey agreed. The final batter of the inning went down on a weak swing that hit the ball right to the first baseman, and a large cheer went up. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow is right, but the Robins still need to score to get anywhere.”

  Casey looked at the scoreboard. “Campbell’s coming up. He’ll hit a home run,” she said confidently.

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. He hasn’t hit one in a while, and you said the ball was blowing out, and look how much bigger he is that the guy who almost hit one last inning.” Casey knew there were a lot of other things that had to be taken into account, like how the Cubs pitcher threw, but she thought it was fun to try to predict.

  Mike Garvin burst out laughing when on the very first pitch, Campbell did exactly that. The ball flew so far it went out onto the street.

  Casey screamed and clapped her hands as he circled the bases. “That’s the way, you big palooka!” Then she looked at Mike. “See, I told you so.”

  He laughed again. “I’ve been a scout for fifteen years, but I have to hand it to you. You called it.”

  That was the only run the Robins managed, but now if only Tyler could get three more outs, it would be history. Casey found herself holding her breath as he threw his warm-up pitches before the bottom of the ninth. “God, that sounds so dramatic, ‘bottom of the ninth,’ doesn’t it?” she said to Mike. “Now I know why.”

  He just nodded, watching every move Tyler made.

  Casey caught one of the other wives, Lila Gutierrez, looking back at her. When she saw her looking, Lila crossed herself and put her hands together like she was praying. Casey crossed her fingers.

  The first batter went down swinging and the crowd erupted, getting to their feet. Casey and Mike stood, too, and Casey found herself fidgeting from foot to foot.

  The second batter fouled off pitch after pitch and she could see on each one, Tyler looked more and more tired. But he wasn’t going to give in. The batter swung again, this time hitting the ball high in the air. Mad Dog threw his mask off and caught the ball right by the dugout, and another huge cheer came out of the crowd.

  “One more out, just one more out!” Mike said, incredulous.

  “One more,” Casey echoed in a whisper.

  The final batter was a big guy who waved his bat menacingly as he stood at the plate. Everyone in the ballpark seemed to be holding their breath now, wondering if they were really, truly going to see something special.

  Casey jumped as the sound of the ball hitting the bat cracked loudly and then the entire crowd groaned, followed by some cheers, as the ball landed cleanly in center field, a hit.

 
“Aw, damn it,” Mike said. “One out away!”

  Casey’s eyes were on Tyler, visibly deflated, on the mound. Mad Dog and the whole infield had gathered around him and it looked like they were consoling him. Even the manager was there now. The manager patted him on the back and waved to the bullpen for a new pitcher. Tyler walked toward the dugout and seemed to realize people were giving him a standing ovation. He took his hat off and waved to the crowd, then going down into the dugout.

  Casey sat back down. “Oh well. I guess it’s time to start thinking about dinner.”

  Mike laughed. “Yeah. Although I hope your reservation’s late. After a game like that, he’s going to have to give a lot of interviews.”

  “Even though he didn’t do it?”

  “It’s still a good story,” Mike said. “Well, now that he’s done, I’m done, too. Nice to meet you, Casey. It was great being neighbors.”

  She smiled and shook his hand. Out on the mound, Rigney, the closer for the Robins, was almost done warming up. Two pitches later, the game was done, and Casey found herself walking out with Lila Gutierrez, who seemed even more disappointed than Casey was.

  “Bad break there, Casita,” she said. “But he won. So his win streak is twelve now, yes?”

  “Yeah, that makes twelve,” Casey said. “I’m going to go back to the hotel and see if I can catch him on ESPN.”

  “You want to see if we can talk our way into the locker room? Well, they won’t let us inside, but we can usually get to the door right by to wait for them.”

  “Nah, that’s all right. I’ll head back and just catch it in the bar there.” Let Tyler have his spotlight and take his time, she thought. She didn’t want him to rush through it because he thought she was hanging around waiting for him.

  It took quite some time to get back to the hotel, thanks to the large crowd, but it was fun listening to everyone talking about Tyler. Tyler Tyler Tyler. She smiled inwardly. She couldn’t wait to see him. It had been almost a whole week since they’d seen each other thanks to the All-Star Game and the travel to Chicago.

  Once she got to the hotel, she called Kim to say Tyler might be a while yet, and then texted him to say she was in the bar. They had a widescreen TV still tuned to sports coverage, and she nursed a club soda with lime while waiting to see the report.

  She didn’t have to wait long for the familiar scene of Tyler standing in front of his locker with cameras and microphones all around him. Giant ice packs were bandaged to Tyler’s shoulder, and he was shirtless, his hair wet and sticking up as if he’d taken a quick shower before meeting the press, but couldn’t get dressed because of the ice.

  “So what was going through your mind in the ninth inning?” asked a voice.

  “Well,” Tyler said, “I was mostly thinking, ‘Thank God Campbell hit that dinger,’ because now I actually had a shot at something. The no-hitter wouldn’t mean much if we didn’t win the game, you know? If I pitched nine no-hit innings and then we had to go to the bullpen at nothing-nothing? That would have been awful. No, I’d much rather that I won the game, that the team won the game, than I got the no-hitter. Although, man, it would have been nice, wouldn’t it?”

  The reporters laughed. “It’s the second time you got that close, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yeah, in my rookie year, only my third start, I also got to ninth inning, two outs, and even two strikes! And then, God, I still see that ball flying into the stands in my nightmares. I hate Jack Villard forever for that one. No offense, Jack. If you’re watching, you know I’m kidding, right?”

  The reporters all laughed again.

  Then a voice that sounded like Ken’s asked, “So, that makes a streak of twelve wins in a row. Any comment about that?”

  “Okay, you guys, I have something to tell you about The Streak. You remember the night it started? It was in Boston, and I had lost five in a row before that, right? And everyone was like, what’s wrong with Tyler, right? You might remember I got ejected from that game and also fined for leaving early and all that.” He paused while the reporters all laughed. “What I never told you guys was that I left early to go meet a girl.”

  Now there were more laughs. Casey found she couldn’t move her hands from the top of the bar.

  “No, seriously,” Tyler went on. “I went to meet this girl, who I had met that day, just by chance, you know? But it was love at first sight.”

  Now there were only one or two laughs, as Tyler’s face was earnest and serious. “I mean the kind you’d do anything to be with that person, the kind that just grabs you by the balls. Kind of love at first sight, okay? So, she was at that game, and I’ve been seeing her ever since. She’s been at every game, and I seriously think she’s my good luck charm. The Streak is all about Casey, and honey, if you’re listening”— he turned and looked into the camera, then one of the others—”I love you, and please, please, please come to my start in Cincinnati next week?”

  Casey just stared. “Oh my God.”

  The bartender eyed her. “You know the team is staying here, right?”

  She laughed. “Yes, I know the team’s staying here.”

  “Plenty of other guys, even if that one’s taken,” he consoled her.

  Now she laughed harder. He thought she was a baseball Annie and had no clue he was talking about her. “Oh my God, yes, that one’s taken.”

  * * * *

  A few minutes later, some of the guys and their wives came in, but there was no sign of Tyler. “He’s on the late bus,” Mad Dog said, when he saw her sitting there. “Still doing interviews.”

  “Did you… did you hear what he said?” Casey asked, barely able to keep from squealing. She was a little bit angry inside that he’d been keeping all this from her, but— but it was hard not to squeal when he’d just declared his love, undeniably. On national TV.

  Madison grinned at her. “Did you doubt it, girl? He’s crazy for you.”

  She just grinned back, and Mad Dog wandered away.

  The next person she saw, though, was Ken. He came over to her and ordered a Coke as he climbed onto the stool next to hers. “Boy, what a day, huh? He nearly had that no-hitter in the bag.”

  “I know,” Casey said, still grinning like a mad fool. “Wow, you got here quick.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I could have sworn I just saw you on ESPN. Or heard you, anyway.”

  Ken chuckled. “That was taped earlier. I didn’t stick around the park. Since I’m only doing a column, I didn’t have to stay and file like the other writers.” He turned and looked at her. “I have a question I want to ask you, Casey, but it’s really kind of personal. And it isn’t for a story or anything, so I… you… ” He shrugged helplessly. “It’s really none of my business. I should just shut up.”

  Casey looked back at him curiously. What could he want to know? What Tyler was like in bed? Couldn’t be that. “You can always ask, Ken,” she said. “I can always refuse to answer if it’s something too personal.”

  He sipped his Coke through the cocktail straw. “That’s true. Okay, here’s the question, and if you don’t want to answer it, you can just pretend I never said anything, okay? But here goes. How do you deal with Tyler’s wife?”

  Casey blinked and shook her head slightly as if she must have misheard him. “What?”

  “Oh shit,” Ken said, going white, his own mouth dropping open like hers. His reaction convinced her she’d heard it right.

  “Wife?” she repeated, needing to know for sure that was what he had said.

  “Wife,” he repeated softly. “Lives in Tampa. I’d kind of forgotten they were still married, but she was at one of the All-Star shindigs last week. I take it… you didn’t know.”

  Casey just shook her head. She couldn’t feel her fingers. Tyler had never, ever mentioned being married, not even being formerly married. And Missy! Missy had never mentioned anything about it either! “They’re still married?”

  Ken winced. “They’re separated, I think, but not divorced.
Oh God, I told you it was none of my business.” He looked miserable.

  But not nearly as miserable as Casey felt. “Oh my God, I’m like Jimmy’s mistress, aren’t I?”

  “Oh no, I don’t think it’s like that… ” Ken said quickly.

  “Ken! You just said it was none of your business!” She couldn’t help it. She snapped at him. “Oh shit, and I even took him to meet my parents and everything! God, I’m stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  The next thing she knew, she was on her way up to the room, grabbing her suitcase, and then calling Kim on the phone. The tears didn’t start to fall until she was in the taxicab on her way to Kim’s. She could see the sympathetic eyes of the cabbie in the rear view mirror, but she’d be damned if she was going to explain why she was crying. It was almost too humiliating to think about, much less say out loud.

  Chapter Nine

  Thank God for Kim, who listened to her rants and crying and just kept plying her with tequila each time Casey thought of one more thing that hurt. “Oh, God, all that talk about how there was me and only me, and he’s married!”

  “Separated,” Kim pointed out. She had taken to saying the word quietly every time Casey said the word “married,” although it didn’t seem to be having much of an effect.

  “How could he not even mention her? I’m so dumb.”

  “Case, you’re in love, and he’s in love, and everyone does stupid things when… ”

  “God, all that talk about how there was ‘no one who loved him’ in Atlanta and he wanted me there, and all the time it was a stupid superstition? Oh God, I feel sick. We had sex in the bathroom before that game— was all that sex really about baseball and not me at all?” She put a hand over her mouth.

  “Jeez, Case.” Kim handed her a glass of water this time.

  Casey’s phone rang and she looked at the number. Tyler had already tried to call twice and she had sent it to voice mail both times, then saw that the coward didn’t even leave a message. It was a Boston area code, but she didn’t recognize the number. “Fuck it.” She didn’t answer and stuck the phone back in her pocket.