Game 7

Content warning: strong language and a touch of blood

Weaver feels his middle finger tug familiarly against the seam of the practice baseball and a nauseating slickness bloom between the ball and his hand as he releases it. He forces himself to follow through completely before stopping to look at the bright red blood dripping like water from the ripped callous that had been healing and re-opening since a start in Chicago two months earlier. Dammit.

Clark, having noticed both the stain on the ball and his starter unprepared to receive a new one, appears before him, tilting his head to meet his eyes under the bill of his cap.

“Okay?”

“No, shit—”

“You’re fine.” He cuts him off with a sort of parental authority, grabbing his towel off the bullpen bench and returning to wrap it around Weaver's hand, applying pressure to the spot where blood continued to run in earnest from the pitcher’s finger. The pitching coach had already ducked inside to get the trainer, who’d been hanging around in case this very thing happened. It seemed inevitable that it would.  

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Matty.” Clark’s patience is staring to wear thin, and Weaver had to wonder if he’d finally break him on this, the last possible day of their thirteenth season as teammates, perhaps the last time they’d ever work together. Maybe the last game either of them would ever play. “We got it.”

“First pitch is in twenty minutes.”

“So they’ll wait if they have to.” The conversation is clearly over, as far as Clark is concerned, even though Weaver has personally never tried to delay a national broadcast, much less a World Series game, and he imagines if he’s not on the mound at 8:08 there’s going to be an issue.

“Fuck,” he hisses again, more sharply. He’s too old. For a lot of things, but he’s especially too old to be acting like this, at a moment like this. As if this isn’t the biggest game of Clark’s life, too.

Athletic trainers always reminded Weaver most of kindergarten teachers. The urgency with which they rushed to tend to a downed player like they’d taken a spill on the playground, the comforting tones. He couldn’t imagine that was part of the curriculum of any degree program, but they all seemed to have it. Their current one especially. “All right,” he was saying, though more to himself, as he unraveled the soiled towel from around Weaver’s pitching hand, wiped his finger with something sterilizing that stung like a motherfucker for a moment, then glued the torn skin back together. “We can redo it later if we need to.” He says, as if they hadn’t done it every other week down the stretch and twice during Game 3. Weaver doesn’t thank him as he leaves, too busy staring at the patch job, looking for imperfections.

“Of course, right?” He mutters. “Of course, two seconds before the biggest start of my life—"

“Hey.” Clark says, sort of harshly, somehow above him though they’re the same height. A strong hand cups the scruff of Weaver’s neck. He’s closer than is absolutely necessary. “I love you, you know that?”

If Weaver weren’t so wrapped up in his own neuroses, he would have known something like that was coming. Ryan had always been unusually warm, even for a catcher, radiating charm, quick with praise. Kid could sell ice to an Eskimo, one of the long-time team executives used to say. Even in his early twenties, younger than his entire staff, he carried himself with such confidence that the most temperamental of veterans would give in to him, sink into an offered arm, accept that he had an answer. Whether or not he really did was beside the point. The pitch was always less important than the conviction behind it. And Ryan Clark exuded conviction. And, occasionally, sentimentality.

Because Weaver was so caught up in himself, he wasn’t expecting it, and so he looked sort of bewildered back at his catcher, as if now couldn’t possibly be the time for this. “Yeah?”

“You know I do?” Clark asks, smirking teasingly. As if on cue, Weaver chuckles, grinning wryly.

“Yeah, man, I know you do.” He says, and he does, because he realizes by this stage that he’d done nothing to deserve a confidant like him, who would spend most of his career looking out for him, holding him to account, talking him off the ledge every time he really thought it was over. Even if he’d thought to sooner, there was nothing Weaver could do to repay him. Ryan’s sorry reward was friendship with a notoriously self-isolating, fussy veteran right-hander who was always hanging on by a thread in one way or another.

“Good,” Clark gives his shoulder a firm squeeze before he takes his hand away. “You don’t deserve it.” He adds, as though he’d heard all of it. Weaver laughs again. He’s a little looser, for a moment, before he remembers where he is, where they are, how much rests squarely on his shredded shoulder, the finality of this game. The only thing he hates more than the way his career has unraveled is the idea that any of it might change around him.

“All right,” Clark says, beckoning for the pitching coach. “We’d better get going.” He’s right. It’s 7:54. Weaver’s stomach drops again. It’s not going to stop doing that, he imagines, until he gets an official pitch out of his hand, and maybe not even then, depending on how it breaks.

The two of them walk side by side from the bullpen to the home dugout for what could be, for all Weaver knows, the 300^th time. It certainly feels that way. It feels like he’s spent most of his life on this field with Clark.

“Matt!”

Nearly all the way to first base, he sighs and pauses to look up into the stands at his wife, Hannah, just where she said she’d be. She waves energetically, their youngest on her hip, before hoisting the baby up a little higher so she could see him. He does smile, a little, at his daughter, and offers a wave back, although he knows she’s too young to see anything at all, much less understand which ridiculous uniformed adult she’s looking at. He waits for his mother-in-law to lift their oldest in her tiny replica jersey with her hair in a wispy ponytail high on her head.

He doesn’t love her anymore — Hannah, that is — and maybe, in the truest sense, he never did. Maybe he didn’t know the first thing about unselfish affection, just picked her up when he was 14 because she was the prettiest girl he’d ever met and held onto her for the praise and attention she lavished him with. She was in awe of him as much now as she had been in high school, when she went to every game he pitched and quit cheerleading their senior year because their schedules conflicted too much. He was tired of being hung onto before they’d even gotten married and now it felt worse, somehow. The doting didn’t stroke his ego so much as it felt like her marking her territory, protecting her possession against other women with more sexual confidence and less dignity.

Had he ever returned anything to her? He didn’t know. He didn’t know the first thing about what she valued in their relationship, other than the association with him. Being a ballplayer’s wife, Weaver had learned, was at least half the joy for some of the women, those who’d by then learned that they were too normal to be known for anything. The baseball wife was a brand that could transform any beautiful but otherwise ordinary girl into someone enviable. And he hated it, much as he had no right to — even if it was the only reason Hannah had married him, he was still lucky she had — it getting under his skin more every year as his wife and her comrades posted updates about their moves, gushing about their hardworking husbands and their adorable children, the way they allowed themselves to be defined by their married names.

Not for the first time, as he continues his walk towards the dugout, he considers that it’s probably time to cut her loose, that none of this is fair, not really. He was bad company in high school and he’s even worse now, always in a mood, bitter about his untapped potential, spending more time digging around to find the edge he had at 16 than he ever did looking at her. She couldn’t leave — both because of her undying devotion to being the perfect, adoring, supportive wife, and the fact that she was entirely reliant upon him financially — and more than that, it had never seemed to cross her mind. That was in no small part a source of his constant impatience with her, the way she refused to stoop to his level, never asked if something was really wrong, never got angry. Hannah was, as she had always been, relentlessly kind, optimistic, sweetly naive. It made him feel sick. The guilt, he supposed.

When they get there, the dugout is buzzing. Figuratively, but literally, too, the vibrations of the stadium reaching the foundation. There’s the feeling in his stomach again, the sharp pull downward as his pulse spikes. He never used to get nervous. When he was young and he knew how his fastball would leave his hand every fifth or sixth day, his outsized ego would take over. Quiet confidence would become vitriol, more than he’d ever been able to control. He overthrew a lot back then. Because he didn’t know how not to, because he could never shake the suspicion that no one thought he was good enough, because he could. He can’t anymore, of course. Now he has to get it right every time. There’s nothing to fall back on.

The rest of the starters are shoulder-to-shoulder in the dugout, behind the elevated benches. He finds a place at the end, to take in the field, brushing arms with Kyle Hansen.

Hansen arrived five seasons back and confronted Weaver, immediately, with the personification of what he’d always wanted to be. He was – still is – a bull, unceasing, snarling, blessed with an unending supply of competitive fury. He’s big and thick and pumps 100 mph like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Until then, Weaver had held onto the notion that he was special – and of course he was, he was a professional baseball player, a starter on a pretty good team that, presently, was nine fortunate innings away from a championship – but it was meeting Hansen, that many years into his career, that made him consider that there was a tier above special.

“This is fuckin’ cool, man,” Hansen offers casually, looking up at the waves of brightly-colored rally towels. His good-natured Southern Californian presents itself most the day after a start, when he’s pleasantly wrung out. He should be satisfied. He made it through two outs in the seventh. He's why they're here at all, with an opportunity to complete their Cinderella story of sorts.

“Yeah,” Weaver answers, allowing himself to follow Hansen’s gaze. It is incredible, although to him, what amazes him the most is the capacity of all of these people to care quite so much. The thought is almost enough to offset the potential for cruelty he knew they had. Much of it had been for him over the last 15 years. They never said anything he didn’t know already.

The words are out of his mouth before he can really stop to think about them. “They all wish it was you,” he says. The fans, their teammates, the coaching staff, the ownership group in their suite 300 feet up. “Shit, I wish it was you.”

Hansen laughs as if he’s kidding, waves him off. “Come on, Weave.” He doesn’t reject the idea, though, because he knows it’s true. Weaver imagines that’s why the conversation dies. Maybe Hansen’s ruminating on what a head case he is. How he should be able to handle himself better at this stage of the game. How even with 21 hours of rest between Game 6 and tonight, he’d feel more comfortable if the ball were in his own hands.

Mora, the second baseman, jogs over, wending his way through the packed dugout. “Hey, Matty,” he says, words rolling pleasingly off his tongue in his Dominican-accented English. Weaver turns towards him, breaking the silence he’d been holding with Hansen. “You’ll be good, brother. You got this.”

Mora had won a title a few years back, in a tidy five games, with a much better team. It’s like nothing, he’d been saying all afternoon, soothing everyone with his practiced ease. Mora is the kind of ballplayer best suited for moments like this, the kind that doesn’t know the meaning of the game speeding up. He’s a soother. He could smell anxious energy from a mile away. He’s here for that, to anchor their infield of infants. The franchise will be better for having had him. The white infielders will come away with just enough Spanish, collectively, to better anchor the next set of international prospects, Mora’s gentle leadership qualities having rubbed off on them. They, Matt and Luis both, would be gone by then, no longer relevant, having left their indelible mark on this franchise. Luis’, after a couple of years, certainly positive. Matt’s, after a lifetime in this uniform, still to be determined. By this.

“Thank you, buddy,” Matt answers, giving him his hand, bumping shoulders with him. Mora claps him on the back.

“Love you, man.” Mora says, and while Weaver’s sure he means it, it rings in a different place. Mora’s too generous with his affection, and still too much of a stranger, for it to feel personal to him. When Mora texts him this winter – because he will, he’s a good teammate – asking him how things are, if he’s sticking around, Weaver knows he won’t answer.

He finally goes to sit on the bench, shrugging off his windbreaker. His arms are bare underneath. The cold makes him feel more alert, distracts from his persistent aches. One more game. A hundred more pitches. Then he can go home, hold his baby, and see if this is worth doing one more time.

There’s a lump in his throat. Subconsciously he’d been fighting it all day, but he’d thought the weight of this, of Game 7, his legacy, his future, had fully settled on him. It clearly hadn’t. It’s settling anew now, as he stares at the field he’s been taking in home whites since he was 22, then past it, into the inky black of the night sky. It’s so cozy, Hannah always said about October, and the thought of her chipper, sing-song voice, pitched up with excitement for him and this city she’d adopted wholeheartedly, stirs up some affection in him. As does the anticipation of whatever she’ll have for him later, win or lose – I’m so proud of you, baby, I’m always so proud of you. He’s got one more start on his ledger and he’s chosen this moment to crack up.

Clark’s next to him, silent. Occupied with scouting reports, with the top third of the order. He’s never spent enough time thinking of the opposing pitcher. If you guys look good, I look good, he would say. His selflessness is beyond Matt’s understanding.

He catches Weaver glancing at him. “You good?”

“Yeah,” he turns his attention back to the field. A girl is running around from their dugout, over the team logo painted behind home plate, to the camera well past third base. It’s close. “Is this it, you think?”

Ryan pauses. He should be annoyed. “Maybe,” he says, finally. “Maybe.” Matt’s almost disappointed.

“So.”

Clark laughs at him, on the edge of derisive. He tilts his head back against the cushioned shelf above the bench for a moment. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

“I know.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. He looks at Weaver for long enough that he has to give in and meet his eyes. “If it is, and I never have to deal with you again, it’s been a pleasure.” It’s soft, even for Clark, so he holds his fist up to even it out again. Matt bumps their knuckles together.

“You always know what to say.” He says, voice thick with sarcasm, but he wouldn’t have raised the question if he wasn’t earnestly looking for purchase. Clark’s known him long enough.

“It’s my job.” Clark says, pulling his glove on, flexing his hand a few times. What a job, Weaver thinks. And how lucky he was to have been handed, by a since-retired general manager and his gang of amateur scouts, almost two decades ago, a guy who did it so well, and who was so willing to do it for his benefit.

The ambient ballpark music shifts. The position players take off up the stairs on the far side of the dugout. So he does, too.