Top of the first, 2–0.

The Quakes had started to pull ahead.

The players in the dugout swarmed Cash Meyer first as he came back in off the home run.

“Whoa, Cash! That homer was filthy!”

“Insane! The talent on this guy really is different!”

But Cash looked unmoved by all of it, and he took his helmet off and sat down on the dugout bench.

It was the kind of moment that should have been awkward, and the players just shrugged like men who were used to it.

Then Cash dropped into his seat and pulled a towel over his head, shutting the whole commotion out.

And Suho’s turn came around.

The players gave him the same treatment as he came in beating the dust off himself.

“Suho! Good hustle!”

“Those legs really are insanely fast! I’m sick with envy!”

“Our spearhead’s got them by the throat again tonight!”

Smack.

There was a dull sound, and Suho’s back went numb.

The owner of the enormous hand was Mark.

“Niiiiice! Suho! That was so nice!”

Mark was genuinely worked up.

And why wouldn’t he be?

Suho was beating every man in this Low-A league they called an ace.

And not just beating them.

He broke their spirit and took their pride down with it.

And that one hustle play just now had lifted a mood that had been dead all season.

This was the reason the Quakes had gone on a run at the end of the season and made it this far.

Suho was about to say something back when a voice cut across the dugout.

“Hey. Suho. Come here a minute.”

The cheering in the dugout froze on the spot.

A cold silence dropped over it, like ice water thrown across the room.

The voice belonged to Taylor, standing on the steps at the far end of the dugout.

There wasn’t a trace of praise in it. There was anger, thin and cold as new ice.

Every player looked over at the manager, startled.

Every man who played for the Quakes knew it.

He was a kind enough man ordinarily, and once he got angry there was no mercy in him at all.

Suho was startled too, and he swallowed. Then he walked over slowly.

Did I do something wrong?

The play just now had been perfect.

He had reached leading off, and he had scored.

He couldn’t find a single reason to be in trouble.

Suho stopped in front of Taylor, put his hands behind his back, and lowered his head slightly.

It meant that whatever this was about, he was ready to take it.

Taylor let out a short breath through his teeth and then set them hard.

“What the hell were you thinking… what happens if you get hurt doing that?”

Suho felt the relief go through him.

Ah. He isn’t angry at me.

He’s worried about me.

So he brought his hands out from behind his back and looked up with a smile.

“I was certain I wouldn’t get hurt.”

“Hey. You get to decide when you get hurt, do you? By that logic, what’s the DL for? Why do major leaguers get hurt at all?”

Taylor’s voice was full of real worry.

He wanted Suho to lift the mood of the team.

But he hadn’t meant for the boy to burn up his career doing it.

“I know why you did it! But a player doesn’t get to decide when he gets hurt. That play especially! A head-first slide into first is—!”

Taylor put a hand to his forehead like a man out of patience.

“There’s data on this, studied in the major leagues. A head-first slide is twice as likely to get you hurt as going in feet first. The statistic is one injury every two hundred and forty-nine attempts! You think it’s one or two guys who’ve broken fingers that way, wrecked shoulders, torn the ligament in a thumb? First it costs you six weeks! Then it costs you six months. And the little injuries pile up and that’s the end of a career!”

There was no give in him.

“From here on, no hustle plays that can get you hurt. Diving into first especially. Absolutely not.”

Suho shook his head at that.

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t think I can follow that one.”

“…What?”

Taylor’s eyes went wide.

“Because this is what I’m good at.”

Suho’s voice was calm, and there was nothing unsteady in it.

“This place is full of monsters. If I’m going to survive in here, I think I have to use what I’m good at and not hold any of it back.”

He was right.

The American professional game is a den of monsters, and the higher a man goes the thicker they get, past anything he can imagine.

But Taylor was a manager.

Right or not, he knew that if it ended in an injury nothing would be worse for Suho than that.

“And if you get hurt it’s all over!”

A hard certainty came into Suho’s eyes.

He even struck a pose to show off his biceps.

“My body’s tough. And I know better than anybody how to keep from getting hurt.”

“You’ve done this a lot, then? Well, you can see it’s worked into you when you play. Even so…”

“I want to play baseball for a long time, sir.”

Suho looked him straight in the eye as he said it.

“And I want to be good at it. So please don’t worry.”

Taylor had nothing to say to that.

He wants to be good?

Suho was already good.

He had joined in the back half of the season and torn the league up, and he’d blown a number one starter’s composure apart in the first inning tonight.

Nobody could be better than that.

But Taylor understood what he meant.

What Suho called being good wasn’t about a high average or a lot of home runs.

He wasn’t talking about statistics at all.

For a player to be good, however much talent he has, he has to get into the games first.

Suho meant that he wanted to keep doing what he did well, and hold down a place for himself when he got to a higher league.

Taylor let out a long breath.

How do you talk a player with eyes like that out of anything?

For a player like Suho especially, a man who has already failed once, there is no second chance.

And even if there were, the player himself couldn’t believe in it.

“All right. I understand. That’s enough.”

Taylor knocked Suho’s helmet with one rough hand.

“Just be careful. Really.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, sir.”

Neither of them had intended that conversation.

Taylor had genuinely been worried about Suho.

And Suho had only shown him what he thought. What he wanted, rather.

But it was putting a hairline crack in the hearts of Quakes players who had settled for doing just enough.

Leaving Taylor’s worried send-off behind him.

Suho ran out to center field for his defense.

The conversation with the manager had left the dugout air subtly heavy, and none of it touched Suho’s focus.

—And now it’s the bottom of the first and the 66ers come to bat. Ryan Pepiot takes the mound for the Quakes with a two-run lead behind him.

Maybe the pitcher was nervous even with that run support behind him.

He fell behind in the count against the leadoff man, Trevor Johnson.

Three and one.

The hitter had been hunting a fastball, and when it came down the middle he pulled it.

Crack!

There was a clean burst of sound and the ball went between the left fielder and the center fielder.

Splitting left-center perfectly, on a double’s course.

“Ah…”

A groan broke out of the Quakes dugout.

Nobody could miss that it was extra bases the moment it left the bat.

And nobody out with a man on second was trouble from the very start.

But right at that moment.

Suho’s feet had moved the instant the ball came off the bat.

While the other players were still tracking it with their eyes.

Suho had already read where it would come down from the sound alone, and was running flat out.

The ball was sinking fast.

Suho didn’t slow down.

He drove off hard on the last step and threw his body into the air.

It was the same thing he’d done sweeping into first head first a moment ago.

A diving catch with his whole body spent on it.

He slid along the grass, and his glove got under the ball a breath before it hit the ground.

“…!”

Silence went through the ballpark.

What should have been nobody out and a man on second had turned into one out and nobody aboard.

The pitcher clapped his glove over his mouth like he couldn’t believe it.

Then he pulled his cap off and applauded Suho hard.

And the rest of the players were shouting “nice play!”

All except two men.

One of them was Mark.

His jaw had come well open.

Hold on. He got chewed out one minute ago and he’s throwing himself around again?

And the other one…

Taylor was barely holding his forehead up with his fingers.

If he hadn’t been, his head would have dropped straight forward.

Christ… that stubborn little bastard. He could at least pretend he heard me!

But Suho brushed the grass off his uniform and went back to his position like nothing had happened.

Then he held up one finger.

It meant one out.

Maybe it was thanks to that insane play of Suho’s.

The pitcher got his rhythm back and struck out the second hitter, Jorge Mateo, on three pitches.

Then the third hitter, Brian Lopez.

He was no easy out.

The at-bat went to five pitches, and the pitcher threw a slider, and the hitter got it on the barrel.

Craaack!

The sound was heavier than the one off the leadoff man’s bat.

Extra bases. Line drive.

Suho’s feet moved on the sound again.

He kept his eyes on the ball and started backing toward the fence at full speed.

The ball came off like a rocket and went well over the center fielder’s head.

Three or four steps left to the fence.

I’ve got it.

Suho didn’t slow down.

If anything, he had the distance between the fence and the spot where the ball would come down worked out exactly.

And just as he went up at the last instant to take it cleanly.

Wham!

Suho’s back drove straight into the fence.

There was a dull sound of impact and Suho went down onto the grass.

Silence went through the ballpark again.

The hitter was already rounding second.

Then Suho pushed himself slowly upright against the fence.

And held the glove with the ball in it high over his head.

Three outs. The inning was over.

“Aaaaah!”

A scream broke out of the Quakes dugout.

Taylor had his head in both hands.

How many times was his heart supposed to jump in one inning?

The first diving catch had in fact been a play Suho tracked perfectly, with little risk of injury.

And the collision with the fence looked calculated too, taken back first rather than head on to absorb as much of it as he could.

So everything Suho had said about being sure he wouldn’t get hurt was, so far, exactly right.

Doesn’t stop it taking years off me.

Especially not right after hearing Suho declare that he intended to go on doing it.

Anyway… we got through the inning.

But the surprising thing was somewhere else.

Huh?

It was the Quakes players.

They were still watching Suho come in, his uniform smeared with dirt and grass, with eyes that couldn’t make sense of him.

But in one corner of that look there was an envy they couldn’t hide.

Being able to burn like that.

Being that certain about the way you play.

And that feeling was without question.

The thing Taylor himself had wanted from his players all this time.

Nothing’s settled yet, of course.

People don’t change that easily.

One inning out of nine.

And inside that one inning Suho had shaken up the mood of the whole team.

There was no denying it was a very good start.

And Suho came back into the dugout and went looking for Taylor right away.

“Sir. About that one…”

Suho was going to explain how safe his play had been.

But Taylor shook his head.

“You don’t need to say it. I know.”

“Yes, sir. Then I’ll get going.”

Taylor let out a sigh at Suho’s back as he went.

Ah. Should I just take him out?

Sit Suho on the bench and he’d have some peace of mind. Wouldn’t that be better?

But he couldn’t do it.

There’s a saying in baseball that a great play in the field brings a good at-bat after it.

He had a feeling this wasn’t the end of what Suho was going to do tonight.

End of Chapter 31