grown men called in to fight with the hosts about anything and everything related to sports.
When they reached the first stop, they parked and found the baseball diamond. “Who are we here for?” Jayson asked as they took their seats in the bleachers.
They had made it with plenty of time to spare, even after stopping for lunch along the way. The game was to start immediately after the school day ended at three. Right now they could see some of the players take batting practice on the field.
“Ronny Wells. He’s seventeen and apparently has the stuff. Greg emailed me a profile of him when I let him know I was coming back to work. It seems the kid’s not sure if he wants to go into the draft or go to college. Greg wants me to determine if I think he’s ready for the minors.”
“That’s good,” Jayson said.
“What’s good?” Scout asked him.
Jayson shook his head. “Nothing, just that it’s good Greg is trusting you with this assignment.”
“Uh, duh, it’s sort of my job.”
“Right.” Jayson smiled.
They watched the team gather around a man in the middle of the field. Scout assumed it was the team’s coach. There was some laughing and guffawing and then finally the man emerged from the pile of teenagers.
“Fine, but I’m only doing this to humor you all,” they heard the coach say with a smile.
Curious what his team was asking him to do, Scout watched while the man picked up a bat and then got into the batter’s box. The catcher didn’t bother to set up behind him. The kids then circled the mechanical pitcher.
“How fast do you want it, coach?”
It was obvious the team had done this before. Obvious the coach knew what they wanted him to say.
“Bring the heat,” he told them.
“Ninety-five!”
“Ninety-five,” Jayson muttered.
“Yeah, wow. That’s as fast as that machine will throw. That guy doesn’t have a shot.”
The first ball out of the machine got knocked over the fence in the outfield. And so did the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Jayson asked her.
Scout was seeing it. She was hearing it, too. Pure contact, hit after hit. The man had a flawless swing. “How old do you think he is?”
“Maybe a few years younger than us. Maybe not.”
Eventually the coach’s hitting display was over and the other team arrived. Scout took her notebook out and started doing her job on the kid. He was definitely a solid prospect, but she didn’t think he warranted a high enough draft position to sway him from going to college.
Given his evident frustration at the loss of the game, which resulted in him knocking over the Gatorade cooler, Scout thought college might help a kid like this mature. Baseball wasn’t always just about physical abilities. A lot of it had to do with what was between the ears. Especially when it came to pitchers.
They descended the bleachers and made their way over to the dugout. The coach came out to greet them.
“Here to see Ronny?” he asked.
“How did you guess?” Scout said.
“It’s a small town. I know all the parents. When I spot strangers, I assume they’re from the MLBSB.”
The scouting bureau was a secondary source of scouting information a lot of the clubs used. Sometimes it was hard for one team of scouts to cover the country. The bureau hired scouts simply to track players and log data for any team to access.
“We’re from the Rebels,” Scout said, not bothering to mention that Jayson was really just along for the ride. Not to mention that sometimes when the coaches or fathers realized she was the scout, and obviously a woman, they immediately discounted her. It never bothered her, considering the coach or father wasn’t the one she was coming to see.
“He’s definitely got stuff,” the coach said.
“He does.” Scout agreed but didn’t go into too much detail. It was her opinion that a coach would always try to sell their kid hard, regardless of what they truly thought.
“So we were watching you hit before. That machine really throw ninety-five?”
The man smiled and it made Scout think he was even younger than she guessed. “It does. I can hit a mean fastball.”
“Ever play pro ball?”
“Nope. I was a football player in college. Just not big enough to make it in the pros as a tight end, so I fell back on what I went to school for, which was teaching. The school needed a baseball coach, so I learned everything I could about the game and here I am. Never knew I could hit a serious fastball until I started taking batting practice.”
He laughed through this story as if it was a joke. Some oddball discovery of a talent he never knew he had. What Scout heard, however, was that the guy was a football player who had had pro-level athleticism. It wouldn’t be the weirdest baseball discovery story she’d ever heard.
“How old are you?” Scout asked bluntly.
He squinted at her.
“Twenty-seven,” he said finally. “Why?”
Scout looked at Jayson. She probably shouldn’t have. This was her call, her job. But when they had been working together she and Jayson had always seemed to share a brain. He always knew where she was going, so it wasn’t as if she ever had to explain herself. Then he could provide his feedback without her having to ask.
Four years hadn’t changed anything. “It’s insane,” he told her.
Scout agreed. But why not?
“What’s your name?”
“Evan Tanner. And you are looking at me really weird right now.”
Scout smiled. “Evan, what would you think about coming to a weeklong baseball camp we’re hosting and trying out for the New England Rebels?”
“I would think what he said is right. That it’s insane.”
“Insane.” Scout nodded, feeling some odd sense of purpose. “Well, that’s sort of how I roll now. So give it a shot anyway.”
Scout put out her hand and after a second, as if he was still processing what he’d just been told, Evan Tanner shook it with a definitive yes.
“YOU’RE REALLY CONSIDERING HIM,” Jayson said as he quickly glanced at Scout
