Tucker had been friends with Alex a long, long time and knew the hound-dog act wasn’t his real M.O. with women. Alex had been born and raised in Georgia by a proper Southern family, and treated women the way he thought men ought to treat his mother and sisters—like ladies.
But being a gentleman didn’t mesh well in the sports world sometimes. It was cool to be polite, but there was a fine line between being a good dude and being considered a pussy, and Alex had learned to stay off the pussy side of the line by acting like a knob sometimes.
Tucker tended not to care which side of the line people thought he was on. His social life shouldn’t impact his game life.
His eyes scanned the field to where Emmy was packing up some of her gear. When she bent over her duffel bag, Tucker’s breath caught, and he whispered a silent prayer of thanks to whoever had invented yoga pants. Emmy must have been an avid cyclist because her upper thighs and butt were toned to perfection.
He forced himself to swallow as she straightened up.
“Praise be to the Lululemon gods,” Alex said, then crossed himself.
Instead of scolding his friend’s crude comment, Tucker simply replied, “Amen.”
An hour later, after showering off the sweat and dirt and going through his mandated arm stretches, Tucker met Alex, Ramon and the Felons shortstop, Chet Appleton, in the hotel lobby.
Polos and khakis seemed to be the night’s uniform, a message Tucker had missed out on when he’d opted for some well-worn jeans and a cream-colored linen button-down shirt.
“You guys know we only need to wear matching outfits on the field, right?” he teased, zipping up his coat.
“Si,” Ramon replied. “But now you are the one who looks silly.”
They waited, and a few more of their teammates wandered down, adding some jeans and T-shirts to the mix. Barrett Hanover—center field—was wearing an ancient Felons shirt so shabby there were holes along the collar.
“Hey, Ret…the club gives us new shirts every year,” Alex said, though they were all guilty of hanging on to items that had sentimental value. Postseason T-shirts, the first shirt to ever bear their name and number on the back, and in Barrett’s case, the shirt from the season his daughter had been born.
Barrett grunted his reply instead of returning Alex’s banter. He was a man of few words but could throw from the back of the field to home plate with staggering accuracy.
With all the usual suspects in tow, they walked the few short blocks from the Hyatt to a downtown bar called The Low Ball. Lakeland was a baseball town. Home of spring training, but also a popular minor league team. A lot of money was made catering to the fans and players of the game. Tucker wouldn’t be surprised if eighty percent of the town’s revenue was made between February and September.
They weaved their way through the packed barroom, seeing a few famous faces among the crowd, and settled down at a small reserved table towards the back of the bar. Moments later a short man with thick bifocals and big belly arrived at their table with two pitchers in hand and a teetering tower of glasses in the other.
“How are my favorite boys?” he bellowed, plopping the pitchers among the peanut shells on the table before distributing the empty cups to each man.
“Aww, Gus. I bet you say that to every Sox, Ray and Yankee,” Alex said.
Gus, the owner of The Low Ball, feigned shock and dismay. “No, no. You boys know me. Felons fan to the very core.” He gave them a wink and returned to the bar where a handful of Mariners players had arrived. He began cooing about how big a Mariners fan he was.
Everyone who’d been into The Low Ball knew exactly who Gus’s real favorite team was. The entire place was festooned with baseball memorabilia, and though he tried to keep things fair, there was a definite lean in the favor of the Philadelphia Phillies.
No one cared.
The truth was, team allegiance within the sport was flexible. You were devoted to your team so long as you were playing for them, but everyone knew you might being wearing Pirates black-and-yellow one day, then Mets blue-and-orange the next. Most of them had grown up as baseball fans in their youth, having diehard fan devotion for a specific club. Tucker—born and raised on a farm in Kansas—had grown up loving the Cincinnati Reds.
Devotions tended to change with the paycheck.
Barrett poured beers for everyone, and they settled into friendly banter about how the first day had gone. Drinking at night after practice wasn’t a custom, but they liked to do it every so often throughout training to keep the mood light and fun. With a long season ahead of them—one that would test their endurance and push them to their physical limits—there was the strong likelihood they’d lose some long-time friends before the trade deadline.