Four years later she knew every mole and freckle on the team, and their nudity had long ceased to shock her. She was a locker room veteran at this point, and this new job only meant forty new naked asses to adjust to.
Alex was right. They might as well get comfortable with her now and put the awkwardness aside ASAP. And she should get used to being around Tucker. He was one of the main reasons she’d gotten the job after all. She had a lot of experience with post-Tommy John pitchers, having coddled six of them in her four years with the Sox. Of those six, five had reached or surpassed their presurgery power. The sixth accepted a set-up position instead of his previous starting slot and ended up being traded by the end of the season.
Such was the life of a baseball player.
Emmy and Alice followed Alex back to the Felons table, and a few players shuffled positions to allow the women room. Emmy made introductions, and Alice pleasantly informed the guys she’d be seeing them during the preseason matchups when she was calling games. Any interest the men had shown dwindled when she told them what she did. Alice was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. An umpire masquerading as a pretty girl.
Talk had already begun about the season ahead. The guys were speculating about the blue chip drafts—players who were considered the most likely new recruits to make it into the regular roster. Miles Cartwright was one, and Emmy noticed he hadn’t joined the team for drinks.
Another missing member was the new second baseman Jamal Warren. He’d been a late acquisition, and a handsomely paid one at that. Two hundred million over seven years. Simon had called Emmy shortly after the announcement to grill her for details, but she didn’t have any. Warren was a heavy hitter, and the expectation was that the one-two punch of him and Ramon Escalante would take the Felons straight to the World Series.
Emmy had her doubts. No team’s success was made or broken by one player. But if people wanted to call Warren the second coming of Babe Ruth, they were welcome to do it.
It just meant one more player for her to fret over like an overprotective mother.
The guys asked her questions about the Sox, a few openly probing for dirty little secrets they thought might give them the upper hand during their first matchup a month down the road. Emmy demurred, telling them she didn’t train-and-tell. But she did imply their second baseman was crap at fielding grounders.
The owner brought them more pitchers, and steadily they all built up a healthy buzz.
“Let’s play a round,” Alex suggested, his deep voice a few octaves louder than was appropriate. No one in the bar seemed to care.
The guys were divided, a few cheered while a couple groaned.
“A round?” Emmy asked.
“Alex likes to play Greatest Player Names,” Tucker informed her from a few seats down.
“Like, naming the greatest players?”
“No, that would be too obvious,” Chet Appleton explained, a Southern twang in his voice. “You have to pick the best names.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Alice said.
“How do you win?”
“You don’t really win. Once upon a time we played to see who’d pay, but that stops being fun when you’re all making a few million bucks a year.” Tucker shrugged, like Emmy would understand what it felt like to make a seven-figure income.
She did not.
“So what’s the point?”
“Basically you play until someone can’t come up with a name, then Alex gets bored and we stop playing.”
“I’ll start!” Alex crowed.
Tucker leaned back in his chair and gave Emmy a nod. She too leaned back. He mouthed the words Milton Bradley to her, then they both looked at Alex.
“Milton Bradley.”
Chet was next to Alex and offered, “Yogi Berra.”
That put Emmy next. “Um…Coco Crisp.”
Tucker smiled, and her heart went all fluttery.
Alice, who’d thought the game was stupid, suggested Homer Bailey. Though not a funny name, the group agreed it was a great baseball name and accepted the turn.
“Buster Posey,” Tucker added, going on the same vein Alice had begun.
“Catfish Hunter,” someone offered.
“Dizzy Trout!” Ramon said, going off the fish-named theme.
They went around the table twice, polishing off both pitchers in that time, until Chet was stumped. “I got nothing.”
“How about Chet Appleton,” someone said, then laughed.
The bar crowd had begun to dwindle—none of the major leaguers stayed up late during training—so even though it was still early, it felt more like closing time.
“I gotta go.” Alice got to her feet, the first to admit defeat and call it a night. “See you boys later.”