Justin stormed into the locker room, more furious than anyone had ever seen him.
“You all knew about this!” he yelled. People were still walking around in towels and dressing back into their street clothes after the game three victory. For a few seconds, all his teammates stared at him. Then, almost in unison, they went back to their business, realizing what he had just found out, not wanting to deal with the situation.
“How could nobody do something about this!”
“Shut up bitch, we about to get paid,” Brad McCall chimed in. A few other teammates even nodded their heads in agreement.
Zack Hickery walked over and put his arm around Justin. “Sit down man.”
“Zack, how could you not tell me about this? How could you accept this?”
“Justin, I can’t afford to get kicked out of baseball. I came right out of high school; didn’t even get good grades in high school. I’ve got a family to feed man, and I couldn’t live with myself if my two boys knew I took steroids when I was in the minors. Everyone here made a mistake, now we have to deal with the karma. We just have to accept what’s going to happen.”
“Man, this is so wrong. So wrong!” He put his head in his hands, then looked up and took a long, deep breath. “I’m not going to let this happen.”
*
Justin felt sick warming up in Detroit for game seven. He had just watched his team throw games four, five and six like it was no big deal. He had heard analysts on ESPN try to break down what had been going wrong with the Bulldogs; how this could happen to a team so talented. He saw loyal Seattle fans fill the aisles after the game five loss before they headed back to Detroit with their heads hung low and looks of dismay pasted across their faces. It was all fake, and it made Justin disgusted at what was going on around him.
Justin had decided to just pitch the game like he normally would. It wouldn’t make a difference – everybody around him would make fielding errors no matter how well he pitched, and his teammates would make sure Seattle did not have a runner cross the plate – but he couldn’t take the mound in game seven of the World Series and not try his best to win the game.
*
When Justin walked out of the dugout for the bottom of the first inning, he looked up behind home plate to see his father sitting 10 rows up. He smiled and gave a thumbs up. Justin replied with a forced smile and a head nod.
In the first couple innings, Justin’s teammates couldn’t do anything to stop him. His first six batters were four strikeouts, a groundball straight back to Justin and a weak roller to first base that Rollie Yanden couldn’t mess up if he wanted to (he did want to).
For the top half of innings, Justin watched his teammates record out after out like they had never swung a bat before in their lives. After Justin struck out a batter to end the second inning, he jogged to the dugout and grabbed a bat (since he was the pitcher, Justin batted ninth, the last spot before going back to the top of the order).
As he was putting on his batting gloves, Brad McCall came up behind him and whispered in his ear. “You can’t do anything about it. You keep this up, we’ll all still make bank and your ass is going to be out of the league. It’s gonna be hilarious bitch.”
Justin ignored him and stepped into the on deck circle just as Zack Hickery, the seventh hitter, struck out swinging.
*
Cade sat at a table in the kitchen, watching his mother stick her tongue down some stranger’s throat right after taking a swig from a wine bottle.
“Cade, sweetie,” she said in a slurred voice. “Me and Alonzo are going out. You should be fine. There’s stuff to eat in the cabinet and drinks in the fridge. It shouldn’t be too late.”
Cade just stared at her, scared to ask her not to leave. Rachel and Alonzo stumbled out the front door. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Cade’s eyes lit up a little and he ran to the living room. He turned on the television and manually flipped through the channels till he saw a baseball game. Just as he turned it on, he saw his father in the batters box. It was the top of the third inning in a scoreless game. Cade smiled, sat on the couch, and would not move for the next three hours.
NOTE: I will do another post in the next few days because it would have been really long for one post and I ran out of time this week.
