Page 110 of The Fall Classic

Georgie is so freaking cute in the new Firebirds hat I sent her.

Georgie

Go get ’em, 49!

This text is accompanied by a selfie of her in the Meant to Bean truck, her brown eyes closed, long blonde hair pulled back into two braids, lips red and puckered blowing me a kiss.

“Dang, Fischer. Your girlfriend’s hot,” Jake says from behind me.

I flip my phone over, but before I can say anything—or punch Jake in the ribs—Lucas groans.

“Shut up about my girlfriend,” Lucas says from the locker next to mine. He’s dressed in uniform, but he’s not pitching tonight. He’ll be watching me from the dugout with the rest of the team.

“Gross,” Jake says, making a face. “I’m not talking about Scot. I’m talking about this one’s girlfriend.”

I turn on the bench and stare at him. “‘This one’? My name’s Logan. We’ve known each other since February.”

Jake shakes his head. “Honestly, knowing one of you is too many,” he says, slapping Lucas’s stomach on his way past. “Later, dorks.”

“Love you, too, Jakey!” Lucas calls out. Then he plops down next to me on the bench. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last four days, but years of experience has taught me that sitting in a locker room or bullpen or dugout together never gets old.

I look at my twin—his face a mirror image of mine—and watch him watching me. “So, Georgie sends you kissing selfies, huh?” he asks.

I shrug, but it only makes him grin.

“You’re so bad at playing it cool,” he says, pushing my shoulder. “Get a move on it, bro. Bullpen’s waiting.”

My pulse kicks into high gear. “Don’t remind me.”

I get up and follow Lucas out of the locker room and into the stadium. But it feels a lot more like out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Time to see if Dr. Chang’s techniques work on the big stage.

***

Lucas has this thing he likes to do when he steps onto a new mound. He ignores the crowd, lights, sounds, and colors, and he focuses on everything he already knows. I’ve ignored this advice my whole life because it seemed impossible to turn my brain off the way he describes.

Let’s see how it works.

I count my steps from the bullpen to the mound—sixty-eight, close enough to the sixty-four I always get running in from the pen back in Mullet Ridge. My eyes fix on the grass, the dirt, the mound, all familiar enough, even if they’re a different hue. I breathe in, slow and steady, and step onto the mound, not letting myself think about the thirty-eight thousand fans in attendance or the fact that we’re in the middle of a playoff run. I’m aware of all of this, but I don’t let myself think about it.

Almost like I can … control my own mind.

But the real question is if I can do this while holding a knuckleball.

The rubber is sixty feet, six inches, I tell myself. Ten inches higher than home plate. I breathe in and hold out my glove for the umpire to throw me the ball. I catch it with a satisfying thwap and then I heft the ball.

Major League baseballs all have one hundred and eight stitches and are all between nine and nine and a quarter inches in circumference. This ball is right around nine inches—too small for my knuckleball, which is what I’m here for. I give the ump a nod and toss it back to him. He feels in his pouch for another ball and throws it back. I roll it around in my hand, feeling the tacky brown film worked into the leather—the same mud that’s been used on every Major League ball since 1938, taken from a tributary of the Delaware River somewhere in Southern New Jersey. The location of the river is a secret even from baseball executives, and the mud is jarred and distributed by a single company.

Tell me baseball isn’t awesome.

Someone in the clubhouse spent real time today working the mud into this exact ball by hand. This is a good ball. The right size.

I look up.

Rojas and I are both wearing different uniforms—Firebirds navy, red, and orange—but it’s still us pitching and throwing the ball back until we’re both ready. My brother’s in the dugout as well as my future brother-in-law. I have friends on this team.

And a girl I hope is watching back in Mullet Ridge.