Chapter 1

Best thing about baseball is winning, so it figures the worst thing is losing, but inside this are other bests and worsts. Pitching a no-hitter is a personal best, and I did it once, eight years ago. Worst is giving up a home run. That’s hell. You have to stand there and take it, expression fixed, body straight, shoulders back, while the batter circles the bases like he’s got the game in his hand. For me, though, there’s something even worse, which is giving up a homer to Tommy Knox. Soon as I hear the crack of the bat, I know what the broadcasters are saying. Doesn’t matter if it’s ESPN, Fox, or the local announcers. “Ownage,” they’ll say. “Tommy Knox has ownage on pitcher Wayne Kerley,” and they’ll be right. He hits homers off me, always has. No matter what I throw, no matter if I pitch around him, more often than not he puts it over the fence. In baseball terms, this means he owns me. What people don’t know about the situation, what keeps me sane, is Tommy and I having another kind of “ownage,” a personal kind. Twelve years ownage of each other. I think on this as Tommy runs the bases.

As he always does when he knocks my pitch out of the park, he glances my way as he crosses home plate, a split-second look I know has a bit of “sorry” in it. He wouldn’t hurt me for the world, but this is baseball, our lives. The glance is welcome, but doesn’t help much because it’s the first goddamned inning. At least nobody was on base.

I shut down the next batter for the third out, and once in the dugout, I cool myself while warming my arm in a towel, doing all the stuff a pitcher does between innings, and all the while with an eye on Tommy. He’s in right field so it’s a direct view, and he knows I watch his every move. The good part of being a pitcher is nobody talks to you in the dugout unless you want it. We’re supposed to be in some zone and I take advantage of that. If only they knew Tommy Knox is my zone.

Our batter sends a long fly into the gap and Tommy sprints over to grab it like it was routine when it’s anything but. He’s smooth, my big cat. Golden blond, shaggy hair. We’re kind of the opposite since I’m dark-haired and furry, not to mention, at six-foot-four, several inches taller and twenty pounds heavier. In bed I call him Super Cat. He calls me Horse for obvious reasons.

Tommy has told me how much he likes me watching him play.

“I wish we had more games here,” he always says when his team is in town.

“Me, too,” I reply, because during the nine-month season, we’re together for just a few two- or three-game series—maybe two here in San Francisco, two there in New York, or more if we meet in the playoffs. Won’t be the World Series, though, since we’re both on National League teams.

When I go out for the second inning, I know Tommy watches me, acting casual while he steals looks. He has to contend with dugout banter among teammates, but says he’s mastered looking at me while chatting left and right. I dispatch three batters in a row in the second inning, and also the third, where we then get two runs. By the fourth, when I face Tommy again, we’re ahead two to one.

“Fuck ownage,” I say aloud on the mound. “Fuck ownage.”

Tommy bats third, being a power hitter, so I face the speedsters before him: a second baseman who steals like a master thief, and the center fielder who has some pop in his bat. I glance at the opposing dugout where Tommy stands on the steps, helmet on, bat in hand.

I’m determined this inning, settled down from the homer, eyeing the early lead, but the little second baseman lunges for an outside fastball and smacks a blooper into right.

“Well, shit,” I say. “Okay, double play.” My job now is to get the batter to hit a grounder.

Things don’t go as planned. Suddenly my control is off. Two fastballs are high, the curve is wide, and my slider is in the dirt. A walk on four pitches. Tommy’s up next.

My catcher, Shane Bonner, already an All Star at twenty-four, comes out to assure me I can nail Knox. “Inside,” he says. “Hit him, if need be.”

I nod and he goes back behind the plate as Tommy steps in. Hitting him would solve the ownage thing as it would simply load the bases, but to me it’s a cop-out.