Chapter One - DARIA
They say believing in the impossible makes you delusional, unless you're in a baseball stadium. Then they just call you a fan.
“If they don’t win, it’s a shame!” I scream at the top of my lungs and break into laughter. Here I am, a lifelong Georgia Firebirds baseball fan, sitting in the stands in Charlotte, North Carolina, of all places. The Firebirds are winning, or I should say, leading.
It’s the seventh-inning stretch, the point in the game where the two hours of alcohol consumption kick in, and the crowd gets rowdy. It’s Friday night, and the Charlotte Crowns have a sold-out stadium, thirty-five thousand strong.
I spin and bask in the moment. I’m in my happy place. A major league ballpark. Yep, I’m that anomaly, the under-thirty girl who lives, breathes, and loves baseball in all its forms. I blame my dad.
Speaking of… “The hot dog line was too long,” he says, handing me my third soft drink of the game. He drops heavily onto the seat next to me, slipping his third beer into the seat cupholder. It’s a game-day ritual; we start the game with a drink, refuel in the fourth inning, and finish up at the seventh-inning stretch. It started when I was six, and he took me to my first major league game, and he’s never forgotten.
“What are you looking at?” he barks at someone behind me, and I turn and catch the flash of embarrassment sweep across a young man’s face before he pins his eyes back to the field. He’s in his mid-twenties, just like me, wearing a Crowns tank top with tattoos down the length of his left arm. Objectively handsome if I’d been paying attention, which I wasn’t. My dad mumbles and lifts his beer. “There’s a brain attached to that body.” He takes a long sip, but his gaze remains locked on the young man, who has taken a sudden interest in his sneakers.
“Dad!” I chide; it’s not the first time my overly protective dad has shouted at a guy checking me out. He always spots them before me because my attention is never on the guys; it’s on the field.
“These baseball boys wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like you. Don’t get me started.” Dad half-lifts out of his seat and shouts again, “She’ll run circles around you!”
I place a hand onto his forearm, guiding him back down. “Let’s not make a scene and get kicked out of the stadium. Remember, we’re visiting from out of town. Besides, Isiah Crawford is hitting this inning.” With the mention of Isiah, aka Crush Crawford’s name, my pulse races.
In my line of work, I’m not supposed to have a favorite, but with him, how could I not?
“That’s right, your boyfriend.” Dad pokes me in my side with his elbow, humor in his voice. “I can’t believe I’m feeding into your fantasy by driving four hours to spend the weekend in Charlotte so I can watch you drool in front of your dad.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I protest, maybe a bit too much. “I…” I search for the right words because someone of Isiah’s skills deserve poetry. Multi-syllable painting makes your heart swoon, poetry that barely matches the artistry of his talents.
Isiah is the most complete ballplayer I’ve ever studied, and I’ve studied a crapload of players. Yeah, I’m a baseball geek. An analytical nerd who landed my dream job three years ago with the Firebirds organization. Every day, I get to dive into a statistical lake as deep as the Pacific Ocean in search of a golden tidbit that might help our organization get an edge on our competitors. I’ve studied baseball statistics since middle school, and Isiah Crawford is the gold standard. “I respect his… abilities.”
Dad plasters on a smirk and tilts his head at me. He wiggles his dark, bushy eyebrows, and I notice the aging lines across his dark Mother Earth skin. Lines that weren’t there this time last year. It’s been a tough period for our family, the kind that leaves marks you can’t hide, no matter how hard you smile at a baseball game. “Just how that guy was admiring your… brain.”
I roll my eyes, adjust the iPad on my lap, and hide the blush forming on my face behind a long pull of my drink. My hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail. A warm gentle breeze sweeps across my face, cooling it from the heat of the late June sun and the warmth racing to it as I scan the Crowns’ dugout and glimpse Isiah adjusting the batting helmet on his head.
My hands are in motion before I realize it, my ever-present binoculars around my neck lifted, my eyes locked on him. My body snaps to attention, everything around me fading to the background.
The shoulders.
They’re the first things my eyes catch. The way his uniform clings to them as he adjusts the helmet. He takes a step to his right, and I hear a gasp escape my lips. His bicep clenches as he adjusts his batting glove. Okay, maybe it’s not just his abilities I appreciate.
My perusal continues, slow, purposefully, inch by wonderful inch along his corded arms, down to his gifted hands. They squeeze the ends of his famous bat. The Thunder Stick. Thirty-four ounces of danger.
I ignore the bat and zoom in on the hands. One gloved, one not, just like the musical superstar Michael Jackson. It’s appropriate because when he steps to the plate, he’ll have the hearts of thirty-five thousand people singing.
“If the gods on Mount Olympus constructed the perfect ballplayer, they would’ve created Crush Crawford.” My binoculars fall from around my neck, the strap snapping against the back of my neck as I whip to face the words.
My dad flashed his Cheshire grin as he waves my iPad, reading my words from a blog post I wrote a long time ago. “Put that down. That was written when I was a kid.” I hear fear in my voice. “No one knows.”
“According to the date on the blog, it was only three years ago. I don’t think twenty-four qualifies as a kid.” His finger swipes on the screen. “The Sweet Spot—I do love the name.” His finger traces the outline of the logo. It taps on the center spot of a baseball bat, the largest area, where every batter attempts to hit the ball for maximum impact—the sweet spot. Dad taught me the meaning before I had reached middle grade.
When your back is against the wall, and you only have one swing left, you put everything you have on the line and aim the ball at the sweet spot of the bat.
I pull my Firebirds baseball cap from my bag and shove it on top of my head as the walk-up music for the first batter starts up. Cheers erupt around me, and I relax as everyone’s focus is back on the field. I started my baseball blog three years ago. I was a year out from graduating and had run headfirst into the workplace patriarchy. Team after team refusing to hire a female to their baseball analytic department, despite my credentials. I finally took an unpaid internship at the lowest level of the Firebirds organization. Their minor league organization, where your love of the game pushes you through the slights and harsh conditions.
My analytical reports were brilliant but ignored. So, I started up my blog, The Sweet Spot. Luckily, I was smart enough to make it anonymous, writing under the name of the Oracle. The all-wise, all-seeing Oracle—yeah, I was young, foolish, and full of you know what. But it brings me joy, and reading the comments has been validating.
Last season, feeling myself, I wrote a piece about how baseball needed fresh blood, then outlined how a fossil of a team manager in Colorado had a three-run lead and would follow his by the numbers approach to a game and blow it. I posted it mid-game, and when he implemented each step and lost the game, a fan called into the local sports radio station and cited my blog. I picked up a thousand subscribers that week, including many of the active baseball beat reporters and even a few television analysts.
“Is it possible that we’ll see a Georgia win today?” Dad humors me. We’re Georgia natives and bleed orange and blue. But our major league team has been underperforming all season. If my boss ever read my reports, they would know I’ve predicted this as well as had outlined a ten-step plan on how to fix it.
“Not a chance in a hotlanta summer,” I joke about the infamous Atlanta heat. “Crush is up third in the inning.” With the mention of his name, my eyes seek him out. He’s on the top step of the dugout, hand cupped to his mouth, saying something to the on-deck batter. It’s their rookie rising star, Edgardo Ruiz. I lift my binoculars, I can’t read Crush’s lips but have no issue reading Edgardo’s. Got it, thanks.
This is just one of the six hundred little things most fans don’t see that makes Isiah the complete ballplayer. He’s an on-field coach, giving support and tips to his teammate real time. This situation is tailor-made for another Crush Clutch moment.
“Outstanding talent rises to the moment,” I say aloud, knowing my dad will recognize one of the many mantras he drilled into my head from the time I was born.
“Are we talking about Crush or you, dear?”
I shake my head at his mocking laugh and grab my iPad. My fingers fly across the screen. “Mid-game mockup,” I say as my heart races for an entirely different reason. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve posted to my blog mid-game. It’s reckless and arrogant, but it provides a high found nowhere else on this planet. I’m six for eight with my predictions, a ridiculously high success rate for a sport where its greatest players only succeed three out of ten times.
“Are you sure about this?” Dad says. “It’s the Firebirds—your team?”
“Sport over team,” I return with a mantra of my own. The game is more important than any player, any team. “Besides, this might help the Firebirds. I’ve sent in three reports listing why it’s not a good idea to have Davis pitch in situations just like this.”
I type away a hurried note. “More guts than talent,” I say aloud, reading the tagline. It’s the same line I put in my report about Davis to my boss. “Brash, young, thinks he’s better than he is, destined to fail in the biggest of moments.” I list all the words I’ve heard whispered behind my back in the open office I share with two analysts and a senior scout. Shocker, they’re all men.
I gaze up at the sound of the crack of the bat, the first batter hitting a hard line-drive right to the outfield that’s chased down for an out. “I hope you didn’t press submit yet; that’s one out.” Dad gives me the unnecessary play-by-play.
“Doesn’t change a thing.” My breath shortens as I need to hit submit before the next batter. Crush doesn’t just crush pitches; he crushes dreams. Matt Davis harbors visions of being a star. That he has the goods to deliver the Firebirds a win on the road. Doesn’t he realize this is Crush’s home field, and he, he alone, has the last word? Crush has whispered advice to Edgardo Ruiz, sharing his encyclopedic knowledge with a teammate in the name of putting people they care about in a position to succeed. You’re about to watch greatness unfold in real time—note the timestamp.
I press submit, wait for the confirmation, and hold my breath. I’m a tightrope walker on the tallest tower in the world without a safety net. I’ve called out my team, the one that employs me. My head screams false justification—it’s to wake them up and make improvements—but my heart knows the truth. It’s the reason that when Dad said he could afford only one weekend road trip this season, I circled this three-day weekend series in Charlotte. It wasn’t to see the Firebirds. It was to see Crush in his element.
I lean forward on the tips of my toes. Elbows pressed to the tops of my knees, chin in palms. “So it begins,” I whisper to the universe. I’ve risked my online reputation not based on my statistical analysis of Matt Davis, but because I witnessed Crush whisper to a teammate and imagined him telling him exactly what I would. “Bam!” I slap my leg as Ruiz smacks a screeching ball into the gap. He easily slides into second base, waving to the cheering crowd. But what I notice is his small appreciative head nod at Crush. Proof that Crush’s advice paid off immediately.
“Is it too late to pull down your post before anyone sees it?” Dad says. “First base is open; your boyfriend will never see a pitch to hit.”
“Watch and learn,” I boast as the stadium fills with electricity. It’s not just me who recognizes the magnitude of this moment. Thirty-five thousand people rise to their feet, screaming for their hero to do what he’s uniquely qualified to do—deliver another miracle. I tip up on my toes to see over the man in front of me. I dare not miss a second of this.
Isiah Crawford unfolds from the on-deck circle like a predator. Even without looking through my binoculars, I can see the coiled power in his shoulders, the serene confidence in his stride. I’ve been guilty of mimicking his walk-up routine in the mirror at home on more occasions than I care to admit.
The crowd roars, but I remain focused on the details: the way he adjusts his batting glove with precise ritual, the tilt of his head as he assesses the pitcher.
He pauses a few feet away from the plate, takes a long inhale, and lifts his chin in my direction. My heart takes off at a gallop. I know he’s not looking at me, just in this general direction. It’s part of his routine; it’s also why I insisted we sit in this section. Not for the glance but for what comes next.
With his ungloved hand, Crush presses his index and middle fingers to his heart, then to his lips, and blows a kiss in this direction. “I love you, Isiah” I hear the yell from a woman three rows behind me, and I don’t need to turn to know she’s wearing a Crush Girl jersey. Nearly every woman aged eighteen to forty-eight wears one. Collectively they are called the Crush Nation, and I’m sure if he ever entered politics, he’d have an unstoppable voting bloc.
It’s only because Dad is sitting less than a foot next to me and watching my every movement that I don’t snatch Crush’s kiss from mid-air and press it to my heart. I’ve been around baseball players my entire life, nary a one has ever made me feel what I do when I think of Crush. He’s already an all-star, but not until you dig beneath the numbers can you really appreciate the depths of his talent.
A collective silence sits on the stadium crowd, a church-like reverence that makes you hold your breath and wait for the archangels to sing. Crush steps to the plate, one hand extended toward the umpire, bat extended as if it’s Excalibur, and the crowd times his next move in perfect time. “Crush.” He taps the back of home plate, once. “Crush,” a second time and for the first time today, I’ve joined in with the chant. “Crush!” On the third tap, the chant is the loudest, followed by an earsplitting cheer.
My knees shake, trembling. This moment is more powerful than I’ve ever imagined. More intimate than watching highlights. This is seeing art created in real time, and something in my chest tightens with the weight of witnessing it.
I’ve followed Crush’s career since he was drafted in high school. I’ve seen him in the minors and when the Crowns play in Atlanta; seeing him in front of his home team’s fans, at a sold-out Friday night stadium, is a bucket-list item I never knew I needed.
Davis winds up and tosses a ball three feet wide. It’s a clear ball yet Isiah swings wildly. The crowd gives a communal gasp.
“I guess he’s not perfect after all.”
I don’t respond to Dad’s comment. The hair on my arms tingles. It’s a tell. My brain is trying to reconcile what it’s seeing.
The next pitch is bounced in the dirt, yet Isiah swings away again.
“They’re clearly not giving him anything to hit, yet he keeps swinging,” Dad says, and I gasp as my head delivers the information that my body had already reacted to.
“He’s setting Davis up!” I scream at Dad. I grab my iPad as Isiah steps away from the plate and calls time. I swipe through my screen and do a search. “He’s done this before, here…” I say to Dad, pointing to the screen. “Seven years ago, in the minors. They refused to give him a good pitch all day; he swung twice wildly, then on the next pitch, nearly stepped across the plate and hit a home run. Why doesn’t the Firebirds’ manager know this?”
“Why do you?” Dad jokes.
“I blame you,” I bite back and peck away. “Occupational hazard.”
“Maybe they do…” Dad says as the Firebirds’ manager races out to the mound to talk to the pitcher.
“Trust me, they don’t.” I type out a second update to my blog post. Do you get joy out of watching a cat toy with an injured mouse? If so, watch in real time a master of the cat and mouse put the hammer down on an overconfident mouse. Whoever had a Crush homer in the seventh inning is about to cash in. It’s by far the most arrogant prediction I’ve ever made in my life, but I blame Crush. I’ve always been a believer, but until you’ve visited him in his house you don’t truly understand the greatness. I bow and press submit. The confirmation has my thumb rubbing across the baseball charm bracelet on my wrist.
A nervous energy buzzes throughout the stadium as Crush steps back into the box. Davis goes into his windup and sends another ball wide of the plate. I gasp as I watch Crush adjust his feet, a gigantic step toward the plate, the tips of his toes almost kissing it. With a twist of his shoulder, a level swing, the ball never stands a chance.
The home run is over the fence before I can exhale. Mayhem breaks out all around me, and all I do is turn to face my dad. I know I’m beaming. I know I’m swooning. I know he’ll give me grief for the rest of my life.
But I don’t care.
I’ve just witnessed greatness.
No other ballplayer could do what he’s done. No other player is built the way he is.
And I’m lucky enough to exist on the same timeline as him.
I lift a hand to the sky, spin on the tips of my toes, and join in the celebration. The gods on Mount Olympus have constructed the perfect ballplayer. He’s here, and he goes by the name Isiah Crush Crawford.
***
CHAPTER TWO - ISIAH
Digable Planets’ anthem, “Cool Like That”, blasts through the locker room at an ear-piercing decibel that makes talking nearly impossible. Which suits me fine.
My teammates dance and strut around, pumping fists to the sky. Half of them are wrapped in towels, and the other half are still wearing their uniforms.
The familiar mixture of sweat and post-game cologne hurriedly applied assaults my nostrils as I plop onto the bench next to Gary, our starting pitcher from today. While everyone is celebrating, he’s sitting in front of his locker, head lowered, towel layered over his head. I tap his leg with the protein bar I snatched from the table across the room.
“Here, take this; you need to refuel. You left it all on the field today.” He pushes back the edge of the towel, staring down at the bar.
“Not sure I deserve it,” he says, and I smack him playfully on the back of his sweaty neck.
“Enough of that, we won.”
“You won,” he says, reaching for the bar. “You saved me, that home run…”
I lay a hand on the back of his shoulder. “And last week when we couldn’t hit our way out of a paper bag, you held the opposing team down until we could figure it out. We’re a team.”
“Those in need today become tomorrow’s heroes,” he says, repeating the familiar mantra I introduced to the Crowns my rookie season six years ago.
“See, I knew you were taking notes.” I rise as I spot the Charlotte beat reporter approach. “Hit the showers. I’ll keep the reporter busy.”
I turn and stretch my arms out to grab the attention of Dick Young. Dick is in his mid-thirties, with a short afro, glasses, and a permanent serious expression on his face. He interviewed me on my very first day in the big leagues and went easy on me. We have a good relationship. “You just missed Gary. I guess I’ll have to do.”
Dick snickers. “Good, because you’re the one I was looking for. Have you seen the blog post from the Oracle?”
I shake my head and walk Dick toward my locker. “You talking about the Sweet Spot blog? Don’t you know about the no-phone policy during the game? What did the wise one say this time?” I say the words with a hint of humor but am acutely curious. Last season, ESPN featured a segment highlighting the growing influence of social media influencers on the sport. They specifically called out the power of The Sweet Spot and its role in getting a manager in Colorado fired. The blog had itemized over twenty mistakes the manager made in a six-week period. Much of the Oracle’s insight was used as ammunition in the firing.
Curious, I went to the blog expecting the typical internet rant but found the opposite. It’s written professionally, balanced, and every piece is backed up by real-world statistics.
Dick laughs as if he’s about to deliver a bombshell, and I wonder what he finds so humorous. “The Oracle predicted the Crowns’ comeback in real time, even time-stamped the prediction including your home run. Is it true? Did you set up Davis like you did a pitcher in the minors seven years ago?”
I stop breathing. No way someone is capable of what Dick is claiming. “You’re kidding, right?”
That smirk reappears on his face. “As you’ve told me on more than one occasion, I’m not that funny.” He twists his phone, swipes it, and hands it to me. “Mind you, I’m still recording.”
My eyes scan to the top of the post. My whisper to Ruiz. Praising me for doing something that should be a common courtesy, sharing insights with a teammate.
All I supplied was information; it was still up to Ruiz to execute. He worked for that hit, and I immediately knew Davis would never throw me a ball to hit, but I was prepared. It’s been seven years since I pulled this maneuver on a player just like Davis. An overconfident kid who mistook a momentary advantage for victory. I didn’t think anyone else on the planet would know what I was doing. I guess the Oracle really knows all.
I read the rest of the post, the prediction, but my heart pounds when I read the post-game notes.
Poor Matt Davis had no clue that when he came to the park today, a modern-day Davis versus Goliath. Davis grew up believing in fairy tales, thought he could slay the Giant, his confidence growing with each wild swing from Crush. But if anyone is living a fairytale life, it’s Crush Crawford. He had Davis right where he wanted him all along.
Boom is the sound of the bat.
Bam is the sound of Davis’ confidence dropping.
Bong is the beat of my heart as I’ve just witnessed the most perfect ballplayer in all the land.
“The most perfect ballplayer in all the land,” I repeat the words aloud, not believing what I’ve read. My chest tightens. It’s not the praise—I’ve heard plenty of that. It’s the understanding behind it. Whoever wrote this recognized what I was doing in real time and predicted it. They know how I think. How I play. And something about being known like that… it matters. A special mixture of knowledge and fearlessness, as they staked their reputation by time-stamping their posts.
“Wow,” is the only word I can muster. Overwhelmed by the entire post. A wave of something I can’t put into words sweeps across me as I take a step back and plop hard onto the bench, eyes locked on the screen of the phone. I twist away from Dick abandoning the phone and reach into the bottom of my locker just to have something to do with my hands and to hide the rush of emotions that arrive out of nowhere. I’ve never felt so seen in all my life. Nobody’s written about me like this, like they see the chess match beneath the swings, the strategy, the art.
I rub my nose with the inner crook of my arm and place his phone on the bench, not risking looking up at him.
“So, is it true? Did you set up Davis?”
Dick is looking for a headline quote, something he can put on their website as clickbait. Our media team has trained us too well. “Davis is a good pitcher, had me fooled twice. I just happened to come out on top. Tomorrow’s another day.”
Dick’s brow rises with a that’s all you going to give me look. “And seven years ago?”
“That was a lifetime ago.” I don’t give him what he wants. Not today, not while we’re on record. I’m sure next month, when we all wind up in a hotel bar because of a rainout, I’ll buy him a drink and tell him the truth off the record. It’s a unique relationship athletes and reporters have. Frenemies at times, silent partners at other times.
“I’m here all weekend,” I half-joke, letting him know there are no hard feelings.
He levels a knowing nod to me. It’s a familiar dance. “I guess I’ll hang out by the showers and catch up with Gary.”
He counters like a good dance party. Gary is fresh from the minors, and I doubt he’s paid attention in the media training classes. One false utterance to a reporter could change public opinion in a heartbeat.
Dick scoops up his phone and turns. “Dick?” We both have wide grins plastered on our faces when he turns. Yep, we’re both dancing and having a good time.
“Have you made any headway in discovering who the Oracle is?”
I pull his attention away from my teammate.
“None.” He scratches the stubble he calls a goatee. “No one has a clue. Speculation is he’s probably a former general manager or retired manager looking to shake things up.”
I’ve considered both; they’re what people would expect. But if they really paid attention to what’s written, they’d see the expected is the last thing the Oracle is.
“Well, if you ever find out who the Oracle is, let them know dinner’s on me.” That phrase keeps running through my head—the most perfect ballplayer in all the land. The Oracle’s words hit again, and I speak without thinking, a cardinal PR no-no. “I think I may be in love.”
The corner of Dick’s mouth curves up. “I’m still recording. Is that for the record?”
Dick is a nice guy; he’s offering me a way out. Other reporters would run with their clickbait, but not Dick. He’s more interested in building long-term relationships than in a one-time, short-term win. It’s a perspective I respect.
I nod.
Dick pumps his fist. “We’ve finally found something besides baseball that Isiah Crush Crawford loves.” He extends his fist to mine, and I give it a bump.
“Don’t make it weird, Dick. It’s mutual respect and the love of the game.”
“And you’ve just given me my headline. I got to go. Thanks, Isiah.” Dick races through the locker room, bypassing the showers, his headline burning in his head, Gary’s struggles long forgotten.
I scoff at myself, turning to face my locker, repeating his headline aloud. “Love of the game.”
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