Chapter 4: A Name That Still Meant Something
The words left Chase's mouth and hit the air like something thrown against concrete.
Rafael turned away from him.
The movement was small and deliberate — not dramatic, just done.
He walked to the dugout railing and stood with his back to the group.
Eddie Ruiz looked at the ground.
Two other players near the batting cage found reasons to busy themselves with equipment.
Jordan did not move.
His face did not change.
He had the expression of someone who had heard something like this before and had long since decided not to give it the reaction it wanted.
Tamara reached the group.
She had heard the last sentence clearly.
Her eyes went to Chase, then to her son, then back to Chase.
"What did you just say?" she asked.
"Ma'am, I—"
"I heard what you said." Her voice was quiet.
The kind of quiet that is more serious than loud.
"I want to know if you meant it."
Chase straightened.
He was a six-time All-Star and he was standing in his own stadium and something about this woman's stillness was making him feel the ground shift slightly under his feet.
"I meant the car is mine," he said.
"The bet was a joke.
The kid obviously has some talent, I'm not saying he doesn't—"
"His name," Tamara said, "is Jordan.
And the man you just insulted raised this boy to read a baseball field the way most grown men read a newspaper.
He taught him in the backyard with a wooden stake in the ground and a stopwatch and a library book about pitching mechanics.
He did that while working double shifts because we needed the money.
He did that while his knee was bad enough that he couldn't stand for more than two hours without—"
Her voice caught.
Just once.
She pressed her lips together.
"He did that," she finished, "because he believed in this boy.
And he is not here to see it.
So you will not reduce him to a career that ended too early.
That man was more than his last at-bat."
Nobody on that field said anything.
Chase's jaw was tight.
His hands were loose at his sides, but his knuckles had gone pale.
Dennis spoke quietly from behind him.
"You made the bet, Chase."
"It wasn't a real bet."
"You said the words.
In front of every man on this field."
"I was joking around."
"Were you joking when you said his father couldn't finish his career?" Dennis asked.
"Because that didn't sound like a joke."
Chase turned on him.
"Stay out of this, Dennis."
"I've been in it since I walked out of that batting cage." Dennis's voice didn't rise.
It never did.
"You made a public bet with a fourteen-year-old boy and he won it fair.
Twice.
With two different pitchers.
And now you're standing here trying to find a way out of it by going after his father." A pause.
"I've known you eleven years.
Don't make me think less of you today."
Chase's eyes moved across the field.
Every face he met looked away.
Rafael was still at the railing.
Tyler Mason had sat down on the bench and was studying his own hands.
Eddie Ruiz had not moved.
"This is ridiculous," Chase said.
"Nobody actually expected me to hand over a car."
Jordan spoke for the first time since his mother had arrived.
"I didn't want the car," he said.
Everyone looked at him.
"What?" Chase said.
"I didn't take the bet for the car." Jordan's voice was steady.
No anger in it.
No performance.
Just a fact being stated plainly.
"I took it because you laughed at my shoes.
And I wanted to show you that what I know is worth something."
The silence that followed was long enough to be uncomfortable.
Then Dennis reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card.
He held it out to Jordan.
"Come see me tomorrow morning.
Eight o'clock.
My office."
Jordan looked at the card.
Then at his mother.
Tamara gave him one small nod.
He took the card.
Chase watched all of this.
Something was moving behind his eyes — not softness, not yet, but the first crack in the certainty he had walked onto the field with two hours ago.
"What are you planning?" he asked Dennis.
"That," Dennis said, picking up his clipboard from the ground, "is between me and this young man."
He walked toward the tunnel without looking back.
Jordan followed.
Tamara Price walked beside her son with her cleaning rag still folded over one arm, her head level, her shoulders straight.
She did not look at Chase as she passed him.
She didn't need to.
Chase stood alone near second base for a long moment after they were gone.
He looked down at the dirt.
At the mark where Jordan's fingertips had found the bag before the tag.
The evidence was still there, pressed into the ground, not going anywhere.
Behind him, Rafael's voice came from the dugout railing.
Quiet.
Not accusatory.
Just honest.
"You know his dad's baserunning record still stands.
Single-A.
Nobody's touched it."
Chase said nothing.
"I looked it up my first year here," Rafael continued.
"I was trying to understand stolen base percentages.
Marcus Price's name was at the top of the list.
I didn't know he'd had a son."
Chase turned around slowly.
Rafael was looking out at the field.
"We should have known," Rafael said.
"Kid like that doesn't come from nowhere."
Chase picked up his catcher's mask from the dirt.
He held it in one hand and walked toward the tunnel and did not say another word to anyone.
May you like
But in the parking lot, beside the red sports car, he sat for a long time before he turned the key.
Because somewhere between the second-base bag and the tunnel exit, something had changed, and he was still trying to decide what to do about it.
