I again encounter TM in the dugout. We have a new player to photograph and we can re-take [Infielder]’s headshot, if that’s what he wants. He does want. He produces a very fake smile (takes one to know one) and talks through his teeth to the sports medicine intern when she asks if he is going to smile pretty. It’s funny. He approves of the photo. BP ends, and there is a reporter still waiting to talk to our esteemed manager, so I sit around and "supervise," mainly because I don’t really want to go upstairs. And then TM comes out of the clubhouse and back into the dugout. I happen to be sitting right by the box of training/first aid gear, which he is now making a beeline for.
TM: What are you still doing out here?
M: Waiting for the media to leave.
TM: Oh, that sounds like fun.
M: Yeah. So how was the first pitch yesterday?
TM: It wasn’t bad at all.
M: S showed me the picture.
TM: Was it bad?
M: No, it was cute.
TM: Thanks. (He’s rummaging around in the box of stuff.)
He can’t find what he needs and goes back inside. I wait a while longer, and finally the media guy leaves. Walking back upstairs, I go past the clubhouse, and the little nook outside the weight room, which is another choice spot for cell phone service. And there’s TM. He says something about the media guy, and we make small talk as he looks down my shirt, which is the little yellow crossover tank top that NSG liked so much back in May of ’02. Clearly, it’s having a similar effect here. "Why are you all dressed up, looking sexy like that?" TM asks. His eyes are fixated on my chest, with no sign of coming back up to my face any time soon.
Then the marketing guy, with S in tow, walks up. Marketing Guy (who is incredibly attractive and also incredibly married, sigh) asks me why I haven’t given him the lineup yet, and I say it’s because I’ve been down here, and did he call my cell phone? He doesn’t have the number, so I give it to him, and TM asks Marketing Guy and S if they are there to get a first pitch catcher, which they are. "I’m not ever doing it again," TM says to S, "because you didn’t even say thank you." S protests that of course she did, she must have, didn’t she? TM says that infield is at 5:30, and players will be out and S can ask somebody then. I suggest that she should just go in the clubhouse and get somebody that way. "I don’t think the guys would mind too much," says Marketing Guy, as TM smirks, "but she might get in trouble." She won’t get in trouble because she’s married, I say. "Oh, well, she might," says TM. "She might get in more trouble if she’s married, because a lot of those guys are married, too."
S recruits me to join her while waiting in the dugout; it doesn’t take too much arm-twisting. But. Apparently the players are not actually taking infield today. Eventually, TM makes his way out to the dugout, carrying a clipboard and a cup of coffee that looks to contain more milk than coffee. I ask him what that is, since it can’t possibly be coffee in there. He says it is; it just has a lot of cream and a little sugar. TM asks S if she got her first pitch lined up; she says no – no one’s out yet. "She’s about to ask you again," I say. "Well," he says, "I guess I could do it if you really needed someone."
My favorite coach (C) comes out to the dugout just then, and TM says, “Hey, C, how are we supposed to concentrate when we have people like them walking around down here?” And C, who is just as much a flirt as TM, only 30 years older, says, "Well, I guess it depends what you concentrate on."
I start to walk away. "Why are you leaving already?" TM asks. I tell him I was only there to provide moral support for Sommer, since, you know, there are all these boys down here.
"Is she scared of us?" he asks.
I say she is.
"But you’re not scared of us?" he wants to know.
"Oh, no," I say. "I like boys."
TM grins and says, "I’ll remember that."
TM catches the first pitch, and S says she just feels awkward being down there. She also says she is getting over her little crush on TM.
Posted by Molly
at 12:01 AM EDT
