Chapter Text
In May of 1943, Clarke Griffin skips her graduation ceremony. She doesn’t tell her few friends at school, she doesn’t tell her professors, and she certainly doesn’t tell her mother. The only person who has any warning of her non-attendance is the Master of Ceremonies. (Only because she had been badgered into submitting a formal RSVP.)
Leaving everything and everyone behind in Madison, Clarke Griffin takes the train to Chicago to report for the inaugural spring training of the All American Girl’s Professional Baseball League.
For such a grand gesture—and leaving behind the only place she’s ever known has to count as grand—it's not a long trip. Just a few hours aboard the train, and she steps onto the bustling streets of Chicago. Clarke finds that everything feels more anticlimactic than she hoped. Despite turning her entire life upside down, her future is completely uncertain. There are still cuts to be made: there’s no guarantee that Clarke will even make a team. But then, before five months ago, Clarke never would have thought about becoming a professional baseball player.
Before five months ago, Clarke hadn’t picked up her mitt in nearly a decade.
Before that, it rarely had been off her hand. An early love of the game was only natural given a father that played in the majors. Her earliest memories are of playing baseball. Wells would bat, Jake would pitch, and Clarke would learn every little trick a good catcher should know. By twelve, she knew how to frame a pitch and read a batter, how to turn a dropped third strike into an out at one, how to hold onto the ball after getting barreled over by a base runner. Those first twelve years of her life, Clarke and Jake and Wells lived and breathed baseball. After Jake Griffin’s death, though, the game became too much of an open sore: a dead end road to her long gone father. She gave up the game.
And she got on with her life. She graduated from high school and went to college. She pursued a degree in art history, as a respectable young woman should, and ignored a fledgling desire to go into nursing. She flirted and made friends, attended luncheons as the daughter of Abigail Griffin and was generally agreed to be a charming girl by everyone who mattered.
Baseball was avoided scrupulously, and Clarke did her best to live out her charmed life.
Suddenly, it seemed, it was 1942 and America was at war. Her best friend signed on to pilot fighter jets over Europe. Clarke cried for the first time since her father’s funeral when Wells gave her that news. She furiously asked him how he could do something so stupid.
“Clarke,” he replied, “God knows this country isn’t perfect.” More importantly, Wells knew it wasn’t. “But it does stand for something, and I need to stand for something, too. I need to do something that makes me proud and makes me mean something.”
He had been so resolute, so self-assured, that Clarke had to accept his answer. Wells shipped out for basic training in Alabama at the end of the year, leaving Clarke to think obsessively over his going. Growing up, Wells had always been outgoing and confident, making friends and charming adults in spite of his color. He constantly was roped into various clubs and activities, often dragging Clarke along, but never found something to be passionate about. Now, though, he had found that something to stand for.
The truth of the matter was that Clarke hadn’t stood for much of anything since her father died. She’d gone tacitly along with her mother’s plans for her, becoming a respectable young lady, if rather well educated. Clarke had few illusions about where this path would lead her; she would marry a respectable young man and keep his house. She would volunteer, organize a victory garden perhaps, and eventually become a mother. Little about this life bothered her, but it didn’t excite her, either. She was doing what was expected, not what she wanted.
The last time she actually wanted to do something, she’d been twelve, promising her father she’d match his homerun record one day.
When flyers advertising an open try out come spring to all women interested in joining a professional baseball league appeared around campus in the new year, Clarke took it as a sign and got to work.
It was a job and a half even finding her old catcher’s mitt. Her mother had boxed it up in relief once it became clear Clarke’s aversion to baseball was more than temporary. But, once it was on her right hand again, needing just a little bit of oil, it was as if no time had passed at all. Her love for the game awakened, yawning and rusty but thrillingly familiar.
Clarke ran and threw and practiced every moment possible, just managing to fit her final coursework into her training regimen. Mostly, she trained alone; it was winter in Wisconsin, and no one in their right mind was playing anything but hockey outside. Still, she managed. She even convinced the university’s baseball coach to let her be a practice catcher for the freshman pitchers in winter training to increase her own training time.
Coaxing the newbies into improving their technique all while conditioning her own was less than ideal, but it was all Clarke had. The first few weeks, there were plenty of lewd comments thrown her way, especially from the senior members of the team. The mocking dissipated when Myles, her first trainee, pitched a perfect inning to the top of the varsity lineup in a JV-Varsity scrimmage. After that, many of the pitchers sheepishly came to her, seeking advice. She parsed out bits of information she remembered from her father and hoped desperately that he would be proud.
Eventually, Clarke was helping to lead practices, running drills in the infield and hitting grounders, concentrating on her mechanics as much as theirs. She didn’t get to swing big—they practiced in one of the University’s gymnasiums and broken lights or windows would probably get her booted from her post—and every grounder she hit felt hollow when she could remember the way the bat sang as the ball arced off the sweet spot.
She grew strong. Where her back and legs and arms used to ache, by spring Clarke only felt the bright strain of exertion. At night, while preparing for bed, she’d marveled at the presence of hard-won muscle where before there had only been well-bred softness. Whispers started to trail after her, classmates confused and curious at her sudden change in behavior. Ordinarily, Clarke would have been more concerned about her reputation taking such a rapid nosedive, but reveling in her strength and skill took precedence.
Still, Clarke worried. All of the training she did with the baseball team did not change the fact that she had hardly played a real game of baseball in a decade. As soon as the snow began to melt, Clarke took to roving the Wisconsin countryside, looking for pick up games she could join. She didn’t often find them, and when she did, the players were welcoming but uncompetitive. These were games thrown together by farm kids on days off from fieldwork.
The closer May 17th loomed, the more anxiety built up, amplifying her nerves and fears of inadequacy.
And it was because she was so worried that Clarke realized something. Yes, things had changed in the past five months. After a decade of living what could generously be called an ambivalent lifestyle, the past semester of training and playing awakened a real desire to compete and to win—yes—but fundamentally, to play baseball.
It is as she steps onto the train that will take her away from her past, her mother, and her comfortable life of privilege, that Clarke accepts what she’s really doing.
It doesn’t really matter that she’s not attending graduation. She finished her degree and will get her diploma as her mother wanted. It doesn’t really matter that she’s left Madison itself. She could be a housewife anywhere and make her mother perfectly happy.
What she’s really doing is razing her mother’s carefully constructed expectations to the ground. She hadn’t told Abby Griffin her plan. She hadn’t told anyone, even Wells in her weekly letters. If she had, there would have been all kinds of opposition, mostly from her mother who had loved her husband but only ever in spite of his profession. While Clarke is determined, not even she could stand against five straight months of well-intentioned disapproval.
No matter the outcome of this tryout, Clarke knows nothing can ever go back to the way it was, and that feels almost like freedom.
At 11 o’clock, just as the first strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” sound in Madison, Clarke Griffin steps into Kane Stadium and follows the semi-steady stream of women towards the locker rooms. Her hands shaking, Clarke dresses and laces her cleats. The watch on her wrist, her father’s, gets nestled safely in the bottom of her suitcase.
As ready as she’ll ever be, Clarke glances around. She exchanges nervous smiles with some of the other prospects who meet her gaze, amazed by the sheer number of them. Across the room, a brunette with distinctly bronze skin catches Clarke’s eye.
The girl is talking to a small group huddled around her. “So I said, ‘Listen, mister. I’m the best damn shortstop you’re gonna find in California, and you don’t wanna take me because my parents are from further south than what you say is appropriate?’”
“You didn’t,” breathes one of her audience, both scandalized and enraptured.
“‘Course I did,” the brunette laughs. The smile remains on her face, but the tilt of her chin conveys a steady challenge to anyone willing to side against her. Clarke decides to keep an eye on the girl throughout tryouts, just to see if she is as good as she says.
Next to Clarke, another brunette sighs, “It’d be great to have her confidence.”
“I’m sure you’ll be great,” Clarke responds automatically.
A dangerous grin spreads across the girl’s face. “You know what? You’re right. I will be great, and you will, too!”
Clarke smiles and sticks out her hand. They shake. “I’m Clarke Griffin, by the way.”
“Octavia Blake. Do you wanna get out there and warm up?”
“I’d love to.” The two make their way out to the field and begin tossing a ball back and forth as the bright green grass fills with more and more women.
It turns out that Clarke was wise to be nervous. Hundreds of women show up to Kane Stadium in the hopes of making the first-ever professional women’s baseball league. There is only room in the league for sixty of them, though. Strictly, the odds aren’t comforting.
At noon on the dot—“Clarke Griffin, in absentia” has just been called out and her mother is looking around in well-bred panic—the tryout officially begins. First, everyone goes on a jog, hugging the ivy-covered outfield walls. It’s not a race, but Clarke makes sure to keep towards the front of the pack. It’s impossible to tell what will be the deciding factor in some of the coming cuts. She sees Octavia nearby, and the brunette from the locker room, who’s got “Reyes” printed across her back, is a few paces ahead. Once they’ve made it around the stadium a few times, everyone is split up by position.
Four league officials bring the catchers and pitchers out to right field where there are two parallel lines chalked on the grass about forty feet apart. It’s closer than Clarke is used to, but she adapts quickly. There are far more pitchers than catchers, so while Clarke gets to see a variety of talent, she also can’t spare more than a moment to form an opinion on any of them. She focuses instead on doing her job. A good catcher can make even a mediocre pitcher perform well, so Clarke works hard to coax out the best possible performance from each girl who pitches to her.
It’s nearly an hour later and Clarke has asked the young pitcher opposite her for an inside curveball. The other girl delivers, but the pitch curves a little harder than Clarke anticipated. Grimacing, she thinks she might have managed to frame the pitch at the inside corner if the umpire was particularly unobservant, but knows she should have done better.
Her concentration is broken by a snort behind her. “The object is to make everything look like a strike, you know. You’ll have to do better than that if you want to fool any umpire worth his salt, princess.”
Clarke whips around. Most of the officials had stayed over with the pitchers, offering suggestions and advice, the kind of actual coaching Clarke would have appreciated during her training. The one with the catchers had been pretty quiet in comparison. This is the first time Clarke has heard him say anything to anyone at all. She opens her mouth to protest or say something, but the man’s not even looking at her. He’s glaring towards the infield, where Clarke can see Octavia field a ground ball beyond him. She takes in his tan skin, darkened either by the sun or nature, slicked back hair, and deeply set frown. There’s something about his face that looks familiar, but Clarke hasn’t the slightest clue where she would have seen the man before. Honestly, he’d be attractive if he wasn’t so offhandedly condescending. Indignation begins boiling in her gut. Flinging the ball back to the waiting pitchers, Clarke resolves to ignore him if he won’t even bother to keep his attention where it’s meant to be.
After another rotation through the crowd of pitchers, all the players are given a ten-minute break, after which, they are told, there will be a preliminary round of cuts. Anxiety courses through Clarke as she stretches stiff legs and drinks some water. She thinks she did well, though she didn’t have time to actively compare herself to the competition. The problem is that she can’t be sure the official meant to be assessing the catchers had actually done his job. The one interaction she had with the man did not leave her with high hopes.
Looking around, Clarke can’t spot her problem in the knot of trainers and officials conferring in one of the dugouts. Eventually, she finds him talking to Octavia. “Talking” is probably generous considering the frowns on both faces. The man looks intense, leaning into the younger woman, but Octavia holds her own. She wrenches away when he tries to grab her wrist, and stalks away from him. The official seems frustrated but doesn’t follow. He does run a hand through his hair as he turns, catching Clarke staring. He glares, so she shifts her attention away, thinking, What the hell is his problem? And then, Isn’t he supposed to be with all the other officials?
The thought is soon pushed aside by relief that Clarke has made the preliminary cut. Over half the women who had come out to Kane Stadium that morning depart, leaving a little less than a hundred hopefuls on the field. The outfielders troop back out to the grass, leaving the dirt to the infielders.
Again, there are more pitchers than any other position, but the officials leave one girl on the mound and get the extras to come in as base runners.
“All right,” explains one, though thankfully not the man who had named Clarke “Princess.” He’s with the outfielders. “We’re going to do some drills with live runners. Runners, your goal is to advance as far as you can off what we hit. Infield, it’s your job to get as many outs as possible. Once you complete a play, rotate with the next girl in line at your position. Each pitcher gets five throws before she becomes a base runner. Got it?”
A murmur of assent goes up and the drill begins.
Clarke and the rest of the catchers mostly act as coordinators. They can see which runner is leading too far, where to turn a double, and when to end a play. A lot of the runners cross home, but just as many don’t. The drill is pretty tedious, and if anyone were to ask Clarke, she would say it was ineffective. Every turn, the combination of players is essentially random and there is no way to test promising candidates without waiting for her to rotate back through the waiting fielders. But then, Clarke is not the one running this tryout and has to settle for dealing with sub-optimal coaching strategies.
At one point, Clarke is crouched behind the plate, and the pitcher is taking her own sweet time even as the runner at first edges further and further away from the bag. The pitch finally comes in as the runner leaps towards second. The ball lands in Clarke’s mitt and is in her hand and gone, arcing away towards second, all in the blink of an eye. Her throw is true, nesting the ball in the shortstop’s waiting glove just above second base. The runner slides right into ball and glove; she’s out. Clarke lifts her mask and sends a smile out to the fielder. It’s the brunette Reyes who grins back.
Once the drill is over, there is another break and then batting and more running and a few more girls are sent packing. Not Clarke. She's one step closer to being a real ballplayer. Finally, the remaining hopefuls settle into what is not quite a scrimmage. The vast majority of the players wait in the dugouts as girls are shifted in and out of positions on the field. If they’re not on the field, they make a loose lineup, waiting for a chance to prove themselves against a real pitcher in a real ballpark.
Every part of Clarke hums when she finally steps up to the batter’s box. She takes a deep breath as she sets herself and remembers how it feels when the bat sings.
She lets the first two pitches go by, the first high, the second in the dirt, but the third pitch is something like perfection. Tracking the ball, time seems to slow. Clarke steps and brings her hands down and then back up over her shoulder, hips turning with the motion. Bat and ball connect, and Clarke knows she found the sweet spot. She doesn’t watch where the ball soars past the ivy-covered wall in the outfield, just turns her steps around the base path and towards home. Her first home run in years is sweeter than she could have imagined; she just hopes that she gets another taste.
Bellamy Blake is here under duress. He wants that made clear to whichever of Kane’s flunkies is recording this nonsense for posterity. This league is making a joke of the game that he loves more than almost anything. Baseball takes strength and power and dedication. Baseball is a test of skill, teamwork, endurance, and strategy. It’s not just anyone that can pick up a ball and a glove and be a ballplayer.
For Bellamy, at least, baseball might as well be a matter of life and death.
And even if he can grudgingly admit that some of the prospects on the field have got some talent, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re only here as part of some marketing stunt. (It’s no secret that the able-bodied boys of the minor leagues are shipping out of the country in droves. If the trend continues, there won’t be anyone left to play in the minors at all.) Bellamy is pretty sure that’s not a good enough reason to implement this catastrophe. Baseball is baseball. A few years without much of a minor league won’t kill the sport. There’s a war on. It can just be another sacrifice of the American people to the pursuit of liberty, like scrap metal and stockings.
The presence or absence of talented women definitely doesn’t change the fact that people will only come to games for the same reasons circus sideshows are so popular. Having actual, living, breathing women who play passable baseball will probably only make matters worse. Kane and the owners would be better off investing in dance troupes or models and sending them out to play ball. At least then everyone would be getting what they expected. Even if it does make a mockery of baseball.
Bellamy hates everything about this sham of a league he’s been coerced into.
Mostly, though, he hates that Octavia wants to be a part of it. Not that she’d told him beforehand, of course, and not that she’ll leave now that he does know. He loves the game and is acutely aware that he can no longer play it. Bellamy won’t lie and say it doesn’t sting to watch his sister do something he no longer can. Apparently all he’s good for now is a smile and wave to the fans at the beginning of a game. A game being played by girls.
He thinks about his last meeting with Kane while he’s supposed to be observing outfielders. He was lucky he even remembered to go after the night he’d passed. A cab had dropped him off at the foot of the drive, leaving him to find his own way to his former boss. Blearily limping through the hedges of a ridiculously grandiose mansion, it began to become clear exactly how much money Marcus Kane has. Of course, owning at least four teams from the minors to the majors and a wildly successful candy company will do that for a man.
A little bitter at the ostentation, Bellamy finally had stumbled upon the owner of his former team.
“Nice of you to join me, Mr. Blake,” Kane greeted him dryly.
Bellamy nodded and squinted at the man, though he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He hadn’t had a clue what Marcus Kane wanted with him at this point. He’d thought his short-lived stint as the manager of one of Kane’s triple-A teams in Texas had burned his last bridge. At the moment, though, Bellamy was too hungover to even try and puzzle out what exactly he was doing here.
Kane had sighed but launched into an entire speech about Bellamy’s wasted potential as a ballplayer. Bellamy feebly tried to protest that it was only his bad knee that cut short his promising career, but Kane cut him off.
“An injury I believe you sustained after deciding to start a brawl with one of your teammates and falling out of a second story window in the process. The damage from which, I had to pay.”
Bellamy hadn’t been able to offer an argument to that. Mostly because it was all true. He'd wanted to tell him the kind of filthy insinuations that teammate had made about Octavia after catching a glimpse of the photo Bellamy kept; he would never fully regret beating Atom senseless. What he ended up saying was: “See, sir, I always meant to write and thank you for that, but the doctors wouldn’t let me have anything sharp to write with.” He’d attempted a charming grin, but Kane remained unimpressed.
“You were a good ballplayer, Blake. You were on your way to being one of the best. But now, I need you to head up one of these new girl’s teams.” Bellamy immediately opened his mouth to protest, but Kane continued on regardless. “You’ve still got name recognition, which should be good for ticket sales. You’ll get up, give the crowd a wave with your hat, and then sleep through the game for all I care.” Seeing the mutinously disgruntled expression on his former third baseman’s face, Kane narrowed his eyes, looking more threatening than a glorified candy man had any right to look. “You owe me and you will do this. From what I hear, it sounds like you need someone to bankroll your evening habits anyway.”
And all right, the fact that Kane knew about Bellamy’s drinking habit was a little mortifying. (It probably counted as more than a habit when nearly every night after hearing that his baseball career was officially over had been spent getting drunker than he’d imagined possible.) But, at the same time, Bellamy was still hungover and in pain and so didn’t feel the shame as deeply as he should have. And it’s not as if his drinking was new information, anyway. He’d started drinking seriously after Octavia refused to visit him in the hospital because he’d gotten there by “defending her honor like this was the Middle Ages.” The longer he drank, the more disappointed in him O became, making him drink more. It's a vicious cycle.
Now, here he is in Kane Stadium, watching what he is pretty sure is going to be the ultimate downfall of the game he loves so dearly. If the war doesn’t end up killing baseball dead, this will.
He’s not even sure why his presence is so necessary. It was made clear that his opinion—and, to be fair, those of the other managers as well—was of the lowest priority in creating the final rosters. All he’s done so far today is snap at a few of the players while he tries not to stomp over to Octavia and bodily pull her off the field, kicking and screaming if he has to. It’s the first time he’s seen her for more than a few minutes in months.
Oh, there’s that blonde he’d called “Princess” earlier, just before he’d caught his first glimpse of Octavia. The blonde’s just hit a homer, which even Bellamy can admit is no mean feat. Still, he shakes his head.
Girl ballplayers.
He’s out of the stadium and looking for his next drink before she even crosses home.
In the end, or really the beginning, Clarke is signed to the Arkdown Comets. Clarke has never heard of such a place, but it is apparently a small town on the border between Illinois and Indiana, right on Lake Michigan. She’s just glad she won’t be sent back to Wisconsin with the Mount Weather Belles. Being that close to home would make it impossible to avoid her mother, something she plans on for the foreseeable future.
Knowing a phone call would end in tears on either end, Clarke sends her mother a letter with the news. She hopes for forgiveness. Another, happier, letter gets sent to Wells overseas.
Both Octavia and Reyes, whose first name turns out to be Raven, join her as Comets, along with twelve others. There’s a Trina, a Monroe, and even a girl who swears her Christian name is Fox. Clarke is convinced their team must have been formed based solely on the oddity of their names.
In the immediate aftermath of the team announcements, there are a lot of other important announcements. First, they see their future uniform.
“That’s a dress,” Raven points out baldly.
Octavia, sitting next to Clarke, murmurs, "It's awfully short."
"You're worried? You're not the one who has to squat in that thing," Clarke responds huffily.
Other observations and protests are made until a young man with unusually long hair steps forward. “Ladies, I’m Finn Collins, and as the head of marketing for this venture, let me say that this is the official uniform of the All American Girl’s Professional Baseball League. You wear this when you play or you don’t play at all. Unfortunately, its design is less negotiable than your employment with us.” He smiles but is clearly serious.
One last protest breaks out: “It hasn’t got pockets! Where am I supposed to keep my cigarettes?”
“Ah, that’s another thing,” Finn Collins declares. “While you play for this league, there will be no cigarettes, no liquor, no men. Our girls will be above reproach, which is why all of you will also attend Charm and Beauty School before the start of the regular season. After that, you will be sent to your new hometown where you will meet your manager and team chaperone. Any failure to abide by these rules will result in dismissal from the league.”
Clarke stops paying attention, but she can feel the annoyance of the women around her. Every girl here came to play serious ball, not learn proper etiquette. There is no way the men in the majors, or even the farm teams, had a Charm School clause in their league contracts. Clarke herself had gone to cotillion when she was sixteen, and though she didn’t mind it, she can’t begin to imagine what sixty hard-edged athletes would look like in Charm and Beauty School.
Two days later and Clarke is glad she didn’t try to imagine it, because everything is better and worse than she could have thought. Nothing could have prepared Clarke for the way that Raven glares when she’s told she’s slurping her tea too loudly, or how Anya, another Comet, nearly knocks another player out over a snide suggestion that she stay out of the sun. Honestly, Clarke can’t fault her teammate, though she’s pretty sure they’ll all hear worse over the course of the summer. It’s lucky Mr. Collins doesn’t see Anya’s outburst, because there is no chance that behavior would be tolerated if they weren’t even allowed to smoke. He attends sessions most days, likely keeping an eye on them for Mr. Kane. More than once, Clarke feels his eyes on her, though she does her level best to avoid eye contact.
Otherwise, the etiquette classes are endlessly dull. Over the course of a week, they are poked, prodded, and posed into some semblance of respectability. Everyone first undergoes a makeover in which they are told how to style their hair, how to apply makeup, and what kind of clothes to wear. In case any of the information imparted is forgotten, each girl is also given her own beauty kit and guide. Clarke's known them for mere days and yet she's utterly certain that the majority of her teammates will never look at kit or guide again.
After their appearance is taken care of, they work on their carriage. This involves a lot of walking around with a book balanced on their heads, gliding across ballroom floors and even attempting an actual staircase once. Then come the exercises in sitting and dancing and even speaking, repeated ad nauseam. As it’s nothing she hadn’t learned in cotillion, Clarke breezes through the exercises to the mounting approval of their teachers. Still, she giggles over their absurdity with her teammates every night. It makes for good team bonding.
Clarke likes the girls on her team, for all of Lexa and Anya's intensity, Charlotte's youth, and Roma's flirtatiousness. They’re funny and sweet and deeply dedicated to the game. Clarke feels like something of an impostor amongst them. She tries to ignore the feeling. When Monroe asks if Clarke’s related to the Jake Griffin, Clarke tells them the truth. No one really holds it against her: they all saw her play at tryouts and are getting more familiar after every morning’s practice. Still, there is good-natured teasing about nepotism and legacies. Clarke tells them about her interaction with the official at tryouts, how he’d sneered “Princess” at her, hoping they’ll find him as infuriating as she did. They don’t and immediately take to calling her “Princess,” too. She pouts, but it's infinitely sweeter from her team's lips.
Finally, their stay in Chicago is over and they get to head off to Arkdown, Illinois. It’s once they make it into town that they meet their team chaperone, Miss Lucy along with Reese, her young charge. They are also meant to meet their manager, Bellamy Blake, who was apparently a big name in baseball during Clarke's self-imposed exile from the game. However, in the week they have before opening day, no one sees any sign of him. When the name first sinks in for Clarke—she’s honestly not sure how long everyone else has known—she turns to Octavia.
“Is he—” she begins.
Octavia frowns and nods. “My brother? Yeah.”
Clarke isn’t sure that’s how she would have ended her question, but she nods along anyway. Octavia is still frowning next to her, so Clarke bumps her shoulder and grins, “I guess that means we can both be the product of nepotism, then.”
“Fat chance,” Octavia snorts. “I didn’t tell him I was planning on trying out. He’s probably pretty pissed that I’m on his team.”
“There’s nothing he can do about it now. You’re here whether he likes it or not.” Finally, Octavia grins.
Opening Day dawns bright and warm, promising good weather for the Comets’ first home game. The team is cheerful, if a little jittery, as they dress in the locker room. Spirits are high with the promise of good baseball and finally meeting their manager. Mel’s showing Harper her boyfriend’s Bellamy Blake rookie baseball card and saying she hopes it will be autographed by the end of the day. That is, if their esteemed manager ever shows up. He’s neglected to attend any of the team’s final few practices and not even Octavia has heard from him. Clarke’s about to ask where the hell he could be when the door opens and the entire team turns to look.
Standing in the doorway is one of the most disheveled men Clarke has ever laid her eyes on. Dark hair sloppily curls across his forehead and his eyes are glazed, as if he’s only just woken up. The neatest part of him seems to be the Comets uniform he’s wearing, and that only because it looks brand new. This can’t be Bellamy Blake.
And yet, it is.
Something about his face is strangely familiar to Clarke, and she gets the oddest sense of déjà vu, even as she can’t fathom where she would have seen the man before. She hasn’t followed baseball since her father died, though she knows he played for Chicago, just like Jake.
He steps into the locker room, heading toward the back without acknowledging any of his players’ existence. Octavia stands up just before he reaches her, saying, “Bell…”
Bellamy Blake pauses, taking in his sister, and it hits Clarke. Looking at the two of them together, a memory is called to mind: this man grabbing Octavia’s wrist in Kane Stadium, whispering furiously. How had she not put together that the brother who so disapproved of her choice was the man who tried to get her to leave tryouts? And of course the manager of their team was asked to attend tryouts. Clarke had just assumed he couldn’t be bothered, just as he hadn’t bothered to meet his team.
As Clarke is busy berating herself for being so unobservant, she misses the way Bellamy shakes off his sister and makes it to the back wall where three urinals stand, neglected until now. In shocked horror, the Arkdown Comets watch as their manager and coach unzips the pants of his uniform and takes care of business. The unmistakable sound of liquid hitting porcelain fills the room and a flurry of embarrassed giggles nearly drowns it out. Even after the giggles die down, the sound from the urinal continues. Raven edges forward, glancing at her watch, making Octavia snatch the back of her uniform in pure mortification.
Clarke can understand her embarrassment. This is Octavia’s brother, not just a stranger making a bad first impression. What could possibly make the man behave this badly? Thinking on it, the glaze to his eyes probably wasn’t from sleep, but steady drinking. He’s come to the first game of a new league drunk. Bellamy Blake must have no shame. He’s currently slumped forward against the wall above the urinal, stream still going strong. Finally, he stops and lurches back towards the door. Raven whistles at whatever time she recorded on her watch.
“That was impressive,” she grins as the man stalks past her. He doesn’t give any indication that he hears her and is out the door again.
Everyone left seems to be in a bit of shock. Mel is fretting over her unsigned card, but nearly everyone else focuses on the greater issue at hand.
It’s Monroe who verbalizes the problem, “He didn’t give us a lineup.”
Anya and Lexa start arguing over who will play center, with Harper trying to get a word in edgewise. Charlotte loudly and persistently offers to pitch. Others are trying to decide who will sit this game out, but no one can reach an agreement.
Clarke breaks through the babble, asking in exasperation, “Hey! Hey! How hard is it to make a lineup?”
Everyone turns to look at her, and Clarke convinces herself not to shrink under their gaze. Anya arches an eyebrow and says, “Oh yeah, Princess? If it’s so easy, then you do it.”
“Me?”
Anya rolls her eyes, but both she and Lexa reply, “Yeah, you.”
“All right,” making a quick decision, Clarke nods. “Lexa, center field, lead off.”
Lexa’s smile is nearly feral as she pronounces, “She’s good.”
Before walking into that locker room, he hadn’t known Octavia would be on this team. He hadn't known if she'd made a team at all. Honestly, he’s not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. On the one hand, the less they see of each other, the less likely he is to disappoint her. It would probably be better for their already rocky relationship if they were on separate teams. But, if she played for another team, Bellamy would have inevitably felt guilty for beating her or for wanting her to win over his own team. Bellamy Blake might be here under duress, but he understands the importance of team loyalty. He’d been lucky to play for Chicago, the team he’d grown up watching, because he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have been nearly as good playing for a team he didn’t care for.
Bellamy enters the dugout and immediately sits in the far corner, next to the drinking fountain. He figures if this hangover gets any worse, he can stick his head under the spigot. Settling in, he very nearly falls asleep before a voice over the PA system startles him into grudging alertness.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first game of the brand new All American Girl’s Professional Baseball League! What a mouthful! Anyway, this is Jasper Jordan, and I will be here announcing games at Arkdown Field all summer. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Here is the manager of our hometown Arkdown Comets, three-time National League home run champ, Bellamy Blake!”
Grimacing, Bellamy forces himself to his feet and steps into the sun. He takes off his cap and gives the sparse crowd a wave, thinking about Kane’s instructions. In return, they give him a short round of applause. He tries his best not to think about what stepping onto the field used to feel like. Bellamy lurches back into the dugout, just as Jordan announces the arrival of the Comets. A stream of well-perfumed, skirted women stream past and bound onto the field.
They line up along the third-base line, facing the crowd. It's not polite applause they get, but laughter. Bellamy frowns at the sound because even though he does think this whole thing is some sick joke, that’s his baby sister they’re laughing at out there. He tries hard to remain dispassionate and studies his team. Some of them are looking uncomfortable and taken aback, but every single woman on the field stands tall, backs ramrod straight. One catches his eye; it’s the blonde catcher from tryouts. There’s not a lot to differentiate her from the rest, nothing that would cause Bellamy to pause on her aside from a slight familiarity. But her face grabs his attention, and it’s not the delicate features and golden hair that made him call her “Princess.” Her jaw is set, teeth clenching against the mockery of her spectators. There’s an anger in her eyes that Bellamy recognizes.
For just a moment, her eyes meet his and the anger shifts to disgust. With him.
If that’s the way she’s going to play it, thinks Bellamy, scowling. He quickly stops paying attention to what goes on on the field. Well, that’s not precisely true. He remains in the corner of the dugout that he’s staked out for himself, and pretends to snooze through some of the innings. However much he might disapprove, it’s not as if he’ll miss out on Octavia’s first professional game.
She’s batting sixth and playing third. It’s not a bad order, especially after he manages to watch them bat through once. He vaguely wonders who put the lineup together, because she clearly has a head for strategy, which is as complimentary as he's willing to get. He keeps thinking that until he notices the batters looking to Princess for their signals. She’s standing on the top step of the dugout, arms crossed and back square to Bellamy. Seeing her there, taking charge of the team, he mentally starts tearing apart the batting order and reassigning positions, a frustrating endeavor due to the six girls sitting out this game that he can’t possibly begin to place. That and the phenomenal hangover he is combating. Maybe he should have shown up to spring training instead of getting wasted in every bar and roadhouse between Chicago and here. Immediately, he dismisses the idea, remembering that all he’s supposed to do here is give the crowd a wave and maybe a smile at the beginning of every game. If Kane’s happy to write him a check for that much effort, well, Bellamy’s not going to argue.
The game’s slow. They go down by two runs early in the third, but the pitcher, who Bellamy thinks might be a child, rallies back. O drives in their first run in the bottom of the fifth with a sacrifice fly and later, whoever’s playing first ties it up. The next three and a half innings are scoreless and pretty unextraordinary. No one makes a diving catch, there are no rundowns, everything ticks along like clockwork.
Until the bottom of the ninth. As the home team, they’re batting last and have one final shot to put a run on the board or the game will go into extra innings. They’ve already been here for more than two hours, and Bellamy cannot imagine having to stay even longer. There’s one out and a runner on first and another in scoring position out on second. A well-placed fly ball would drive the run in, finishing the game.
It’s petty, but when Bellamy sees Princess—the blonde catcher, it’s not like he’s learned anyone’s names—in the batter’s box, he wants her to strike out. It would only be the second out, leaving time for the next batter to earn an RBI and end this godforsaken game, so it's not as if he's actively rooting against his team. Just this particular player.
He watches her run up the count until it’s 3-0 in her favor. She’s entirely patient at the plate, letting the pitcher make mistakes. He's listened to enough games in his life that Bellamy can practically hear the radio announcer speculate about what sign will be coming from the Comets’ dugout, take or swing. If he were at all invested in the game—and just because he’s watching and reflecting doesn’t mean he’s invested, even for O’s sake—Bellamy would probably have her take the walk. There’s no indication that this pitcher does well under pressure, and she might end up slipping even further with the next batter.
Of course, just as Bellamy’s made up his mind, he hears the sweet crack of ball against bat. He doesn’t need to see the crowd to know that they’re getting to their feet, watching the baseball fly to deep center. It keeps going, up and over the wall despite the futile leap from the outfielder. The crowd claps now, a bit grudging, but far kinder than their laughter at the beginning of the game. The Comets are far more enthusiastic, bursting out of the dugout and cheering in delight. Bellamy leans his head back, carefully not watching the knot of girls near home plate trading smiles and pats on the back.
“And that’s the game, folks! Ended by a three-run walk-off home run from the Comets’ catcher, Clarke Griffin! The final score is five to two with the win going to the hometown heroines, the Arkdown Comets. Don’t forget to come on down to the ballpark this summer to see these ladies play!”
Bellamy remains where he is, head tilted back and cap pulled low, as the team tumbles back into the dugout and on to the locker room. He winces against the high-pitched, happy shrieks of celebration, his hangover unrelenting, and misses the worried frown Octavia shoots him. What he doesn’t miss, is the frown of disapproval sent his way by the catcher, Clarke, as he’s just learned. Unfortunately, she’s gone before he can come up with something good to snap at her.
There are a couple of kids leaning over the barrier between stands and field, brandishing baseball cards and pens to get his attention. Just as he’s thinking he might get up and oblige them, he hears, “Not today, boys. Come back for another game.” Bellamy sighs and sinks further against the wall, but the same voice says, “That was a nice bit of coaching, Blake.”
Bellamy cracks an eye open and takes in the sight before him. He’s sure he’s seen the man before, probably hanging around Marcus Kane. Yes. That’s how Bellamy knows him; this is Kane’s marketing whiz kid, the one who’s been put in charge of the league. Collins? All that matters is that the guy’s no ballplayer, not with that haircut.
“I really liked that hour-long stretch where you just scratched yourself,” Collins continues, disapproval evident in his tone and frown. Just like the Princess. What a pair they’d make. “Until then, I wasn’t sure if you were just drunk or dead.”
Bellamy stands, head protesting the whole way up. If he’s suddenly towering over Kane’s flunky, then he won’t argue. Squinting in the harsh afternoon sun, he says, “My job was made very clear to me. I smile and wave my hat around at the beginning of the game. I think I fulfilled my end of the bargain, so when do I get paid?”
Collins sighs. “Listen, you’ve got some great ballplayers, here. You should be—”
“Ballplayers?” Bellamy laughs, harsh and humorless. “I don’t have ballplayers, I have girls! One of whom is my little sister. Girls aren’t supposed to be playing baseball! They’re supposed to be planning parties and baking pies or something.” He spits to emphasize his derision and the glob lands neatly on Collins’s shoe.
A grimace takes over the other man’s face, and he gets off another shot as he leaves. “If we pay you a bit more, Blake, do you think you could be more disgusting?”
“Well, I do need the money,” Bellamy rallies back, watching Collins leave. God, he needs a drink.
Later—much later, when stars have taken over the sky and the stadium is empty—Bellamy stands again on the field. He’s bribed the night guard to let him in and not ask any questions. The bat in his hands is both familiar and not all at the same time. It feels like it’s been eons since he last stood on a baseball field.
(Obviously untrue; he had been standing on this very field earlier in the day. But it has been months and months since he last stood on the diamond with the intention of doing anything about it.)
He’s got the pitching machine set up on the mound with a full basket of balls. It’s too close and too slow to prove any real challenge to him, but the first few pitches breeze by him anyway. Growling in frustration, he swings again, gets a piece of the ball, but has to listen to it ricocheting through the seats down the first-base line. If his knee twinges, all Bellamy does is scowl and ignore it.
Baseball had never been this hard. It was the one thing in his life that had been blessedly easy. He’d had sole responsibility for Octavia since their mother died when he was eighteen, ten years ago. Even before then, he’d mostly raised his little sister on his own, given the long hours Aurora Blake worked to keep them afloat. That had been at the height of the Depression, and Bellamy still remembered what it felt like to go to sleep and wake up hungry for days in a row so his sister could eat. Still, he’d never truly resented Octavia. She and his mother were the two people he loved without reservation.
Baseball, though, was the thing he loved without reservation. It was his escape from the weight providing for a sister had placed on his young shoulders. Baseball had been his chance to be a kid, playing street ball with the neighborhood boys, finally learning the real rules in school. Playing for his high school team is what got him noticed by talent scouts in the first place, what got him playing for Chicago. He’d just graduated, a lucky thing with a ten-year-old sister in his custody and bills piling up, when he’d received the offer of a lifetime. It wasn’t as if there were that many opportunities for him, especially ones that would keep Octavia fed, too. Even on his rookie salary, he earned more than enough to keep Octavia in school and hire a caretaker for when he went on road trips with the team. Bellamy had known that Octavia hated how often he was gone during the season, but she was just a kid. She couldn’t understand that his career and salary would keep her safe and cared for in the coming years. The fact that he loved the game only sweetened the deal further.
So he became a professional baseball player. One of the greats for all he had to leave the game fairly young. He’d been a powerhouse at the plate, hitting nearly 250 home runs in his eight-year career, three in his one trip to the World Series alone.
Life had been nearly perfect. He didn’t get to see Octavia all that often, especially in-season, but he was willing to make that sacrifice in order to provide for her as best as he could.
Of course, it wouldn’t last.
Bellamy frowns as he finally gets into the rhythm of his swing. He’s peppered hits around the field, pushing and pulling the ball as he sees fit. A couple must have gone over the fence, but he hasn’t yet felt the absolute rightness in his arms and hips as the ball finds the sweet spot of his bat. The basket feeding balls to the machine is running low and Bellamy knows he won’t go out and shag balls in order to go through another round of humiliation. His swing hasn’t been this erratic since he was first learning the game. It’s disgraceful.
Ignoring the shaking of his bad knee, he squares up to the plate again, watching the mechanical arm scoop up a ball and wind up. The baseball comes hurtling through the air and as soon as his bat leaves his shoulder, Bellamy knows this is going to be a good one. Ball ricochets from bat and careens into the night. He watches it sail over the center field wall, nearly on the same trajectory as the catcher’s homer from this afternoon.
Thinking about her, Bellamy is suddenly tired. This is what his life has come to: the washed-up manager of a team full of girls in a joke of a league. He lets the last few balls whip by him before limping off the field to go back to his boarding house, leaving the pitching machine’s mechanical arm to crank around and around all night.