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Tommy pulled his old pickup truck into a spot in the employee section of the Ripken stadium parking lot. Through the windshield, right by the door, he could spot Chimney standing there, waiting for him.
“Tommy!” the man called out to him as he got out of the truck. Chimney had a huge smile on his face. “It’s been forever man!”
“Howie,” Tommy smiled as he greeted the other man. They had known each other for a long while, back into Tommy’s college days.
“How long has it been since we worked on the same team?” Chimney asked.
Tommy hummed. “Last time I checked, probably college.”
Chimney laughed. “Well, how about I show you around.”
“Sure thing.”
It wasn’t a large stadium, barely larger than the college stadium he had coached at the year before (other than the parking lot, the parking lot was a lot larger). Chimney showed him a couple offices, and the locker rooms, then took him down to the field.
“And here’s batting practice,” Chimney said, motioning with his arm at the players on the field.
They stood from the sidelines, watching the batting practice that was taking place. Buckley was batting. He had a good swing, great form, good follow through, and great power - if only he wasn’t missing so many pitches.
“Who’s that?” Tommy asked as Chimney came to stand next to him.
“The guy batting?” Chimney added. Tommy nodded. “That’s Evan Buckley, signed right out of high school last year. He’s not too bad. If you ask me, he’s one of Bobby’s favorites.”
“Bobby’s favorites?” Tommy asked.
“I know you’ve worked with him before,” Chimney said as he nudged him in the side. “You know as well as I do that Bobby picks favorites. You were one of his as well.”
Yeah, Tommy remembered. He had first met Bobby when he was playing at North Carolina State and Bobby was the General Manager there. Bobby had taken a large liking to him back then, and it was something that Tommy hadn’t missed. Now, over ten years later, Bobby was the General Manager of the Ironbirds, one of the Orioles farm teams. When he had heard that Tommy had been let go as one of the coaches of UCLA’s baseball team at the end of the college season, he had been quick to reach out and offer Tommy a job.
Tommy had no other offers at the time, so he took Bobby up on it.
“So what position does he play?” Tommy asked, looking back at the man still at the plate.
“He rotates between outfield and first base.”
“And what are his stats like?”
“Not too bad,” Chimney said. “Second year on the team. As of last weekend, he hit his fourteenth home run. Batting average over 300, 50 hits, 26 RBIs.”
None of those were really bad for the start of July.
“What are the chances of him being brought up?” Tommy asked.
Chimney hummed as he thought over the conversation he had with Bobby a couple days ago. “Pretty high,” he said. “It probably won’t happen until next season with the ways things are playing out.” Tommy nodded. He understood how that all worked.
“So then how about I introduce them to our new batting coach,” Chimney said as he knocked Tommy on the shoulder.
“What?!” Tommy asked. “Before we even talk to Bobby?”
“Oh come on, you should know you have the job already!” Chimney said.
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
Buck was taking a sip of water as he noticed Chimney walking through the stands next to a man he had never seen before. He knew this was his first year on this team, but he figured he knew all of the coaches and assistants by this point.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Who?” Eddie asked from where he was standing next to Buck, looking over to follow Buck’s gaze.
“That guy standing next to Chimney over there,” Buck pointed at the two.
“Never seen him before,” Eddie shrugged. “I overheard some of the coaches talking. Apparently we’re supposed to be getting a new batting coach soon,” he added.
Buck hummed as he thought Eddie’s cords over. “In the middle of the season?” he asked.
“Just telling you what I heard,” Eddie said. “Anyways, think it could be him?”
“Maybe?” Buck said, while all of the coaches told them a lot of things, Buck knew they didn’t tell him everything.
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
The first time Buck had the opportunity to meet and actually talk to Tommy was two days later. Tommy had been introduced to them that morning as their new head batting coach, getting picked up by the team after he left UCLA’s baseball team at the end of the college season.
Buck studied the man again from where he was standing next to Eddie. The other day, Buck had only seen him from afar, barely taking in any details of the man other than he was someone Buck didn’t recognize. Today, Buck could see a lot more…
Like just how large the man’s arms were… those biceps had to be thicker than his head.
His hair was probably just as long as Buck’s was, and Buck was pretty sure that as the humidity of the day grew, his hair would probably get curly like Buck’s sometimes did.
And, as the man came over to him to correct his arm placement as he stood in his batting position, Buck noticed just his hands were huge just like his arms.
He had a very defined jawline.
He also had a cleft to his chin, and Buck couldn’t tell anyone why his mind had chosen to remember that detail.
“Try swinging just a tad bit earlier,” Tommy told Buck from where he was standing while watching Buck take practice pitches from Ravi. When Buck turned his head to look at him, Tommy continued. “You’re a bit late on the swing, that’s why when you’re making contact it keeps going into the stands. Try swinging a bit earlier.”
Buck took in Tommy’s suggestion, and when Ravi made his next pitch, he swung. His bat made a nice smacking sound as it came into contact with the ball… and it flew far into the outfield.
Buck found that he liked taking Tommy’s instructions.
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
“He’s waiting for you again,” Chimney said as Tommy walked through the locker room one day almost a week later.
When Tommy sent him a questioning look, Chimney pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. There, at the end of the hallway right outside the door to Tommy’s office stood Evan Buckley.
“How long has he been waiting today?” Tommy asked.
Ever since that day at the beginning of last week, Evan Buckley had taken to waiting outside his office door for Tommy to arrive each morning, waiting to bug the new batting coach for feedback, advice, pointers, everything.
“He’s been showing up earlier and earlier each day,” Chimney said.
“And you can’t tell him that I’ll come find him when I need him?” Tommy asked.
“And what would be the fun in that?” Chimney asked instead.
Tommy rolled his eyes as he continued past Chimney, watching as Buck picked his head up as Tommy approached him.
“Hey Tommy!” Buck greeted him.
Tommy held back a sigh. “What’s up, Evan?” he asked as he opened the door to the small office he was given on his second day and walked inside.
Buck was almost jumping on his feet as he spoke. “So I was thinking about those pointers you gave me yesterday, about how I need to twist my hips more and focus on the follow through,” Tommy nodded as he listened to Buck. “And I was wondering if you could have a look at my swing again and-”
“Evan,” Tommy said, making Buck stop his rambling. Tommy turned his head and looked into Buck’s eyes, and why had he not seen just how deep of a blue color they were before. “How about this, we both have busy schedules this morning. If you’re up for it, I can meet you at the end of the day, give you some one on one time?”
“You mean… after the game?” Buck asked, referring to the home game scheduled for that afternoon.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “Most everyone will be gone. And then it's on the road up to New York this weekend. It’ll be the only opportunity until Monday.”
“Oh, um- yeah,” Buck smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll find you later.”
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
The late night one on one batting practices continued, and quickly turned into something else. Something that had nothing to do with batting. (Although neither of them had taken off any clothing yet.)
“Maybe we should take this somewhere else,” Tommy said one night. “Before someone walks in on us.”
Buck hummed as he leant back from where he was pressed against Tommy’s chest. “Where?” he asked.
“My place?” Tommy asked. It would be the first time he took Buck back to his place. Hell, the first time he took anyone to where he currently lived. But it was better now than never.
“I get to see where you live?” Buck smiled. “Sure.”
“This place is nice,” Buck said as he followed Tommy through the door.
“Really?” Tommy asked. Sure, the place wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t anything special either. He had no idea how long he was going to stay here when he was first hired, so he settled for renting the first apartment he could find that didn’t look like it was being managed by a slum lord or in some sort of code violation. Thankfully for him, it wasn’t that hard to find around here.
“Oh yeah, You should come see our place,” Buck said, then quickly turned around. “Take that back, don’t visit our place.”
Tommy held back a laugh. He could remember those days from when he was in the minors. How none of them really got paid enough to rent a one bedroom place, let alone buy food and other essentials. It wasn’t uncommon for four or five guys to rent a studio or one bedroom place together. Half the month they were on the road anyway.
“Let’s just say you can come over whenever,” Tommy said. “But only you. I don’t need to come back to this place to find it trashed.”
“W- Why do you think we’d do something like that?”
“Don’t forget that I used to be in your shoes,” Tommy said.
Buck laughed as he walked up to Tommy, wrapping his arms around the man. “How about you show me what we can do here?” he asked.
Tommy smiled at him. “Thought you’d never ask.”
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
As the season went on, Buck’s stats continued to improve.
By the last week of August, he hit his sixtieth home run, knocking it out of the park to the cheers of the Girl Scout Troops that were here for the annual Girl Scout Night.
“You just had to beat me to sixty, did you, Buck?” Eddie asked him when he came back into the dugout.
Buck laughed. “Didn’t I tell you that I would back in April?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie shook his head. “I’m pretty sure if I had the sole attention of the batting coach I would be hitting more home runs as well.”
“You…” Buck said. “You know about that?”
Eddie gave him a look. “Buck, you’ve barely been at the apartment for weeks. We all know about it.”
Buck opened and closed his mouth a number of times, not saying anything, not knowing what to say. Eddie laughed as he gave Buck’s shoulder a light shove. “Relax, dude. Trust me, no one cares.”
“You sure?” Buck asked.
Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yes, as long as you don’t keep asking me that.”
Buck smiled.
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
As the season came to an end, Buck didn’t know what he was going to do. The minor league season ended about six weeks before the majors did. Overall, their team did okay, not great or fantastic or winning any league championships, but they were far from horrible.
And now, with spring training not starting until March. That left September to March, six months, for Buck to figure out where to live, what to do, and everything else.
Tommy was lucky, Buck supposed. Tommy was still getting a paycheck. While Buck had barely been paid just over twenty thousand dollars for all of the games he had played that summer.
He didn’t want to go home to Pennsylvania. That was by far the last thing he wanted to do. He briefly thought about going up to Boston to stay with Maddie but ruled that out. Even if Doug did like him, staying with them for a weekend was one thing, six months was completely different.
“You can stay with me,” Tommy said as Buck was packing up his locker in the stadium, trying to stuff all the little things that had winded up inside there throughout the season into his duffle bag.
“Huh?” Buck looked up at him.
Tommy walked over and fell onto the bench right next to Buck. “Let me guess, you don’t want to go back to Pennsylvania, but you’re also not thrilled about the idea of trying to piece together the money for a place of your own,” Tommy continued speaking. “So stay with me.”
Buck was silent for a moment. “You mean it?” he asked. “I won’t get in the way or anything?”
Tommy chuckled. “Evan, you’re there almost every night already,” he said. “I’m serious. You can stay.”
Buck smiled and walked up to him, wrapping his arms around Tommy in a big hug. “Thank you,” he whispered into Tommy’s ear. “Thank you so much.”
Tommy just rubbed his hand down Buck’s back. “It’s no problem, really.”
If Buck wasn’t there, Tommy would just get lonely there by himself. Buck was doing him a favor, really.
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
Then, in December, Buck got a phone call from Bobby.
“They’re moving me up,” Buck said.
Tommy lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?” he said as he took in Buck’s slightly depressed look. “That’s a good thing though.”
“I - I know,” Buck said. Moving up meant that his career was going good, he was getting that much closer to the big leagues, people must be paying attention to him now. But it also meant that he would be leaving Aberdeen, moving almost an hour away down to Bowie. He would need to leave Bobby and Tommy and everyone else. (Although it was a small consolation that Eddie would be moving up with him.)
“Hey,” Tommy said as he walked over to Buck and wrapped his arms around him. “This is a good thing,” he said, pressing a kiss onto Buck’s forehead.
Buck let out a long and dramatized hum. “I’m going to miss you so much,” he said.
“You’ll only be an hour away,” Tommy said.
“But with the schedule, we’ll still almost never be able to see each other,” Buck whined.
“I’m sure we’ll work something out,” Tommy said as he pressed another kiss to Buck’s forehead. “Or you can just make it up to me by getting into the major leagues.”
Buck chuckled at that. “Yeah sure, I’ll do that.”
⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾ ⚾
“ So I mean it,” Tommy asked him. “How are you feeling up there?”
“It’s been… alright,” Buck said. The truth was, all these adjustments he was having to make in the last month, were putting him through the ringer. It seemed like just when he was getting used to one thing, things changed and only got harder. If it wasn’t finally getting used to living with Tommy only to need to move across the state and return back to sharing a two bed apartment with three other guys, then it was finally getting used to playing in the single A league and being moved up to the double. But Buck didn’t want to bother Tommy with this, he had enough to deal with coaching everyone in Aberdeen.
Sure, he and Tommy called each other almost every day, and on the rare day they both had off, they would meet up, but it was hardly the same.
“I know what you sound like when something’s bothering you,” Tommy then said. “So come on, what’s up?”
Buck sighed, and ran his hand along his pant leg. “It’s just… I didn’t realize how much harder the skill level would be.”
“ I saw the video from your game on Tuesday, ” Tommy said. “ You’re doing fine for your first month there. You’ll figure things out soon.”
Buck hummed, grumpily as he mumbled something indecipherable into the phone’s microphone.
“It’s just an adjustment period,” Tommy continued. “Just like when you were first signed out of high school. You knew something like this would happen. And you’ve been up there for less than a month. You’re doing fine.”
Buck hummed glumly yet again. “Way to say that no, you don’t want to make a special visit with me.”
“ Now, I did not say that ,” Tommy corrected.
“Sure you didn’t,” Buck said.
“How about this, we both have a day off next Tuesday. I’ll come over and see you then?” Tommy asked.
That question perked Buck right up. He smiled into the phone. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds fantastic!”