confident on the mound, and his fastball seemed to have a little extra pop to it. Maybe it was the adrenaline of the moment. Pitching in the World Series had to be more intense than a regular game.
Joel struck out the first Rangers batter on three pitches. The next batter was able to foul off five pitches, but then he struck out on a wicked cutter that he wasn’t able to make contact with.
With two outs, Darryl stepped up to the plate. The crowd got to their feet and cheered loudly. Despite his jokes about laughing if he ever faced his friend, Darryl looked more determined and focused than ever. Everyone in the stadium was thinking the same thing: he could tie the game with one swing. He was hitless this game. After his amazing ALCS performance, he was due for a hit tonight.
The first pitch was a cutter that started on the inside part of the plate and then darted even farther inside. Darryl leaned away from the pitch. Ball one.
“Atta boy, Dingers!” I shouted. “Don’t give him any freebies!”
Darryl readied the bat on his shoulders again. Joel went into his windup and fired the pitch. It was a fastball right down the middle.
And Darryl crushed it.
The crowd rose to its feet, cheering and screaming. Everyone in the dugout jumped up and watched the ball fly through the air, a speck of white against the darker bleachers behind as it soared toward right field.
“Go, ball!” Rafael shouted next to me. “Go!”
Darryl ran down to first, but he was watching the baseball the entire way. The right-fielder glided across the grass, tracking the ball toward the wall. He was quickly running out of room. The ball arced downward at the end of its trajectory…
…and the outfielder caught it right up against the wall for an out.
“No!” I screamed.
The air went out of the entire stadium. On the mound, Joel pumped a fist and hugged the catcher. The expression on his face said: that was close.
“I thought for sure that was gone,” Rafael said.
The voice on the loudspeaker announced, “The final score: Dodgers one, Rangers zero. Martinez gets the win, Rogers the save. Gallaraga takes the loss. Please join us tomorrow night for game two of the World Series, featuring…”
Darryl came back to the dugout like an angry ball of rage. “I was this close to tying it. Fuck!”
“We’ll get ‘em tomorrow,” the shortstop said. “Can’t win ‘em all, big guy.”
We packed our gear, defeated and discouraged.
38
Joel
Our team was staying at the Hilton in Southlake, one of the richer suburbs in the DFW Metroplex. A few Dodgers fans were waiting in the hotel lobby when we arrived, clapping and cheering. I stopped and signed some autographs before heading up to my room.
“How’s it feel?” Liam the trainer asked me in the elevator. “Closing out a World Series game.”
I grinned. “Man, it feels like snorting cocaine and injecting heroin at the same time. I mean, I’ve never done either of those things. The most I’ve ever done is smoke a little weed in college. But that’s how I imagine it would feel like. The adrenaline… it’s insane.”
When I was back in my room, I fell onto the bed and let out a deep sigh. Closing out a game against the Rangers, my former team, made everything even sweeter. I didn’t blame my old teammates at all—it’s not like they had anything to do with the trade. But deep down, part of me was envious of them. They were still together. The same team from spring training, plus a few new pieces. Playing, and practicing, and hanging out. I liked my new teammates, but I missed my old friends too.
I took no pleasure in getting Darryl out to end the game. The anger and frustration on his face… it wounded me to my core. I felt his pain as if it was my own. I wished it didn’t have to be this way.
But it was this way. And I couldn’t go easy on them just because they were my friends.
Laying in bed, I wondered how long it would take me to get to sleep. I was in that weird middle-ground where I was exhausted from the day, but still totally wired. My mind raced. We had won the first game of the series. Three more wins and we would be champions.
It still didn’t feel real. None of it. Every time I went to sleep I expected to wake up and learn it was