ball, spent a good amount of time at race tracks, and heard from my dad a lot of “I’ll see you in two more sleeps.” My dad, Lucas Reins, in the time I was able to spend with him, taught me two things. Selflessness and accountability. Everything most of my generation lacks.
My story? It revolves around a kid with a fastball, a curveball, and the one constant in my life. Baseball. The game that freed me. It’s a long story, and probably one you will never get the full truth about, but it leads me to the present.
Me, trying to find myself in a sport I wasn’t sure would give anything in return.
And, looking for a place to stay. You can’t fuck the coach’s daughter and not get kicked out of your dorm room.
Okay, he didn’t kick me out. I got myself kicked out of the dorms, not an easy task to do when you’re on a full ride as a star baseball player, pretty much everything is paid for, but regardless, it explains why I’m so tired, the spark of interest in the girl with the cold brew, and why Ez is currently staring at me with curiosity.
“What?”
He sighs, shifting into gear. “Think of curveballs, not your fucking dick, Reins,” he notes, merging into traffic and heading toward campus. “You’ve already pissed Chiasson off enough this season. If you’re late for pitchers stretch, he’ll have your ass.”
He’s right. For once in the last three months, I need to think about something other than the destruction that’s been my personal life.
The dirt area that borders the fences of a baseball field, usually the outfield, that is used to help prevent fielders from running into the fence at full speed. It is intended to help fielders get a feel of how close they are to the fence.
SYDNEY
Cason watches me the entire time I leave the parking lot. And I run over the curb, nearly sideswipe a parked car, and run a Stop sign watching him.
Flustered and freaked out over our interaction, I try my phone once more, just to be sure, and nothing again.
“I’m going to kill my husband.”
Not really, but the thought of suffocating him at night while he’s snoring and I’m up with our toddler has crossed my mind before.
My dad was an avid baseball fan. I know what you’re thinking: What the fuck does this have to do with anything, Sydney? Well, I’ll get to that. Bear with me here. Played his entire young adult life until his senior year of high school. He’d been signed to play for the Los Angeles Angels right out of high school, but the summer before training camp, he was in a horrible car accident that broke both his legs and shattered his throwing arm. They passed on him two days after the accident.
Dad, being the hard worker he was, recovered, did physical therapy for two years, and made it back into the minors. I was ten when he took a job with the University of Arizona in Tucson. We moved from Kansas City to Tucson, where he was the head coach for the Wildcats. In fact, I went to college there. Majored in graphic design, and it’s also where I met Collin in my sophomore year. He was a finance major who fell madly in love with quirky art girl wearing overalls covered in paint splatters. I’m kidding. I’ve never worn overalls a day in my life, but Collin did fall in love with me first. I swear by that.
You’re probably wondering what all that has to do with my current situation of not being able to use my cell phone and the uncertainty hovering over my day. And I’ll tell you.
You see, my dad gave me one quote to live by that got me here, in this shop that I own in downtown Scottsdale and pursuing the entrepreneur career. “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Babe Ruth said it, and my dad, Syd Kelly, lived by it until the day he died. Massive heart attack two days after my mom passed away from cancer. I know, tragic, and still to this day, six years later, it haunts me. I want to believe it was a fluke thing or romanticize it into him dying of a broken heart, but in reality, for years he’d been worrying about taking care of my mom and didn’t pay attention to the warning signs of a heart attack