Grace opened to the first page of “Nelson’s 21st century encyclopedia of baseball”. List of players, the index noted, page 110. She flipped through the section, knowing what she would find. Not a single female player. Her fingers happened to stop on the ‘G’ section. Towards the top, it read;

GANDIL, “Chick”. BORN: 1/19/1888 DIED: 12/13/1970 6’2 195

A chick, yes, but a brute of a Chick at that. Banned in 1919 along with his White Sox teammates, for allegedly throwing the World Series. Grace put the book down. What wasn’t listed in there, was the three women who had played in the negro leagues, (Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, and Connie Morgan) and had done well. What the book didn’t say, was that there was a female pitcher in the 1920’s,(Jackie Mitchell)  who made both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig look so foolish, the commissioner banned her, and all women, from professional baseball. The ban was upheld until 1993. No woman had played even in the minors since then. There is a woman pitcher in Japan, and a couple in Europe, but never in America.

Grace had fallen in love with baseball when she was three. Her father took her to a game, a local semi-pro team. The smell of hot dogs filled the air, and she watched as the players warmed up, so loose, so cool. They laughed as they threw back and forth, while others stretched out. The stadium wasn’t even half full, and Grace went towards the dugout, in hopes of an autograph. Several players stopped by and signed their name, the intoxicating smell of the sharpie still in the air. “It’s not like that at Major League games.” Her dad had told her, shaking his head. “They all want money for them now. It wasn’t always that way. It’s more of a business now than a pastime.” Her dad waved down the vendor, a teenager who pulled a sizzling dog out of the Metal box. “With or without?” He asked, pointing to the ketchup. With, of course. There was another man a few rows over, yelling “Lemonade, Lemonade! Just like Grandma made!” Her father bought one of these for her as well.  She looked over at the scorecard in his hand, and asked him what it was for. He explained, but she couldn’t concentrate. The game had started. The pitcher was a tall, lanky man, with brown hair flowing out of his cap, with stirrups coming out of his shoes. He twirled around, almost facing towards second base, before twisting and firing home, with a loud Pop! of the catcher's glove. 85, the gun read. “Not very fast” Her dad told her. This came as a shock to her. They were rooting for their hometown team, the Burlington Shocks. They wore a white jersey with black stripes running down it. The visitors, a team she couldn’t remember, were wearing grey with a purple trim.

“Dad,” she asked, at length. “Why aren’t there any women players?”
“I don’t know, Grace. I guess no women are interested in playing baseball. Most of the ones who would, play softball.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll have to take you sometime.”
And eventually, they did. They went to the only softball field in town, a small D3 college. The “stadium” consisted of 2 bleachers and a grandstand. There were no hotdogs, and there was no lemonade like grandma made. There were a couple of parents, and some friends cheering them on. The players themselves seemed to be doing most of the work, yelling and chanting between every pitch. It wasn’t like baseball, where the yells were often disoriented and out of pure emotion. It seemed almost choreographed. The bases were much closer together, and looked different. The uniforms they wore didn’t seem symbolic at all, and they were closer to T-shirts than to uniforms, the neon pink nearly blinding her. The other team wore all black. The yellow ball seemed to float in towards the batter, who tapped it towards the ground in an attempt to beat the throw. There was no need for a radar gun here. The pinging of the metal bats hurt her ears.
“I don’t want to play softball, dad. I want to play baseball” she pleaded, hoping he could do something about the social norms.
with a smile,he said, “Let’s go home, and i’ll teach you some baseball.”

The glove her father had bought at the local sporting goods store was a Shoeless Joe, a popular brand for young players. It was named after one of the guys who was banned for life because he was apart of the team that threw the world series. “Joe had the best series of any player on either team, and tried to tell the owner that the series was fixed. Joe is a hero. It’s a shame they’ll never let him in the hall of fame.” Despite the name, Joe Jackson wore shoes when he played.
The glove was too hard for Grace to close, rubbing against her pinky and ring finger every time she tried.
“Here, we have to break it in first,” Her father had said, gently taking the glove from her. He proceeded to roll, twist, and hit the glove hard in the palm, making a pocket. The brown leather stretched and slowly became easier to close. After about 5 minutes, he handed the glove back to her. The glove felt like butter on her hand, easily closing around the ball. She laid down, glove on hand, and threw the ball up to herself, catching it as it returned to her. She made it a game, to see how long she could wait before opening her glove to catch it. She remained in this position for hours.

Every day as the clock ticked slowly towards 3:00, the time school was dismissed, Grace waited in anticipation to be let out so she could go home and play catch with her father. She’d be home by 3:15, have a snack, then go play outside, the sun breathing down on them in the middle of May. Her father would toss her the ball sometimes a grounder, sometimes tossing the ball way up into the sky, and she’d circle under it and stick her hand out. To her, the ball seemed millions of miles away, an asteroid destined only for her, and maybe, if she didn’t catch it, it would have dire consequences. She always caught it.

Now she was 18, her playing days seemingly over. She had been an all-state selection at Nocona High, batting over .500, not too shabby for someone who was supposed to be chanting empty lyrics with the rest of the girls. AS a pitcher, she had even thrown 20 shutout innings, a chance to show off her sturdy throwing arm. Her real joy came from being a catcher. she could tell a batter’s tendencies, by the way his bat wiggled. If he stepped too close to the plate, she knew a breaking ball inside would jam him, and if he was too far away, a fastball down and away would suffice. It was a form of art, calling a game, and watching her pitchers carve batters up. She adored the chance to throw an unsuspecting runner out, and was enthralled at the opportunity to scoop a low strike out of the ground and tag the batter out in one swift motion. It was an art, and she was Picasso.
She had applied to a couple colleges for scholarships, insisting on a chance to play. Her Batting Average should have spoken for itself. Being in Texas had its disadvantages. The small local schools would let her play, she was sure of that, but she was also sure she could compete. It wasn’t worth it, if there was no competition. There was a local semi-pro team, the Laredo Rockets, that she planned on trying out for. Maybe, she wished, she could skip college entirely. That was the end goal, really. To play for whatever team would let her, working mundane jobs in the offseason, operating tractors or cranes, plowing wheat or setting concrete. She hated the thought of working for someone, wearing women’s business attire, shoveling files for someone whom she didn’t care about. Her boss would come out of his office, smelling of cigarettes and doughnuts, asking her why her project wasn’t done. God, she hated the thought of it. That was the beauty of baseball. It was an open playing field, all decisions made by yourself. The way that the ball *clicked* against the wood bat, the ball sliding through the air, it’s flight taking a sharp break near the plate, slamming to a halt in the catcher’s mitt with a thud. It was poetry.
Grace arrived early to the field for tryouts. There was still morning dew on the field, and the lines were freshly chalked. She grabbed a handful of the raked dirt, tossing it around in her hand. This was the practice field for the Rockets, The real field was across the street. It had a concrete structure, like so many of those stadiums during the 80’s. A semi drove through, obscuring her view. It seemed miles away.
“Can I help you?” a voice with a thick southern drawl said. Grace whirled around to see a man, no older than 40, with a muscular build. He wore a stopwatch over his track jacket.
“I’m here for tryouts.” Grace replied, grabbing her left arm out of anxiety. She noticed this immediately, and tried to pass it off as her pulling down her sleeve. There would be no sympathy for anxiousness. “Baseball tryouts? But you-” the man stopped himself. Part of him seemed to say, these lesbians are ruining our country, now they’re ruining our sports- although Grace’s sexuality was neither here nor there. Seemingly coming to terms with this self proclaimed fact, he said “Well, alright lady- (With a little more emphasis on lady) “- We’ll be starting tryouts here in about, oh, say, about an hour.”
“I swear the form said 12:15?” Grace asked. “No, ma’am,” he replied. “12:45. It’ll be a long day. If I were you, i’d grab something to eat first.”
Though she thought of this as highly rude, Grace’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. “Yeah, maybe I should. Thanks.” She turned, then, realizing they had not formally been introduced, asked “I’m Grace, by the way. Grace Rojas.”
“Coach Kent,” the man said, tipping the brim of his baseball cap as he left.

Grace had just given her menu to the wait, settling on a torta, something her mother used to make her before games. “You need protein,” she’d say, in her broken accent. Grace would flex to show that the protein worked. As she waited for her torta, she noticed a steady stream of young ball players heading to the park. Some looked around her age, some looked much closer to Coach Kent. There were no women. Odd, she thought, maybe they’re all just trying to impress. Then, after watching for about 5 minutes, she noticed a young man get out of his car, grab his bag, and sprint to the field. Odd. Then, the thought popped into her head. Maybe he told me the wrong time, she wondered. She heard a loud *crack!* of a wooden baseball bat. She payed for the meal she had not yet taken a bite of, and rushed to the field.
stopping at her car, she grabbed her bag and locked the car with her beeper in one fluent motion. Her glove, an adult sized shoeless joe, hung from her bag, dancing from a string as she ran. She stepped on to the field, just in time to see the players in a huddle, with a coach in the middle. “Nice of you to join us.” The new coach said gruffly. This coach has a white goatee, and hit hat covering his bald head titled slightly to the left. Grace stared directly at Coach Kent. “Sorry.” she said. “I got bad directions.”

To start, the coaches had the fielders warm up by playing catch. Although a warm up, the coaches watched their every move, seeing if they made any movements they shouldn’t, any flaw in their mechanics they could detect right away. If they noticed any in Grace’s, they didn’t say anything. Her warm up partner was trying to show off, whipping the ball to her as fast as he could. “Easy, tiger.” one of the coaches had told him. It’s only a warmup.” Grace responded by firing one right back to him, a considerable deal faster than his last throw. He remained stoic the rest of the warm up.

After the coaches read off all of the applicants names, two of which weren’t there at all, they were assigned to different stations. Grace was assigned to an outfield station. “I think there’s been a mistake, i’m a catcher, not an outfielder.” she had protested to one of the coaches. “Listen, sweetheart,” one of the coaches pulled her aside. This coach seemed more pleasant than the rest, a bit of kindness in his eyes somehow. “I put you in the outfield, because I wanted you to have a shot to tryout. I looked at your high school stats. They're not bad. For the other scouts to be willing, I had to make a few adjustments, alright? Nothing personal, mind you, it’s just business.” This was a direct quote from when a white scut had watched Satchel Paige pitch, and had responded about his inquiries to play in the white majors. Verbatim, almost. Maybe this coach hadn’t heard of this, not being quite the baseball scholar Grace was. Or, perhaps, he knew exactly what he said, and this was a direct message to tell her she had a few barriers to cross. In any case, Grace pulled her cap down over her thick, dark hair, and trotted out to right field.

In the outfield, Grace recalled her father throwing the ball up to her when she was little, each ball seemingly a meteor. It would have dire consequences if it fell. She shagged every pop fly in her direction, including a quite impressive over the shoulder catch that sent her tumbling towards the wall. She hopped up with an eagerness, and threw back home.

Next, was batting. They would be facing live pitchers, competing for the same roster spot. The first pitcher had a killer fastball, and it looked like a white pea whizzing by the batter ahead of Grace. She tried to get her timing down while on deck. Foot down before it gets halfway, her father told her. She figured she would have to put her foot down much earlier. The first batter struck out, never once even touching the ball. Grace stepped into the box. Two wiggles o the bat, and then came set in her hitting position. The pitcher fired, and with great ease, the ball suddenly ended up in the catcher's mitt, with an explosion that mimicked a shotgun shell. Low. Ball one. Grace hardly even saw it. She pulled on her sleeve. There would be no sympathy for anxiousness. Next pitch, in the zone. 1-1 counts. As the pitcher wound up for the third time, she felt herself on edge, an adrenaline she couldn’t quite remember, but knew she had felt before. She lunged out at the next pitch, and felt the bat vibrate in her hands, the crack of the bat shook her to her very core. The bat had splintered. Not great contact. Also, unimpressive in front of scouts. She dropped the bat, and went into a sprint towards first. The ball was still carrying, surprisingly far for a broken bat hit. She turned for second, nearly coming out of her shoes as her right foot touched the base. Grace slid, kicking up a cloud of dust, and almost directly after, there was a *pop!* above her, as the shortstop had caught the ball and tagged her. “Nice hit,” the young shortstop told her. She looked over to the dugout, and saw all the coaches murmuring to themselves and writing notes down at a frantic speed. The next two batters did nothing spectacular.

The coaches had the players line up on the third base line. “We thank you all for showing up today.” a coach, the one with the kind eyes, began. “That being said, this is a business. I don’t think I need to tell any of you that this isn’t high school anymore. It takes tremendous ability to play baseball at the professional level, and not everyone is cut out for it. We encourage the ones who didn’t make it to try out again next year.” He began down the list.

Brown
Davis
Miller
Garcia
Hernandez
Collins

He made eye contact with Grace. She was sure of it. He meant to say ‘Rojas’, he must have.
“Those of you whose names weren’t called, better luck next year.”

Grace walked off the field, Shoeless Joe in hand.