Now, for the first time, Tyler Shaw was on the inside. His work boots left prints in the warning track dirt. Red clay puffed with each step.Β
The sun was straight overhead. No shade, no shadows, no place to hide. And every single eye in that complex was locked on the kid who had no business being here.Β
Tyler crossed the infield the way a man walks into a room that doesn't want him. Steady, unhurried, work boots on groomed clay. Players in the dugout stared.Β
A couple smirked. One kid nudged his teammate and whispered something behind his glove. Tyler didn't notice.Β
Or if he did, it didn't register on his face. His eyes were locked on the mound. He stepped onto the rubber, felt it under the soles of his boots.Β
The dirt here was different, soft, graded, maintained, not like the packed ground behind the duplex. He looked at the chalk lines, the clean geometry. 60 ft 6 in to home plate.Β
He'd thrown that distance 10,000 times against a cinder block wall, but never once with a batter standing at the other end. Then came the problem nobody had bothered to think about. Tyler didn't have a glove.Β
The catcher looked at Prescott. Prescott crossed his arms and smiled. He wasn't going to offer one.Β
Why would he? The faster this kid embarrassed himself, the faster the lesson landed. Ray jogged to the mound, pulled a glove from his own equipment bag without a word.Β
An adult-sized infielder's mitt, worn leather, too big by an inch. It smelled like oil and years of somebody else's work. Tyler slid his hand in, flexed it twice, nodded.Β
Good enough. The umpire called for warm-ups, five throws. First two, loose, easy, finding the feel. The catcher set targets.Β
Tyler hit them. Nothing remarkable. A few parents went back to their conversations.Β
Maybe this would be quick and boring. The third warm-up changed the air. The ball hit the catcher's mitt with a crack that didn't match the kid who threw it.Β
Sharp, clean, leather on leather, the kind of pop that makes a catcher's hand sting and makes a pitching coach stop mid-sentence. The catcher looked down at his own palm, then looked up at Tyler with a question on his face.Β
A parent in the bleachers stopped talking mid-word. The sentence just died in her mouth. The chatter around the complex dropped.Β
Not silence, not yet, but a frequency shift. Like a room getting quieter when someone opens a door that shouldn't be open. Lead-off hitter for Marietta, quick hands, compact swing.Β
He dug into the box and crowded the plate, front foot open, weight forward, looking to drive. The kind of hitter who punishes mistakes and dares you to come inside. Tyler studied him from the rubber, saw the open stance, saw the hands, saw exactly what he'd described to the scout 20 minutes ago.Β
First pitch, fastball on the outer half just off the plate, ball one. The batter let it go. Tyler wanted that.Β