Free Big Leagues by Jen Estes

Goodall winked at her. “I can’t take all
the credit. It’s easy to keep these bodies up and running when you
have every piece of therapeutic equipment manufactured from here to
the Rhine-Ruhr.”
    Cat pointed behind her, gesturing toward the
hallway. “So I noticed. I dig that underwater treadmill thingy.
Don’t suppose we’ve got one of those on the fourth floor,
too?”
    The men chuckled. Dr. Goodall took his glasses
off the top of his bald head and placed them back on his nose.
“Well, they don’t pay me to laugh. I have a sore hamstring on an
outfielder to attend to. Nice meeting you, Ms., uh—”
    “McDaniel. Cat. You can call me
Cat.”
    “Cat. That’s easy to remember; I’m allergic to
them.”
    She patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry,
Doctor, I’m sure you’ll find me as irritating as a real cat when
I’m harassing you endlessly about MRI results and estimated stints
on the DL.”
    Erich chimed in. “Disabled List? We don’t have
such a thing here at Hohenschwangau.”
    She flapped her hand for a quick goodbye to the
doctor before Erich escorted her back to the elevator. His cell
phone chirped from his suit pocket.
    “Excuse me, Catriona. Yes? She is? Very well. I
will be right up.” He frowned as he returned the phone to his
jacket. “Catriona, I am afraid there is an urgent matter upstairs I
must attend to immediately. I shall let you familiarize yourself
with the press box before this afternoon’s game. How does that
sound?”
    Cat’s eyes lit up and she swallowed the squeal
fighting its way out of her throat. “Awes-uh, how do you say … wundervoll ?”
    Erich grinned and pointed down the hallway.
“The entrance is
    up the stairwell.”
     
     
13
    Her fourth floor office with an amazing view
was a great hideaway, but the room where Cat would spend most of
her days was the press box. They didn’t have a press box in
Porterville.
    With the exception of me, we had no
press.
    Now Cat knew what she had been missing. She
took a step into her alternate office and stopped. She blinked
twice and felt her jaw migrate to the hardwood floor. The media
accommodations at Hohenschwangau Stadium had more in common with a
balcony box at the finest opera house than a press box in a
baseball park. The walls wore a deep mahogany finish that matched
the rich floor beneath her feet. Four rows of executive chairs
bordered a solid line of granite desktops. Engraved brass
nameplates sat in front of each chair. The staggered rows faced a
giant wall of windows terraced above the lower deck of fan seating.
Cat gazed out onto the field from a vantage point that could easily
win an argument for the best view in the park. She approached the
rows with deliberate caution, as if one wrong move would land her
back in Porterville with the Bulldogs, battling her coworkers for
day-old hot dogs.
    The back row, she gathered from reading the
brass nameplates, was for the national coverage writers. During
most regular season games, she figured the row would remain empty.
National reporters didn’t cover every individual game. No, their
assessments would depend on the local reporting and the team
coverage.
    My coverage.
    Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of
sports writing icons reading her postgame synopsis and possibly
even quoting her in front of the entire country. She ran her hand
along the thick top of the table and relished the feel of the
smooth finish beneath her fingertips.
    The visiting press reserved the row below, with
ten chairs for each city’s media to fill.
    She stepped down to the next set of chairs and
nameplates. This row’s labels had names she recognized from the
local Vegas news circuit. The first chair belonged to the charming
Colin Castillo, Channel 10’s own media darling and the star of the
evening sport segment, Ballin’ with Colin . Cat pushed away
the anticipation of spending three hours an evening with the
gorgeous reporter by looking at the next nameplate: Andy St. John,
whose Vegas