Mission Control

Bats distributed to date: four. Stadium roof: closed. Outside temperature: eighty-seven. Inside temperature: seventy-two.

---

The dome was closed across town. Mai's was open and humming, a midtown room family-run since '78. I'd found it on Yelp. Tate's pho came first.

"Wouldn't have guessed Vietnamese ranked so high in Houston," I said when my bowl arrived.

Tate, spoon in hand: "Came in a wave in nineteen seventy-five. Relief agencies routed them to the Gulf Coast. Fishing families stayed on the water. The rest worked inland."

He went back to his soup.

A few minutes later his phone buzzed against the laminate. He read it, set it face-down beside the spoon, and went back to the soup.

My phone was on the table edge, quieter than Tate.

---

Tuesday morning I made coffee in the in-room coffee maker. At the wagon I ran the plan past Tate.

"So we'll go in the way we did it with Henley. Don't lead with the bats. The questions first."

Tate, settling into the passenger seat: "I thought we'd bring a few over."

"That didn't work with Brett."

Tate looked back at the bats. "You sure?"

"Absolutely."

He nodded without quite looking up. "Okay."

---

The park I still called Minute Maid was closed against eighty-seven degrees and humidity that started at the parking lot. We walked in carrying nothing. Tate angled toward a particular tunnel. I followed.

By two we were down in the lower bowl. The cage was up. My Seattle Rainmakers — in town for three — were doing their work twenty feet down the rail. Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez taking cuts in visiting gray. Rodriguez had gone deep here the night before — another point for Tate's untouched Wallop roster. Raleigh hadn't homered for me since April 21. I kept my notebook closed.

The man Tate was angling toward was in a Houston Moonshots polo, mid-fifties, a clipboard tucked under one arm. He looked up, saw Tate, came over to the fence.

"Cecil."

They shook over the rail. Tate's expression didn't change. Wade was friendly — a recognition with warmth but no debt to it.

I stepped to the rail and led with the question. "What's the friction with bats this year? What are guys complaining about?"

Wade laughed. "I'll give you the short version. We've got a kid breaking handles since spring. He thinks it's his swing. I think it's the model. He's been ordering them four at a time. I've got a stack of cracked handles in the office I've been meaning to show him."

I gave him ours. Small wood, Pacific Northwest, growing on volcanic soil. The density profile was something we were still learning how to talk about. Wade listened. He asked a follow-up about weight tolerance.

Two sentences in, Tate, eyes on Wade: "Marshall, why don't you grab a few from the wagon."

Wade looked from Tate to me.

I straightened. Nodded. Headed out.

---

Through the tunnel and up the concourse. I passed a MISSION CONTROL banner over the team store and didn't slow. Out the southwest gate into the lot. The humidity hit. The tailgate handle was hot to the touch. I pulled a mixture of four sizes and weights. Back through the gate my arms were slick. Just out of the tunnel a bat slipped from under my arm and bounced twice on the concrete. The clatter traveled.

I picked it up and kept walking to the cage area. Wade was gone.

Tate was at the rail still. Beside him, a man I hadn't met — Moonshots polo, clubhouse cart between them. They stopped talking when I came up.

Tate, eyes on the cage, half-nodded toward him.

The man took the four bats off my arm. Set them on the cart one by one. Picked the third back up. Sighted down the barrel. Set it back on the cart. To Tate: "Thanks, Cecil." Wheeled off down the tunnel.

"Where'd Wade go?" I said.

Tate, eyes on the cage: "Wade was convinced."

I put up my hand for a high-five. After a second, Tate met it.

---

We stayed for the game and took our place in the cheap seats. My team in someone else's park. A boy two rows over in a Rainmakers hat sat between his dad and his grandmother, working a tray of nachos with both hands. Canzone hit a grand slam in the fourth. Raleigh broke his 0-for-38 slump. Seattle came away with the win.

---

At the motel I sat up on the bed and wrote on my phone.

Bats distributed to date: four.

I re-read it. Four bats to an MLB team. No asterisk.

I thumbed over to the Asher thread. Sunday's text. Tuesday's text. Thursday's. All still on the unread side of the line. Nothing since.

I typed.

Caught the Rainmakers tonight in Houston. Funny seeing them in gray. Iowa is Field of Dreams country, you know. — Dad

Sent. Set the phone face-down on the bedside.

I walked over to Tate's door. No light under it. Back in my room I turned off the lamp.

---

Wednesday morning I checked the phone first thing. Nothing.

By dusk we were past Beaumont. The refineries flared against a sky going purple, the sulfur coming through the vents.

Tate, after a while: "Tampa's not till Saturday. You ever been to New Orleans?"

— Freely