Double Play

Ty stopped throwing and ambled up. “What’s up?”

Holly was done tiptoeing. “I was just asking Red about the natural stimulants Tucker supplies him with, and who he’s given them to.”

Ty’s eyes slid to Red.

“This is a private practice,” Red said, and turning his back, he walked off.

But Ty didn’t. He didn’t move.

“I know the players on this team,” he told her quietly. “Inside and out. I want you to know that none of them are using. Not a single one.”

Very carefully worded, she noted. “And how about you?”

He looked away.

“Ty—”

“I take vitamins. Lots of us do, but me more than the others because my body has taken a hit from the leukemia, and I get run down faster. I take added supplements and proteins.” He met her gaze then, his own earnest. “We’ve talked about this, Holly. There’s nothing wrong with making your body as fit as you can get it, especially for an athlete in a sport where you’re considered old at the age of thirty. You have to be fit for as long as you can be.”

“I understand that. Vitamins are one thing. But stimulants—”

“Natural ingredients,” he maintained. “All from plants. Nothing manufactured.”

“But—”

“Is eating celery and carrots all damn day long considered strength building?”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “But smoking opium is dangerous, isn’t it? Because that’s a plant, too, Ty. A natural ingredient. It doesn’t make it right.”

“Look, I’m not saying I’m taking anything, but you should know, I don’t see a problem with it. I think the rules are too strict.”

“Can I quote you?”

He stared at her a long beat. “I guess I don’t see a problem with that.”

“Thank you for your time.” She went home and called the other players on the roster, one by one, asking each of them their stance on undetectable and banned substances. She got a variety of answers, but the bottom line was the same. Unlike Ty, each of the rest of them viewed a banned substance as unacceptable, in whatever form it took.

She stared at her blank computer screen, then started typing. She wrote the article she wanted to write. Well, not quite the way she wanted to write it, but close enough. She started with how the MLB and the commissioner’s office had forever changed the way athletes viewed banned substances by putting in mandatory testing, which was great, except that testing wasn’t always accurate, and there were athletes still managing to use. There would probably always be certain athletes who managed to use.

She went on to explain that so much was expected of athletes in this day and age, the pressure not only to beat long-standing records but also to shatter them, and to do that, the athletes needed to constantly increase their strength. With conventional steroids and enhancers closed off to them, some were turning to less tried-and-true methods. Herbal and natural remedies, for one. But just because a drug was made from a plant extract didn’t make it any safer than the manufactured ones had been.

Or any more accepted.

The bottom line, she wrote, was that the players had to take responsibility for themselves, their own actions, and the consequences, and that while most were doing exactly that, there were always going to be the ones who didn’t. That even on a young, talented team like the Heat, this was the case. And it wasn’t necessarily just the players to be blamed for turning a blind eye, but management as well. She quoted the guys themselves, each of them, including the fact that Ty was the only one who thought the rules were too strict.

Just as she finished the rough draft, Tommy called. “What,” he said, irritated. “You don’t return calls or e-mails anymore? Makes a guy nervous, doll. Especially a guy with a deadline. What have you got for me? Tell me you have something.”

She e-mailed him her article and waited.

“My God,” he whispered a few minutes later when he’d called her back after devouring her words. “So how does Ty get the stuff?”

“I didn’t say he’s using.”

“Oh, he’s using.” He paused. “I’m going to guess there’s a whole story here you haven’t yet told.”

She’d left Tucker and Red out of the equation, not for their sakes but for Pace’s—her own concession to what he meant to her.

“No worries,” Tommy said. “You’ve taken it far enough for now. The commissioner can deal with the fallout. You’re brilliant, doll. Did I tell you that? I’ll run it tonight.”

“No, I need a day.” She couldn’t let Pace read this without warning. She had to find a way to tell him what she’d done. “Promise me.”

“I have to admit,” he said instead. “I thought you might be losing your touch. Crushing on one of your subjects, taking your sweet-ass time getting to the meat . . . Can’t blame me, though; it’s been weeks and weeks. I figured you’d gone soft.”

“I mean it, Tommy. A day.”

“Fine. But this new you? The kinder, gentler version of my hard-assed, hard-nosed Holly Hutchins? I don’t know her. And I don’t like her either. Let’s meet next week and talk about what’s up next. See you in LA, doll.”

When she hung up, she stared at her computer screen. Tommy was right. She had changed. She was no longer a reporter who cared only about her story. She cared about the people she was writing about, deeply. She cared about the fact that someone was going to get hurt. Ty. The Heat.