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should have been brought to the table at the time, but with the kind of numbers—money numbers, I’m talking about—being discussed, it seemed like such an insig—make that lesser—”
    “I wear eleven.” Bobby shook Wald’s hand off his shoulder.
    “Thirty-three’s available, Bobby,” Stook said. “That’s three times eleven. And so’s forty-one. That’s got a one in it.”
    “Is there some problem with eleven?” Bobby said.
    Again Stook looked at Wald. “A bit of one,” Wald said, glancing at a lean man sitting naked on a stool across the room, playing Nintendo. “Primo’s already got it.”
    Primo was the shortstop. Four- or five-year veteran, mediocre stick, magician with the glove: Bobby didn’t really know him, but didn’t like him much anyway. Once, afterBobby’d doubled against someone in spring training—couldn’t remember the pitcher, or even the season—Primo had made a remark in Spanish to the second baseman. Bobby didn’t understand Spanish, but he hadn’t liked the sound of it all the same, or the arrogant expression in Primo’s eyes; like some conquistador, although there was more Indian and black than Spaniard in Primo.
    “Better talk to him,” Bobby said. “I’ll wear sweats for today.”
    “Who’s his agent?” Wald said.
    “I can find out,” Stook replied.
    “Never mind,” Wald told him. “I’ll take care of it.”
    Bobby hung his clothes in the stall, getting a whiff of the girl as he did so, then opened his equipment bag and dressed: sleeves first, then jock, sanitaries, stirrups, the white uniform pants, cleats, and finally, just for today, a USA sweat shirt he still had from a Japan winter tour a few seasons before. His gear always went on in that precise order.
    Bobby cut the tape from the bats, hefted a few, chose the one his hands liked the best, then walked onto the field and stood by the batting cage. Burrows himself was behind the screen in front of the mound, throwing BP. Bobby watched some big kid take his cuts. At first he looked good, driving a few sharply to left. Then Bobby noticed that it was all arms; his feet were too quick, taking his body right out of the swing.
    “Bobby?” said someone behind him.
    Bobby turned, saw a woman with a tape recorder.
    “Jewel Stern from JOC-Radio,” she said. “Got time for a few questions?”
    “Okay,” Bobby said, forgetting for a moment—was it because he’d noticed flaws in the big kid’s swing, or because the reporter was good-looking, even if a little older than his usual type?—that there weren’t supposed to be interviews.
    “Right here’s fine,” the reporter said. “Get that thwack of bat on ball. One of my favorite ambient sounds.”
    “Mine too.”
    “Yeah?” She gave him a quick glance. He said nothing.
    The reporter—he’d forgotten her name—started adjusting her equipment. “What do you think of the phenom?” she asked, checking her levels.
    “What phenom?”
    She jerked her head at the kid in the batting cage. “Simkins. They thought he was a year or two away, now it’s even money he’ll go north.”
    “Yeah?” Bobby said.
    The kid skyed one to right and stepped out of the cage. Burrows motioned at Bobby.
    “Try your luck, Mr. Rayburn?” he said.
    “There,” said the reporter. “All set.”
    “Got to go,” Bobby told her.
    “One quick question.” She spoke into her mike: “Do you feel under any special pressure because of the big contract this year, Bobby?” She thrust the mike at him.
    “No,” he said, walking toward the cage with his bat on his shoulder.
    She followed him. “But what about the fans?”
    “What about them?”
    “Won’t the money raise their expectations?”
    “The fans,” said Bobby, “are what it’s all about.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    Bobby, stepping into the cage, didn’t reply.
    He stood in the batter’s box, touched the middle of the plate with the bat, took his stance, looked out. All at once, as though he were