The Spoiler Read Online Free PDF Page A

answer.
    â€œSure,” Lofton said. “I’m a reporter.”
    She smiled, nothing flirtatious, just a smile. She told him she had a story, something he might be interested in. He shrugged and motioned for her to sit down. She refused again; instead, she handed him a slip of paper. He unfolded it, glanced at her name and address written in harsh black strokes on white paper, then tucked it into his shirt pocket.
    â€œWhen should I come?”
    She did not seem to be listening. She glanced from the concession stand to Brunner, then to the press box. Brunner had not looked back during this interchange. Lofton did not know why, but he did not want Brunner to see them talking. He could think of nothing else to say to this woman; he almost wished she would go away. He watched the first baseman, who was warming up on the mound now, practicing his delivery to the catcher, pausing every once in a while to look over at Coach Barker, as if wondering how long before the ruse would be over and he could go back to his regular position. Amanti touched Lofton on the shoulder, arresting his attention.
    â€œTomorrow?” she asked, a note of anxiety in her voice. He nodded, and Amanti went back down the stands to Brunner.
    Lofton felt nervous. He did not trust this woman. Though the stakes were small here, or seemed small to Lofton, people always tried to use the press in some way—to grind someone else’s nose, to promote themselves. Still, he might wrestle something from her, some small scrap of color he could paste into the background of the story he wanted to write.
    On the field, the first baseman had finished warming up in his new position. From the looks of him, he had probably pitched before. A lot of minor league talent had played pitcher at some point or the other, in high school or college. Aside from being good showmanship, Barker’s move, transferring the first baseman to the mound, made a degree of sense. No point in dragging another good arm into a lost game.
    The first baseman pitched surprisingly well. To the cheers of the crowd, half-drunk on ballpark beer, he struck out the opposing pitcher. The next batter hit the ball hard, but the Holyoke right fielder, caught up in the carnival atmosphere, made a daring dive and caught the ball before it hit the asphalt track.
    When the inning was over, the first baseman walked off smiling, obviously pleased with himself. Lofton was amused, but he was not impressed. When you knew you were going to lose, when all the pressure was gone, then sometimes you outperformed yourself.
    The rest of the game went quickly. Glens Falls scored once—a long, solo home run by the team’s cleanup hitter—and Holyoke did not score at all. Afterward Lofton hurried down to the dugout. In contrast with the fans, who had enjoyed a good joke, the players were grim. They shuffled off the field slowly. Even Elvin Banks, the center fielder who liked to flirt with the teenage girls after the game, was subdued.
    Lofton was struck, again, by how young the players were. There was still a part of him, left over from when he was a kid, that idolized ballplayers, that saw them as men engaged in an important, epic struggle. To see them as just kids was disillusioning.
    He could not find Sparks. He saw the Springfield reporter, Rhiner, interviewing the first baseman. He walked up close and eavesdropped, writing down what the first baseman said. Rhiner threw him a foul look, but Lofton did not care. He wrote the quote down anyway, leaving blanks for the words, the sentences he did not catch, figuring he could guess at those if he needed them. Nobody expected you to be that accurate. He had one question of his own for the first baseman, but Rhiner herded him away. Lofton asked Tim Carpenter, the second baseman, instead.
    â€œWhere’s Sparks?”
    Carpenter, another blue-eyed Southern Californian, did not know. He shrugged his shoulders. Lofton spotted the first baseman, free