"Run!" cried a voice above the din. "Run, you fool!" came the request, echoing as a demand to the damned, urgently begging as if the object of his excitement was in grave danger. "Can't you see you're wide open, you lazy fool. Go for it!"
When those around the standing caller began murmuring amidst a sprinkling of laughter to offset the settling cheers, the voice came quieter, as the man pulled his eyes from the field and looked at his neighbor. "Why won't he run? What's wrong with him?"
"There's nothing wrong with him," cooed the warm voice calling up to the man, the lone one standing in the bleachers, as a hand gently patted the only vacant seat in the stadium. "Come on," she pleaded, prompting him again.
As he sat, a boy a few seats away eyed the old man curiously. The youth was enthralled by the lean muscular man, still able to fill out the shirt of his uniform at the top rather than the bottom, which hung loosely around the old man's trim waist. It had been only a few minutes before that the gray-haired man had been down on the mound, ceremoniously offering up a sizzling opening pitch. The boy was intrigued by this enigma. A man of past fame and still of great skill, who didn't seem to understand the game. He kept staring as the game went on, and he listened in as the man spoke with the woman he had sat next to.
"It doesn't make any sense. It's not how the game is played," complained the old man, gesturing with his hands emphatically, though he had lowered his voice so only those immediately around him could hear.
The next batter was up. The announcer called out "Salazar up to bat. She looks like she's going to give the Thunder a run to remember."
Sammy Salazar, Samantha to her family, walked up to the plate, scuffed the soil around Guanine before taking her stance, poised to return whatever the Thunder's pitcher sent her way.
"It's how this game is played, Rob," said his wife as she clasped his hand, not so that he only had one left to gesture with, but to ground him, bring him back to the present. "When you agreed to throw the opening pitch, you made a commitment to watch the game. It is the honorable thing to do, and you've always been a man of honor. That's why we love you."
He looked up at her and though his eyes saw a woman the same age as he, her hair whiter than his deeper gray, his mind saw the smile of the player he had fallen in love with back in the leagues. Warmed by her hand and her intent, he gestured toward the field as he looked out to see Salazar sail the ball straight over the Thunder's Thymine and land bouncing between Xanthine and Hypoxanthine. "But it's not my game, nor yours either. It's not our game. Don't you miss it?" he asked as Salazar ran like a gazelle straight for Uracil, tagged the hexagonal nucleobase with her right foot before pivoting on the left hard toward Cytosine, and after an equally fast dash across the second leg of the diamond, planted both feet abruptly on the hexagonal Cytosine nucleobase. Tyrell, Johnny steadied Salazar by holding her arm. It wouldn't have been necessary had she been making the run to an empty base, but he was the player that had astonished old Rob Rodriguez because he had stayed at Cytosine and not made a run for Adenine. Further astonished that Tyrell didn't advance, Rodriguez complained again to his wife. "What in blazes was that? That guy, Tyrell could have made it to third, or Adenine or whatever they call it now. On that hit, you could have made it home, back in the day."
"I can still run fast now," laughed Vic, full name Victoria Valdez. She hadn't been willing to change hers any more than Rob would have changed his. Actually, legally Rob had changed his to Valdez when they were married, but to the press and the fans, he was still Rob Rodriguez. "But that's not the point of the game now. Well it still is, but it's not the whole point. Pay attention Rob. Look what they're setting themselves up for. You've got to admire this strategy."
