Ace's Wilder

Puerto Rico

That moron had stared at her ring and that, despite her best attempts not to let it, always sent her into a downward spiral. Had this been a few years ago, Ace would have gotten up and pressed her left wrist, the one with his jersey number tattooed on it, into Carroll County's face before growling, remember??! These days, she restrained herself, because she was far enough from it to know that Javy would have absolutely hated that.

Max walked off the field with the rest of his grounds crew and she closed her eyes, trying unsuccessfully to force the memories away. It had softened over time...or maybe she'd simply learned better how to carry the weight, but still, it was heavy. And it hurt. She still couldn't help herself; she flashed back to those early days.

And the magic.

Then the sadness.

And the aftermath.

// // //

Ace spent the spring semester of her sophomore year of college in Puerto Rico. It was a necessary break from reality. She'd been nursing a heartbreak for the better part of a year at that point; Bowie was too close to Baltimore. She needed to get away.

Ace's mom was Costa Rican, so she'd grown up speaking Spanish almost as often as English. In the baseball world, she'd come to realize, this was an invaluable skill. Having spent her fall semester interning with Orioles baseball operations, when she told them she wasn't going to be in town for the spring semester the GM said, basically, "that's fine, you can report for us while you're there."

Ace, having buried herself in work, or her internship, as it were, despite the incessant reminder of who, and what, had broken her heart last summer, agreed. After all, the Orioles also decided she was good enough to pay, at that point. It seemed like a win-win for her.

She was out of the state of Maryland, and she was getting paid to watch baseball. Oh, the irony.

Ace had been in San Juan for about a month when the Orioles called and sent her down to the Academy. Some sort of club game was happening. They wanted her to check it out. She'd spent the entirety of her fall semester entering these kinds of reports into the team's database. One Tuesday night game in September found her sitting in an empty suite with the team's General Manager, Rich Dyer. She'd been sitting outside his office for three weeks when he asked her, on a particularly unattended game night, if she wanted to go out and watch from the stands with him. Not in a flirtatious way—he was letting her off the clock early and knew from hearing her talk she wasn't in a hurry to get back to her dorm.

She'd been absentmindedly commentating her analysis of Detroit's starting pitcher after a couple beers, and he'd been impressed enough with her observations to offer her a job when she dropped the news of her departure for the island this semester.

In any case, it was about 80 degrees that day in Puerto Rico. She'd shown up at the Academy field in shorts and flip flops, carrying a clipboard and an MLB credential. She sat behind home plate and watched the game, taking notes and watching the home squad's shortstop like a hawk.

Internet research showed her this was the guy she was here to see, although Dyer hadn't told her so much. It was a test, and she knew it, but she was more bored than offended at the challenge. Ace knew she was good at her job, even that long ago. Someone had set her up with a book on Sabermetrics a while back, and having memorized that front to back, along with just watching the game like she did, her mind seemed to pick up on things and process them in a way she wasn't sure she understood why other people couldn't.

Whatever. It was going to get her a real job one day. This was just a satellite analyst position.

The shortstop was fine, she guessed. A little cocky and kind of jumpy at the plate, but with some higher level coaching, he'd probably be good.