Change-up by John Feinstein Page B

Austin Kearns took a step back and then came in to make the catch, clearly trying to get himself in position to make a throw to home plate. Varitek tagged up, Kearns made the catch, and Varitek took off for home.
    “This is going to be close,” Stevie heard Susan Carol say, even over the din of the crowd.
    Kearns’s throw was strong but just a little bit off-line onthe first-base side of the plate. Varitek started to slide as the ball was arriving, and Nationals catcher Wil Nieves grabbed the ball out of the air and dove back in, trying to get the ball on Varitek before Varitek got to the plate.
    Varitek, Nieves, and the ball—in Nieves’s glove—appeared to arrive all at the same moment. Nieves landed almost on top of Varitek’s legs, applying a tag as Varitek slid into home. Plate umpire John Hirschbeck stared at the two men for a moment, then pointed at Nieves’s glove, which he was holding in the air to show that he still had the ball. Hirschbeck’s arm came up in the air, and Stevie thought he heard him say, “You’re out!” even though he couldn’t possibly have heard him from so far away in the cauldron of noise. Nevertheless, the arm raised in the air was enough. It was a double play. Varitek was out. The game was over. Somehow the Nationals had won, 1–0.
    As soon as Hirschbeck gave the out call, Susan Carol jumped from her seat, yelling, “They did it, they did it!”
    Stevie had also jumped from his seat and, instinctively, he turned to hug Susan Carol. She did the same thing. Then, almost in midhug, they both stopped, awkwardly pushing back from one another.
    The reaction of the other writers around them was considerably more subdued: they were clearly surprised by the sudden ending but not emotional. Stevie had covered enough sporting events to know that journalists taught themselves to try not to show emotion even if they felt it.
    Seeing that she and Stevie were the only ones whoappeared excited, Susan Carol calmed down quickly. “That
was
an amazing game,” she said, as if defending herself.
    “Yes, it was,” Stevie said, trying to sound cool and restrained—even though he didn’t feel the least bit cool.
    Then they gathered up their notebooks and followed everyone else in the direction of the clubhouses.

9: SILENT TREATMENT
    IT TOOK SEVERAL MINUTES to make their way through the crowds to the locker room area, which, unlike in the newer ballparks, was not on a separate level where there was no public access. The media had to stand against a wall so that fans could pass by on their way out of the ballpark.
    As planned, Stevie went first to the interview room to meet Bobby Kelleher and the other
Herald
staffers at the game. They would discuss their postgame plans—who would write which stories. There wasn’t much doubt what the story of the game was: Norbert Doyle.
    Kelleher, who had taken the elevator from the main press box along with Nationals beat writer Doug Doughty, was waiting in the back of the room when Stevie walked in. Susan Carol had gone to wait outside the Nationalsclubhouse, having already talked to Tamara Mearns by cell phone.
    “Nice of Doyle to turn what was a decent news story into a made-for-TV movie, wasn’t it?” Kelleher said when he spotted Stevie.
    “What happens with my story now?” Stevie asked, then realized he was being selfish thinking about that first.
    “Good question, actually,” Kelleher said. “I already talked to the desk. They’re going to insert a couple of paragraphs up high about how Doyle pitched tonight, but leave most of the game description for the game story and my column.” He smiled. “There is one other change.”
    “What’s that?”
    “The story was inside the Sports section for the early edition. Next edition it’s on the front page.”
    “Of the Sports section, right?”
    “Of the newspaper,” Kelleher said. “You did it again, kid.”
    Stevie felt good about that, although he knew he’d backed into the A1 story. Still,