The Fireballer

by Mark Stevens

“Plane lands on time, it ain’t news. They want disaster. Errors. Disputes. They wanna see bodies in the wreckage. A few survivors makes it better.”

“Dragon,” says Gallo. “Not the beast,” says Aiko. “We have to recognize the mountains are moving. All the time. We are part of a life force. Dragon is the embodiment of the ten thousand things. It’s contact with that essence.”

It’s an openness to the world, awareness that your place in everything is transforming all around us all the time. Constant change.”

“Frank Ryder needs to understand his own walking,” says Aiko. “If he doubts the mountains are walking, he does not understand his own walking.”

Accidents are accidents. We didn’t choose to be born into a world where you don’t get to control your own fate. We’re just here. Accidents are a part of this world. Part of the bargain.”

“Think you’re going to hide?” she says. “They got earthquakes and tornadoes for that, or an airplane can fall out of the sky. You might be in the airplane. You might be ironing a shirt in the house it hits. Either way. We must deal with what’s here. The world we got.”

He feels like he’s been sitting in solitary confinement and has only now realized the door was never locked.

Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move. —Negro League, Major League Baseball, and Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige, who threw his last professional pitch two weeks shy of his sixtieth birthday

None of the reporters believe in today. In this game. In now. The volume of words wasted on useless forecasting is mind boggling.

Even the hopeless can be seduced, however briefly, into discarding logic. They can be encouraged to dream, even if it’s for a few minutes.

“Watch the media. Your story is your story.” Ricci speaks deathbed slow, with certainty. “Nobody else controls your story. Choose your path. Protect yourself. Don’t give them everything. Why? Because you owe them nothing.”

“But do you feel as if your fate is out of your control?” “Isn’t that the question we all ask ourselves every single day?” says Ryder.

Fear is the mind-killer. From Dune.

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. —Hall of Fame hitter, infielder, manager, and coach Rogers Hornsby