BERKLEY® SENSATION
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

To JR Murphy, one of the cutest, nicest minor league pitchers out there—thanks for all the patient answers to my endless questions on absolutely everything in baseball, from rules to what you guys talk about in the bullpen to what really goes on in the clubhouse.

To Stacy Joyce, an old, dear friend who works for the Anaheim Angels, who also came through for me with answers to all of my panicked questions, and there were many.

To Sarah and Adam, for the first draft read and the invaluable input. Couldn’t have done it without you.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A guy’s definition of baseball: you don’t have to buy the other team dinner to get game.

If Pace Martin had the choice between sex and a nap, he’d actually take the nap, and wasn’t that just pathetic enough to depress him. But his shoulder hurt like a mother and so did his damn pride.

Go home and rest, Pace.

That had been his physical therapist’s advice, but Pace could rest when he was old and far closer to dead than thirty-one. In the locker room, he bent down to untie his cleats and nearly whimpered like a baby.

This after only thirty minutes of pitching in the bullpen. Thirty minutes doing what he’d been born to do, playing the game that had been his entire life for so long he couldn’t remember anything before it, and the simple art of stripping out of his sweats had him sweating buckets. When he peeled off his T-shirt, spots swam in his eyes. An ace pitcher in the only four-man starting rotation in the majors, and he could hardly move.

Pushing away from the locker, he made it through the Santa Barbara Pacific Heat’s luxurious clubhouse—thank you, Santa Barbara taxpayers—and into the shower room, grabbing a can of Dr Pepper on his way. Lifting his good hand, he probed at his shoulder and hissed out a breath.

Sit out tomorrow’s game.

That had been his private doctor’s orders. Pace had managed to escape the team doc all in the name of not being put on the disabled list. Being DL’d would give him a required minimum fifteen-day stay out of action.

No, thank you.

Not when they were nearing the halfway mark of their third season, and as a newbie expansion team, they had everything to prove. Three seasons in and anything could happen, even the World Series, especially the World Series, and management was all over that.

Hell, the players were all over that.