I have to do a reading over in Bristol, Rhode Island. It’s a gig I set up months ago, hoping it wouldn’t interfere with Opening Day. It won’t, but today’s game in Baltimore starts at 3:05, and I’m meeting a class then, and dining with the faculty at 5:30.

My host, Adam, says we could have a beer in between and catch a few innings. We find a bar down by the water with the sun flooding through the windows. The place must have six TVs. None of them is showing the game. We start some chatter about Schilling making his debut, and a pair of regulars join the chorus. The barmaid finds NESN for the big-screen on the wall. Beside it is a printout of a picture I’ve seen on eBay: a little towheaded boy about three years old in a Sox shirt on someone’s shoulders. He’s leaning toward the field, screaming and giving someone a tiny finger.

There’s Schilling, sitting on the bench, going over something on a clipboard. It’s 3–1 Sox in the seventh, and Embree’s in. The O’s only have six hits, so I assume Schilling threw well.

The two locals at the bar next to us start grousing about Pedro leaving Sunday’s game before it was over. “When are they gonna do something about him?”

In the eighth, Melvin Mora hits a medium-deep fly to right-center. Johnny D drifts over. It’s his ball, obviously, but Millar, unaccustomed to playing right, keeps coming. The memory of the pop falling between Johnny and Kapler Sunday night is still fresh, and neither takes his eyes off the ball. Johnny gets there first. As he makes the catch, his shoulder catches Millar flush in the face, knocking him on his ass like a vicious blindside on a kick return. Millar stays down.

The guys in the truck roll the collision between Johnny and Damian Jackson in last year’s playoffs, Johnny’s head snapping back and then the ambulance idling on the outfield grass. They show it twice, both times getting a vocal reaction from the whole bar. Then they show today’s collision two more times. Millar spits a little blood, but he looks more dazed than anything, blinking and squeezing the bridge of his nose. He comes out and Cesar Crespo makes his debut as a right fielder.

The next batter, Tejada, hits a fly to deep right-center. This time Johnny waves his throwing hand high above his head to call off Crespo, and that’s the inning.

Foulke is warming, but we have to go to dinner—we’re already twenty minutes late.

“They look like they’re in good shape,” Adam says as we head to the restaurant.

“Never say that,” I say.