As the song ends, the crowd settles back into their seats. The Mariners, dressed in gray, toss their practice balls toward the dugout and take their positions, doing what they can to preserve their energy in the Arizona heat. Lester twists to watch the action, resting his left elbow on the ledge of the keyboard and cupping his chin in his palm. William Goslin, Los Angeles’s top draft pick and great-grand-something of Goose, leads off the bottom of the seventh for the Lions. He takes a few last triple-bat whiffs in the on-deck circle, then drops two of the sticks, taps his spikes, and steps up to the plate. In the next booth over, Lester’s colleague announces, “Number nineteen, William Goslin, first base.” The sound carries from the mic to the stadium’s PA and back to Lester’s booth on a flutter of wind.

Lester scrutinizes the rookie. The team has high hopes—Goslin was their first rounder, eighth overall, in last June’s amateur draft—but he’s had a tough spring, batting all of .185. He’ll be going down to Double-A, if he’s lucky. From Lester’s vantage, it’s unclear if, in keeping him around into the third week of March, management is giving him good experience or letting him writhe a bit. Fair response, either way.

The boy points the tip of his bat to first, second, and third base, then settles into his knock-kneed stance. The pitcher rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck; the second basemen arranges the dirt in front of him with a pointed toe. All of a sudden a sharp, chromatic bleat tumbles out of Lester’s machine. The batter and the pitcher both look instinctively to the sky. A flock of amplified geese?

“Christ,” Lester mumbles. He reaches for the power button, a tiny red beacon on the machine’s upper left corner. On the way, his finger traces over the Marimba, Xylophone, and Tuba options, but also Pack of Dogs–Large, Pack of Dogs–Small, and Elephant. He’ll never get the hang of this newfangled thing. Give him a couple of woodblocks and an air horn any day. He depresses the red button. Off. “Phew.”

The kid is down in the count, having watched one trail outside and then taken two bad-miss swings, when Joe Templeton bursts into the booth. “Lester, what the fuck?”

“Hi, Joe.” Lester glances toward the open window, worried the profanity will drift into the crowd. “Sorry, Joe.”

“Sorry my ass! You playing with your toes or something?”

Lester shakes his head no.