The only group that can overcome the bad vibes of loitering at the players’ exit are the sorority girls from ASU. A couple of times a season she’ll spot a lithe pack of them, watch them giggle and wiggle their way up to the front. If the air could go out of a sky the way it goes out of a room when a busty Kappa Alpha walks in the door, that’d be happening in this Arizona parking lot, the aforementioned teen boys going twitchy at their proximity to young, nubile sex. These girls, tan in their tiny denim shorts and bleach-white spaghetti-strap tanks, pay the fanboys no mind. They know what they’re dealing: quicker than a ninety-eight-mile-per-hour fastball, a blond coed will get any ballplayer’s attention. There’s no hope for anyone else the days they come to the stadium. These girls could be standing behind the outfield Port-O-Lets, covered in sod and chew juice, and the players would still stop and notice. Not that she likes it, but Tami understands it’s the natural order of things.

Now Tami won’t deny that she’s waited for a player to emerge from the locker room; of course she has. She learned this game the same way anyone does: by misjudging balls, by swinging and missing. But the woman who just waits there, right along the rope, thinking that her doe eyes will make him notice: that’s a rookie mistake. Everyone else has learned better.

People from up north think that all desert is the same, but Arizona mornings are different from those in Texas, and Tami loves the way the sun creeps over the McDowell Mountains with its sparkly fingers of white-gold light. Her place is a half mile from where the foothills go steep, but the elevation is enough that it cools off every night until early April—another difference she is thankful for. So on this late February morning, it’s still chilly when she gets up. She pulls her kimono tighter across her chest as she pads downstairs.

Hers is a nice kitchen: granite-topped island, triple-bay stainless sink, pendant lighting, an intricate backsplash. Tami grabs a grapefruit from the fridge, a knife from the drawer. The inside is always brighter than she expects. Halves, quarters, eighths.

The phone rings. Tami thinks Texas could be calling, if something bad happened to one of the boys, or one of their boys, or that little girl, Adelaide. But she’s not on the top of anyone’s speed dials, hasn’t been for a while. It’s probably Joanne. She’s a troublingly early riser, a habit that’s only gotten worse since menopause.

“What are you up to today?” Bingo—Joanne. She’s got this low, husky voice. Old guys—coaches and veteran pitchers and the like—go crazy for it.