"I'm pitching."
The words hung in the air like a hanging curveball.
Coach nearly spilled his coffee. "Pitching. With what arm?"
Michael's bandaged stump twitched under the windbreaker.
"I'll use my left. Underhand. Slow throws into a net. Just enough to show I'm… trying."
A cold knot formed in Coach's gut.
He'd seen players come back from torn ligaments, concussions, even a shattered kneecap. But this? Pitching one-handed? It wasn't impossible—hell, Jim Abbott played pro ball with one hand—but Abbott had trained for years.
"You'll look pathetic," Coach said bluntly. "Bouncing throws. Missing the net. You want your 'comeback' to be a meme?"
Michael looked oddly composed. "It's not about skill. It's about Algorithm. The crowd doesn't care if I throw strikes—they want the desire. The struggle." He tapped his phone, pulling up the fundraiser page.
Algorithm.
Coach scowled at the word. Since when did baseball become about clickbait? But the kid wasn't wrong—these days, a sob story sold better than stats.
"And after the car wash?" Coach pushed. "When the donations dry up and your fifteen minutes end?"
Michael's eyes flickered to the thrift store bag by his feet. Inside, the stolen scrubs were balled up, still stinking of hospital antiseptic.
"Then I will prepare for the next one. And the next one."
"You're gambling with your life," Coach said. "What if nobody cares? What if—"
"They'll care." Michael's phone buzzed.
"Listen," Coach said. "If you're hell-bent on this, at least minimize the damage. No pitching. Stand behind the donation table. Let Tyler's idiots do the work. You smile, tell your sob story, and stay vertical."
Michael shook his head. "I need to do something. Prove I'm not just—"
"A charity case?" Coach finished. "Too late. That's exactly what you are now. Own it. Milk it. And if you're lucky, some rich sap will bankroll your delusions."
Michael's chair screeched as he stood. "I'm not delusional. I'm adapting. You said it yourself—adapt or die."
Coach Harris dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin, eyes narrowing as he studied Michael across the diner booth.
"Let me get this straight." Coach's coffee-stained mug clinked against the Formica table. "You want to run a car wash. On the quad, where you plan to pitch, one-armed, while barely being able to walk. "
Michael looked at the grease glistened on the fork. "We'll take over the walkway near the baseball field. Alumni walk past there after games."
"That's a parking lot."
"Exactly. More space."
Coach's knuckles whitened around his mug.
"Space for what? You think people care about watching a one-armed man scrub hubcaps?"
The words hung between them.
Michael's stump twitched under the thrift-store windbreaker. He imagined his missing fingers curling into the pitching grip he'd practiced since age six—four-seam fastball, middle finger along the horseshoe seam.
Poosh through the release point.
"It's not about the cars." Michael set his fork down. "We're setting up a pitching booth. Ten bucks gets you three throws against the 'One-Armed Ace.'"
Coach's coffee sloshed as he slammed the mug down. "Are you trying to cripple yourself? You can barely stand!"
"I'll manage."
"You'll collapse! Look at you!" Coach jabbed a finger at Michael's trembling left arm propping him upright. "Your fastball's gone. Your body's shot. All you've got left is the sob story—use it! Sit in a lawn chair, wave your stump, and let the cheer squad handle the work."
Coach was right about one thing: no one cared about a has-been. They wanted a redemption arc.
Michael leaned forward, the booth vinyl sticking to his thighs. "What's more viral? A sad cripple begging for cash, or a guy who won't quit even when the game's rigged?"
Coach opened his mouth, then froze.
For a second, Michael saw it—the glint in his old coach's eye during the ninth inning of the State Championship, bases loaded, when Michael had shaken off the slider call to throw a 94mph heater down the middle.
Trust your gut, Coach had signed back then. Now his nostrils flared.
"You're not that guy anymore."
"I can still throw."
The diner's AC hummed. A waitress refilled their mugs, eyeing Michael's bandages. When she left, Coach looked at him, his expression revealed that he's not close at being done with disuading Michael about this ridiculous event. Yet all he did was taking a sigh, while throwing a 20 dollar bill on the table:
"If I see you so much as hold a baseball, I'm dialing the hospital myself. Understood?"
The diner's door chimed as Coach Harris stormed out, Michael trailed behind, his thrift-store sneakers scuffing the pavement.
Every step sent needles through his blisters, but he clenched his jaw and kept pace.
Old man doesn't get it, Michael thought, glaring at Coach's broad back.
"Get in," Coach barked, yanking the truck door open.
Michael slumped into the passenger seat, the vinyl burning his thighs through the cheap jeans. The truck's engine roared to life.
"You're quiet," Coach said, peeling out of the parking lot.
"Thinking."
"About how I'm wrong?"
"About how to prove you're wrong."
Coach snorted. "Kid, I've seen a thousand players like you. Talented. Driven. Too damn stubborn to quit. Know what happens to them?"
Michael stared out the window. A billboard flashed by—a smiling family eating burgers. Normal people. Happy people.
"They break," Coach said. "Not just their bodies. Their heads. They chase ghosts until there's nothing left."
Michael's phantom fingers twitched. "I'm not chasing ghosts. I'm adapting."
"Adapting?" Coach's laugh was bitter. "You're cosplaying as your old self. Pitching? With that?" He jabbed a thumb at Michael's bandaged stump.
Rage boiled in Michael's gut.
"You think I don't know how screwed I am? That I don't lie awake every night hating this?" He slapped his stump against the dashboard. The pain made his eyes water, but he leaned into it.
"But sitting there? Letting people pity me? That's worse than dying."
Coach's grip tightened on the wheel. "Then die on your feet, huh? Real noble. Real dumb."
"You think I will beg so that I can cover my medical bills?" Michael snapped, louder than he meant to. "You think I can just monetize people's pity no matter how distasteful I find it to be? You think I will throw away everything I've sacrificed for the game just because I'm too chickenshit to try again?"
Coach didn't flinch.
"Life's not fair. You got dealt a garbage hand. But pretending you're still some star pitcher? That's not courage. It's denial."
"If I am dealt a garbage hand, then I will start a new game."
Coach softened his tone. "Look. The school's got a communications program. I can talk to the Dean. Get you a scholarship. You're smart. You could pivot—sports journalism, coaching. Hell, accounting. But this?" He waved at Michael's phone, still open to the fundraiser page. "This is a dead end."
Accounting. The word felt like a punch. Michael imagined sitting in a cubicle, crunching numbers while Tyler and the team played without him.
"No." Michael said.
The truck screeched to a halt on the gravel shoulder.
Dust clouded the windows as Coach Harris glared straight ahead, his jaw clenched so tight Michael heard teeth grinding.
"Get out."
Michael didn't move. His bandaged stump itched under the thrift-store windbreaker. "You're ditching me here? It's two miles to campus."
"Should've thought of that before ignoring my advice." Coach's voice was colder than the truck's AC. "I've been coaching twenty-three years. You think I don't know a losing play when I see one?"
Michael gripped the door handle. "This isn't a game."
"Exactly. You're gambling with your life. And I won't be your enabler." Coach yanked the parking brake. "Out. Now."
The August sun hit Michael like a hammer. His stolen sneakers sank into gravel as the truck peeled away, leaving him coughing in a plume of exhaust. Sweat soaked through his clothes before he'd taken five steps.
Stupid old man.