Name: Martina Varela
Team: Més Rattlers
Position: Pitcher
Age: 24

A game of baseball doesn’t have to end. There’s no game clock, nor any loud buzzer marking the end of play. Theoretically, two teams could stay locked in this tangle forever, as long as the two rows of that score column match at the end of each inning. Martina is determined to keep it that way.

The Rattlers called upon her services with the game tied in the eleventh. The gecko took her place on the mound to the crashing of timpani drums. Her peers might ask the sound crew to play a penetrating rap verse, or a bouncy pop hook, or the chorus of an old rock hit. Martina just asks for a minimal beat, powerful and ominous, to fill the boiling open air of the desert stadium.

Seven innings later, she’s still throwing against her rivals. Meanwhile, the opposing Orlin Pride have sent out numerous pitchers in relief, filling in for those with sore arms; whose fastballs have waned and sent curveballs bouncing into the dirt. The difference between them and her? She has yet to surrender a hit. The strongest third of the Pride’s batting order looms ahead.

In the bottom of the eighteenth, the batter watches her first pitch whiz by for a strike. He steps away for a moment, measuring out a couple practice swings. Martina just watches him with the curiosity of a reptile inspecting an insect. The catcher calls to send a pitch away. She does, and the batter hacks at it, clipping the ball and sending it skidding across the infield grass, where the shortstop finds his easiest play of the day.

This game started right after noon. Under the red clouds of dusk, the stadium walls still vibrate with noise, despite most of the crowd having left after staff ran out of food three hours ago. Martina was set to play the next evening, but a short Rattler bench forced the team’s manager to send the young pitcher in early for any chance of winning the game. She was expected to throw three outs, not push her way to what was becoming a full game’s worth of nearly perfect pitching without losing a drop of confidence.

She’s the most dazzling pitcher the city of Més has seen; at least since their series of championships thirty years ago. While she was born on the other side of the continent, her tropical origin prepared her for the harsh desert climate. While her teammates simmer in their fur and feathers, Martina uses the weather to her advantage. The suffocating atmosphere and the pounding of the drums make opposing hitters feel like they’re walking into a snake den, true to the city’s populace.

Some would cite her naturally adhesive grip as an unfair advantage. However, she abides by the rules and applies a special powder before every inning to minimize it. She still utilizes only the most aggressive tools in her arsenal as if it makes no difference.

That aggressiveness almost burns her. The next batter smashes her first pitch, eliciting some horrified cries from this thinned out crowd. It’s going, going, going, until a Rattler outfielder—the speedy peregrine who saved Martina many times in the minors—gets under it near the wall. Two away. Martina stretches her shoulders.

She maintains her power throughout the next three pitches pelted into the catcher’s mitt: two balls and a strike. The batter, a stocky river hog and annual MVP finalist, is not seduced by Martina’s tricks. He half-swings at the next one, sees the ball is too high and pulls back, but it’s too late; the judge behind calls it a swing across the plate. Strike two.

When Martina first fit on her jersey, number eighty-eight, she learned something new about herself. She saw a city that she had no connection to, its unfamiliar residents, and its only professional sports team. She’s only twenty-four, yet, once confronted publicly with an often obvious, trivial question for others: the customary ask of whether she’d one day like to play in her home region, Martina’s answer was straight-faced. “No.” She’ll be a Rattler forever.

She winds up and deals. It’s another pitch just outside, and one the batter has the eye to detect right off the throw. He doesn’t flinch as it lands in the catcher’s mitt. Yet the umpire barks. A generous strike three.

The Més crowd hisses: a custom performed at the advent of a strikeout. They’ve done it several times today, yet, now, Martina hisses along with them. It’s a taunt, and if the Rattlers manage to end the game in the bottom half, it’ll surely be the face the enraged batter remembers when he closes his eyes to sleep that night.

That’s if it ends, of course. After two full games squeezed into one, who knows if these teams will stop here? The Rattlers haven’t gotten anything across at this rate. But Martina, the immovable object, seeks to keep Orlin’s offense at bay for as long as possible. Finality is her thing. It’s in her pitches placed so confidently over the plate that batters whiff more than they can get a piece of the ball. It’s in her endurance in this game, still as a statue as opposing pitchers wilt in the heat. It’s in her staunch, immediate decision to anchor herself to this obscure, sweltering city. And it’s in those imposing drums, pounding away like the heart of each hitter stepping up to face her, only to be sent back from where they came.

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