Eduardo Morán
As he stood there, he thought back to 2044, when he was selected in the eighth round of the amateur draft by Long Beach. He was 18 years old, just out of high school. He spoke very little English. Fourteen years had gone by, an eternity in professional baseball. He had been released by two organizations, claimed on waivers by another, even played in the GBC for a while. He did get a cup of coffee with Chicago back in 2052, but it hadn't gone well and he soon found himself back in the minors.
Now, at age 32, he was a rookie again, having not exhausted his rookie eligibility in his brief stint with the Black Sox. He knew his time with the Blazers was probably temporary, but he was determined to make the most of it. He had been called up to platoon with John Oliver after José Leyva had sprained his thumb near the end of Spring Training. He still had one option remaining. He wanted to play well so that the club would think of him the next time that they needed an outfielder after Leyva returned. He'd heard that Leyva was pretty fragile. He wished him no harm, but it did suggest that he might get additional opportunities.
With the Opening Day ceremonies complete, Moran jogged out to center field. He had only known of the park by reputation. Earlier in the week when the team returned home from Florida to get ready for the new season, he realized that the outfield was indeed huge. He supposed that he should be grateful for its dimensions, as the team needed a real center fielder to cover all that grass; that was why he was signed.
He'd heard that Montreal ace Kinzo Iwamoto was a groundball pitcher, but it sure wasn't obvious in the first inning. The leadoff batter lifted a flyball to the warning track that left fielder James Belinda caught. The next hitter lined a single that he managed to cut off in the left field gap. After that, the three-hole hitter crushed a double into the right field gap. He played it off the wall and fired home, but not in time. Following that, there was a flyball that dropped in no-man's land behind first, a sacrifice fly to Pedro Huerta in right field, and finally a routine fly ball to Huerta to end the inning. He was glad he wasn't due up; he needed to catch his breath.
Iwamoto seemed to settle in after the first inning. Moran flew out in the second inning and got his second at-bat in the fourth inning. With a 1-2 count, he took ball two, but the umpire rang him up. It wasn't even close to a strike! The next he knew, he got tossed. How embarrassing! With his mom in the stands! Ever since he first played baseball as a child, she would be furious if he made a scene in a ballgame. He was more worried about her reaction than that of manager Ernesto Zamora, but it wasn't he that he should've feared. No, it was bench coach Clancy Williams who greeted him in the dugout and read him the riot act. Williams walked him down the tunnel and into the clubhouse and suggested that such bush league behavior would get him sent down immediately if it happened again.
He felt like a teenager again, and not in a good way. He had thought that his hot-headed teenage years were a distant memory. All of the thrill of Opening Day was now replaced with shame at losing control in front of his new teammates. He vowed that it would not happen again.
