Konnichi-wa all! A new year, another Slayers/sports alternate universe here for everyone to read! Oh, I have been waiting so long to put this thing up! -squee- Hopefully, everyone likes it. I do not own Slayers, Major League Baseball and a good number of other things in this story. Some questions are answered and other things explained/disclaimed at the bottom of the text in the "Things To Know" spot. Thus shall begin my homage to my favorite summer sport...
Guts, Glory and Glove Oil
Ichi
The Ballad of Bloody Mary! Memoirs of A Tomboy!
"People ask me if I play softball. Every time I am asked, I just smile and curtly reply:
" 'No, I play baseball.'
"I smile a cocky smile and my voice is spiteful. My demeanor gets across the message I'd rather say:
" 'Softball? Me? Ha! Softball is a women's sport.'
"You see, my name is Lina Inverse. I am not sure if you have heard my real name or not. Most of the time, I am referred to by my nickname. They call me Bloody Mary. That is because when I was playing Little League as a child, I hit a ball into the pitcher's face and smashed it so bad that he needed reconstructive surgery for his nose and left cheekbone. The damn kid should have known not to call me "Butch" while I had a bat in my hand. Ten-year-old boys are so stupid sometimes.
"That was twelve years ago, when I was the only girl in my Little League. Since then, I have made it to play for my high school team as a shortstop and slugger extraordinaire. The name of Bloody Mary stuck with me as I moved up in class. My school was always one of the best as long as I was assured a place on the baseball team. Professional softball teams have tried to recruit me. They beg for my presence. Every damned scout gets turned down. Softball is for girls. I do not play girls' sports. My father had always wanted a son, but when he got my older sister Luna and me, he transformed us into fierce tomboys. Luna is now a mechanic in the NASCAR stock car circuit. I am his avid athlete. My mother died when I was three, so I never was able to get into the feminine side of being a girl. It was always baseball, football, soccer, ice hockey, wrestling and basketball for me. Since baseball was not all-year, I played all the other sports that I could.
"When we were in school, Luna and I were bugged about joining volleyball and girl's basketball. Neither of us did. I instead joined the wrestling team, football team and practiced basketball with the boy's team. Luna went into the mechanic's club. Our choice in pastimes made sure that we did not make friends easily. Both of us were made out to be butch lesbians and shunned by nearly all the other girls in school. The guys knew us better than that. My teammates and Luna's fellow mechanics were kinder to us than their girlfriends could have ever been. They never were completely nice to us however. The fact that we were females in a male's world always unnerved them to a degree. It made my father sad that we never did anything like go to school dances or prom with anyone. One of my wrestling teammates asked me once when I was a senior in high school to go to prom with him. I told him that I liked him enough, but did not want to go to a stupid dance. The girl he did take instead of me ended up getting pregnant. He now has two kids and a very unhappy marriage at the tender age of twenty-one. Glad I backed out of that situation.
"Therefore, I have remained without a boyfriend ever since. I never did have a boyfriend before that to begin with, so the whole concept is not missed. My time, life and money is devoted to my sports and most importantly, getting into the major leagues. If I succeed, then I will break that stupid MLB gender barrier that has yet to be broken.
"MLB, or Major League Baseball for those who do not know the acronym well, is one of the things I was brought up on. It is a series of two professional leagues in North America that has teams in the United States of America and Canada that play with and against one another during the spring and summer months. Divided up into the National League and American League, it is the place where young boys dream of going in order to become the next Nolan Ryan or Babe Ruth, that is before they wise up and decide to become lawyers and engineers. You can say that I never gathered the smarts to do that; to move on and want to become a nurse or a teacher, but all of my dreams lie in that dusty diamond where legends are born and worshiped as living gods.
"I want to become a living god.
"Jack Robinson broke the color barrier sixty-one years ago, in 1947. He was the first man of African descent to play in the league since the segregation movement sixty years earlier. During the second world war, there was a women's professional baseball league, to make up for all of the drafted men who were off at war. They even made a movie about it. Now, in the year 2006, I want to be the first woman to play where the greats played, participating in the exact same sport. I will not settle for softball. I want to play with the guys. I want to be one of them. I want my name on those little cards that come in with packs of gum and I want to rub elbows with the greats.
"I, Lina Inverse, will play professional baseball."
Lina pressed the button on the tape recorder and sighed. It was the second day of the year, yesterday being the day where people make resolutions that would help them to better their lives in the year to come. Those self-vows nearly always were broken within a week to month's time, but not Lina's. Lina Inverse resolved for the year 2006, to get into Major League Baseball.
She did not know why she was keeping a cassette tape journal, but she felt that it would be better than a diary. One thing was definitely for sure: the little black cassette tape was not as feminine as a diary. Lina hated feminine. Ever since she was small, she rather preferred the bat and mitt to dolls and a tea set. Glove oil was her Chanel No. 5 and spiked cleats her high heeled shoes. As Lina walked across her bedroom and put the tape recorder in her dresser drawer, she wondered how in the hell she was going to get herself out there.
Lina literally lived in Nowhere. It was a little town in Oregon that had been carefully placed far away from major cities. Her father had loved Nowhere. It was where he grew up, raised his girls and died. It was such a small town that everybody knew everybody else, whether anyone liked it or not. There was very little to the town: an apartment complex, some houses, a few sit-down restaurants, some stores, a police station, fire department and medical clinic. The whole population could probably support one another if they were cut off from the rest of the state. From the window of her apartment, Lina could see where the baseball diamond was. She almost lived at that baseball diamond as a child. It was where she grew up. It was where she found herself. It was where...
Ding-Dong rang her doorbell. Lina rushed over to the front door of her small and very messy apartment and swung it open quickly. There was her best friend Amelia Wil Tesla Seiryuun. She was the only girl to ever talk to her nicely growing up, so Lina made sure she and Amelia had stayed friends. She treasured their friendship like hardly anything else in the world, besides baseball of course.
"Why aren't you ready for work yet?" Amelia scolded. She was standing in the hallway seeming very cross at Lina, who looked as if she had just gotten out of bed. Amelia barged in and closed the door behind her, glaring Lina down.
"Oh, come on Amelia!" Lina sighed. "Our shift does not start for another half an hour!"
"I don't care," Amelia said with a highly official air to her voice. "You are never on time unless I force you to be." Her short, black hair bounced as she spun around to go into the sloppy kitchen to wash dishes.
"Fine, fine," Lina grumbled as she disappeared into her room. Five minutes passed and she emerged in the khaki pants and red button-up shirt that was her work uniform. She was supposed to have all of her buttons done and have on a black bowtie like Amelia did, yet the top two buttons were undone as she checked herself in the hallway mirror. Those bowties were always a pain to mess with and they perpetually toyed with her gagging reflex. The tie-less Lina grabbed her coat and turned to Amelia, who was still in the kitchen cleaning.
"Are you coming to work with me or are you going to stay here and clean my apartment?"
"I'm coming Miss Lina," Amelia groaned. She grabbed her own coat from the coatrack and joined Lina out in the hall. "I swear, you live like a neanderthal bachelor."
"Always have, always will," Lina replied as she locked her apartment up. "Come on now, or we're going to be late."
The two friends then traveled out into the cold morning air to walk to work. Nowhere, Oregon was at least a blessing to live in because nearly everything was close to everything else. Amelia still lived with her father and Lina's apartment was about a five minute walk away in any sort of weather and their jobs took about ten minutes to get to from Lina's. Amelia would threaten Lina with moving in to take care of her tardiness and laid-back housekeeping, yet Lina knew the threats were hollow. The little town, currently covered in five inches of brisk, white snow, would gossip to no end about the two of them. In fact, some were just waiting for Amelia to move in with Lina. Amelia's father, Philionel Wil Tesla Seiryuun, knew it and would have never let his daughter get into a situation like that. He only had Amelia, since his wife died and his eldest girl ran away. The last thing he needed was people talking about an imaginary love affair between his Amelia and her best friend.
Now, Lina and Amelia worked down at the local hardware store. Mr. Farquain, the owner, had been a good friend of Lina's father when he was alive and was still good pals with Amelia's father. The three had been best of friends in high school and stayed that way ever since. It was a good thing too, since almost no other place in town would hire Lina for some reason. Maybe because she was the town misfit. Amelia became just about the same as the town misfit for even talking to Lina, so she was able to find work there as well. In fact, they were the only two workers there besides Mr. Farquain's two sons Sander and Martin. Sander was a year younger than Lina and Amelia and Martin was in the middle of his third year of high school himself. The five got along perfectly and therefore were able to keep shop open nearly every day of the year, including that particular morning since it was technically a national holiday.
"Hey there Sander," Lina said as soon as she and Amelia walked in the door. A young man with short brown hair and a starchily clean uniform on greeted them from on top of a ladder that went to the ceiling.
"Hey there Lina," Sander said as he put boxes of wood screws onto the high shelf. "How are you doing?"
"Good," Lina said. She and Amelia began to walk over to the back room when out of nowhere, Sander's brother Martin came dropping from the rafters, suspending himself in midair by a rope tied around his waist.
"Hi!" he grinned. He had hoped to scare the girls, but instead, they walked right past him without even batting an eye. Martin scratched his dark brown hair and wondered where his plan to spook them went wrong.
"Where have you two been?" Sander called into the back room. Amelia emerged from the room with her store apron on and smirked.
"Why is there a cigarette still lit in the back room?"
"A cigarette? What the hell?" Sander panicked. He put the last wood screw box on the shelf and ascended the ladder rungs hastily. "Martin! Can you explain why Amelia just told me that there was a lit cigarette in the back room!"
"Yeah," Martin grinned, looking down from the rafters. "She's playing a joke on you."
"Haha! I swear Mr Sander, you are just too easy to fool!" Amelia laughed. Lina came out of the back room laughing herself. It was always fun to play jokes on Sander because he was very tightly strung and proper. Martin was the outspoken brother, always causing trouble with Lina. Most of the time, Amelia sided with Sander, yet she could not help to get in on the fun every once in a while.
"Very funny, now get to work!" Sander said sharply. The other three just sniggered and began their daily cleaning routine.
"Hey Sander!" Lina called out from the other end of the shop. "Where's your dad?"
"He must have caught something yesterday," Sander replied from behind the counter. "Dad's got a bad cough and a fever. Mom told him to stay home today."
"Too bad," Lina said, walking up to the counter and resting her broom on the glass case the sharp carving knives were kept in. "I wanted to talk to him about baseball."
"Lina," Sander sighed, putting his checklist of stock items down on the counter. "We go through this constantly. The only way that you are going to ever make it to the Major Leagues is if you leave this town and suddenly become a guy."
"Yeah, but your dad nearly made it to the professional level!" Lina interjected. "I want to know all about how to get in!"
"When my dad wanted to play in the Major Leagues, it was nearly thirty years ago. Things were different back then. Besides, do you really think that you are going to be accepted into the professional baseball world with just a snap of your fingers?"
"Sander," Lina moaned. "I am known all over the state as 'Bloody Mary.' I am the girl that was dropped into a sea of testosterone upon birth. I want to play baseball! I can compete at the men's professional level!"
"Shut up, will you?" Martin yelled from the rafters of the store. "I'm trying to listen to the radio!"
"It can't be that important!" Sander retorted.
"I think there's gonna be a few new teams added to the baseball leagues this year!"
"Shut up Sander!" Lina said quickly as she bounded up the huge ladder to where Martin stayed for most of the workday to avoid actually having do physical work. There was his domain which consisted of some empty chip bags, pop cans and an old air radio that was picking up some sports news station that had some fairly heavy static blur the words every now and then.
"Today it was announced that there will be two new teams added to the Major Leagues for...-static-...2006 season," the broadcast announcer said. "The National League East Division shall gain the Knoxville Gladiators and the American...-more static-...gain the Portland Slayers.
"Yes!" Lina squeaked to herself. Martin hushed her as the announcer continued.
"In a surprise turn of events, Rezzo Graywords, the owner of the brand new Portland team declared that he shall hold open tryouts in March at the new Jones Soda Stadium in order to scout out local talent. All...-static-...over eighteen are welcome and encouraged to try out on Sunday, March the fifth. More information after these words from our sponsors..."
"Did you hear that Lina?" Martin exclaimed happily. "You can go try out! You could be on the Portland Slayers!"
"What do you mean 'could be'?" Lina laughed. "I will be! Look out baseball, here I come!"
Things To Know
Lina's Disdain For Softball, Feminine Things and Those Pricks In Her Life: This is just the Nehszriah screaming out of her little keyboard-of-doom. Being a proper prissy young lady reeks. Tomboyish geeks shall rule the world with their brotherly male minions. This fiction won't just be me preaching though, I swear on it. There is still Amelia, right?
Glove Oil: Yup! I, as well as our Lina, love the smell of glove oil and machine shops and prefer them over perfume.
Nowhere, Oregon: Like I really know or care if this place exists. I made it up. In fact, according to my spiffy road atlas, Nowhere, Oregon only exists in my imagination.
Sander: Yes, there was a Sander in Olympians At Heart. This is not the same person. They have different surnames. Him and his little brother are actually an inside joke, since I know a set of brothers with these exact same first names.
Why Oregon Exactly?: There's no baseball team there yet.
Umm... Knoxville?: Yeah, a baseball team for Tennessee. -lacking enthusiasm-Yippie.
Rezzo: Shut up! My Rezzo story-arch is to be revealed next chapter! It might already have revealed itself, but just... shush please!
Is This A Sequel To Olympians At Heart?: No! Why would this be a friggin' sequel? Plot and such is going to be totally different and I might be lynched for some plot devices used... such as Rezzo.
When Is the Next Update Going to Be?: Monday. I plan on posting a chapter every Monday until I run out of pre-typed chapters to post... which at the current moment should be on February 27th. Until then, I should be set for a weekly updating schedule. If I finish early enough (meaning before the end of the Turin Olympics), I might go to bi-weekly for the month of March, maybe even earlier than that if all goes well. I have been put a tad bit off schedule, but hopefully I'll catch up! Please leave a spiffy review! Arigato!