Rafael Martínez steps into the batter’s box with his usual swagger and gives the catcher’s shin guards a little tap with his bat. Just the usual greeting.

Rafael’s a good kid. I remember him from my days in the minors. We kind of moved up together, through double-A and triple-A. Then he made the big time two years ago. I finally got my chance just this season.

“How’s it goin’, Dale?” he asks me, but he’s watching the pitcher.

Out on the mound, Mills still peers in for the sign, shakes his head once, twice. “You must have heard. Right?”

Then the windup, and a fastball, low and in. “Ball, inside.”

Rafael backs out of the box, takes a slow swing, and runs his hand up the bat. “Yeah, I heard. Sorry, man. That’s gotta be rough.”

In the box again, and he twists his heel into the dirt. Runners on second and third, two outs, bottom of the ninth. Rafael’s team is down four. Good young kid, and if that pitcher isn’t careful, Rafael will quickly make it a one-run game. Future of the franchise, they say.

He takes a hack and fouls one into the visitors’ dugout.

So I give the catcher a new ball. “I tell ya,” Rafael says, “that’s what all this is for. If that happened to my mami—” he raises his eyes to the heavens and crosses himself “—I could afford to have twenty-four seven care for her. No problem.”

The catcher sets up outside. Then the pitch—a curveball, it skips in the dirt, and Rafael swings halfway. As soon as the catcher grabs it, he points down the third base line, so I do, too, and my crew chief, Doug, holds up a clenched fist.

“That’s a swing. Strike two.” Another new ball.

Rafael sends a glare down that way, then unfastens and tightens his batting gloves. “C’mon,” he mutters.

There’s an underlying truth: umpires are the enemy. “You don’t have to retire, Dale. I mean, umpires don’t get paid too bad. Hiring a nurse shouldn’t be a problem.”

He’s right. But it also means I’ve saved enough to do what I feel I need to.

Mills keeps shaking his head at the signs his catcher flashes him, and soon enough, the catcher pops out of his crouch and heads for the mound to talk things over.

“Y’know,” Rafael says, “if you ever need anything from me, please ask. I’d do whatever I could.”

Lots of people say that kind of thing, but how many ever actually take them up on the offer? Thing is, I think he would. I think he’d really help me.

“We go way back,” he adds.

“I know. Thanks, Raffy, but it’s just the kind of thing I feel like I have to handle myself, y’know?” He wouldn’t have said all that with the catcher still here. And we don’t have any of those microphones around the plate that the TV crew likes to set up. It wouldn’t sound right for a player to offer help to an official.

I don’t think he’s ever met my wife. But when she had that stroke last month, I…

She was the one who encouraged me. She told me not to give up, that I’d make the majors, that talent rises. I can’t give up on her now. And I can’t pay someone else to be the one who doesn’t give up on her.

I have to do this myself. I owe it to her.

She’s not getting any worse, but not any better, either, and someone has to help her do all the things she can’t anymore. And I won’t let a stranger fill that role.

The ball snaps against the catcher’s glove, and… shit, I wasn’t even looking. But the catcher doesn’t bother trying to hide the fact that he had to reach way to his right for it. “Ball two, outside.”

“Shame, though,” Rafael says. “You finally get to the bigs this year and have to go.”

Yeah, future of the franchise. Last day of the season, and no playoffs for them this year, not even close, but next year. Raffy’ll get ’em there. He’s that good. And I’ll tune in for every game.

Then the catcher returns. A slider, just nicked the outside corner. “Three!” I bark.

The visiting team converges on the mound and jumps and hugs and laughs and smiles.

Rafael’s quirked eyebrow says it all: “Really?”

And just as quickly, I’m the enemy again.