Ray Voss, 53, has spent the last 18 years as a minor league baseball scout, logging 60,000 miles a year in a beat-up 2017 Ford F-150, his passenger seat stacked with scouting notebooks, sunflower seed shells, and a crumpled photo of his son’s high school graduation he hasn’t had the nerve to frame. His biggest flaw? He’s built a concrete wall between his job and any hint of personal life, still stinging from his ex-wife leaving him the week their son got drafted to the Cubs farm system, convinced any woman who shows him interest either wants a free ride to spring training or to fix the parts of him he’s long accepted are broken.
He’s parked at the far end of the bar in The Dugout, a hole-in-the-wall off the main strip of a tiny southern Ohio town, the air thick with the smell of fried pickles and stale draft beer, Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* warbling low from the jukebox. It’s 9:30 PM on a Saturday, the homecoming crowd of parents has mostly filtered out, leaving only a handful of regulars playing darts in the back corner. He’s nursing a bourbon on the rocks, flipping through notes on Jase Carter, the 17-year-old shortstop he’s been scouting all week, when someone slides onto the stool two spots down from him.
He glances up. She’s in a faded 2019 Reds hoodie, jeans scuffed at the knees from kneeling in the bleachers all day, silver hoop earrings that catch the flicker of the neon Pabst sign behind the bar. She orders a house red wine, no ice, and when she reaches across the open stool between them for the shared peanut bowl, her knuckles brush the back of his hand. It’s a tiny, accidental thing, but he tenses like he’s been burned. She laughs, soft, not apologetic, just amused. “Sorry. These things are the only decent food in this place, I swear.”
Her voice is low, a little rough from yelling at the umpires all afternoon, and she smells like vanilla candle and fresh cut grass, a combination that makes him pause before he nods, going back to his notes like he doesn’t care. But he does. He keeps glancing up when he thinks she’s not looking, notices the faint scar across her left eyebrow, the way she twists a thin silver band around her ring finger even though there’s no tan line under it, the way she hums along to the Cash track playing.
They make small talk first, about the cold snap that rolled in that afternoon, the terrible call at second base that cost the home team the playoff game. Then she mentions Jase is her son, and his stomach drops. League rules strictly prohibit fraternizing with player families, even casual conversation, and if word gets back to his regional director, he can kiss the promotion he’s been gunning for the last five years goodbye. He clams up immediately, giving one word answers, staring at his notebook like it holds the secret to cold fusion, hoping she’ll get the hint and leave.
She doesn’t. She leans in a little, elbows on the bar, and says she’s seen him in the stands every game this week, notebook in hand, hat pulled low over his eyes. “You’re the scout, aren’t you?” she says, not accusatory, just curious. He doesn’t lie, nods slow, waiting for the ask, the plea for her son to get a special shot, the request for a connection to a fancy trainer, the same thing he gets from every overeager parent.
Instead, she sighs, swirls the wine in her glass. “I don’t want a favor. All the other scouts that’ve come through keep blowing smoke up my ass, telling me Jase is a first round lock if I pay $12,000 for their winter training program. I work three jobs to keep him in cleats. I can’t afford that, and I don’t want to lie to him if he doesn’t actually have a shot.”
The honesty hits him square in the chest, no agenda, no game, the kind of straight talk he hasn’t heard from anyone outside of his scout buddies in years. He glances over his shoulder to make sure no one from the league is within earshot, then slides his notebook across the bar, points to his scrawled notes in the margin. “He’s got the arm, the speed, the baseball IQ most kids twice his age don’t have. His swing’s garbage when he gets thrown high inside, though. If he fixes that with his high school coach three days a week over the winter, no fancy program needed, he’s a late round pick next year. That’s the truth, no bullshit.”
Their knees brush under the bar when she leans in to read the notes, and he doesn’t pull away. She looks up at him, eyes warm, crinkled at the corners from smiling, and for a second he forgets about the league rules, about the wall he’s built, about how he hasn’t let anyone get within ten feet of his personal life in 12 years. He can smell the faint tang of wine on her breath, see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, feel the heat of her leg through his worn denim jeans.
He pays his tab ten minutes later, pulls a crumpled vintage matchbook from the pocket of his flannel, the kind he collects from every bar he stops at across the country, this one from a dive in Lexington he was at two weeks prior. He scrawls his personal cell number on the inside, not the work line he gives to coaches, hands it to her. “If Jase has any questions, anytime, he can call. No strings attached, no fees, nothing.”
She tucks the matchbook into the pocket of her hoodie, leans in across the bar, presses a quick, warm kiss to his stubbled cheek. “I’ll make sure he calls. And if you’re ever back in town scouting, I make a mean meatloaf. Better than bar peanuts and bourbon, I promise.”
He nods, walks out into the crisp October air, the chill stinging the spot on his cheek where her lips touched. He climbs into his truck, turns the key, the heater sputtering to life, and pulls out of the parking lot, already marking the date of Jase’s first winter scrimmage on his dashboard calendar, no official work order required.
