Manny Ruiz, 59, has spent the last 18 years driving backroads across the Midwest as a minor league baseball scout, logging 300 plus miles a week in a dented 2017 Silverado, his backseat stuffed with scouting binders, sunflower seed shells, and a cooler of lukewarm root beer. His biggest flaw, one he’s only recently started admitting to himself, is that he’s hidden behind his job for the seven years since his wife died of breast cancer, turning down every invitation to happy hour, every fix-up from his sister, every lingering smile from a stranger because he thought new joy meant he was forgetting the old.
He pulls off Route 30 outside of Wooster, Ohio, at 7:17 PM, when a thunderstorm so loud it rattles his rearview mirror washes out the varsity pitcher showcase he drove three hours to see. The bar is tiny, neon “OPEN” sign flickering in the window, the smell of fried pickles and bourbon drifting out through the screen door before he even steps inside. His work boots squelch on sticky linoleum, rain dripping off the brim of his well-worn Akron RubberDucks cap onto the edge of the bar. He orders a bourbon neat, pulls out his scouting notebook, and starts scribbling notes on the JV left-hander he caught the last two innings of before the storm hit, his left knuckle, scarred from a college foul ball that broke it in 1986, scraping the edge of the paper as he writes.
The bartender sets the glass down in front of him, and their hands brush. Her skin is warm, calloused at the fingertips, and he glances up first at the faded Cincinnati Reds hoodie she’s wearing, then at the tiny baseball stitch tattoo curling around her left wrist. “Dad played in their farm system in the 90s,” she says, noticing him staring, leaning against the bar across from him close enough that he can smell coconut shampoo mixed with the lime she just squeezed into a regular’s margarita. Her name is Jess, she says, moved back to town six months prior to take care of her mom, who’s recovering from a stroke. She laughs when he tells her what he does, pointing at the name scrawled at the top of his open notebook: “That kid? I coached him in Little League. Throws 82 now, but last year he cried for 20 minutes after he hit a batter in the helmet. Soft as a marshmallow under all that macho posturing.”
He finds himself talking for 45 minutes straight, showing her his notes, telling her stories about scouting a kid in Iowa who threw a no-hitter while his girlfriend’s water broke in the dugout, about the time he got lost in the Ozarks for three hours when his GPS died. She leans in the whole time, elbows on the bar, nodding, her knee brushing his every time a patron comes up to order and she shifts to reach the liquor shelves. He’s fighting the voice in his head the whole time, the one that says he’s too old for this, that he shouldn’t be enjoying talking to a woman this much, that his wife would be upset. But the voice gets quieter every time she grins, every time she brushes his arm when she passes him a refill, every time her eyes linger on his scar like she’s curious about the story behind it.
The power cuts out at 8:42, thunder shaking the walls, the whole bar going dark except for the emergency exit sign above the door. Jess laughs, reaches under the bar, pulls out a stack of beeswax candles, lights one and sets it between them. The low golden light gilds the edges of her hair, and she leans in so close he can feel her breath on his cheek. “I’ve been watching you for an hour,” she says, soft enough only he can hear. “Haven’t checked your phone once. Haven’t complained about the rain. Most guys who come in here stare at TikTok the whole time they’re drinking, like the world outside the screen doesn’t exist.” He doesn’t overthink it, for the first time in seven years. He leans in, kisses her, slow, her hand coming up to cup the side of his face, the callus on her thumb catching on the stubble along his jaw.
The power kicks back on 10 minutes later, the jukebox blaring Merle Haggard mid-verse, and she pulls back, laughing, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He asks her if she wants to get pancakes at the diner down the street tomorrow, before he drives back to Akron. She nods, grabs his notebook, tears off the back of the scouting report for the left-hander, scribbles her number on it, scrawls “don’t bring your notebook to breakfast” under it in messy blue ink. He tucks the paper into the inside pocket of his flannel shirt, takes a sip of his bourbon, and watches her wipe down the bar, grinning to himself when she glances over and winks, her fingers brushing the baseball stitch tattoo on her wrist.
