Except for the captain of the team, that is. Donovan was a long, lean, obviously athletic guy with short, rubbable black hair and brilliant, knee-sagging green eyes. He reminded me of Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, and I could tell by the way he was fun going balls around during warm-up that he could really play the game.
We ended losing 21-19 to the Wheaties in a tight-scoring affair, but I had a good time and got a heck of a lot more exercise than I thought I would. Some of the old skills returned along with the arm soreness and the stitch in my side, and I found myself running the bases virtually every time I stepped up to the plate. And when our team captain saw I could field the grapefruit without closing my eyes and offering a prayer, he put me in left field, which meant I was chasing down balls almost every inning, as well.
The best part of the game, though, was sporting young Donovan. He was decked out in a pair of tight, silky blue shorts and a blue-mesh muscle shirt. I reverentially watched him coil at the plate, knees bent and bum waggling, run the bases after a hit, powerful bronze thighs and arms pumping, loose cock flopping. And I had a good, unobstructed view of his big, rounded butt from my position in left field, as he crouched in the hole between second and third. I fantasized about filling the stud’s own hole with my bat and balls, field-dreaming that a fall-summer sexual encounter could be as natural as Roy Hobbs.
‘Hey, you ever think of playing serious ball?’ Donovan asked me after the game, when we were stowing the baseball gear in his equipment bag. ‘You’re pretty good, you know.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, beaming. ‘What do you mean – serious ball?’
‘Well, I just play on this team for fun, and to recruit new talent. I’m on another team with a bunch of guys who play a lot harder. Thought you might be interested in stepping it up a notch.’
‘Uh, yeah, sure, I’m interested, absolutely,’ I blustered, lost in the guy’s twinkling emerald eyes. I was willing to even play on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays if it meant spending more quality, sweaty time with the D-Man. ‘When do you guys play?’
Donovan cracked a blindingly-white smile that lit up my small corner of the world.
‘Every Friday night. Why don’t you come out this week?’
If I squeezed in a massage and a session with my chiropractor, I could just maybe make it to a Friday game in one piece. ‘Great. I’d love to come … out.’ I enthused, watching Donovan’s kitten-pink tongue part his thick lips and apply lubrication.
‘Excellent. I’ll give you my address. The guys always get together before the game to strategize and stuff.’
They did take their diamond-ball seriously. Donovan gave me his address, and I memorised it like some guys memorise baseball stats.

That Friday night, I bumped the curb a couple doors down from Donovan’s house at six o’clock sharp. He lived in the funky, elm-shaded neighbourhood we straight-laced, suburban Sioux Fallsians call the Yippie District. And Donovan’s place turned out to be an old, refurbished, two-storey job painted a wild neon-green with purple trim.
I wasn’t absolutely sure of the young man’s sexuality, but the house and the ‘hood were sending out the right vibes. And so was the flamboyant tease with the pink hair and blue nose studs who answered the bell when I rang. ‘You must be Malcolm,’ he gushed, spilling some of his drink and his spit. He winked at me. ‘I hear you can really play.’
Dressed in black leather pants and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, drinking anything but Gatorade, the guy looked about as ready for a ballgame as my dead uncle Clarence. ‘We’re all in the backyard,’ he whispered, breathing booze in my face. Then he pirouetted and sashayed away down the hallway.
I followed his tight, twitching buns through the eclectically furnished house and out on to a creaking back porch that overlooked a size-small backyard. The yard was surrounded by an eight-foot-high cedar fence, and there were enough guys crammed into the green space to make up a ball team, all right; but they were playing a different kind of catch entirely.
A long-haired blond and a flat-top redhead were passionately making out in a shaded corner of the fence, Blondie gripping Red’s head while Red gripped Blondie’s ass, their tongues entwining like the ivy at Wrigley Field. Two more players were executing the ol’ squeeze play on a third guy in another corner of the yard, their mouths attached to his sun-burnished nipples, sucking and licking and biting, their hands on his blue-jeaned equipment, rubbing and squeezing and stroking. The double-played dude had his back up against the fence and his shirt up around his neck, his hands on his buddies’ heads, as he got licked and sucked and manhandled.
And smack in the middle of that miniature field of dreams, a guy suddenly sank to his knees in the grass and deftly unbelted and unzipped another guy. He tugged his pal’s jeans down and said howdy-do to a slender, liquorice-black cock rising up and sniffing the open air. The kneeling man fielded the standing man’s cock like a pro, seizing it with his hand at the base, with his mouth at the head. The standing man grunted and tore off his T-shirt, exposing even more shining ebony skin. He started pinching and pulling his nipples, as his playmate got a good, hardcore sucking rhythm going, as I watched and drooled in amazement.
‘What’d you think of the team?’ someone asked, startling me like a voyeur caught with his pants down. Donovan casually threw an arm over my shoulder. ‘Think you can play with us?’
I looked at that muscular, brown arm, felt its soothing, sensuous warmth, looked out at that orgy unfolding in front of me, felt its raw, white-hot heat. Then I looked into Donovan’s gleaming green eyes and gulped, ‘Game on.’