Battery
It is 2040, and baseball is everywhere.
In the streets, in the schools, on every screen in every corner of the country — the crack of the bat and the snap of the mitt have become the soundtrack of a generation. Everyone has an opinion about the game.
Ask a fan who the most important player on the diamond is and you will get a different answer every time. The pitcher, they say. The one who controls the tempo, who lives and dies on the mound, who can carry a team on one good arm. Or the cleanup hitter. The one the crowd stands for, the one opposing coaches lose sleep over. Or maybe the shortstop. The athlete, the anchor of the infield, the one who makes the impossible look routine. Everyone has their answer.
Flio Codiñera has his.
He is thirteen years old, from Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, and he loves this game more than he loves most things in this world. He has watched every pitcher he can find. Studied every windup, every grip, every release point. He has thrown until his fingers bled and then thrown some more.
He knows exactly who the most important player on the diamond is. He is standing on the mound.
Baseball, however, has never been very interested in what anyone thinks they know.
This is the story of Flio Codiñera. And what the game made him into.