On March 31, the night before the first game against Pana, he lay in his bed in Elwin, visualizing his future. He imagined himself blasting a home run and dominating hitters on the mound the next day, then repeating the performance over the weeks and months to come. He imagined record-setting high school seasons and a standout college career and then, in four or six or seven years, sitting in a dugout in some midsized American city and being told to report to the manager’s office, whereupon he would be handed a phone. A gravelly voice on the other end would say, “Good news. You’ve made the Show, kid.” And only then would the journey be complete, the one Shartzer began all those years earlier while peering down at the older boys at Fairview Park and swatting balls in his backyard, the journey he’d planned on making from the time he was five years old, when he first began announcing to anyone who’d listen, “I’m going to be in the pros someday. Just you wait.” The Shartzer mailbox had already begun to fill with letters from college coaches, and Steve knew more were coming.
