Fic: The Sporting Life I: How To Handle A Bat (1/1)
Title: The Sporting Life I: How To Handle A Bat (1/1)
Author: BradyGirl
Pairings/Characters: Clark/Bruce/Selina
Genre: Humor
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: None
Summary: Bruce and Clark take Selina for her first visit to Fenway Park.
Date Of Completion: November 20, 2008
Date Of Posting: November 22, 2008
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, DC does, more’s the pity.
Word Count: 1934
Feedback welcome and appreciated.
Author’s Note: Written for my LJ Second Anniversary Fic Request Meme for stinglikeabee. Pairing: Clark/Bruce/Selina. Prompt: (Baseball) Stadium.
It was like a street festival out on Lansdowne Street, hundreds of people milling around in red-white-and-blue garb as vendors hawked peanuts, sausages, caps, programs, and T-shirts. Children bounced up-and-down in excitement as musicians strolled down the avenue, a man on stilts and wearing an Uncle Sam costume loping through the crowd.
Selina eagerly took in every sight and sound, her dark hair in a ponytail under a blue Red Sox cap. She walked between Clark and Bruce, Clark wearing a Metropolis Monarchs jersey and Bruce a Gotham Knights shirt. She and Clark wore jeans while Bruce wore dark-blue pants. The red brick façade of Fenway Park loomed close, flags snapping in the breeze.
“Traitor,” Bruce grumbled, indicating her cap.
“I like it.” Selina touched the brim. “A good addition to my collection.”
“You’re wearing a Knights jersey and Red Sox cap. That isn’t right.”
Selina grinned. “Clark, you should get a cap, too.”
“Okay.”
Bruce threw his hands up and walked ahead of them as they laughed.
“The gates are opening,” Clark said and they got in line, passing through the ancient turnstiles and handing over their tickets, the crowd thinning slightly as they moved deep into Fenway past concession booths, turning up onto the ramp.
When they reached the top of the ramp, Selina gasped in awe.
“It’s so beautiful! And so small!”
Clark laughed. “They don’t call it a bandbox for nothing.” His sapphire eyes sparkled. “Everyone has this reaction when they come up the ramp for the first time. Right, Bruce?”
"Right."
Selina’s eyes took in the emerald-green diamond, the left-field wall looming up over the field, the Citgo sign from a block away a decades-old landmark. The ancient scoreboard took up most of the Wall.
“The scores are put up by hand,” Clark said. “There’s a guy right inside the Wall who does the manual stuff.”
“That is utterly charming.” Selina’s green eyes sparkled. “A pity there are so many ads cluttering it.”
“When Mom and Dad brought me here for the first time, there was just a Jimmy Fund ad in right field,” Clark said.
“That’s the cancer fund for children?” Clark nodded. “A lovely charity.”
“Yes. Mom and Dad are big baseball fans, and one summer we did a tour of ballparks in the Midwest and Northeast. Fenway was definitely on the list. It’s the oldest park in America, built in 1912.”
“You’ve been here before, Bruce?” Selina asked.
Bruce nodded. “When the Knights play, I occasionally come up to watch.”
“Let’s get something to eat,” Clark suggested.
At the concession stand, Clark ordered two Fenway Franks.
“Hot dogs?” Bruce wrinkled his nose.
“Go ahead, Bruce, play the Prince. I know you ate plenty of hot dogs when you brought Dick to the Knights’ games.”
Bruce rolled his eyes as Selina laughed. “I’ll have a hot dog, too, Clark.”
“Me, too,” Bruce sighed.
“Two more, please.”
They carried cardboard trays of food and drink down to their seats, right behind home plate. Selina wiggled her way easily into her small wooden seat, Clark and Bruce having a harder time.
“Damn 1912-size seats,” Bruce grumbled.
“They didn’t have big, strong boys like you back then,” Selina purred.
“They might be 1934-size seats. When Tom Yawkey bought the team in ’32, he instituted a renovation of the park in ’33 in time for the 1934 Opening Day. Duffy’s Cliff was a steep hill in left field, and they fixed it to the field you see today. The Wall is also know affectionately as the Green Monster.” Clark bit into his hot dog.
The day was beautiful, fat white clouds drifting by in a bright blue sky. The Prudential Tower loomed tall over the Fens, and Clark pointed out the building beyond center field where another landmark had been.
“It was the Buck Printing Company sign. You can see pictures of it from the ‘30s up until the ‘70s, I think.”
Selina squeezed his knee. “Aren’t you a fount of useful information?”
Clark blushed slightly but smiled as he pushed up his glasses.
“The new owners have renovated the place, too,” Bruce commented as he ate his hot dog. Selina noticed he was doing so with relish, hiding her smirk.
The Knights and Red Sox took batting practice, people beginning to fill the seats. Selina rested her sneaker-clad feet on the railing, stretching out her legs.
“Must you?” Bruce’s voice was tight.
“What?”
“Your legs, dearest.”
Selina grinned. “They do look nice, don’t they?”
She and Clark laughed as Bruce rolled his eyes.
“Eat your hot dog, darling. You do it so well,” Selina purred.
“Despite his grumblings, he’s had lots of practice,” Clark said with twinkling eyes.
Bruce’s eyes narrowed as his companions kept grinning.
“It’ll be a hundred years old in 2012. They’re hoping to have the All-Star Game here,” Clark said. “They last had it in 1999, when Ted Williams was driven out onto the field and all the baseball greats surrounded him. Wonderful moment.”
“He was the last player to hit over .400, wasn’t he?” Selina asked.
“.406 in 1941. They named the fancy club upstairs the .406 Club.”
“He was a war hero, wasn’t he?” Selina asked.
Clark nodded. “He served in World War II and Korea during the prime of his career. He could have easily surpassed 521 home runs if he hadn’t lost five years in the service. He was a fighter pilot in Korea.” He pointed to right field. “There’s a red-painted seat out there where he hit a home run that was the longest ever measured inside the park at 502 feet. They said the ball went right through the straw hat of the man sitting in that seat.”
Selina was suitably impressed. “He sounds like quite a man.”
“He’s got the title, ‘The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived’.”
The park was filling up, more people taking their seats and milling around. Selina shaded her eyes as she looked out at the Green Monster. “I wonder if it’s a good place to watch a game from.” The people in the Green Monster seats atop the Wall were settling in.
“Uh uh. These are the best seats in the house,” Bruce grunted.
“Much better than sitting behind a post or in right field, where the seats are pointed to center field instead of home plate,” Clark observed.
Selina wiggled. “Just think, people all the way back to 1912 sat in these seats.”
“Smaller people,” Bruce grumbled.
Selina and Clark exchanged amused looks. Grumpy Bruce was always fun.
& & & & & &
Fenway was not for the claustrophobic. The rows of seats were extremely close, and every inch of available space for seating had been utilized. If they hadn't been in the front row, their knees would have been knocking up against the seats in front of them. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Selina didn’t care. Crowds made sporting events and the movies more enjoyable, in her opinion. Clark didn’t mind whether it was crowds or nearly empty, and Bruce’s preference was well-known, yet he was easily persuaded to join them on these public outings.
The game started after the playing of the National Anthem, and Selina and Bruce cheered on the Knights. To be fair, Clark backed the Red Sox.
“Must you always be fair?” Bruce crossed his arms as Selina put a Knights cap on his head.
Clark just grinned and signaled an ice cream vendor.
This time Bruce and Selina exchanged amused looks. Clark’s appetite was legendary. He claimed it was super-metabolism. Selina just thought he loved to eat.
But despite the teasing, Clark put away Fenway Franks, Hoodsie ice cream, Planter’s peanuts, Cokes, and popcorn.
By the sixth inning, the Knights were ahead 3-2, and Clark had settled back with nary an ice cream cup in sight.
“Look at the way those baseball players handle a bat,” Selina said. “They grip that long, smooth wood firmly.”
Clark nodded. “It’s really the only way to handle a bat: firmly.”
Selina nodded. “I like a nice, long stroke myself.”
“Right up the middle.”
“I do enjoy the game. Getting to first base can be quite an accomplishment.”
“Stealing second is fun.”
“Just like rounding onto third.”
“Sliding all the way home.”
Selina purred, tapping her foot against Clark’s outstretched leg.
“Could you two kindly knock it off?” Bruce growled.
Selina and Clark grinned, and she saucily asked, “Bruce, darling, what’s wrong with a little talk about balls? A red-blooded American male should always have a set of bat and balls.”
“That does it!” Bruce stood up. “I’m going to the men’s room.”
“We’ll send out a search party if you’re not back by the start of the eighth,” Clark said.
Bruce waved his hand as he scrunched past Selina and Clark, who had to stand to let him pass. They settled back into their seats and Selina asked, “I thought they renovated the bathrooms?”
“They have, but it’s still a wait.”
Selina snorted. “Try getting into a ladies’ room.”
Clark grinned. “I don’t think I could pass.”
She slapped his arm as she watched the first pitch of the bottom of the sixth.
“You know, it’s a good thing that Dick was such a charming Little Bird as a child.”
“Oh?”
“Can you imagine if Bruce had named him Batboy?”
& & & & & &
Bruce was back by the beginning of the seventh, laden down with food and drink.
“Hungry, are we?” Selina observed as he sidled past them, the row space a tight squeeze. The aisles looked like the crowd scenes from the planet Gideon from the classic Star Trek episode.
“Don’t be catty, dear.” Bruce settled in his seat, still balancing the trays. “This is for all of us.”
“Aren’t you sweet, Precious,” Selina purred, Clark grinning while Bruce rolled his eyes, but his hand brushed Selina’s breast as he was distributing the food and drinks with a glint in his eye.
“Thanks, Bruce.” Clark took a tray.
“No problem.”
Clark happily unwrapped the foil-covered hot dog and squirted mustard on it from the little packet.
Selina watched the whole operation with interest. Clark and food was always a treat.
Clark and a hot dog was an experience.
Selina felt warmth spread through her as Clark bit into the frank. Mmm, yeah. Was it any wonder that she liked to, um, watch?
“How about a nice Fenway Frank, Bruce dear?”
“You’re determined to watch me with a wiener in my mouth.”
“Oh, baby, you know it.”
Bruce’s eyes glittered as he took the hot dog from her.
“Eat it with relish, dearest.”
“Of course, kitten.”
Selina nudged his leg and he smirked.
As the last of the ninth began, the Red Sox behind 6-3, the crowd became energized with anticipation as the Sox whacked out hits and got a walk to load the bases. The anticipation grew as the wildly popular David Ortiz stepped up to the plate.
“Ball one!”
“C’mon, Big Papi, hit one out!”
“Ball two!”
Cheers as people stood.
“Strike one!”
Groans and admonitions to the umpire to get glasses.
David Ortiz calmly swung a practice swing, waiting for the next pitch.
“Ball three!”
“Yeah, c’mon, Papi!”
“Go, David!”
“Strike two!”
Boos! Hisses!
The Knights’ pitcher went into his wind-up, then threw.
The crack of the bat brought everyone to their feet, jumping up and down, cheering, laughing and clapping. Clark joined in while Selina and Bruce looked disgusted.
Amidst the noisy chaos Selina drawled, “Chicks dig the long ball,” and Clark and Bruce choked on their hot dogs.
Author: BradyGirl
Pairings/Characters: Clark/Bruce/Selina
Genre: Humor
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: None
Summary: Bruce and Clark take Selina for her first visit to Fenway Park.
Date Of Completion: November 20, 2008
Date Of Posting: November 22, 2008
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, DC does, more’s the pity.
Word Count: 1934
Feedback welcome and appreciated.
Author’s Note: Written for my LJ Second Anniversary Fic Request Meme for stinglikeabee. Pairing: Clark/Bruce/Selina. Prompt: (Baseball) Stadium.
It was like a street festival out on Lansdowne Street, hundreds of people milling around in red-white-and-blue garb as vendors hawked peanuts, sausages, caps, programs, and T-shirts. Children bounced up-and-down in excitement as musicians strolled down the avenue, a man on stilts and wearing an Uncle Sam costume loping through the crowd.
Selina eagerly took in every sight and sound, her dark hair in a ponytail under a blue Red Sox cap. She walked between Clark and Bruce, Clark wearing a Metropolis Monarchs jersey and Bruce a Gotham Knights shirt. She and Clark wore jeans while Bruce wore dark-blue pants. The red brick façade of Fenway Park loomed close, flags snapping in the breeze.
“Traitor,” Bruce grumbled, indicating her cap.
“I like it.” Selina touched the brim. “A good addition to my collection.”
“You’re wearing a Knights jersey and Red Sox cap. That isn’t right.”
Selina grinned. “Clark, you should get a cap, too.”
“Okay.”
Bruce threw his hands up and walked ahead of them as they laughed.
“The gates are opening,” Clark said and they got in line, passing through the ancient turnstiles and handing over their tickets, the crowd thinning slightly as they moved deep into Fenway past concession booths, turning up onto the ramp.
When they reached the top of the ramp, Selina gasped in awe.
“It’s so beautiful! And so small!”
Clark laughed. “They don’t call it a bandbox for nothing.” His sapphire eyes sparkled. “Everyone has this reaction when they come up the ramp for the first time. Right, Bruce?”
"Right."
Selina’s eyes took in the emerald-green diamond, the left-field wall looming up over the field, the Citgo sign from a block away a decades-old landmark. The ancient scoreboard took up most of the Wall.
“The scores are put up by hand,” Clark said. “There’s a guy right inside the Wall who does the manual stuff.”
“That is utterly charming.” Selina’s green eyes sparkled. “A pity there are so many ads cluttering it.”
“When Mom and Dad brought me here for the first time, there was just a Jimmy Fund ad in right field,” Clark said.
“That’s the cancer fund for children?” Clark nodded. “A lovely charity.”
“Yes. Mom and Dad are big baseball fans, and one summer we did a tour of ballparks in the Midwest and Northeast. Fenway was definitely on the list. It’s the oldest park in America, built in 1912.”
“You’ve been here before, Bruce?” Selina asked.
Bruce nodded. “When the Knights play, I occasionally come up to watch.”
“Let’s get something to eat,” Clark suggested.
At the concession stand, Clark ordered two Fenway Franks.
“Hot dogs?” Bruce wrinkled his nose.
“Go ahead, Bruce, play the Prince. I know you ate plenty of hot dogs when you brought Dick to the Knights’ games.”
Bruce rolled his eyes as Selina laughed. “I’ll have a hot dog, too, Clark.”
“Me, too,” Bruce sighed.
“Two more, please.”
They carried cardboard trays of food and drink down to their seats, right behind home plate. Selina wiggled her way easily into her small wooden seat, Clark and Bruce having a harder time.
“Damn 1912-size seats,” Bruce grumbled.
“They didn’t have big, strong boys like you back then,” Selina purred.
“They might be 1934-size seats. When Tom Yawkey bought the team in ’32, he instituted a renovation of the park in ’33 in time for the 1934 Opening Day. Duffy’s Cliff was a steep hill in left field, and they fixed it to the field you see today. The Wall is also know affectionately as the Green Monster.” Clark bit into his hot dog.
The day was beautiful, fat white clouds drifting by in a bright blue sky. The Prudential Tower loomed tall over the Fens, and Clark pointed out the building beyond center field where another landmark had been.
“It was the Buck Printing Company sign. You can see pictures of it from the ‘30s up until the ‘70s, I think.”
Selina squeezed his knee. “Aren’t you a fount of useful information?”
Clark blushed slightly but smiled as he pushed up his glasses.
“The new owners have renovated the place, too,” Bruce commented as he ate his hot dog. Selina noticed he was doing so with relish, hiding her smirk.
The Knights and Red Sox took batting practice, people beginning to fill the seats. Selina rested her sneaker-clad feet on the railing, stretching out her legs.
“Must you?” Bruce’s voice was tight.
“What?”
“Your legs, dearest.”
Selina grinned. “They do look nice, don’t they?”
She and Clark laughed as Bruce rolled his eyes.
“Eat your hot dog, darling. You do it so well,” Selina purred.
“Despite his grumblings, he’s had lots of practice,” Clark said with twinkling eyes.
Bruce’s eyes narrowed as his companions kept grinning.
“It’ll be a hundred years old in 2012. They’re hoping to have the All-Star Game here,” Clark said. “They last had it in 1999, when Ted Williams was driven out onto the field and all the baseball greats surrounded him. Wonderful moment.”
“He was the last player to hit over .400, wasn’t he?” Selina asked.
“.406 in 1941. They named the fancy club upstairs the .406 Club.”
“He was a war hero, wasn’t he?” Selina asked.
Clark nodded. “He served in World War II and Korea during the prime of his career. He could have easily surpassed 521 home runs if he hadn’t lost five years in the service. He was a fighter pilot in Korea.” He pointed to right field. “There’s a red-painted seat out there where he hit a home run that was the longest ever measured inside the park at 502 feet. They said the ball went right through the straw hat of the man sitting in that seat.”
Selina was suitably impressed. “He sounds like quite a man.”
“He’s got the title, ‘The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived’.”
The park was filling up, more people taking their seats and milling around. Selina shaded her eyes as she looked out at the Green Monster. “I wonder if it’s a good place to watch a game from.” The people in the Green Monster seats atop the Wall were settling in.
“Uh uh. These are the best seats in the house,” Bruce grunted.
“Much better than sitting behind a post or in right field, where the seats are pointed to center field instead of home plate,” Clark observed.
Selina wiggled. “Just think, people all the way back to 1912 sat in these seats.”
“Smaller people,” Bruce grumbled.
Selina and Clark exchanged amused looks. Grumpy Bruce was always fun.
& & & & & &
Fenway was not for the claustrophobic. The rows of seats were extremely close, and every inch of available space for seating had been utilized. If they hadn't been in the front row, their knees would have been knocking up against the seats in front of them. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Selina didn’t care. Crowds made sporting events and the movies more enjoyable, in her opinion. Clark didn’t mind whether it was crowds or nearly empty, and Bruce’s preference was well-known, yet he was easily persuaded to join them on these public outings.
The game started after the playing of the National Anthem, and Selina and Bruce cheered on the Knights. To be fair, Clark backed the Red Sox.
“Must you always be fair?” Bruce crossed his arms as Selina put a Knights cap on his head.
Clark just grinned and signaled an ice cream vendor.
This time Bruce and Selina exchanged amused looks. Clark’s appetite was legendary. He claimed it was super-metabolism. Selina just thought he loved to eat.
But despite the teasing, Clark put away Fenway Franks, Hoodsie ice cream, Planter’s peanuts, Cokes, and popcorn.
By the sixth inning, the Knights were ahead 3-2, and Clark had settled back with nary an ice cream cup in sight.
“Look at the way those baseball players handle a bat,” Selina said. “They grip that long, smooth wood firmly.”
Clark nodded. “It’s really the only way to handle a bat: firmly.”
Selina nodded. “I like a nice, long stroke myself.”
“Right up the middle.”
“I do enjoy the game. Getting to first base can be quite an accomplishment.”
“Stealing second is fun.”
“Just like rounding onto third.”
“Sliding all the way home.”
Selina purred, tapping her foot against Clark’s outstretched leg.
“Could you two kindly knock it off?” Bruce growled.
Selina and Clark grinned, and she saucily asked, “Bruce, darling, what’s wrong with a little talk about balls? A red-blooded American male should always have a set of bat and balls.”
“That does it!” Bruce stood up. “I’m going to the men’s room.”
“We’ll send out a search party if you’re not back by the start of the eighth,” Clark said.
Bruce waved his hand as he scrunched past Selina and Clark, who had to stand to let him pass. They settled back into their seats and Selina asked, “I thought they renovated the bathrooms?”
“They have, but it’s still a wait.”
Selina snorted. “Try getting into a ladies’ room.”
Clark grinned. “I don’t think I could pass.”
She slapped his arm as she watched the first pitch of the bottom of the sixth.
“You know, it’s a good thing that Dick was such a charming Little Bird as a child.”
“Oh?”
“Can you imagine if Bruce had named him Batboy?”
& & & & & &
Bruce was back by the beginning of the seventh, laden down with food and drink.
“Hungry, are we?” Selina observed as he sidled past them, the row space a tight squeeze. The aisles looked like the crowd scenes from the planet Gideon from the classic Star Trek episode.
“Don’t be catty, dear.” Bruce settled in his seat, still balancing the trays. “This is for all of us.”
“Aren’t you sweet, Precious,” Selina purred, Clark grinning while Bruce rolled his eyes, but his hand brushed Selina’s breast as he was distributing the food and drinks with a glint in his eye.
“Thanks, Bruce.” Clark took a tray.
“No problem.”
Clark happily unwrapped the foil-covered hot dog and squirted mustard on it from the little packet.
Selina watched the whole operation with interest. Clark and food was always a treat.
Clark and a hot dog was an experience.
Selina felt warmth spread through her as Clark bit into the frank. Mmm, yeah. Was it any wonder that she liked to, um, watch?
“How about a nice Fenway Frank, Bruce dear?”
“You’re determined to watch me with a wiener in my mouth.”
“Oh, baby, you know it.”
Bruce’s eyes glittered as he took the hot dog from her.
“Eat it with relish, dearest.”
“Of course, kitten.”
Selina nudged his leg and he smirked.
As the last of the ninth began, the Red Sox behind 6-3, the crowd became energized with anticipation as the Sox whacked out hits and got a walk to load the bases. The anticipation grew as the wildly popular David Ortiz stepped up to the plate.
“Ball one!”
“C’mon, Big Papi, hit one out!”
“Ball two!”
Cheers as people stood.
“Strike one!”
Groans and admonitions to the umpire to get glasses.
David Ortiz calmly swung a practice swing, waiting for the next pitch.
“Ball three!”
“Yeah, c’mon, Papi!”
“Go, David!”
“Strike two!”
Boos! Hisses!
The Knights’ pitcher went into his wind-up, then threw.
The crack of the bat brought everyone to their feet, jumping up and down, cheering, laughing and clapping. Clark joined in while Selina and Bruce looked disgusted.
Amidst the noisy chaos Selina drawled, “Chicks dig the long ball,” and Clark and Bruce choked on their hot dogs.