Name: Kelly Woodward
Team: Cerideux Ivories
Position: Pitcher
Age: 25
“And out of the home bullpen steps Kelly Woodward, looking to stifle this late-game push by the Jackalopes.” The sing-song voice of the Ivories' long-time play-by-play announcer, Brian Woodward, crackles through radios around Cerideux. "It'll be her seventh appearance this season." He doesn't need to check his producer's guide to rattle off that statistic. He's kept count on his own.
He doesn’t even glance as he recites the exact decimals of Kelly’s other statistics. The lemur brags them confidently to an audience of thousands. The words he doesn't say are implicit behind the careful wink of his practiced, professional tone.
He squints down at his daughter from a broadcasting booth at Silver Wind Field, sections up from the home dugout. Kelly practically grew up in the seats down there, back when Brian was a pitcher for the Ivories, himself. While his career was short-lived—the team discovering a commentary talent far eclipsing his ability on the mound—his daughter was only getting started. She was born with a passion for the game. Growing up, the troublemaker skipped classes to follow games, and practiced pitching grips on balls of paper she flung at her teachers’ backs.
It was almost an inevitability she’d make it here. Every one of her minor league teammates knew their squad was merely a temporary state for the heroine destined to return to the field she spent all summer at. There was a certain gravity she assumed when stepping on the mound, herself a pious monk and the catcher’s signals her scripture. Baseball might as well be, to her, the reason for all creation.
But even still, in Brian’s years of broadcasting, nothing forced gaffes out of him like announcing her games. He just wanted her to do well. It’s why he goes quiet after he runs out of numbers to repeat.
“It’s a windy night here, folks, in the top of the eighth,” he finally adds.
It’s a platitude he uses, words filling airtime that say nothing at all. The kind of small talk parents might make to each other on the bleachers of their children’s little league finals. The Ivories, having won nearly as many titles as Kelly’s lived years, always play at a prime time hour, and their park, unchanged for nearly a century, now borders on a wind farm past left field. Legend has it, the base of the oldest mill, some 600 feet away from home plate, was once struck by a home run of one of Cerideux’s own.
It’s a story Brian doesn’t believe. He does believe, however, that there’s something magical about this ancient cathedral of a park. It’s a field so long for this world that it saw the creation of the white baseball jersey (hence the allusion in the Ivories’ name), and upon its grass has stood tens of thousands of names.
And millions have watched those games, seeing countless pitchers take the mound to protect a late-game lead. Watching thousands of balls fly over the rustling ivy of the outfield wall. Glimpsing every new iteration upon the Ivories’ classic outfit. While people like Brian and Kelly would come and go, the park would always be there, still blowing in an eternal wind. Even though a captive audience would always leave at the end of the night, they’d always be back to Silver Wind Field: the park that breathes with life.
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Logo, uniform, and card assets by me. Card font free for personal and commercial use.
Team: Cerideux Ivories
Position: Pitcher
Age: 25
“And out of the home bullpen steps Kelly Woodward, looking to stifle this late-game push by the Jackalopes.” The sing-song voice of the Ivories' long-time play-by-play announcer, Brian Woodward, crackles through radios around Cerideux. "It'll be her seventh appearance this season." He doesn't need to check his producer's guide to rattle off that statistic. He's kept count on his own.
He doesn’t even glance as he recites the exact decimals of Kelly’s other statistics. The lemur brags them confidently to an audience of thousands. The words he doesn't say are implicit behind the careful wink of his practiced, professional tone.
He squints down at his daughter from a broadcasting booth at Silver Wind Field, sections up from the home dugout. Kelly practically grew up in the seats down there, back when Brian was a pitcher for the Ivories, himself. While his career was short-lived—the team discovering a commentary talent far eclipsing his ability on the mound—his daughter was only getting started. She was born with a passion for the game. Growing up, the troublemaker skipped classes to follow games, and practiced pitching grips on balls of paper she flung at her teachers’ backs.
It was almost an inevitability she’d make it here. Every one of her minor league teammates knew their squad was merely a temporary state for the heroine destined to return to the field she spent all summer at. There was a certain gravity she assumed when stepping on the mound, herself a pious monk and the catcher’s signals her scripture. Baseball might as well be, to her, the reason for all creation.
But even still, in Brian’s years of broadcasting, nothing forced gaffes out of him like announcing her games. He just wanted her to do well. It’s why he goes quiet after he runs out of numbers to repeat.
“It’s a windy night here, folks, in the top of the eighth,” he finally adds.
It’s a platitude he uses, words filling airtime that say nothing at all. The kind of small talk parents might make to each other on the bleachers of their children’s little league finals. The Ivories, having won nearly as many titles as Kelly’s lived years, always play at a prime time hour, and their park, unchanged for nearly a century, now borders on a wind farm past left field. Legend has it, the base of the oldest mill, some 600 feet away from home plate, was once struck by a home run of one of Cerideux’s own.
It’s a story Brian doesn’t believe. He does believe, however, that there’s something magical about this ancient cathedral of a park. It’s a field so long for this world that it saw the creation of the white baseball jersey (hence the allusion in the Ivories’ name), and upon its grass has stood tens of thousands of names.
And millions have watched those games, seeing countless pitchers take the mound to protect a late-game lead. Watching thousands of balls fly over the rustling ivy of the outfield wall. Glimpsing every new iteration upon the Ivories’ classic outfit. While people like Brian and Kelly would come and go, the park would always be there, still blowing in an eternal wind. Even though a captive audience would always leave at the end of the night, they’d always be back to Silver Wind Field: the park that breathes with life.
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Logo, uniform, and card assets by me. Card font free for personal and commercial use.
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Lemur
Gender Female
Size 2120 x 2930px
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