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FRANCESCA

Two Years Ago . . .

After seven hard-fought games, the New York Yankees celebrated their World Series championship win on the field at Dodger Stadium, and the LA faithful were stunned silent.

I’d never heard fifty thousand people be that quiet before.

Helpless from my seat in the front-office suite, all I could do was watch.

Our players drifted from the dugout back through the tunnel to the clubhouse, where there would be no champagne and beer waiting for them to douse each other sticky, and no trophy to lift above their heads, no World Series ring that would forever name them champion.

My front-office colleagues melted away too, one by one, until I was left alone. With a long breath in and then out again, I wiped the tears from eyes with the heel of my hand, grateful I’d thought to put on waterproof mascara that morning.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Not again.

But no matter how hard I worked, it still wasn’t enough.

I worked late a lot back then.

It was expected that all baseball operations staff stay until the end of every game, but I didn’t do it because it was expected of me.

I did it because I loved being there long after the final out, when all the fans are gone, the players and coaches too, when it would be just me in my office and maybe a few other diehards left.

Sometimes I’d even go into the empty stands and work with the field laid out in front of me.

I’d compile my report on the next day’s opposing pitcher and how our line-up matched up, determining outfield positioning for the other hitters, going over pitch selection for our starter and the guys available out of the bullpen.

Should I have been delegating that kind of stuff? Probably, but if Frankie Sullivan, the head of major league analytics, stayed late, it sent the clear signal to the rest of my staff that I was willing to put in the hours, and that, if I’m going to do it, they should too.

Is it healthy to feel that way about your job?

Most people would say no. They at least try for a semblance of work-life balance.

That’s crap.

At least it was for me.

Hence my divorce. Though, I think that was probably more about him being a cheating scumbag rather than how much I loved my job.

And it was actually one of the things my ex said he loved about me: how dedicated I was, that I was focused and driven and ambitious, and wouldn’t let anything stand in my way.

As it turned out, not even him.

Because even after he left, I still had my dream.

And that was everything.

Five years with the Dodgers and I knew I was the best in the game.

You don’t get to the top of the baseball world as a woman without not just being the best, but being obviously the best.

I put in the work and left everyone else in my dust.

But, in the end, the only thing that mattered was the result. A World Series championship. And there isn’t an algorithm in the world that can predict what happens once you get there. Two teams, the best of seven games. It’s too small a sample size with too many variables to predict.

Believe me, I’ve tried.

And so had he, the last player left in our dugout, watching the Yankees celebrate.

Charlie Avery, all six foot four, two hundred odd pounds of him, with eye black streaked across his face and dirt creased over his uniform, his wrists wrapped tightly, shaggy brown hair probably still damp with sweat plastered against his forehead and his sharp blue eyes staring blankly out onto the field.

He sat like a statue until the Yankees danced back to their clubhouse and long after the fans, even the stragglers milling around for one last gasp of the dying baseball season, were shooed away by security.

He sat there and so did I, two levels up and across the field, like we were the last two people left on earth.

Charlie had played nearly twenty years in the majors. There’d been ups and downs over the years, but for two decades he’d been penciled in nearly every day behind the plate for the Dodgers, and now, though he hadn’t made an official announcement, nearly everyone was sure this was it for him.

His knees were breaking down. And once a catcher’s knees go, that’s the ballgame.

Still, he’d put together an All-Star season and went on a hot streak in October, only for it to end with another team celebrating on his field.

He and I have had our differences over the years.

Guys with the kind of instincts, ability and work ethic that Charlie has have a hard time believing that their efforts can be boiled down to some numbers spat out by a computer. His words not mine, obviously, but, despite our battles, and they were many, I always respected the hell out of him.

And now it was over.

Twenty years gone, a Hall of Fame career for sure.

But no championship to show for it.

I didn’t blame him for not wanting to leave the field.

He did eventually, though.

And so did I.

I caught his post-game interview as I was gathering my things from my office, half an eye on the TV .

He stood at his locker, stone-faced and exhausted, taking question after question, patiently answering each one, his voice solemn, but his responses thorough, almost meandering, as if he didn’t want the moment to end.

Interviews were always obviously his least favorite thing, but he was latching on to this one, the last bit of normalcy for a man who’d spent his whole adult life playing a little boy’s game.

I couldn’t stand it, so I switched off the set. Then the stadium lights went out – the cleaning crews were finished and gone. And I finished packing up my things.

Just for the night, though.

I’d be back the next day and so would dozens of other front-office types, but, for everyone else, the season was over.

No baseball for six months, and then a new season would start and hope would spring eternal, just like it did when the team was back in Brooklyn, back when the unofficial organizational motto was: “wait till next year”.

For Charlie Avery, “next year” never came.

His career was ending while mine was only just beginning, even though he’s only a few years older than me, not even forty.

Baseball is cruel like that.

Young men in the prime of their life, ancient before their time.

The dream has a ticking clock. For some time expires early.

Mine expired when I started softball instead of baseball the year I turned twelve.

Charlie’s dream at least had the decency to wait until he neared middle age to die.

All that said, I couldn’t say I was sorry to see him go. We’d had more than one knock-down drag-out fight over his sheer inability to follow a game plan. The younger guys coming up through the minor leagues were always way more amenable to our analysis.

The click of my heels echoed in the cavernous concrete hall as I made my way out of the stadium that night. It was odd the way such a small sound made so much noise, especially in a place that had been raucous with tens of thousands of voices just a few hours ago.

“You’re still here, Ms Sullivan?” Raúl, one of the security guards that’s usually stationed by the employee exit, asked.

“So are you,” I answered, with a grin, despite my bittersweet feelings from the loss.

“We’re not the only ones,” he said, and nodded his head back toward the field. “ He’s still here.”

Raúl didn’t need to clarify who “he” was.

I should have just left, should have gone home and let him sit there alone until he was ready to go.

Instead, I left my bag with Raúl and made sure those heel clicks echoed even louder as I headed into the stands so he’d know I was coming.

Down in the front row, just behind home plate, Charlie Avery sat unmoving with Dodger Stadium laid out in front of him. The field was pitch black except for the soft glow of the city behind us. Just enough light for him to see me when he turned at my approach.

“Sullivan,” he said. He’d only ever used my last name in the five years we’d worked together. I was never sure if it was passive aggressive or begrudgingly respectful. And I’d never asked.

“Avery,” I responded in kind, and lowered myself into the seat beside him.

It’s a hell of a view. Even in the dark, a major league stadium is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

“It’s late. You should go home. You have things to do tomorrow.”

“And you don’t?”

“You and I and the entire world know I don’t.”

I hummed a non-committal agreement.

“You could always come back, if you wanted,” I suggested.

“So my knees can collapse out from under me on the field? So that kid in Triple A can take my job from me? So they,” he gestured to the empty stands around him, “can boo me when I can’t keep up anymore?”

“So they can say goodbye?” I offered. “They cheered for you for twenty years. Grew up with you. Don’t you think they’d want the chance?”

“The team’ll do a thing next year, bring me out and I’ll throw a ceremonial first pitch and that’ll be that.”

“Well, what about me, then? Who’s gonna give me crap about my analysis before every game?”

“What, are you gonna miss me, Sullivan? I always enjoyed our little discussions.”

He turned in his seat and, for the first time, met my eyes with his. The crystal blue is swimming with unshed tears.

Fuck.

I shouldn’t have been there. It shouldn’t have been me to find him like this. But it was, and I had to do something.

“Discussions? Is that what you’re going to call them? You getting soft in your old age, Avery?”

And, thank God, it was the right thing to say. He barked out a laugh, but the suddenness of it had the tears drifting to his eyelashes, one and then another falling to his cheeks. He brushed them away with impatience and then waved off the apology that was about to spill out of my mouth.

“Fuck, I needed that,” he said, a broad grin spreading across his face.