Page 6 of For The Ring
Everyone told me it would pass, though, that I was just used to it and that I needed to move on, find something else outside of baseball to spend the rest of my life doing.
But there wasn’t anything. No wife, not anymore, and Gemma and I didn’t have any kids. My friends were scattered across the country and some around the world. I never planned for life after baseball. And so, after baseball, I didn’t have a life.
I tried, though. I tried golf and I tried travel. I even tried, for one fucking shitshow of a summer, to do some broadcasting.
Nothing stuck because it wasn’t the same.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, Stew called.
Stew managed me in the minors, back when I was just a struggling kid, signed right out of high school and absolutely terrified that I’d made the wrong choice and should have gone to college.
That was the first time I considered being a manager.
But then everything clicked, both at the plate and behind it, and I never looked back.
Until now.
The Eagles need a manager. They need someone to pull the sorry excuse for a Major League Baseball organization out of their decades-long rut as third-class citizens in their own town.
And Stew thinks that guy might be me.
He’s built a first-class front office, poaching the best of the best in baseball operations, analytics, minor league development and scouting from all over the league. But now the real changes need to happen on the field.
Not that I’ll actually be on it. In the dugout is as close as I can get.
I frown down at my knee and then stretch my leg out as far as I can without kicking the driver’s seat in front of me.
The cold, damp weather mixed with a six-hour flight didn’t do it any favors and, even after years of physical therapy, yoga and not squatting for a few hours a day, six months out of the year, it still aches and probably always will.
When I look back up, Sullivan is following the motion, her lips pursed, probably holding back a scathing comment or ten.
That’s a pretty good look for her too.
“Where are you coming from?” I ask, and it throws her off enough to elicit a non-sarcastic answer.
“Tokyo.”
Tokyo, where the Japan Series has just wrapped up. I watched it while staying up late for my red eye to New York. Are the Eagles in on Nakamura? That would be a step up from their usual free agent budget for the off season.
“Nakamura was otherworldly,” I say, and I mean it. That kid has all the makings of a major league star.
“And I was right behind home plate in his line of sight the entire time.”
So, he is a target.
Interesting.
Because Nakamura is a Japanese player, there’s a complicated posting process he has to go through in order for him to sign with a major league team, so it’ll be a while until the Eagles, or any team, will be able to pitch him as a free agent, but with everyone else still taking a few days off after the World Series, Sullivan might have put us into an early lead to sign the phenom.
Us ? I need to chill. I haven’t agreed to anything yet. Haven’t even talked to Stew.
“A nice touch,” I say, and I mean that too.
“Thank you,” she says primly, crossing her legs and I try my hardest not to follow the motion with my eyes.
I nearly succeed. “You think he’ll sign with you?”
“I think it’s none of your business.”
“Might be in a few hours.”
“We’ll see.”
It sounds like a threat, like she thinks she’ll be able to talk Stew out of hiring me.
She’ll be disappointed if that’s the case.
If I want the job, it’s mine, and we both know it.
And with every minute that passes, as the car slides through the relatively still Brooklyn streets before the sun rises, I’m closer and closer to having to make that choice.
Russell Field appears from almost nowhere at the end of a residential street, the neighborhood now pretty different from the working-class one that built up around it during the latter half of the twentieth century.
During the season it’s a bustling hub, but right now, at just past seven in the morning on a Monday in November, it’s eerily quiet, as if the baseball gods have gone to sleep for the next six months, waiting for spring.
Getting out of the car, I take a long leap over a puddle starting to gather at the edge of the sidewalk.
I reach back to hold my hand out for Sullivan.
I can feel her in there, hesitating, not taking it.
I can just picture her eyeing the puddle, doing the math on whether her heels are high enough to keep her feet dry.
With a resigned sigh, her hand slides into mine.
She lets me take her weight for a split second as she follows my leap with one of her own, landing with improbable lightness beside me, feet dry.
She draws away instantly before I can really register how soft her skin feels under the callouses on my fingertips.
“It’s a hell of a ballpark.” I gaze up at the landmark, seeing it in a way I never have before, like a potential home.
Russell Field was built on the same spot where Ebbetts Field used to stand, named for the old railroad family that founded the team in the 1950s after the Dodgers fled for the west coast. The team is owned by a group now, a few corporations and bored billionaires looking for a tax write-off and to be able to say they own part of a major league team, but its original owners did their best to make it a great place to play.
“It is,” she agrees with me, a rare enough occurrence that I don’t know how to respond. But it’s hard not to remember the last time she and I stood outside an empty ballpark together.
Glancing down just enough to take in her profile, I see a strand of silky blonde hair has escaped, and I resist the urge to reach over and tuck it behind her ear.
“Was a great place to play,” I add, and cringe at how bland and generic I sound. Really? I couldn’t come up with anything better than that?
“Practicing your answer for the reporters when they ask you about it?” she retorts, rightly mocking me.
I’m off my game. It’s been too long since I sparred with her like this and she never holds back.
It’s one of the things I respect about her.
“And how does Russell Field compare with Dodger Stadium?” I ask, recovering, in my best imitation of a nasally sports reporter.
Sullivan lets out a short huff of laughter before cutting it off with a cough I’m pretty sure is fake.
“C’mon,” she says, “Stew’s around here somewhere. If you’re here for an interview this early, it’s because neither one of you want anyone to know, and standing out here admiring the ballpark is bound to get you seen.”
Dutifully, I follow her toward the entrance reserved for players and the front-office employees, where an assistant she calls Gregory is waiting to take our luggage and escort us to the executive elevator.
“Ms Sullivan, welcome back,” Gregory says, and then, as he turns toward me, “Mr Reynolds requested you join him and Mr Avery in their meeting once you’ve been able to freshen up.”
I glance back at her and, yeah, she looks a bit worn around the edges. Half a day on a plane from Tokyo would do that to anyone, but, despite that, I have to admit it doesn’t make her any less gorgeous. Just a little disheveled. It’s a good look on her.
I manage to mostly control the direction of my gaze while she stands in front of me in the elevator, before getting off on the floor below where I’m headed.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she calls back, as she walks away, and I allow himself to appreciate the silky slide of her skirt over her curves.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I shoot back, but she’s already rounding the corner and out of sight.
Gregory clears his throat roughly, the younger man sending me a narrow-eyed glare as I lean back and allow the elevator doors to close.
I shrug one shoulder in mock defeat. “Not my biggest fan.”
The glare doesn’t soften.
Right. Okay. She’s got allies here. Strong ones, if Stew’s personal assistant is in her corner.
There’s no reason why she shouldn’t.
In all our showdowns, I never accused her of being incompetent.
It would make sense that what she’s helped build in the last year would have made people loyal to her.
The Eagles were a joke at the end of last season, and since she came on board they’re a team on the rise.
But they need more than just people crunching numbers to make them into a championship-caliber team.
And that’s why I’m here.
Ding!
The elevator arrives and, when the doors open, Stew is on the other side, a broad grin spread over a tanned face with more lines than I remember and a swathe of hair, grayer and a bit thinner than the last time I saw him too.
He looks good, though. Really good. And happy to see me. I’m only a step out of the elevator when he pulls me into a bear hug, quite the feat since he was always at least half a foot shorter than me and has lost an inch or two more in the last twenty years.
“Hey kid,” he grumbles, in that gritty voice of his, forever made rough by years of yelling at umps and corralling baby hot-shot ballplayers who thought their shit didn’t stink.
“Hey, Skip.” He’ll never not be my old skipper, the man who taught me so much about what it meant to be a professional baseball player instead of an overgrown kid playing a child’s game.
“Been a minute since anyone called me that. C’mon back. Let’s get started and maybe, by the time I’m done, I’ll be calling you Skip.”
Oh, yeah. I’m in.