Page 9

CHARLIE

“We’re going to open up to questions now,” Juan, the Eagles’ head of communications says to the sea of media sitting out in front of me.

We’re about the same age and I remember him running press conferences whenever we were in Brooklyn.

I didn’t know his name back then, but I plan on making friends.

There’s no one more important to have on your side as a manager, especially in a major media market.

Sitting at the dais in the Eagle’s press room, I have on a creamy white jersey with a blue brOOKLYN across my chest in all caps over my crisp dress shirt and a cap with the NY in block letters on my head.

I signed my contract about an hour ago in Stew’s office.

Now I’m being introduced to the local reporters and a handful of national media types.

There are more than a few familiar faces.

I haven’t been out of the game long enough for there to be a total changing of the guard.

Back when I first got to the big leagues there was pretty extensive media training.

A bunch of guys from the press office taught us how to deal with the gaggle of reporters that would ask us questions after every game.

LA ’s obviously a big city and with that came a pretty hot spotlight on us, on and off the field.

One of the things they teach you is that the things that trip you up won’t always be obvious, that a good reporter will come at you sideways and, before you know it, you’re saying things you never meant to say.

When the question comes, it follows the ones I expected. It’s like I was being lulled into a false sense of security.

There was the meatball starter question, “How does it feel to wear a different jersey for the first time in your career?”

“There’s some poetry to it, I think. After starting with the Dodgers, the original Brooklyn franchise, having this new part of my career beginning with the team that brought baseball back to Brooklyn feels fitting.”

And then the obvious follow up of, “What does it feel like to be here as part of the team instead of the opposition?”

“I’ll let you know once we actually play a game.”

“How will your tenure be different given the organization’s historical lack of success?”

“The Cubs and the Sox managed to get off the schneid after what? More than a hundred years each? I think I can say the Eagles’ll do it before we get that far.”

There are a few amused guffaws at that.

Maybe that’s what had me letting my guard down.

The next reporter is sitting dead center a couple of rows back.

Pete Bruckner, the Eagles beat reporter for as long as I can remember, one of the most famous writers in the game.

His hair is entirely gray now, almost the same color as the jersey I’m donning, no sign of the thick black curls he sported when I first came up to the big leagues.

“After a modicum of promise shown toward the end of last season, are you looking forward to building upon it with the addition of some new blood – Kai Nakamura for example?” Pete asks, pen at the ready to jot down whatever I say despite his phone recording the session as well.

I can’t help but dart a glance to my right, where Sullivan and a few other geeks from the analytics department are seated up against the wall.

“Nakamura’s a fantastic pitcher, but we already have a good mix of guys here who, like you said, showed a lot of promise toward the end of last season. And I’m excited to see what they can do.”

I’m ready to move on, but Pete gestures that he has another question.

“Just a follow up. What about Ethan Quicke? I have his agent Dan Wilson quoted as saying, ‘If the Eagles have enough money to lure Charlie Avery out of retirement and pursue the top prospect out of Japan in recent memory, then they have enough money to pay my client what he’s worth.’ What do you say to that? ”

“I say that I know Dan Wilson well enough to know that what he says and reality very often don’t coincide.”

Pete’s bushy gray eyebrows shoot up toward his receding hairline and he leans forward. “So you’re saying that the Eagles don’t have enough money to sign you, Nakamura and Quicke?”

“No, that’s not what I . . .”

But I’m cut off by Juan. Thank fuck. “Only one follow up each or we’ll never get out of here.”

The interruption is too late, though. Even as they move on to another reporter, I can’t take my eyes off Pete as he sits down, ignoring whatever the next question is, scribbling furiously into his notebook.

Fuck.

The rest of the press conference blends together and then we’re breaking up for pictures, but I just hear that question over and over again on a loop in my head.

What I should have said is simple: Our front office is dedicated to putting a championship-caliber team out on the field.

Obviously, pitching is an area of need and I have full confidence it’ll be addressed before we break camp in March.

It’s saying something while saying absolutely nothing at all.

Exactly what I was taught all those years ago.

After there were pictures taken of every possible combination of me with a dozen or so guys representing the ownership group – their names have already flittered out of my head – plus Stew and a few other executive types from the organization.

I look around for Pete, but he’s already gone, probably to file his story about how frustrated the Eagles’ new manager already is at their budget constraints.

I move out of the press room, the fluorescent overhead lights set up for the cameras at the back of the room now replaced by the high ceilings of the large halls.

They make up the outer edges of the Stadium, bracing the stands on the other side of the cinderblock.

Light shines in from the upper levels, casting angular lines of shadow over the concrete floors.

“This way,” Stew says, leading us away from the people still milling around after the press conference.

Frankie’s a couple of steps ahead of us and, as we get farther and farther away from everyone else, I get the sense that she’s actually leading us.

A little pit of dread swirls in my gut when we make it to a large dark-wood-paneled entrance that looks like it’s from an era gone by, compared to every other steel door in the wide walkway.

The clubhouse: the locker room in every other major sport but, in baseball, we still call it a clubhouse, a word, like the door, from another time.

Carpeted floors, lockers trimmed with the same stained wood as the doors we just walked through, large comfortable executive chairs in front of every locker.

They’re all empty now, but come April they’ll be fully stocked with everything a ball player needs: gloves, bats, warmups, uniforms, cleats, hoodies and jackets, all in the distinct cream and blue the Eagles have been wearing since the middle of the twentieth century.

And in the center of it all, Frankie is down near the floor in a squat.

She’s in one of those skirt suits again, her personal uniform, I guess, the deep blue skirt hugging her hips, knees pressed together as she balances on those high heels.

Head down, staring at the pristine carpet, her blonde hair is pulled into a knot at the back of her neck.

I know that position, I was in it often enough. She was a catcher before she was an analyst. It’s exactly what we do when we’re thinking, when we’ve got the batter on the ropes and our pitcher needs the right call to get that strikeout.

It’s the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

I don’t have long to admire it, though, because she looks up and absolute thunderbolts are firing out of her blue eyes.

Standing slowly, her voice is low and measured. “What were you thinking? You know better than that.”

“I misspoke,” I say, attempting to downplay it. “It happens.”

Tilting her head to the side at my blithe dismissal, her volume rises as she goes on. “That’s crap. You were the blandest, most boring interview in the whole league for twenty years and you decide on your first day on the job as a manager to completely undermine me?”

“What?” I ask, baffled. “I’m not undermining anything. I misspoke. It happens.”

“It can’t happen. Not here. What don’t you get? We have one chance to make this work before we become a shiny tax write-off again. Why would you comment at all?”

“Okay, easy Frankie, he gets it,” Stew says, and I whirl around. He’s sitting in one of the chairs, tie loosened and collar unbuttoned. Does he agree with her? He’s pale and there’s a bead of sweat dripping down from his hairline above his temple.

“Does he?” Sullivan asks, and I turn back to her.

“ Do you get it? Because we have to be a united front on this. It’s the only way we’re going to convince the guys we need to sign here.

You don’t think Nakamura and his agents are going over every single thing that comes out of every club before he posts for the free agent market?

You don’t think they’ll hear that and think, Wow, the Eagles aren’t committed to winning, better go to the Yankees or the Dodgers ? ”

She’s right. I know she is, and I’m halfway to opening my mouth to admit it when Stew cuts in again.

“Enough,” Stew says, through a gasp, and when I turn again, he’s slumped back into the chair. “You two can fight it out later. Call an ambulance. I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Javy asks, as he plates up the steak he’s been grilling on his back patio.

I don’t have a place in the city yet, so Javy and Maria offered me their guest room.

Guest floor, actually. Their house has an entire floor they put together for Maria’s mom when she comes from Puerto Rico to stay.

It’s so nice I might just move in for good, which would save me the trouble of dealing with Brooklyn real estate.

“I don’t know,” I say, taking a long swig of my beer. “Last update I had was that he was going in for surgery.”

That was hours ago, when Rita, Stew’s wife, sent us home.