CHARLIE
I’ve always liked New York.
Always liked playing here.
There’s something about the city, about the energy, that makes me feel like I can do anything.
And boy, did I.
My bat always got hot when we were in town. Mets and Eagles fans loved to hate me, still do probably. It’s only been a couple of years. Not long enough for that hate to have run its course.
The city is different fromLA, sure, but not as different as people from either place want to believe.
They’re both a hell of a lot different from Canton Creek, Iowa, the place listed on the back of my baseball card. Now the mathematics of life have me out of there longer than I was ever in. I can’t even remember the last time I went back. More than a decade ago, for sure, when they named the high-school field after me.
Mom and Pop were still around, proud as all hell, maybe prouder than at any other moment in my career. And Gemma was there too.
That was a good day. One of the last really good days before things went to shit. Before my folks got sick. Before Gemma wanted out.
Reaching up to rub at the back of my head, the cool air hits me as I step out into the sharp bite of the late fall, with a mist that feels like it’s appearing in the air instead of falling from the sky.
Yeah, definitely different fromLA. I let that train of thought fly off into the early morning hours, the only time this city is even semi-quiet.
I’m not used to a quiet New York. It wasn’t back when we played the Yankees in the Series.
Not even my hot bat could push the team over the finish line, however, and that elusive world championship I chased my whole career slipped through my fingers.
Yankee fans don’t hate me the way Mets and Eagles fans do.
It’s easier to have respect for someone you beat, I guess.
“Hey, are you . . .” a slightly quaky voices asks from my left. I know that voice. Well, not the voice specifically, more the tone. I’ve heard it hundreds, maybe thousands of times in the last twenty years.
A kid, maybe nineteen or twenty at the most, is squinting at me through the soft mist that’s started to fall.
“. . . are you Charlie Avery?”
“Used to be.”
“Ha! You were my favorite player when I was a kid!”
I let out a soft snort, but allow the kid to think he’s grown.
“You mind taking a selfie with me? My dad won’t believe it. He used to let me stay up to watch when the Eagles were on the west coast swing.”
“Sure.” I lean in while the kid raises his phone, giving a half smile.
“Thanks, man, I really appreciate it. What are you doing in the city? They gonna hire you to do one of those desk gigs onTV?”
At that I really do snort. There’s nothing I’m worse at thanTVcommentary, following some kind of script to gin up conflict where there isn’t any, except what’s about to happen on the field, like baseball isn’t a game mostly about whose pitcher has a bad day, and if the guy in the lineup you never expected to do a damn thing happens to run into one.
The silence gives it away and the kid changes tracks. “Wait, no way! Ae you here for the job?”
“What job?” I ask, but the kid has me and we both know it. I’ve always been a terrible liar.
The Eagles have been looking for a manager since their last game of the season. Their old skipper, Stew Reynolds, is headed to the front office to take over as general manager. He’s been getting on in years and his wife has been on him to retire. So he compromised. An office job.
“No way. That’s insane.”
