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 beonit. 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, heisa 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.
