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 haveonechanceto 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. “Doyou 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’tthink 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.
The steak smells amazing, but, shit, I can’t stomach anything right now.
I lost my dad when I was in the minors, and Stew stepped in back then, taking a scared kid under his wing. I’m scared again right now, and it’s been a long-ass time since I felt that way.
“We have a guest,” Maria says, coming back out onto the patio. Sullivan is trailing behind her. I pop up out of my chair.
