Last season the goal wasn’t to win it all.
It couldn’t be.
Worst to first stories might work great in fiction, but they almost never happen in real life.
In real life, you have to scrape and claw your way from of the bottom, and last season we made moves.
But, to get the team to the next level, we’ll have to really take a good hard look at who and what we want to be in the coming years.
Which means my pitch to Stew has to be perfect if I’m going to talk him into the massive amounts of money he’ll have to pry out of the tightly clenched bank account of our ownership group to get the deal done.
Millions of dollars.
Tens of millions, just for the right to sign him.
Hundreds to lock him up for the next decade.
The kid is worth it. Now I just have to convince everyone else.
And I won’t be alone.
Every team is going to be gunning for Nakamura, but my real competition is clear. It’ll be the Yankees and the Dodgers. New York andLA. Other teams will express interest, to make their fanbases happy, but ultimately the deal will be too rich for them.
The Eagles are usually one of those teams.
But they won’t be on my watch.
So, it’s more coffee and dozens of spreadsheets analyzing data from Nakamura and his opponents, his injury history – hell, even his social media activity – and comparing all of it to what his production might be in the major leagues, and then feeding all of it into the algorithm I designed myself in order to have it predict the most likely outcome for his tenure.
Every single time, no matter what I enter in for variables, my results are the same.
He’s just that good.
After my analysis is complete, I’m back into my files, making notes about Japanese customs. I’ve worked on signing free agents from there before, but I need to make sure I’m as well versed as possible. Particularly regarding how to walk the fine line of courting someone’s business: what’s too passive, what’s too aggressive, things that will convey respect and others that will risk giving offense.
Kai Nakamura is going to dominate Major League Baseball.
And I’m going to make sure he dominates for the Brooklyn Eagles.
When the plane touches down atJFK, I’ve consumed enough coffee to make my skin feel like my soul is vibrating inside of it, but the analysis is complete, and my pitch is written, edited and fine-tuned, and I’m absolutely ready to do what I need to do when I see Stew later today.
I’ll just head straight to the ballpark and grab a shower in my office (I negotiated that into my contract when they were desperate to lure me away from the Dodgers and they had absolutely no idea I wanted out maybe even more than they wanted me here). And once I don’t smell like an increasingly dire combination of ballpark, airplane and terrible coffee, I’ll be ready just as Stew swings into his office. I can pitch him right here and now and get the gears into motion before anyone else.
Accepting my coat from the flight attendant, who is still clearly horrified about the amount of caffeine I’ve consumed in the last half a day, I deplane briskly and head straight out to the car that will be waiting for me.
I catch a glimpse of myself, ever so briefly, in the glass of the automatic doors just before they open to the sharp chill of November air and, cringing just slightly, I pull my hair, a bitmatted and slightly greasy, onto the top of my head in a messy blonde bun.
My neck protests as I lower my arms – creaky joints were inevitable, no matter how comfortable the seats are in first class.
One of the many joys of simply existing after the age of thirty.
Another is the ache in my feet. I was able to take my shoes off on the plane for a while, but now the pinch in my toes is making itself known as I balance on the heels I wear despite my height, or maybe in spite of it.
Who says tall girls can’t wear heels?
Not Francesca Sullivan.
And if it gives me the advantage of bringing me up to eye level or above with the men I constantly come up against in an industry they dominate, they’ll just have to deal with it.
