Moonshot(4)
“Thank you, but I finished the essay. Sent it in fifteen minutes ago.”
“Damn you.”
“I love you too.”
6
“This is bullshit.” Chase leaned back in his seat and tossed a plastic pen, watching it flip through the air before catching it.
“Can you get your shoe off my desk?” Floyd Hardin, his agent, moved around his heavy desk and swatted at Chase’s tennis shoe. “I need you to focus.”
“I’m focused. Dodgers don’t want me anymore. So what? I’m sick of you Californians and your damn sunshine. You told me this was temporary, anyway. You know what I really want.” He sat up, rolling the pen through his fingers before sticking it in the edge of his mouth.
“Yeah, the Yankees. And you haven’t let me forget it. But they didn’t need you then, and now…” Floyd raised his hands, the action showcasing the three World Series rings he’d probably picked up at Sotheby’s. “You’re not giving me a lot to work with, Chase.”
“I’ve got the best stats in the league. What the hell else do you need?”
“You know their club as well as anyone, Chase. They like players who are clean. No drugs, no skeletons, no drama.” He leaned over and tapped the front page of the paper, Chase’s photo front and center. “Not this.”
“They need me,” he said stubbornly. “And I’m not signing with anyone else.”
“It’s not your decision. You’re getting traded. It’s up to the Dodgers where you go next. I’ve tried to talk to the Yankees, but they aren’t biting. According to their camp, you’re out.”
“They said that?” Chase scowled, stopping his chew on the end of the pen and pulling it from his mouth.
“Yes. But my guy at CAA says Milwaukee might be making a big play. Have a blockbuster deal they’re fronting.”
“I won’t do it. Milwaukee? Fuck that.”
“Once again…” the man said slowly. “You. Don’t. Have. A. Choice.”
“I’ll refuse to play. Error my ass off.”
“And you’ll get black-balled and never play for a major league team again. Including the Yankees.” He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Chase.
Chase tilted his head back and groaned, his eyes searching the ceiling. “All this over a shitty lay,” he said quietly.
“Learned your lesson?”
“With women?” he laughed, a hard and bitter sound. “Sure.”
“You had a million Los Angeles women to choose from. I don’t expect you to be celibate. Just think next time you feel like unzipping your pants.”
He stood, lifting a baseball cap and pulling it on. “You think, too, Floyd. Get me in pinstripes, or I’ll find an agent who can.”
7
Packed over a six-month season, there were 162 baseball games every year. That was 162 times players warmed up, 162 times they walked onto a field and risked their career with swings, steals, and plays. Eighty-one times we stepped off a bus and onto an opponent’s dirt. Eighty-odd times we dealt with opponents’ fans, their jeers, their shitty locker rooms, the cloud of contempt that surrounded a visiting team. Especially when that visiting team was the greatest ball club in the world, the team every player wanted to be on, every fan wanted to secretly root for. It could be hell being a Yankee. But then we had home games. Times in the magic, an entire city’s energy swirled in the air—the love strong, powerful, and coursing through our boys’ lungs, fifty thousand souls storming to their feet for no purpose other than to celebrate our awesomeness.
It was one hell of a schedule. Exhausting by the time it ended. And that tally didn’t include the playoffs—an extra twenty games to cap off the season. The most emotional games all year, each win celebrated in full fashion, assuming we got there. Assuming we pulled a constant stream of Wins.
But then again … we were the Yankees. Did I need to dignify any other possibility?
I sat in a corner of the equipment manager’s office and stared at a page in my biology textbook, the chapter on Population Ecology. Boring stuff. I doodled a flower in the right margin of the page, then stopped. Refocused and read the paragraph again. This office was the worst place to study: absolutely empty and quiet, especially this time of day. An hour before the team arrived, my freak of a father the only player in these halls. Everything was already set for the game, the balls mudded this morning, uniforms delivered from the cleaners and hanging in lockers, our food deliveries still three hours out. It was a tomb, which was why Dad loved to stick me in there. Good for biology, bad for my entertainment. I wrote down a few notes, reading over the sentences a few times to make them stick, then turned back to the book.
I wasn’t a brilliant girl. Ask me a question about baseball and I’d ace your test. Put a math equation before me and my eyes glazed over. I used to have a tutor. Dad was focused on A’s, thought that was crucial to my success. Three tutors quit before he gave up. Now, I taught myself, scanning in assignments to a home-school company in Jersey. They graded my work and required me to be present for exams four times a year. They also decided, at the end of the year, if I’d learned enough to graduate. It was May. One more month, four finals, and I’d be done with high school forever. I’d ditch my book-bag at home, say sayonara to books, and fully commit my time to the pinstripes.