Harv picked me up at the airport late in the evening when I returned to San Antonio. I asked him if he knew where I could find a cassette player. The last one I owned was when I was twelve. It was already ten years old and got passed down through the family to me. It was a huge boombox, and I loved the machine. It was my constant companion at home until my brother accidentally knocked it out a window sending it smashing to bits on the ground below. Everyone in the family except me though it was out of date and didn’t need replacement.

Harv said, “I think I’ve got one stuck deep in a closet at home. Have you tried an electronics store?”

“Do they still have them? I didn’t know. I don’t even use compact discs anymore.”

The next morning I saved Harv from dragging everything out of the depths of a closet when I called a local electronics store. The guy on the phone said, “I have a used one I could sell you.” Then he paused. “Hell, I’ll even give it to you. It’s been in the store forever. You mean regular cassettes, right? Not the little dictation machine type.”

“Regular cassettes.”

“The machine is yours. I’ll be happy to say goodbye to it.”

I gave the man a firm handshake and thanked him profusely when I picked it up. I tried to keep my hand from trembling as I carried it to the car. I didn’t know what was on the cassette from Javier, but I knew that it must be important. I popped it into the player just before lunch hour.

The machine worked perfectly, and five seconds after the tape started, I heard voices. It was a conversation between Meyer Huggins, Eckert, and a voice I didn’t recognize right away. The field manager wasn’t on the tape, and it confirmed my suspicions that Huggins often kept him out of the loop.

I listened to the tape ten times in a row. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. By the end of the conversation, I was pretty sure the third voice was someone from the coaching staff of another team. It might have been a coach from the team of the catcher who injured Chase in the All-Star game.

Huggins and Eckert were openly discussing figuring out a way to injure Chase. They knew about his previous minor shoulder injury and addressed the joint as a weakness. The injury was planned!

Huggins’ voice was clear when he said, “We’re only going to slow him down. He needs to know that there are some risks when you don’t listen closely to the boss.”

After the tape played the tenth time, I sat down and shivered. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I needed something to calm me down. If I acted immediately, I was likely to cause Chase more trouble instead of helping him. I headed for the refrigerator in my hotel suite and retrieved a beer.

I didn’t do anything before reporting to the stadium for batting practice. I worked hard to keep myself from being distracted, but it wasn’t easy. Harv jogged up beside me and waved a hand in front of my face. “Are you with us, Coach?”

I shook my head and said, “Yeah, sorry, I’m a little bit distracted?”

Harv leaned close and asked, “From that tape you received?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that.”

He tugged on my elbow and said, “Leave the batting practice on auto-pilot for a moment. I’ve got something to say.”

We walked up to the wall behind home plate, and I asked, “What’s up? I’ll get my head in the game. I promise. I’ll save the tape until tomorrow.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I know I have no business getting involved, but I already consider you a friend. If you think that tape is important, then I understand that it is. I’ll do my best to cover for you during tonight’s game. If anyone asks, I’ll say you’ve got a sick parent at home or any other excuse you want me to give.”

I grinned. “You are a good friend, Harv. Do you want to go out for a drink after the game? I’ll tell you the details of what’s going on. I know that I can trust you, and I could use another voice helping me figure out what to do.”

Harv’s eyes widened. The ring around his huge dark pupils was a beautiful aqua blue. He said, “That’s crazy. Are you sure it is true? Would coaches do something like that?”

“It’s right there on the tape. I know it’s their voices, and I watched the game. The catcher slammed Chase in a completely inappropriate way. He was paid for it. At least two other plays were ready to trip him up if necessary.”

Harv growled. “They should be drummed out of baseball. People like that are dangerous for all of us. And players conspiring, too. It makes me sick.”

I nodded. “That’s right. This isn’t just about how I feel about Chase. This is about baseball in general.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to buy us another round of beers, and then I’ll figure it out. Do you want another?”

Harv nodded. “Yeah. It might help me calm down. Right now, I’m boiling inside. I want to hit something, but I know that I can’t.”

I stood at the bar and waited for the beers. I thought about Chase lying in bed with a doctor telling him that his career might be over. I slammed a fist into my opposite hand. A fan standing next to me asked, “Hey, Coach. Are you okay? It was a tough game tonight, but we almost got ‘em. You’ll get ‘em back tomorrow night. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

I did my best to smile, and I said, “Thanks for the pep talk. Sometimes the best of us need that. Yeah, tonight’s game was rough. We’ll turn it around.”

Returning to Harv, I handed him an icy-cold bottle of beer and sat at our table. He asked, “Have you figured it out?”

I said, “Yes, I think so.”

The next morning at 11:00 eastern time, I called the office of Meyer Huggins in Charlotte, North Carolina. His secretary said, “I think he’s in a meeting right now. Can I take your name, and he can call you back at his convenience.”

I said, “My name is Aaron Beck, and I think he will want to take this call. Tell him it’s about the, ‘rookie sucker with a bum shoulder.’ If he doesn’t want to talk to me, things will get rough very quickly.”

There was hesitation on the other end, but after a twenty seconds pause, she said, “Okay, Sir, I’ll buzz you through.”

I waited for a few moments before I heard Huggins’ familiar voice. His unhappiness was obvious in the tone. He asked, “What’s this about, Beck? I heard you’re doing well in San Antonio. I interrupted an important meeting for this. I hope you have something good for me. My time is worth a lot of money.”

I sighed heavily. “I doubt that it’s good, but I know what you did to Chase O’Rourke.”

He hesitated before he tried to brush me off. “I didn’t do anything to O’Rourke. I am sorry for his unfortunate injury. Bad breaks like that happen to players all the time. It’s a hazard of the job.”

“Deliberate injuries are much rarer.”

“What are you talking about?” The tone of his voice rose. I pushed the button on the cassette player and let him listen to his voice through the phone. After I turned the player off, a few seconds of silence followed on his end of the phone. Then he whispered, “What do you want?”

“The resignation of you and your toadie Eckert effective tomorrow. If it doesn’t happen, this tape is going to the media.”

He growled, “That’s blackmail, and you know it.”

“So do you want it to go to the media? If they have it, then it’s not blackmail. If I send it to them, I’ll sit back and wait for due process to unfold.”