Three weeks later …
Today marked six weeks since I’d broken my fingers. Cassie wanted to come with me to meet with the team doctor for moral support, but I told her I needed to do this alone. It had nothing to do with me wanting her there or not, but more to do with the fact that she couldn’t do anything about the diagnosis.
If my fingers were healed, then that was great. But if they were still fucked up, she couldn’t make them better, and I needed time to process that. This was the kind of thing a man went into alone and then thanked God, or whoever, that he wasn’t alone when he came out. Cassie was great about it, completely understanding. But then again, my girl always had been.
She wished me good luck as she walked out the door for work, and I promised to call her as soon as I knew anything.
Nerves twisted inside my gut as the possibility of my career being over hung above my head like some sort of metaphorical rain cloud. I could barely eat or think of anything else as I hopped up on the exam table.
“How you feeling?” the doctor asked, all nonchalant, and I wanted to strangle him for attempting small talk with me at a time like this.
Unwilling to respond, I gave him a curt smile and a head nod instead. It was immature and unprofessional, but if he didn’t get this cast off my arm and give me a prognosis, I was going to throw up all over his stupid shiny shoes.
He grabbed a weirdly shaped contraption and started to cut through my cast. Peeling away at the layers, he gently removed it. Waving off the rank smell that accompanied it, I grumbled an apology.
“Comes with the territory, Jack. No one can go six weeks without washing an area of their body and have it smell like roses,” he explained.
He clearly didn’t know my wife. I’d bet she could. She could do anything.
I looked at my arm, which was wrinkled and pale from being holed up for the last six weeks. I had to stop myself from hitting it to get the natural coloring to return. Holding my arms up side by side, my normally strong arm looked diseased and wasted.
“How long until it looks like my hand again?” I asked the doctor.
“That’s all normal too. Now, let me see how your fingers look.” He reached for my hand and asked me to straighten it. They were sore and underused.
“That’s great, now make a fist.”
I did as he asked, fisting my fingers into the palm of my hand. Every movement felt foreign. And weak.
I was not used to being weak.
“It all looks good. The bones healed nice and straight. With about a week or so of rehab, Jack, you should be back on the mound, depending.”
“Depending on what?” I asked sharply.
“No, no.” He waved a hand in apology. “I just meant depending on how you feel, strength-wise. Everyone heals differently,” he said and I exhaled.
“Can I throw today?” I asked, determined to heal as soon as possible and get back on the mound where I belonged.
“I don’t see why not. Just take it easy.”
I fired off a quick text to my girl.
Hand looks good. Everything healed well. Off to see how it feels.
My phone beeped out a response before I could put it down.
So relieved. And so thankful. Good luck, babe. I love you.
I walked into our private indoor batting cage and grabbed a ball. Palming it, I slowly wrapping my fingers around the seams in a curve-ball grip. I couldn’t hold it as tightly as before, but I wasn’t worried. One hundred percent healing would come with time. With my heart in my throat, I pulled my arm back and released the ball, not trying to pitch it, simply warming up.
It didn’t feel the same. My grip was weak and my fingers lacked the sheer strength they had a mere six weeks ago.
After winding my way back into the doc’s office, I asked him, “Should I do strength exercises first? Get my finger and hand strength back?”
“Absolutely,” he said as he tossed me a sponge-like ball. “Squeeze this.” I did as he asked and he smiled. “Good. Now do that multiple times a day, but don’t overdo it. No more than ten reps and no more than five times each day. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but trust me. Also, make sure you flex your fingers and press them against something flat, like your table at home.”
“All right, Doc. Thanks.”
For the next week, I did as the doctor ordered, and each time I threw the ball at the field, I felt more and more like my old self. My hand felt good and when Coach clocked me, I threw between ninety and ninety-one consistently. Not as fast as before, but still fast. He removed me from the disabled list and told me I’d be closing out the next home series.
I couldn’t wait to throw again. Or get in my full uniform. While I was hurt, I only had to wear my sliding pants and a pullover. I wanted to be dressed in full gear again.
Sunday afternoon, the stands of Shea stadium were packed, an almost sold-out crowd, I was told. There was something about an afternoon game in the summer. Everyone wanted to be there, watching our nation’s favorite pastime.
When I took the mound, the cheers were deafening. I’d been missed. Thank God I’d been missed; I missed them too. The fans, the cheers, the stadium, the smell of the food cooking and the freshly mowed grass around me.
Stepping onto the mound, I scooted the dirt away from around the front edge with my toe, making a small divot. I kicked my cleat hard against the white rubber before turning to stand on it. It was crazy, but I’d missed the way my feet felt on the springy step.
The knowledge that I’d lost velocity on my pitches did little to soothe the anxiety that swirled inside me. I wanted to throw harder, pitch faster, get right back to where I was, but my hand wouldn’t cooperate. My fingers weren’t capable of gripping the ball as tightly as they once did. And when the baseball left my fingertips, the same force I once had, had lessened. I knew it because I felt it. From my arm all the way to my toes, my body reacted to the way my pitches had changed.
After sucking in a deep breath, I aimed at the catcher waiting for my warm-up pitch, and threw. The ball flew right down the center, a perfect fast-ball right down the pipe. My hand felt good and I wanted to keep it that way, so I stretched my fingers and threw ten more pitches before the first batter stepped up to the plate.
Aiming for the glove and agreeing to the catcher’s call for a first pitch fast-ball on the outside corner, I pulled my arm back and threw. The batter swung and missed. I glanced at the scoreboard behind me to check my speed as I walked back to the mound. The numbers nine-zero showed on the screen under the strike one count.
Shit.
I could only imagine what the announcers were saying about me right now. A first-pitch fast-ball at only ninety miles an hour? Send this kid back to the minor leagues. Doing something I rarely fucking do, I stole a look toward where the players’ wives sit and locked eyes with mine. Then I tipped my hat twice, my sign for my girl, and I could see the outline of her smile spread across her face.
Looking at her gave me the extra strength I needed to get through this. Then I remembered the necklace, and gave it a squeeze through my jersey. Taking a deep breath, I squinted toward the catcher. He flashed two fingers before tapping the inside of his thigh. I prayed my curve ball was still dirty as I fumbled with the seams of the ball to find my fingering. I lifted my knee into the air and hurled the ball toward the waiting batter, who swung and hit it right past me. My body arced out of the way of the incoming ball, the memory of being hit in the hand still fresh in my mind.
I kicked the dirt, and cursed in my head. Six weeks ago, that guy couldn’t have hit my curve ball with a fucking Chevy. Now he hit it like I served it up on a platter for him. His timing was fucking perfect and mine was off.
The rest of the five innings I pitched were more of the same. I struck out four guys, and got most of the rest to ground out. But I was frustrated. I battled with myself, happy that I hit all my spots and threw a decent game, but angry that I couldn’t throw faster. I tried and pushed myself as hard as I could, but I never threw over ninety-one.
When Coach pulled me, he patted me on the back and told me not to worry about it. But I worried. In this sport, you always worry. Nothing was set in stone; you could always be replaced.
After the game, I walked through the familiar doors and into the hallway where Cassie waited for me. My girl calmed me. Her presence made everything okay. I could win any battle with her by my side. I’d go to fucking war if I knew I got to come home to her.
She leaned up on her toes and planted a wet kiss on my lips. “You did great. How do you feel?”
“Thanks, Kitten. I feel okay. I know I can do better.”
“It’s your first game back. You’ll get stronger every outing.”
“Every outing? Aw, you sound like a ball player already,” I teased, throwing my arm around her back.
“But really, I mean it. No one expects you to be perfect right off the bat.”
I knew she only tried to help, but I questioned her words. My coach, the team’s manager, they did all expect that. Whether they said it to my face or not, they expected it, and they talked about it behind closed doors.
“Feed me, woman. I’m starving,” I said to change the subject, and kissed the side of her head as we headed out of Shea.
The next month was more of the same as far as ball was concerned. I pitched every few games on rotation, but couldn’t gain any speed or velocity in my pitches. Everyone kept talking about all the time I needed to get my full strength back, but I could see the disappointment in their eyes. And even though my teammates never admitted it to my face, they were all happy this wasn’t happening to them. I couldn’t blame them, though. If the situation were reversed, I’d be feeling the same way. Thankful it wasn’t me.
From the outside, people probably thought of baseball as a simple sport. The general public thought that any athlete who made a living playing a sport should never have any cause for complaints. How lucky would we all be if we got paid a ton of money to play a game every day?
But life was rarely as simple as people imagined it was. Baseball was so much more than that. It was a business. And it was ugly sometimes. One of the most frustrating things to a player was when the business side of baseball came into play and messed with your desire to simply play the game.
All of us ball players just wanted to play the game. None of us wanted to be involved in the business side of it, that was why we had agents and managers. We were desperate for them to handle all of that so we could simply concentrate on playing our game.
But that wasn’t how baseball worked. You played on their terms. You were a fucking pinball that could be hit, bumped around, knocked into a holding pen, good for some extra points, or go down the gutter when the flippers couldn’t reach you. But you were still just a tiny ball on their playing field.
“Jimmy wants to see you,” Coach told me after I’d showered. Nerves shot through me; it wasn’t good if our team manager wanted to talk to me. I knew my game wasn’t the same as it used to be, but I’d just gotten back. I wasn’t a hundred percent yet and they knew that. I needed more time.
“Close the door, Jack,” Jimmy’s gruff voice demanded.
My stomach in knots, I closed the door and stood in front of it.
He waved me forward. “Come sit.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather stand. If you’re going to give me bad news, I’d rather not be sitting.” I reached for my pitching hand and stretched my fingers back.
Jimmy nodded and looked me straight in the eye, his voice all business, no emotion. “Fine. Jack, look, we’re going to be trading you. Two teams are asking for you and I wanted to ask your preference.” He sat back and watched me, obviously waiting for a response.
Did he just say they were trading me?
My first instinct was to fight, but this wasn’t the kind of thing you fight. It didn’t work like that. Being traded wasn’t a negotiation with your agent or your family or anyone. It was purely a team-to-team deal and you were usually left out of it. There was no contract to write up, since whatever team got you, also got your current contract. Usually players had no say in the matter. It was the rare case that they asked your opinion at all.
Like this one.
I wanted to fight, but I was too shocked to respond at first. The word “traded” kept banging around inside my head.
“But I love New York. And this team,” I said, sounding so much like a child I immediately wanted to kick myself as soon as the words were out.
“We know you do, kid. But your pitches have lost something and it’s in the team’s best interest to make a trade.”
The team’s best interest.
Baseball is a business.
Baseball is a business.
Baseball is a business.
No matter how many times I reminded myself of that fact, it didn’t lessen the sting.
Pressure built up in my chest as I looked away, struggling with what to say. Finally, I pulled myself together and stared steadily back at him. “I’m not healed a hundred percent yet. I just need more time. I’ll get back to where I was, you know I will.”
He shook his head. “It’s already a done deal.”
“Why do I get to choose where I go?” I felt a little dizzy as the room spun, or maybe it was my head, still reeling from the news.
“Because it’s an even trade. Both teams are offering the same things, so I figured I’d do you the courtesy of asking if you had a preference where you went.”
“Thank you,” I said with a nod.
“Both Toronto and Anaheim are asking for you. You let me know which team you’d prefer, and I’ll do my best to make it happen for you.”
I sucked in a breath. It was a no-brainer. “Anaheim. Definitely Anaheim.” If I had to get traded and move, the least I could do was take Cassie back home.
Shit.
Cassie was going to kill me.
My mind whirled with all the ramifications of this move. Cassie had a job she loved. We’d made a home here in New York. We were Matteo’s only clients. We had friends, and responsibilities, and suddenly I felt like the weight of the world rested on my shoulders.
Jimmy cleared his throat. “Great. I’ll let them know.” He gave me a nod of dismissal and waved me toward the door.
I moved to leave but paused for a second, then turned around and asked, “When will it go through?”
“The deadline’s in a few days, so not before then.”
A few days?
“Will I throw any more for the team?” I asked. It was probably a weird question, but I liked knowing when something this momentous was going to be my last time. I wanted to be able to say good-bye, knowing I was kicking the mound for the last time, putting on the uniform for the last time, walking onto the field for the last time. I’m a baseball player; we’re fucking mental, okay?
“Probably not. You’re a good pitcher, Jack.”
A few months ago I was a great pitcher.
“You still have some years left in you, so don’t let this get you down. This is all part of the game.”
I saw red for a second as emotions welled up within me at the injustice of it all. Fucking easy for you to say.
Lucky for me I didn’t voice that thought out loud, but settled for muttering, “Not really.”
“Excuse me?” Jimmy slammed his pen down on the desk and eyed me, his face slowly turning red.
“This,” I said tersely, then paused. “This isn’t part of the game at all. It might be part of the business, but it’s not part of the game.” Then I opened the door and walked out.
Still had a few years left in me? I’d show them. My hand wasn’t fully healed yet, and I could still come back just as strong as I was before. The Mets organization might have just quit on me, but I refused to. I’d play my best years for the Anaheim Angels. At least I would still be playing.
Matteo drove me home in silence. It had been like that since I’d gotten hurt. He let me take the lead when it came to my wanting to talk or not, and most days lately, I’d been silent. I felt like a shitty person because we were friends; I just didn’t always act like one lately.
“See you later. Thanks for the ride,” I said as I hopped out of the car before he could, and headed into my building.
Upstairs, I walked through our front door, desperate for my girl. “Cassie?” I yelled into the silence and waited. No response. She didn’t go to the game this afternoon because she had to work and I wasn’t pitching.
Glancing at my cell phone, I realized she was probably still at her office. I couldn’t wait; I’d go fucking insane if I didn’t talk to her. She needed to know what was happening and I needed to tell her sooner rather than later.
There was no later. We’d have to leave New York in just a few short days.
I dialed her phone and paced the floor as I waited for her to pick up.
“Hey, babe,” she said, her voice a soothing balm on my shattered nerves.
“Kitten, what time will you be home tonight?” I tried to hide the urgency in my tone, but failed.
“Why?” she asked sharply, immediately on high alert. “Are you okay? I can leave right now if you need me to.”
“Yes. I need you to,” I admitted.
“Is everything okay? Are you okay?” she asked, the worry in her tone heartbreaking.
I tugged at my hair as I paced. “I’m fine, I promise. I just need you to come home.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
I paced a fucking hole in the floor the fifteen minutes it took Cassie to walk through our door. The second she did, I practically sprinted to her and pulled her into my arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What’s going on? Jack, you’re scaring me,” she confessed, her face draining of color.
“I’m getting traded,” I blurted out.
Any of the remaining pink in her cheeks instantly vanished. “W-where?”
“They asked me if I had a preference and I said yes, but I won’t know until the trade goes through.”
“Where?” she asked again, her tone more demanding this time.
“Either Anaheim or Toronto.”
“Okay. Okay.” Her eyes lost focus for a second, then the rapid-fire questions began. “So then what? We have to move, right? And get rid of this place. Do you help me move? Of course you don’t. How does this work?” She paused, the wheels in her head clicking and turning clear as day, then realization set in. “I have to quit my job. Oh my God. I love my job.”
I wanted to fix it. Fix every single thing for her. Tell her she never had to quit anything for me. Or move for me. Or change her life in any possible way for me, but I’d die without her. I needed this girl the way plants needed oxygen. So I could tell her all of those things, but I’d be lying through my teeth. And she’d know it.
Cassie looked at me, her green eyes bright with tears. “How does this work? Tell me what this means.”
The look on her face broke my heart. I pulled her toward the couch and onto my lap, then wrapped my arms around her. I’d tell her anything she wanted to hear, but first I needed to feel her close to me. I needed to be touching her while I did it.
I pressed my head against her rib cage. “I have to leave the night the trade goes through. Whenever that is and wherever we are. The game will end and they’ll hand me a plane ticket.”
“What if you’re on the road?” she asked, playing with the strands of my hair.
“Then I leave from there. I don’t get to come home and see you or pack or anything like that. If we’re on a road trip, I leave straight from the road to meet up with the other team, wherever they are.”
“That’s harsh,” she said and I laughed.
“It is kinda harsh.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “And you don’t get any time off, right? I mean, you guys only get forty-eight hours when your wives have babies, so you wouldn’t get time off for this.”
“No, I don’t get any time off. But that doesn’t mean you have to do all this alone. You can talk to your boss, and make a plan. You don’t have to come with me right away. If we wait until the off-season, I can help you pack and we can move together.”
Cassie thought for a moment, then said, “Jack, look at me,” her voice soft and comforting as I glanced up. “I’m not going to stay here without you. You get traded, I get traded. We’re a team, remember?”
Hugging her tight, I spoke against her hair. “I just don’t want you to feel like you’re all alone in this. I completely understand if you want to wait until I can help. And if you need time to transition from your job to our new home, take all the time you need.” And I meant every word. It would fucking kill me to be without her, but she had a life here too. It was only fair she left it on her own terms.
She sniffed, then snuggled in closer to me. “I don’t want you to worry about me. I can handle moving and everything else that goes with it. You just worry about getting on that new team and showing the Mets that they screwed up by letting you go. I can’t believe they’re trading you!”
“Thank you, Kitten. I can’t believe it either. Good thing I still have this necklace. I think I’m gonna need it.” I pulled the key from under my shirt and stroked the letters stamped on it before letting it fall against my chest.
“It’s yours. Until you don’t need it anymore,” she said with a smile as she reached her hand out to touch it. “I feel betrayed by the team, in a way. Why do I feel like that? Do you feel like that?”
What I did feel was fucking stupid for having hurt feelings over this. What was I, a twelve-year-old? No, I was a man and grown men weren’t supposed to get butt-hurt over shit like this.
But truth be told, I was hurt. And I hated to admit it, but I vowed to never lie to my wife again and I took that seriously. “I don’t know that I feel betrayed as much as I feel let down. Like, I guess I stupidly thought they’d fight for me. Just because my pitching isn’t up to par right now, that they would know it would be back eventually. I feel like they quit on me. And it hurts because I’d never quit on them. They’re my team and I always give a hundred and ten percent when I’m on that mound. It hurts knowing it’s not a two-way street. Is that stupid?”
Yeah, I felt stupid admitting all this to her. Even though I knew she understood me more than anyone else in this world, it still sucked saying it all out loud.
“It’s not stupid at all,” Cassie said loyally. “You love this team. And it’s like you just got told they don’t love you the same way back. They broke up with you.”
I snorted. “I got dumped.”
Then she looked up at me with those big fucking green eyes and said, “I’ll never dump you.”
My heart full of love for her, I reached for her left hand and kissed the diamond I’d bought her. “I wouldn’t let you.”
She laughed, her body shaking against mine. “Yeah, I know. Been there, done that.”
“And look how well that turned out,” I teased playfully, knowing damn well she was the best thing to ever happen to me.
“I’d say it turned out better than well, Mr. Carter.”
“For me, maybe. I don’t know about your end of the deal.”