Edward Everett regarded his players. They sat on the benches, blinking back at him slowly, still stunned. It was easy for him to forget how young they were, not a one more than twenty-three; the oldest had been perhaps in junior high when Edward Everett first came to Perabo City; on the day when he and his team suffered the thirty-run drubbing, some of them were still in eighth grade, their voices only then on the verge of changing. They wanted him to absolve them, explain the reason they had to endure the humiliation. Oh, now I understand, they wanted to think. He considered telling them about how that team a half-dozen years ago had sat here, stunned, as they were, but had finished the season in first place—but it was only in the movies that teams responded well to a rousing pep talk after a humiliating defeat. He felt a fury welling in him, not at his players but at Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, and everyone with the big club in whose hands all of their futures lay and who had decided not to tell anyone about whatever plans they had for the team. But it wasn’t his players’ fault and he took in a breath so they wouldn’t see his anger—anger they would read as directed at them. Everything that occurred to him was a cliché but, as Hoppel used to say, there was a reason the cliché was the cliché: tomorrow is another day; don’t bring it to the ballpark tomorrow. It was true and it would only be when they discovered for themselves the truth of the clichés that they would be able to move on.
“Go on home,” he said quietly, and when no one reacted, he said again, “Go home. We’ll get them next time.”
After they filed out, he stripped off his uniform, tossed it into the bag for the clubhouse kid to wash and went into the shower room. As he held his hand under the spray, waiting for it to warm, he gave the room a sniff, wondering if the heavy rains banging against the ballpark would make the sewers back up again. All he could smell was bleach, wet concrete and a mix of his players’ body washes and shampoos. A crack of thunder exploded, loud enough that it might have been just on the other side of the wall. He remembered something about not showering in an electrical storm but thought, giving a small laugh, if lightning struck him, he wouldn’t have to worry about finding a job after the season.
Chapter Twenty-two
The next morning, when he logged onto his email, intending to ask Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, about the organization’s plans for his team and whether they’d have a job for him next season, there was already a message from him. A single line: “Acq: J Mraz OF. Uncon Rel: R Nelson OF. MJ MS MBA. Sent from my BlackBerry.” Acquired: Jake Mraz, outfielder; unconditional release: Ross Nelson, outfielder. He considered typing a single letter expressing his acknowledgment: “K,” but Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, would see it for the sarcastic response it was and his position with the organization was too tenuous to risk it. Instead, he picked up the phone. Even as it rang in his ear, he knew the call was fruitless. For one thing, he knew he would not ask directly about his own future or the future of the team. For another, he knew he could not persuade Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, to keep Nelson; he just wanted to tell Nelson something when he called him into his office later that afternoon, something beyond the facts of his status with the team.
But Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, was not at his desk. Instead, Renz answered.
“It’s a done deal,” he said curtly when Edward Everett told him he was calling about Nelson. “It’s on the wire.”
“I understand that,” Edward Everett said. “I just wanted to tell him something he could take with him.”
“What are you, his fucking mommy?” Renz said. “Take with him?” In the background, Edward Everett could hear fingers clicking on a keyboard. “Two-eleven; two-fifty-six; three-oh-one,” Renz recited—Nelson’s batting average, on-base percentage, slugging average: the numbers were beyond abysmal and revealed Nelson as a hitter—impatient, undisciplined, without power. Edward Everett and Dominici had worked and worked with him, trying to rid his swing of a hitch that had him behind anything but an average fastball, trying to change his stance, the position of his head so