Much later, Bryan was sitting in his leather recliner with a beer and the TV dark, purposefully ignoring the remote on the end table. He did not want to relive any of that game ever again. He did not want to see his team’s ace pitcher self-immolate. Five walks in the first two innings. He did not want to see the parade of relievers who came in and surrendered in their turn four home runs. He especially did not want to see himself.
In the second inning, he had fielded a ground ball and thrown it directly into the dirt a good ten feet short of first. Luckily, Mitch had mad skills and was able to not only pick the ball on the backhand for the out but had actually managed to make it look much less dangerous than it had been.
But Mitch could do nothing when Bryan fired a relay from left field past the catcher and into the visitor’s dugout. Later, he could only watch in dismay as Bryan gunned a routine ground ball so far down the line that Mitch did not even make a move towards it.
Bryan’s normally sharp baseball mind had just shut down in disgust by the eighth inning, blue screened by an internal flaw his software could not fix. Luckily, the whole team had come together to suck as one. Nobody blamed Bryan in particular for the disaster.
He did blame himself, however, which is why he was reclining in his front room still fully dressed in his uniform. Infield dirt residue, steel cleats — the whole kit. Immediately after the last pitch, Bryan had zombie walked through the clubhouse and out to his car and driven home.
He got a second beer and read the note he had left to himself on the refrigerator when he had gotten home from Arizona:
Even if some obstacle comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light. Seneca.
He mused that Seneca would not have been much of a Red Sox fan with that attitude.
The Globe was going to pin it on him, he knew. The yips were just too appealing as a focal point for clever headlines. All men and women and children could relate to the yips. Not everyone could grasp the subtlety of a pitcher losing his arm slot in the middle of the game, but everyone no matter their profession had fucked up at one point or another in an unexpected way. Most people were just not lucky enough to transform into an incompetent klutz in front of thousands live and millions electronically.
He was in the bathroom drinking his beer with his left hand and aiming his piss with his right when the doorbell rang.
He almost dropped his beer and hosed the floor, but he got both hands under control. Who the hell was here at — he tossed the empty bottle in the trash, buttoned his fly, and checked the clock as he stepped out into the kitchen — ten minutes after midnight?
Which reminded him. The fucking Yankees had fucking won. The fucking White Sox had not even put up a decent fight. He hated Chicago and everyone who had ever lived or played in Chicago. He hated the band and the musical.
The play-in game was tomorrow. He had to get some sleep.
He opened the door and Melody came right in without invitation.
She looked him over from toe to cap. “I thought you guys showered at the park.”
“I jogged home.”
She nodded. Maybe she believes me, he thought.