The Yips Pt. 02

"I take it you haven't considered or discussed reconciliation with her, then?"

Bryan shook his head.

"Okay," Julie said in a summarizing tone. "I will have papers drawn by our Rhode Island office, and our investigators will find her and have her served. If she does not contest it, we can have the process over in 60 days, best case. Rhode Island process is quick -- unless she fights us."

"I can't imagine why she would."

"Let's hope she doesn't. That way Mr. Brannan won't have to stall."

Bryan's head shot up. "What does Parker have to do with it?"

Julie scribbled more notes. "He'll explain. It has to do with assets acquired after the divorce. A lot will depend on whether your wife hires an attorney who is conversant with your union's collective bargaining agreement."

Bryan opened his mouth, but had no idea what words to make with it, so he shut up.

**********

The park was deserted when Bryan walked from the cool darkness under the stands and climbed up into the bleachers. He sat down in his favorite seat in the whole park - the red seat. The red seat marked the spot where in 1946 Ted Williams drove a ball 500 feet or so into the crowd and dented a fan's straw boater. Bryan particularly appreciated the fact that Williams had been skinny. Even though he had been a Marine pilot, he was still thin enough to be dubbed the Splendid Splinter by the local sportswriters who Williams derisively called the Knights of the Keyboards. Ted and the press had issues.

The takeaway was that bulging muscles were not necessary to hammer the pill. But you absolutely did need strong hands, wrists, arms, etc. Plus uncanny eye-hand coordination, insanely perfect vision, superhuman reflexes.

Bulging muscles made him think about a certain football player, and that made him think about a certain wife of his who was without a doubt getting fucked by this football player. And that made the sunny day turn dark and chill.

What did his agent have to do with it anyway?

He was daydreaming. He sat up straight and pulled out his cell.

"Hello Bryan," Parker answered. "How did it go with Ms. Martin?"

"Swimmingly. Now tell me what I am missing. What does my divorce have to do with the collective bargaining agreement?"

"Well. First of all, don't breathe a word of this to anyone. Got it?"

"Got it."

"The word is that the new CBA will be very friendly with regard to free agent service time, especially for players such as yourself."

"Ahh," Bryan made a noise of understanding. The CBA, or Collective Bargaining Agreement, the basic contract between the players' union and Major League Baseball, defined many things, one of which was the number of years a player had to serve in the majors before he could declare himself a free agent. And that was when the big cash was tossed about. Teams bid against each other for free agents. A good player might see his salary increase tenfold and more upon becoming a free agent and signing with whichever club showed him the biggest pot.

"You got it. And you, my friend, are in a historically good patch. The second basemen crop is thin right now - and for the next five or six years. I am in the process of teasing your front office there with my usual blend of innuendo and lies. I think that it is likely the Sox will try to extend you. Buy you out of free agency. They want to tie you up."

"What are we talking about?"

Parker hmmmd into the phone. "When you are asleep tonight, dream about ten years at 25 million a year. As a starting point. Guaranteed."

Bryan stared in shock out at the perfectly flat verdant billiard table that was his workplace. 250 million?

"How much did Ted Williams make in 1946?" He asked.

"How the fuck should I know?" Parker demanded. "I wasn't representing him. But if I had been, I would have gotten him a better deal."

Bryan laughed.

"To sum it up," his agent continued. "We wait until after your matrimonial knot is untied by Ms. Martin before we begin negotiations. Otherwise your wife will try to claim part of it. We got too many frigging lawyers involved already. So mum is the word. Capisce?"

"Right.... Are you sure you went to Harvard?"

**********

Three games left in the season and the Yankees were still one game back, having failed to take advantage of the Red Sox' mediocre performance in the past four weeks.

After batting practice, Bryan got dressed in a clubhouse filled with somewhat less enthusiasm than a funeral service. Even Rollins was subdued. Not one dirty joke or bad pun crossed his lips.

"What the hell, Mitch?" Bryan said. "We're a game up. Why is everyone acting like the dog just died?"

The tall first baseman sighed. "Two years ago, that's why. We were up three games with ten to go. Three games! And we managed to not even make the wild card. Wheels fell off the cart, man. There's still too many of us here that went through it. This feels too familiar."

Bryan didn't like the sound of that at all. He had read about that debacle at the time but considered it to be so far in the past the stories might have well been printed in Sumerian. How could his teammates allow that to still bother them?

"That's bullshit." He was suddenly pissed off. "Bullshit!" They had the chance to grab the division by the balls and instead the team was acting like second graders too timid to play on the goddamn big kids' playground.

He finished dressing and stood up. He grabbed KERAUNOS and waved it around dangerously. He wished he had a cool tag line to shout, like 'Behold the power of Zeus!' or 'I'm here to chew bubble gun and kick ass!'. Instead, he snatched up his glove, glared at the room full of alleged professionals, and stalked out.

Zeus did kick ass that night, as it happened. Bryan hit two doubles. One hard off the Green Monster and one into the right centerfield gap. Rollins banged out a three-run homer and they beat the Blue Jays by two runs.

Unfortunately, the Yankees also won.

**********

He roamed about his large lonely house that night, wondering if he should get a dog. Would it be cruel to leave a dog at home alone so much? He made a mental note to check out the area's supply of doggie daycares and dog sitters. Maybe he should get cats. They were more self-sufficient.

NESN was showing game highlights, and he studied them carefully. He paused and replayed over and over his two plate appearances, his two doubles. Had he been bringing his hands forward to quickly? Was his left foot too far to the plate? He would review the more extensive video tomorrow.

His cell buzzed. He picked it up, expecting Parker's loud New York City streets voice.

It was Lauren.

"Hello? Bryan?"

He took a deep lungful of air and closed his eyes.

It took every iota of energy he had in him not to scream at her, not to beg her. You cheating bitch! I love you! Please come back to me!

Some instinct told him that none of those would do any damn good. That she was gone.

"Hello Lauren. How are you?"

These were the hardest goddamn words he had ever had to force from his mouth.

"I'm.... I saw you tonight. The game was on TV."

Her boyfriend was not there, he thought. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been allowed to watch her husband. Or call him later. Archer was probably out lining up his next conquest.

"You looked good," she said softly.

He resisted saying that he felt great, that there was nothing wrong with his hip or his ankle. He resisted telling her about the possibility of a contract extension. All the little happenings of his life, all the mundane details, funny coincidences, and every important development -- used to be discussed with Lauren. They had been a team of two. With no fissures. No secrets.

No more.

He had the long view. He would live. The world would continue. But that didn't mean it didn't fucking hurt. He felt actual pain in his chest. Metaphorical knives stabbing into the stilled rotting cavity where a loving heart once beat.

"What do you want?" He made the effort to speak evenly. No condemnation, no anger.

There was a long pause.

"I just wanted to hear your voice."

Bryan looked out the window. He had to imagine that he was someone else right now or else he would break down.

"Lauren, you will get served with papers soon. Do you have a lawyer?"

"No." Her voice was almost too soft for him to understand.

"Well, go get one. Read it over. Let's get this done."

"But--"

"No, Lauren. Don't talk. Listen."

Out in the night sky he saw moving red lights. A jet approaching its landing at T. F. Green Airport. Some of those people were going home. Some of them would be met by loving wives and husbands and children.

"I understand why you left, Lauren. I'm not happy about it, but I do understand.... Nod if you can hear me."

She gave a stifled sob and then an equally stifled laugh.

"Have I ever lied to you?"

"No," she said immediately.

"Do you still trust me?"

A pause. Trust had never been her issue with him. With them.

"Yes," she said.

"Then please, please. Find a therapist. Talk to someone. You need to try and figure out why you do what you do."

"I'm not--"

He cut her off. "Do this for me. I will pay for it. Please, Lauren."

He paused. The knives probed deeper seeking any remaining nerves.

"You were my best friend," he said at last. "I want you to be happy. You're a beautiful and intelligent woman.... You are a good person. You deserve to be happy. I still care for you."

"Bryan," she moaned. "It's all gone...." She sounded like someone who had used up all the tears in her head. "I love you."

He stared into the darkness. What could he say to that?

"I know. I love you, too. Sign the papers."

He listened to the silence. In that acoustically dead space they both felt it. They knew each other intimately. Their bodies, intellects, souls had been intertwined for so long that they could each feel the pain of that break. The snapping of what had once been a conduit between their existences. Its irrevocable severing. A torn end that could never be put back right.

He wanted to listen to the sound of her breathing for hours.

He wanted to forget that sound had ever existed.

He disconnected.

A dog, he decided.

**********

The yips.

You learn to walk. You wobble on short pudgy legs. You waver and tilt and something makes you want to shift one foot. Maybe mommy is there holding out her arms and you need to go to her. You trust her, so you risk your weight. You have taken a step. She cries out in delight. You are walking. Your brain gets feedback and forms new pathways. New control patterns connect with each other down the spinal column. You continue to walk. Sometimes you fall and the brain takes note. Makes corrections.

Repeat and repeat and repeat and you are running. You sprint and jump and don't have to think about any of it. Your brain has been programmed and it drives your muscles with no input from you except to tell the system which direction and how far.

You learn to throw. A rock, a clod of dirt. You are three years old and your rocks miss their target most of the time. Your brain compensates. Your arm learns which angle will give the desired result as it whips forward. Your hand learns when to let the projectile free so the impulse propels it to the target. Repeat several thousand times with rocks and tens of thousands of times with baseballs, and your brain and eyes and feet and legs and hips and shoulders and arms and hands and fingers work together seamlessly.

You feel the smoothness against your fingers and fiveish ounces of mud-rubbed leather and wrapped yarn and rubber core is hurled 20 or 30 or 40 feet or more so rapidly the orb is almost invisible on its trajectory and snaps into the first baseman's glove within an inch of where you intended.

Automatic.

Money.

The top of the third inning. The second game of the last series of the season. Toronto is at bat. One out, no runners. Bryan bends down, peering in at the catcher's fingers. He wants to know where the pitch is intended so he can anticipate which direction it is more probable he will have to move.

He remembers.

For some god-awful reason the intense concentration and focus that has carried him to the highest pinnacle of his profession is compromised. Just for an instant. Maybe it was the phone call.

In a flash of memory he sees Lauren, naked and glistening with sweat, the black curls on her head and kinky ebony hair on her pussy both disheveled from his busy hands, her eyes looking up into his, wide, passionate. Filled with unconditional, eternal, rock solid love.

The batter, a lefty, connects with a slider but not so hard that the ball does enough to be a danger. It scoots directly toward Bryan, an easy pickup. No crazy bounces, no wild spin.

Routine.

He puts down his glove and the ball comes into it with a satisfying smack as though seeking its home. He wheels without hurry, plucks the ball out of his glove, positions his feet, draws back his arm, and throws.

Into the dugout.

Into the fucking dugout.

The crowd draws in a collective breath, an audible visceral OHHHH!

Disappointment.

The runner sprints around first and then eases up and jogs to second. The ball is dead. The runner advances without peril. He passes Bryan, who stands frozen, disbelieving.

The ball is retrieved and replaced. The infield huddles on the mound to take a mental break and review their defensive strategy for dealing with a runner on second.

Bryan is still in shock. This is worse than being injured. This is his body betraying him without external provocation. His teammates slap his back. It happens. The pitcher even apologizes for putting too much rosin on the ball.

Two innings later a bunt eludes the pitcher. Bryan takes it on the dead run. He has so much time that he pauses, steps toward first, and underhands it to Mitch. Into the mitt. Runner is out. The kernel of doubt is crushed.

But in the bottom of the eighth, Bryan pivots to his left to spear a vicious one-hopper. He has plenty of time. He sets and fires.

Over Mitch's head.

Mitch leaps. This is one reason why first basemen are selected for their height and reach, after all. But not this time. Can't get to it. Another dead ball. Another error. This time, there was a runner on third who scores.

Doesn't matter, really. The Sox are up by four runs.

It does matter.

Bryan now officially has the yips.

**********

Oh, they wanted to know. The writers tried to ask him after the game about the yips. But not a one comes out and actually says the word yips. They circled around the concept of it. They wanted to have that headline, sure, but they are still writing for the home audience. The Boston fanbase is a raving sea of judgmental hard ass critical bastards, but they still want the Sox to win.

Bryan answered their questions as truthfully as he was able. He hadn't had time to figure out any other way to spin the story anyway. They seemed to be satisfied when he claimed that he didn't dwell on his mistakes and was just happy the team had won.

On his way to the parking lot, he saw that someone had posted the current standings in a window on the second floor of one of the new high-rise buildings:

Boston W 102 L 59

New York W 101 L 60

Bryan stared at the stark math. If the Sox won tomorrow, they took the division and avoided the wild card round. If they lost and the Yankees lost, same result. But if the Sox lost and the Yankees won, then they would be tied. The two teams would meet in a one game play-in. Winner would take the division flag and home field advantage and momentum. Loser would be tossed into the wild card tournament with their engines flooded, stalled out.

**********

The Yankees were one game back.

**********

Last game of the regular season, and the Blue Jays had nothing to play for. They were out. Win or lose, they were flying home to pack up their gear and wait for next year. The Red Sox had everything to motivate them. Fenway was sold out. Catillo had managed to manipulate the pitching rotation so the staff number one was starting. No regulars were out of the lineup. It was the best way to go into a game you really wanted to win.

They lost.

Goddamn absolutely lost. Now, to be fair, winning 102 games is quite an achievement. It means that you have won 63% of the time. But that ain't 100%. Some days you are just going to suck or the other team is going to play like the anointed ones or both. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, it was that last one.

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.