Chapter 19 - Brooks
NINETEEN
brOOKS
It’s a big game for me. If I perform in the next two series, there’s a slim chance Texas will call me up for a game or two.
They’ve blown their season, so now’s the time when everything is on the table.
They’re going to evaluate everyone, top to bottom, and maybe make some moves.
It’s my last big chance before the winter meetings to show I’m the right man to slide into short.
My glove is good, but it’s my bat that’s going to get me there. I need to keep hitting bombs. Driving in runs. And getting fans excited. I hate that the experience for them is as much on the table as my skills on the field, but this game is a business. Everything is for sale. Including personality.
“Hey, Callahan. PR has that interview set up and is waiting for you in the media room. Lots of fancy lights. Try not to sweat,” Adler says, laying a hand on my shoulder with a little extra weight and a chuckle.
Adler’s a toxic piece of shit, and the reason he got sent down from Texas was to work on his attitude.
So far, all he’s worked is everyone’s nerves.
I made the mistake a few months back of getting drunk with him, and told him things I wish I hadn’t—about Holly, about how she showed up on my doorstep, and that at first I was afraid to keep her.
It was an honest moment, and I went through the same emotions most people would in my situation.
It’s just that I went on to share my truth with the one guy who likes to hang things over people’s heads for sport.
I begged Daisy—Roddy’s . . . girl? I’m not sure what the fuck is up with them—to watch Holly for the night so I could get my head straight, then I barreled into the woods with the guys and got shitfaced.
It was the only time I felt like my parents, and after I threw up most of my insides the next morning, I made a promise never to act like them again.
And I made a commitment to giving Holly everything.
All Adler remembers, though, is the scared kid who suddenly had a baby and was thinking about running away from his problems. And now he’s jealous because I’m having the season he’s being paid to have, and the media is paying attention to me.
My gut says after this season, Adler gets released.
They won’t even bother to designate him for assignment—who the hell would pick him up? He’s hitting one seventeen.
“Hey, thanks for being such a great stage assistant and coming to get me,” I say, pushing buttons I know are a bit raw for him.
“Fuck off,” he says as I leave him alone in the clubhouse. I smirk as I make my way down the hall.
Adler got one thing right—the lights are a bit much in here.
It’s not a very big room. We don’t hold a big media briefing after games in Sweetwater.
The only reason this room exists is because of the year the team got the hall-of-famer Jose Contreras back from injury and he was doing his rehab pitching in Sweetwater.
Every sports media outlet in existence wanted a piece of his story, so the team owner gave up his office. Now, it’s my stage.
“Brooks! Hey, man. Thanks for taking the time,” the reporter says.
His name is Ted, but I forget the last name.
He’s with The Athletic, a monthly that’s still trying to exist in print.
It gets a lot of readers, mostly online, and everything I say to him will shape his story.
Since I’m trying to sell Texas on the whole package, I crank my smile up a notch.
“No problem, Ted. Thanks for coming out.” There’s a glimmer in his eyes when I say his name, and I lock that away as one chip in my favor.
“Take a seat,” he says, gesturing to the stool set up amid the bevy of lights
“Interrogation or interrogation?” I joke.
He chuckles, then hands me the mic to clip on the edge of my collar. I try to hide it as best I can, but I’m wearing a Mavericks undershirt and my uniform pants for the game tonight. I’m heading right out of this room to the field.
“It’s fine. People are sort of used to seeing the equipment on the video podcast.”
I nod and settle into the seat, doing my best to get comfortable on a stool half the size of my ass. I stretch out my legs and fold my hands in my lap.
“Let’s just talk for a bit, until you’re comfortable. Then we can get into it, yeah?”
I nod. “Sounds good.”
“Sweet, sweet.” Ted seems nervous, which oddly makes me feel less so. The only interviews I’ve really done were in college, for the campus paper, and a few for the local Sweetwater rag. This is a big step up for me.
“You cover a lot of baseball? I was checking out some of your stories, and I saw that piece you did on Jarvis when he retired from the Falcons. That was a great look into his mindset at the end of a great career. Really nice work.” I did my research.
“Wow, thanks.” He grabs at the back of his neck, his cheeks glowing red and not from the lights like mine probably are.
“Uh . . . yeah. That piece was a one-off for me. I grew up in Atlanta, and Jarvis was the man, you know? But other than that one, mostly it’s always been baseball.
I love this game. Grew up pretending to be one of you guys one day.
The whole bottom of the ninth, two outs kind of thing. ”
I chuckle and hum, “Yeah.” It’s a universal core memory we’re sharing.
“How about you, Brooks? Was it always baseball?” He sits back and glances at his camera lens, and I’m instantly aware that our conversation is now for real.
I glance up and mash my lips with my thought.
“Was it always baseball . . . uhm, yes and no,” I say, dropping my gaze back to his. I’m not supposed to stare directly into the camera, but I swear that lens is ten times bigger than it was a second ago. It’s hard to ignore.
“What do you mean by that?” His urging is easy for him, so I bury the bullshit from my childhood that drove me to the sandlot as a form of escape.
“I guess I was like any kid, figuring out what I was good at, what I was bad at. I always liked field day, and running at school. I liked to compete. And one day, some neighborhood kids back in Inglewood were throwing a ball around one of the streets, and I jumped in and joined the game.”
“Cool, cool. So, it was like actual sandlot ball, then? Wow, I’m jealous,” he says.
I laugh lightly and settle into the memory, at least the good parts.
“Yeah, it was Inglewood, so you either rode a BMX bike around and jumped wheelies off of plywood propped up on bricks or you played stick ball in the street. It wasn’t really a stick, though.
This guy, Dennis, he was four years older than me, had a really nice bat.
He played for one of those travel ball teams, and when he wasn’t playing in a tournament, he set up a game for us in the street.
The first time I swung that bat . . . man. ”
I close my eyes for a beat, the visual still ingrained in my mind of the ball sailing across the intersection and busting the beer sign hung on the open door of the bodega.
“You remember what kind of bat it was?” he asks.
My eyes peel open and my smile slowly spreads.
“Easton Echo,” I say, practically singing the words like a love song.
“I know that bat. My family couldn’t afford it when I was a kid, but I got to swing one once or twice. Black and gold, right?”
I point at him and laugh.
“That’s the one.”
I sink into the stool, my shoulders relaxing as I get more comfortable with our talk. Ted feels his way into the subject of Holly next, which I am prepared for, and we manage to navigate the subject without prying into her privacy too much, and without diving too deeply into how she landed with me.
“It seems like parenting is as important as baseball to you, at least when you talk about your daughter, and making sure you’re there for her,” he says.
“It’s more important. Being Holly’s dad is number one. Everything else is second place. I’ll say this, though. I’m a better player, a better teammate out there on the field since Holly showed up. She gives me purpose. I put in the work because I want to make her proud.”
I worked out that answer during my drive here this morning, and I’m glad I got to say it. If Holly ever sees this interview, because lord knows things live forever on the Internet, I want her to know that she has always been my reason. My inspiration. My best self.
“Now, your relationship with your own father hasn’t always been so easy.” His sudden topic shift throws me, and I’m not sure how to respond.
“Your dad, he was in prison for most of your life, but he’s out now, am I right?” he follows up.
I rock back and draw in a deep breath, blinking my gaze down to my lap. I’m not sure why this is coming up, but I have a feeling either Adler gave Ted a tip or my father’s been talking to anyone who will listen.
“I guess so. We don’t really talk. When I was a kid, I was definitely not his priority. Pretty much everything else came first, so . . . yeah. That’s that.” I snap my mouth shut, and my short response seems to send the message I intend.
“That’s not how you’re parenting, though. Holly . . . she’s number one,” he says, his gaze meeting mine, and his eyes are weighed down at the corners with what I perceive as a touch of apology.
“Number one,” I reiterate.
“Let’s talk baseball,” he segues.
“Now we’re talking,” I say, rubbing my hands together.
We spend the next ten minutes rehashing my highlights over the last two years, as well as the last two weeks.
It’s a cake walk compared to the first half of the interview, but I don’t relax again until the mic is off and I’m heading out the tunnel to the field.
“How’d that go?” Adler says when I pass him in the dugout.
“Fuck off,” I say, and his chuckle tells me he is the one to thank for the deep research that landed in Ted’s lap.