chapter 58
The facts known were little, a few sentences that the newscasters discussed on repeat, each flip of the channel bringing the same maddening three sentences.
Chase Stern was involved in a physical altercation with a member of the Yankee organization.
He was not arrested.
The Yankees have not issued a statement at this time.
We have no further information.
I’d been in the walls of that stadium long enough to know what would happen if this information was true.
A member of the Yankee organization? Was it a coach?
Another player? A member of the crew? Who it had been wasn’t really crucial to the outcome.
This wasn’t Los Angeles, where it took punching a fellow teammate after fucking his wife to get a rise out of management.
This was New York, where every person on the NYY payroll was family, and we protected our family.
We loved our family. We fought for our family.
And we fought against any discord in our locker room, in our stadium, in our family.
My fear was confirmed at 2:17 AM. I was bleary eyed, my fingers numb from pushing buttons on the remote, from redialing his cell and getting voicemail.
I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, my psyche raw and brittle, when an update finally happened, one thin line of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen, mid-commercial.
UPDATE: Chase Stern traded to the Baltimore Orioles.
Seven simple words that brought down everything we had.
The phone dropped from my limp hand, and I fell back on the bed, my eyes closing in defeat.