Chapter 4
FOUR
hawk
I hated that Kendra had shown up to meet such a fucking loser.
Was she blind? Not only was she gorgeous, but she was smart as hell.
She was so far out of Tyler’s league that the man should have groveled on his hands and knees.
Instead, he walked in there thinking she owed him because he drove into the city and parked his fucking car.
Male loneliness epidemic, my ass. These men were dicks and deserved to be alone. They gave the rest of us a bad name and then whined like the world was shitting on them.
When I returned to my penthouse apartment, I looked over the city. You would think that this would get old, but it never did. I loved Boston and this team, and I thanked God every day that I could do the thing I loved.
Had I been jealous when I watched Tyler sidle up next to Kendra?
Yeah. But then the man opened his goddamned mouth, and I wondered how no one had knocked his teeth out yet.
Yeah, in this case, Grandad was right. This generation was raised soft.
Tyler acted like an ass because no one had kicked his ass and put him in his place yet.
I sent my sister Colby a text.
Me: If you weren’t already gay, I would tell you to stop dating men.
Colby: Deets please.
Me: One of the Assistant Directors was at The Mighty Oak tonight. She was on a date, and I’m still embarrassed for the guy.
Colby: That’s what’s out there.
Me: Ugh.
Colby: No shit. So ‘she?’
Me: Yes. A co-worker. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Colby: I don’t see a problem with that.
Colby never saw a problem with anything. She should have been born in the time of free love. As far as she was concerned, if something felt good, you should do it. Fuck standards. Her only red line was if someone else would get hurt. I envied her.
When Grandad finally turned the team over to me, I accepted it only with the condition that he wouldn’t get in the way of any changes I planned to make. It had taken him years to agree to that condition, but when my grandmother gave him an ultimatum, it pushed him over the edge.
Our family had been shocked when she had packed and moved out after more than fifty years of marriage. For her, it was fifty years of coming in second to a baseball team, and the promise of their retirement together continued to be pushed off into the distant future.
Despite my love for him, my father didn’t take part in the day-to-day management and felt no disappointment when it passed to me instead.
Dad’s disinterest in the team likely had Granddad involved longer than he planned.
Dad lived well from his trust fund and showed up in the front office now and then to justify his paycheck.
The deal worked for both of us; he never had to show up regularly, and I never needed to consider him in my decisions.
I wanted this as long as I could remember.
Did I need to go to Harvard Business to earn the role?
Nope. But I wanted Grandad to feel proud and confident that he was leaving the team in capable hands.
While my friends traveled to Europe and were on Spring Break in Cabo, I interned with the Minutemen.
We eventually modeled the program I followed for local high school and college students. The goal was to create a community.
The Minutemen were a huge part of the community, and their fan base was notoriously one of the most rabid.
They filled the stands in good years and bad, and I recognized the importance of giving back.
It was why I had pushed so hard to provide seed money for the non-profit created by Kelsey Colette, soon to be Drummond.
Yes, I wanted to help single mothers, but helping mothers directly supported the kids they raised.
These kids would one day show up and support the team.
Unable to sleep, I researched the statistics Kendra had shared a bit more.
Her numbers were well supported. The realization that one in five women were a victim of sexual assault immediately caused me to reassess the men in my personal community.
That could easily extend to the 40-man roster each year purely based on statistics alone.
Add to the equation, men on the road, away from their families, there was even more potential for bad behavior.
Yes, the number of women who reported assaults each year was staggering, but if over 60% went unreported?
For as long as I could remember, I was taught to question accusations.
Innocent until proven guilty. But knowing how many barriers women faced when they finally accused men, why would anyone subject themselves to that scrutiny?
In 2015, the league and the players’ union came to terms on action that teams could take against players accused of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse, and this extended to mandatory training they received each spring.
The MLB could apply punishment outside of the criminal justice system, but did that have enough teeth?
MLB contracts are guaranteed, and players suspended for sexual assault would have a loss of pay and service time, but terminating a contract is always tricky.
I opened up my e-mail and sent off an inquiry to our head of legal, specifically looking into whether the morals clause in our contracts had enough teeth.
Long after I crawled into bed, I replayed the night with Kendra and that shitbag. Yes, she’d been frustrated, but that guy had cleared several hurdles and tests even before she met him. And she made it sound like he wasn’t even the worst guy she’d encountered.
What the fuck?
Were any of the Minutemen players like that when no one watched? Did they walk around like women owed them a lay just because? Or was it even worse because they had money and status? I suspected it was worse.
Could we blame the women? In some cases, I had seen women throw themselves at these men. However, as Kendra pointed out, consent can be withdrawn at any point. With booze involved, consent wasn’t even possible. Did the training they received cover this?