chapter 8
If fans leaving a game looked closely on the subway, they might see Frank Cinns.
Our back-up third baseman pulled on a maintenance shirt and cap and turned invisible.
He lived in Manhattan, as did Madden and Tripp, but their deep wallets used drivers to get home.
Brooklyn held another five or six, a few preferred the Hamptons, but Dad and I lived in Alpine.
Dad liked to drive, and used the twenty-mile trek to clear his mind after a game.
I typically fell asleep. Something about the hours of intensity followed by the quiet hum of road …
it was my lullaby. That and the nineties country music Dad lived by.
A lethal combination to wakefulness, especially at one in the morning.
Tonight was even later, an extra-long press junket holding up everything, a litany of questions drilled at every member of the Yankee organization, all regarding the same topic: Chase Stern.
They asked Tripp how he’d react if Chase slept with his wife. Tripp laughed. Fernandez, when asked the same question, broke his pencil in half. Dad didn’t get that question. Even reporters occasionally have tact.
They did ask Dad if he thought Chase would be a good fit for the team. I had straightened in my seat, my eyes on my father, but true to form, he gave little more than a grunt.
Half awake, I stood in bare feet before my bathroom sink, and washed my face.
Leaning forward, I examined a zit that hadn’t quite decided to live or die.
Once moisturized, I clicked off the light.
When we traveled, I typically fell asleep to the TV, lulled to bed by an ESPN reporter.
At home, it was nice to have the quiet. I stood on my bed and reached high, turning the window crank, the cool breeze immediate, the sound of the waves soothing.
Our home perched on the short edge of a cliff, the crash of water against the rocks constant.
Squatting on the bed, I pulled back the top blanket and crawled in, reaching out and flipping the switch beside my headboard, my room going dark.
Twenty-two miles away, in an executive conference room of Yankee Stadium, a printer hummed, spitting out the pages of Chase Stern’s new contract.