Page 8 of Triple Play

What is it with people in this town? Yeah, my beard is overgrown. Yeah, my hat has salt residue from sweat. But at least he isn’t huffing and puffing at the gate agent anymore.

Maybe this situation is easier to defuse than I think. “You want me to sign something?” I didn’t stick a pen in my jeans pocket, but I probably have one in my bag. I dig around for it. Sure enough, a pen sits in the elastic loop attached to my stargazing journal. “You have a piece of paper or whatever?”

Suit plunges his hand into his pocket and emerges with a crumpled bar napkin that smells like gin. Hell, I’ve signed worse. I scrawl out my signature and annotate it with an XL.

“Because you’re big?” the guy asks skeptically.

Because I wear number 40. “Something like that.”

He stares at my hand when I give him the napkin, then points to the black smudge sitting on my left thumbnail. “Is that grease?”

Nail polish. “Something like that.” I’m sure he’ll tell all his little sports bro friends I could barely string three words together, but giving people a common target for contempt is sometimes the nicest thing you can do for them. And the way I played last season made me a very common target for contempt.

At least the guy says, “Thanks, bro,” as he takes out his phone and snaps a picture of the napkin like he’s about to text his friends. Hopefully, that’s the end of this and I can rebook my flight. Except he adds, “If this sells on eBay, I can finally recoup some of the money you cost me last year.”

Of course this guy is a sports betting bro, taxonomically the worst kind of baseball fan. I put on my meanest grin. “Thanks for watching.”

“Have you tried picking your feet up when you field balls at first base?”

Have you tried fucking off into the sun? But if I’m about to go to Florida to beg to keep my job, I probably can’t be involved in a scuffle. “Thank you so much for the honest and direct feedback.”

“Didn’t think you’d be on the team this season,” Suit says. “You going down to spring training?”

Supposedly. “Yeah.”

“Pretty sure all the flights are cancelled.”

“I think there’s one tomorrow with available seats.” A flight I have cued up on my phone, ready for the gate agent to put me on it. I’d just do it myself, but the last time I did that the Monsters’ travel secretary chewed me out for altering the team’s reservations. Right now, I need as many front office employees on my side as possible, down to the guy who passes out room keys and meal vouchers.

Around me, travelers are lowering their phones. Conversations resume, the strained chatter of people united in mutual inconvenience. Great. Fight defused. Situation normal.

Until I refresh tomorrow’s flight information on my phone. Fuck. Every available seat has been taken.

Travelers are beginning to pick up their carry-ons and unplug their chargers from the outlets. Even Suit has relaxed from tomato-red to a more reasonable gin-flush pink. “Thanks, buddy.” He holds his phone up, displaying a ticket.

And he laughs at me as he leaves.

This can’t be happening. I refresh my airline app. No seats available. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. It looks like the soonest I could get to Florida is four days from now…which would make me a day late to spring training.

This cannot be happening.

I need this job—I really need the money that comes from being a big leaguer. There’s only about an hour between the Monsters’ stadium in Boston and the smaller minor-league park in Worcester I played at in triple-A. An hour and an infinite difference in salary.

I’m gearing up to compose an apologetic text to the team when a message comes through on the team group chat.

Unknown Number: Anyone else stuck at Logan Airport?

We’re not required to live in Boston in the offseason. Most guys have the sense to go somewhere warm rather than sticking around. I made it as far back as my family’s dairy farm in Vermont. Compared to that, the city is practically tropical. Who else would be brave-slash-foolish enough to endure a New England winter?

It must be someone new if I don’t have his number saved…

And my stomach drops at who it could be.

Me: Yeah, looks like there’s a storm coming in. My flight got banged too.

Banged. The baseball term for when games end prematurely due to weather. An understatement for how the entire terminal is clearing out—travelers preparing to go home or to hunker in airport hotels to await tomorrow’s flights. A handful of people are still arguing with gate agents as if that will make available seats suddenly appear.

If there’s another player here, he should be easy to spot. Ballplayers all have that look—wider than most civilians, and like we’d wear a hat and shower shoes to any occasion but our own weddings.

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