Page 108 of Diamond Ring
“You’ve only been ducking me all season,” Gordon says.
Which is true. “Fine.”
“Seems like you don’t want to.”
“I don’t. But if it matters to you...”
“It does.” Gordon lets out a slow exhale. “A lot of my career has been what people who don’t like me have to say about me. Figured I might get my revenge with some folks who do.”
Which Alex knew, intellectually, especially early on before the baseball commentariat conceded Gordon could play—and that any way he played was the right way to do it. Still it’s hard to reconcile with how he’s talked about now as a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame.
“You’re assuming I like you?” Alex says facetiously. “But yeah, if it’s afuck you, I can probably manage.”
Gordon smiles. “You gonna say more than three words to Toni?”
No. “Yes.”
“You lying about that?”
And Alex laughs.
“So,” Toni asks when Alex is mic’d up and as prepped as he’s likely to get, “this gonna go better than the last time?”
“Depends what you’re asking about.”
Toni chuckles. “If you go storming out, at least don’t take the mic pack.”
They talk. Or Toni talks and Alex tries to expand his three-word answers into six-word ones.
“First thing Gordon ever said to me was to stop fidgeting on the bench,” Alex says.
“Did you?”
“Uh, yeah. It wasJohn fucking Gordontelling me to quit being a pest.”
“How long did it take for that intimidation to wear off?”
Alex snorts at that. “Not sure it has. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be talking with you.”
“Any other memories come to mind?”
Alex supplies cleaned-up versions of a few: Gordon telling him not to shake his leg that first day, then giving him a congratulatory clap on the arm after his first hit. Gordon interceding between him and Jake during that last, ill-fated interview. Gordon over the phone, listening as Alex tried not to break down about being traded and assuring him the game wasn’t finished with him yet.
“How about now?” Toni says when he’s done. “Sure feels like this year is your year.”
“Every year feels like your year until it doesn’t.”
“I imagine you’re getting a lot of comparisons to the last time the Elephants were in the Fall Classic.”
“Probably inevitable. This one’s different.”
“How so?”
I’m old.Though Alex isn’t, not for the planet, even if he is for the clubhouse. “It’s hard to put into words. You ever know when you have a last shot at something?”
Toni doesn’t say anything, an effective silence that leaves Alex looking at the camera. “I guess at some point in my career, stuff started to feel finite. The number of late-night flights I want to take, the number of times I can get hit in the balls and still field the next inning. The number of games I have left in me to play.
“I think, if you love something, you learn to set all that stuff aside. That’s the thing I didn’t know the last time.Howto love something like that. How much work that kind of love takes. What you’ll do to keep it.”
