Page 2 of Breakout Year
And he was spared from saying something like If Cleveland didn’t want me to offend them, maybe they shouldn’t have traded me when she pushed the door open and propelled him through it.
Inside, the Cosmos press room held six or seven rows of chairs, a dozen chairs to a row, space in the back where even more reporters were idling, tapping things on their phones or scribbling in notebooks.
Eitan tried to count them from where Isabel seated him at a table in the front, mic aimed at him, patterned Cosmos backdrop shifting in the inadequate air conditioning. He did the math, then did the math again, and came up with a lot of reporters. A fuck ton. Certainly more than he’d ever encountered in Cleveland, all of whom were looking at him like they expected him to say he was thrilled—thrilled—to be here.
It wouldn’t even be a lie. He was thrilled. Mostly.
He shifted in his chair, tapped his foot. The microphone was buzzing, a low hum like a muted TV. He tried to tune it out. Somehow, it got louder. He had the next thirty minutes to introduce himself to the media. The first, and only, rule of baseball news conferences was to be boring enough to put the entire press corps to sleep.
Isabel posted up next to him, slightly off to the side, just enough to be out of the camera’s view. Various team personnel introduced him: the owner, an elderly guy who’d made his money doing unspeakable things to the stock market but had decided to pour it into rebuilding the Queens baseball team, so all was forgiven. The team’s general manager, one of the crop of new, next-generation baseball executives, whose teeth rivaled Eitan’s in their sheen.
Then it was Eitan’s turn to speak.
“You’re up,” Isabel said.
A mental skills coach once told Eitan that pressing his tongue against his teeth was a symptom of either nerves or excitement. He pushed it against his incisors and tried for an approximation of a smile.
“So, New York, huh?” A water bottle sat in front of him. He broke the seal. Its plastic click-click-click echoed through the room. The bottle contained exactly two sips of water—or one and a half sips. Drops fell onto the Cosmos jersey he was wearing, too new for him to think of it as his. Great, now he wasn’t just nervous: he was nervous and damp.
No one said anything. Were they waiting for him? He was supposed to have prepared a statement—Isabel had said, Gabe had said, his mother had said‚ but he’d come to treat interactions with the press the way he did fielding third base: he’d done it enough to know it by feel. Feel. That baseball term for something so practiced it became easy and intuitive. Except none of this was easy or intuitive. So he was left staring at the assembled reporters who, maddeningly, were staring right back.
He considered his options. Fuck the Cleveland baseball organization, but also why didn’t they want me enough to keep me? That might not go over so well.
All right, time to break the ice.
“It’s funny,” he said, “but I get more nervous in front of you all than I do playing in front of fifty thousand people.” It was a joke. It was supposed to be a joke.
No one laughed. One reporter offered a look that managed to communicate both sympathy and that Eitan wasn’t in Ohio anymore. As if Eitan needed a reminder. He muttered—or attempted to mutter—tough crowd.
Except he aimed it at the mic. “Tough crowd.” Loud as a PA announcement.
He winced. Isabel winced. The reporters in the first three rows winced. The owner and GM winced. So this was inauspicious. Or a total fucking mess.
“All right”—he waved gamely—“bring it on, I guess.”
Isabel nodded to the assembled media, who all thrust up eager hands, then called on a reporter by name.
“How’re you feeling about the trade?” the reporter asked.
“I’m still getting used to it.” What else was Eitan supposed to say? That he’d found out about the trade from social media before the Crooks front office had even bothered to call him? That he’d procrastinated for an hour before needing all of five minutes to pack? That he’d spent the entirety of the—really nice, to be fair—private jet ride with his shirt sweat-stuck to his back like he could already feel the glare of baseball’s hottest spotlight? He tried on another smile. “New York’s a little bigger than Cleveland.”
“What’re you looking forward to about playing here?” someone else said. He missed the reporter’s name. In Cleveland, he’d known them all by name, by the ages of their various kids and where they’d been on their last vacation. Now he felt as if he was back in school and the teacher’s directions had turned to a shush in his head. Still, the truth was easy: he loved baseball. The dimensions of the diamond were the same no matter the city. He could figure everything else out…later.
He tilted his mouth to the mic, which, to its credit, only whined a little. “I’m really looking forward to getting to know my teammates and the fans. And of course, playing for the Commissioner’s Trophy.” Not like Cleveland, he didn’t add, but he didn’t need to, because everyone in baseball knew the Crooks had spent the past three seasons trading away any viable players as a cost-cutting measure. Eitan just hadn’t thought that would’ve included him.
Another reporter chimed in. “Even as recently as last week, there was talk that you and Cleveland had been making headway on a contract extension. What altered that conversation?”
Good fucking question. Sweat started to prick at Eitan’s hairline, from the lights, from the reporters’ stares. He’d heard somewhere that dark hair made you sweat more. His hair was practically black; now, it stuck to his neck. He tugged at his jersey, examined the curly edges of the NY logo to make the (he hoped subtle) point that he was no longer in Cleveland.
“Sometimes things don’t work out how you want them.” His grin went fixed. “But I’m here, so that’s cool.”
“Any particular reason that negotiations broke down?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Isabel was shaking her head. Did PR people have classes on the don’t answer that head shake or did it come natural?
Eitan—gently—waved her off. “No, I got this one.”
Her don’t do it expression morphed into an oh shit, he’s gonna. Next to him, the owner’s face went blank, the GM’s teeth extra shiny.
