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Either way he was screwing himself.
He opened a new tab in his browser window and pulled up the San Francisco Chronicle’s online sports page. As the local team, the Felons came up as the first article. Tucker read through the summary of their first three game series—sloppy fielding, cold bats—until he found the first mention of pitching.
They started out discussing the winning game from the previous night, and he gave the reporter props for applauding a solid effort from Max Dawson, a newly acquired left-hander the Felons got from Seattle. He’d struck out eleven batters, and Tucker was thrilled to have him in the rotation.
Then the blog arrived at him.
Tucker Lloyd, the former Felons ace, may be past his prime. In a season meant to send the Felons to a long-awaited World Series bid, one has to wonder if Lloyd still belongs in the starting rotation. With up-and-comer Miles Cartwright showing real promise in the bullpen, and a lineup of strong young players like Dawson and Chalmers, is there room for a knuckleball-throwing older player like Lloyd? Or it is time for the Felons to call it a loss and look at shuffling this once-great player into a support role?
Tucker’s fingers itched as he fought the urge to reply to the posting with a scathing fuck you in the comments. No good came of responding to the press, but it was hard to ignore some hack who had never played the game suggesting he was done. What was worse, it mirrored what Tucker himself had been worrying about for months.
One punishment wasn’t enough, so Tucker did the unthinkable for anyone with even moderate fame. He Googled himself.
The top trending link was a blog post from the Chicago Sun-Times sports section, and the byline said it had been written by none other than Simon Howell.
For a moment Tucker stared at the blue link, wondering if he ought to click, or if it was smarter for him to leave things be. His elbow throbbed, a constant reminder of what was keeping him from being as good as he once was.
It also served as a reminder of his date with Emmy that afternoon. Emmy, who was apparently seeing this Simon guy. Tucker didn’t know what she saw in him. Sure, he looked like a blond Clark Kent—press credentials and all—but was that what women were into? Handsome, funny, intelligent guys whose careers were certain?
Tucker snorted.
His fingers acted free from common sense, and he opened the link, skimming the page quickly to check for phrases like has-been, failure or old. Not seeing any of the tried-and-true print beat-downs, Tucker decided to brave the article.
What do you get when you take a formerly glorious pitcher and pull him out of his game for a full year? You get the age-old tale of Tommy John and the surgery that bears his name. Tommy might have never made it to the Hall of Fame, but many who’ve had the same surgery have gone on to greatness.
On Tuesday night the fans of the San Francisco Felons came together to see if one of their greats might wear his former crown. Tucker Lloyd, a seasoned vet of the Felons roster, returned for his first starting game since the 2011 season. There was much speculation over his recovery and whether or not he’d be able to reach his previous levels.
Lloyd fared well in his five innings, but did not display anything new to kindle hopes of fresh fire within the aging pitcher’s arm. Still favoring a slow knuckleball over his once-famous 100-mph fastballs and impossible-to-hit sliders, Lloyd appeared afraid of his own success.
Tucker stopped reading.
Simon’s prose was fine—above standard for most sports writers, in fact—and Tucker couldn’t fault him for the content of the article either. They’d only spoken briefly after the game, and he could see some of his own quotes lower in the post, but he didn’t have any desire to continue reading. He was too stuck on the last line he read.
Lloyd appeared afraid of his own success.
Every fiber in Tucker’s being wanted to deny the accusation, but the longer he considered it, the more he became aware of the truth in Simon’s words.
He was holding back, but why?
Was it that he was afraid of failure? Or was Simon right?
Maybe failure wasn’t what scared Tucker. Maybe he was really afraid of success. If you failed you had nowhere to go but up. But if you were doing well, the only thing left to do was fall.
Chapter Eleven
There were definite perks to having been an assistant A.T. with another major league team before coming on board with the Felons. For one thing, Emmy was already familiar with the layout of away-team clubhouses after her years with the Sox.
But more importantly, she knew where they stashed the good coffee.
In Kansas City there was a small storage closet between the two clubhouses with no lock on the door, where someone thought they were being stealthy and hiding the good dark roast, opting to leave crappy generic beans in the visiting clubhouse.
Her former boss in Chicago had figured it out long before she started working there, and it was the first thing he showed her on a cold spring morning in Missouri.
Emmy perched on the counter in the training room, waiting for the small three-cup brewer to turn her stolen beans into the brown gold that was coffee. Jasper was the only other member of her team to have arrived early, and he was milling around the training room, grumbling about the quality of their equipment.
“People think low-budget teams suffer because they can’t afford the big-name players,” he lamented, “but the real tragedy is the crap they use to keep the players going.”
Emmy smiled at him then returned to her task as a coffee sentinel. “It’s only three days.”
