by T. T. Monday
“You can still call him,” I say, trying to play it cool. Truth is, I feel threatened by Feldspar. I won’t be able to pitch forever. Investigations are my retirement plan. The game isn’t big enough for two fixers.
“I convinced him to try you first.”
“You don’t know me from Adam.”
“Well, like I told Yonel, I’m sure someone in the league office would be happy to advise him on how to wear his pants, but that doesn’t mean they have his best interests in mind.”
“Who says I do?”
“I can give you a week. After that we’ll have to call Feldspar.”
“Suppose I find these guys—then what? I don’t do hits.”
“Who said anything about killing?” Tiff laughs. “Just find them. I’ll take it from there.” She looks me in the eye and holds the stare until she’s sure I understand. Then she hands me her card and leaves the bullpen.
2
When the charter touches down in Denver, I receive a text from Erik Magnusson, a former teammate now working as the Rockies’ hitting coach. If there’s anyone on the Colorado payroll willing to give me an honest perspective on Yonel Ruiz, it’s Magnusson. He suggests we meet for a drink at Joey’s Big Sky, a bar near the team hotel. Although it’s one in the morning, I text back to say I can meet if he’s still up. Magnusson says sure, he could use a break from the video room.
Joey’s Big Sky is equal parts John Ford and Santa Claus. The bones of the place are classic Old West: rough-sawn plank floors and walls, dark rafters, lazy ceiling fans. Taxidermied heads of bison, moose, and antelope are installed above the bar, draped in tinsel and electric candy-cane lights even though it’s June. A billiard table covered in stained green felt sits unused under a rusty can light. The only patrons at this hour are serious drunks, hunched reverently over rail whiskeys and watery domestic beer. Magnusson sticks out not only because he’s drinking soda, but because he appears to be the only man in the room who could run a quarter-mile without dropping dead. Erect on the stool, Magnusson looks like a well-kept golf pro, lats bulging under his polo. Magnusson was a slugger—never a Gold Glover, but a capable left fielder looking forward to a long twilight as a DH until his name turned up in the Mitchell Report in 2007. He claimed innocence, but so did everyone named in the report, including near-certain dopers like Canseco, Bonds, and Giambi. The Bay Dogs cut him loose, and no other club would take a chance. He couldn’t even get work in Japan. He was tainted, a cheater. Fortunately for Magnusson, memories are short in baseball, and a year ago the Rockies called with the coaching offer.
For what it’s worth, I always believed him. I even lobbied our GM to give him another chance. Looking at him now, I feel vindicated. I want to take a picture and send it to Senator Mitchell himself. See that? Erik Magnusson isn’t taking steroids in retirement, and he still looks like the Incredible Hulk.
When Magnusson sees me, he stands and holds out a hand as deep as a first baseman’s glove. “Long time no see, buddy.”
I order a beer. Magnusson takes a refill of Sprite.
He looks around. None of the drunks lift their heads. When our drinks arrive, we pick them up and move to a booth in the back. The walls are covered with etched phone numbers and misspelled obscenities. The tabletop is sticky with God knows what. Big Erik Magnusson lumbers onto the bench.
“So you want to know about Ruiz,” he says.
“I was going to ask about your family first.”
“He’s a hell of a player, hits for average and power, good plate discipline, lots of walks for someone his age. A nice inside-out swing, keeps the bat level…” He pauses, and his voice drops an octave. “Because you’re my friend, I’m going to be honest with you. Stay away from Ruiz.”
“Why? What’s the matter with him?”
Mags takes a long pull on his Sprite and shakes his head. He does not elaborate.
“I trust you, Mags, but you’re gonna have to give me more than that. Tell me who he hangs out with, at least.”
“Short answer? Nobody. He speaks with no one, and he hangs around with no one. He shows up, he plays, and he leaves.”
“Come on. There are two other Cubans on the team—the third baseman, Oliva, and what’s the other guy’s name, the righty reliever?”
“Cabrera.”
“Yeah. Ruiz talks to them, right?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Okay…so he’s quiet. How does that translate to ‘stay away at all costs’?”
“You’re working a case, aren’t you?” Magnusson looks me dead in the eye, like he’s about to tell me something; then he exhales and leans back. “You want to know about the family? Things are not good. Patti left me in February, right before spring training. Out of nowhere she announces that she’s in love with this woman Brenda, a trainer at the gym. Pretty lady—I know who she is—never would have guessed she was a lesbian.” He pauses. “Guess I could say the same thing about Patti. Anyway, I feel like a moron. Then she tells me she and Brenda are moving to Palm Desert, and of course they’re taking the kids. Our kids. Which means it will be pretty much impossible for me to visit on off days, and, besides that, it sucks for the kids, because they’re already in high school. Who moves their kids in the middle of high school to go live in the desert? It’s so selfish….” I notice that his fists are balled up. “It makes me crazy. Sorry.”
“You have every right to be pissed.”
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s my fault. I wasn’t around all those years, and then, when I finally was, I just stormed around the house with a chip on my shoulder, all angry about the doping thing. I should have paid more attention to her. On the other hand, Patti says she didn’t just turn gay. She says she always was, which I find hard to believe.”
“It’s not your fault. You did the best you could. You were providing for your family.”
Magnusson shrugs, and his brow stacks up with wrinkles. “How do you handle it? You’ve been divorced how long?”
“Thirteen years. We split when Isabel was a baby. She’ll be a sophomore in high school this fall.”
“Your ex lives in L.A., right?”
“Santa Monica.”
“We’re in Scottsdale…or we were.”
“I could tell you that you’ll get over it, but that’s not exactly right. You will move on. And you will see your kids. Christmas break, I took Izzy skiing.”
“I’ve thought of that, but I really don’t want to be that guy. You know, the divorced dad who takes his kids on fancy vacations once a year but otherwise doesn’t see them?”
“Well, you’re divorced, and you’re a dad. Those are the facts. The rest is up to you.”
“That’s helpful.” Magnusson rattles the ice in his glass.
I think about how to steer the conversation back to Ruiz. As much as I’d like to continue this therapy session, we’re playing a matinee tomorrow. Today, rather.
“So—Yonel Ruiz,” Magnusson says, unprompted. “He lived with me for a week before spring training.”
“Wait—he lived with you?”
“I was alone in this big house, so, when the front office asked around for someone to put Ruiz up for a few days, I said sure. He moved into our guest room, and he was nice enough, always cleaned up in the kitchen and asked before using the computer. We didn’t speak much.”
“What did he do on the computer?”
“Mostly video calls with his family, checking e-mail, that sort of thing.”
“Any artifacts?”
“Artifacts?”
“Downloads, chat conversations, maybe he left his e-mail open?”
“You think I spied on him?”
“You might have been curious, I don’t know….”
“Hey, you’re the detective, not me. And, besides, at that point I had no reason to suspect him of anything.”
“But later on you did?”
“Like I said, he only stayed with me for a week. After that he moved into his own place. But then, the n
ight before the season began—my last day in Arizona—I got a phone call. It was an anonymous caller, disguised voice and all that, like on 60 Minutes. The guy says I’m forbidden to speak with anyone about Yonel Ruiz. If I wanted to live, I’d keep my mouth shut. That’s what he said.”
“Keep your mouth shut about what?”
Mags shakes his head. “No idea.”
This doesn’t make sense. No extortionist would make a threat so vague.
“He must have had something in mind. Did you overhear anything, maybe in the video calls with Ruiz’s family?”
“I don’t speak Spanish.”
I give Mags my 3-2 stare. “What did you say to the caller?”
“I said I’d keep my mouth shut about Ruiz. And I have, until now.”
“Erik, I’d love to take a look at your computer, the one Ruiz used.”
“Too late for that. As soon as I got that call, I reformatted the hard drive. I took it down to the Apple Store and told them to wipe it clean. I didn’t want anything to do with him.”
The light above the booth flickers, then comes back on. I look over to the bar. The regulars are shifting on their stools. Closing time.
“Tell me more about the call. Did you get a read on the voice?”
“It was one of those computerized robot voices, like in a dance song.”
A robot singer. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? “Any idea who it might have been?”
Mags shakes his head. “Somebody who hates Ruiz, I guess. I feel bad for him. I know what he went through to get here. Those island boys grow up in mud, and now he has to contend with threats over here? I wish I could give you more.”
“No, this was good. I appreciate you taking the time to meet me.”
The sidewalk is surprisingly lively at 2:00 a.m. Joey’s Big Sky is in a district with a lot of other bars, and they’re all closing up, spilling dozens of patrons into the street. A couple of girls in heels and Lycra stride up between Mags and me. They ask where we’re going next.
“Back to work,” Magnusson says.
“What kind of work?” says the prettier of the two. She smiles impishly at Magnusson. It occurs to me that he might not know they’re on the job.
“I watch video of the men I supervise and give them instructions on how to improve their job performance.”
“You watch videos. So you’re a security guard?”
Magnusson laughs and turns to me. “What do you think? Could I be a security guard?”
In my mind, anything would be preferable to Magnusson’s job. Hitting instructors work crazy hours, and the pressure is enormous. Magnusson has told me he’s in the video room every morning at seven, and after the game he’s there till midnight or one, analyzing the at-bats of every underperforming position player. He watches their swings, frame by frame, looking for mechanical problems. The tiniest adjustment in elbow height can alter the plane of the swing, leading to more contact, better contact, whatever the player needs. Maybe the player is planting his foot too early or dropping his trailing hand too late. There’s a checklist. I have to believe most hitting instructors are hoping to be promoted within a couple of years to a better role, like first-base coach. I can’t imagine watching video longer than that. My eyes would burn out.
“My friend here has been working too hard,” I say.
The prettier of the two hookers has watery blue eyes and pale skin. Feather tattoos on both arms. “We’re just like him,” she says. “Working all the time.”
“Work, work, work,” her partner says, pouting. “No time to play.”
“Hey, I have an idea! How about you knock off early tonight and have some fun off the clock? My buddy could use some company.”
The whores look at each other, then at the rapidly thinning crowd. The pretty one says, “You two have a good night,” and she takes her friend by the arm. They run off on wobbly heels, calling after a couple of men in business suits.
I turn to Magnusson. “Are you really headed back to work?”
“Have to,” he says. “Anglin was one for seventeen last week, two for twenty the week before that. It’s a real predicament he’s in.” Dan Anglin is the Rockies’ first baseman, a former All-Star the Rockies claimed for peanuts last winter. He surprised everyone in baseball by getting hot in April and May, reminding us how it used to be. The talk was about how shrewd the Colorado front office had been, finding a seaworthy vessel where others had seen a rotting hull. Then, this month, he cooled off. Now people are saying he might be finished. Magnusson is probably Anglin’s last chance. That’s a big weight for a coach to carry.
“Have you found anything?”
Magnusson looks at his watch. “It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m headed back to the clubhouse. What do you think?”
I want to continue our conversation. I still have questions about Ruiz. “Meet me for breakfast. You know the Starbucks across from the main gate? Be there at nine.”
“Nine?”
“There’s a couch in the video room. Take a nap.”
“A nap? I’m forty-two years old!”
“Those are baseball years, Mags. On the scale of human maturity, you’re still a toddler.”
3
Next morning I text Bil Chapman, the Bay Dogs’ clubhouse manager, to tell him I won’t be on the bus to the park. He texts back a three-second clip from a porn film—the last three seconds of the action, if you follow me. The annotation reads: “This is you last night I bet!” Bil is forty-three, and those are clubhouse-guy years, the worst kind of arrested development. When he’s not traveling with the team, Bil lives at home with his mother.
A cab drops me in front of Coors Field. It’s not yet 9:00 a.m., and fans are already lining up. These days, most major-league parks allow the public to watch batting practice, and the altitude in Denver has enabled the Rockies to make BP an event. Three hours before game time, the line stretches down the block. Kids with baseball gloves are bouncing on their toes, arguing with one another about the best spot in the bleachers to catch home runs. Their moms and dads chase after them with sunscreen. It’s an aw-shucks moment, a Norman Rockwell painting, just the kind of thing the commissioner’s office wants the world to see. I remember being one of those kids, waiting for the gates to open on Sunday morning at Dodger Stadium. My dad would bring his three-inch-thick Sunday Los Angeles Times, and I had my glove, a stack of baseball cards, and a Sharpie. For me it was the happiest place on earth—better than Disneyland, and cheaper, too.
I order a coffee and take a seat. Seeing myself in those kids makes me sad. Now I know it was all a farce. As I roamed the bleachers in thrall, my heroes were in the clubhouse popping pills and corking their bats. The sport has cleaned up since then, but baseball is and has always been a cheater’s game. Twenty years from now, we’ll look back on today’s game and wonder why we didn’t realize that it was all fixed, that computers had predicted the outcome of every game. Or why we didn’t recognize that the Cubans were genetically engineering players. It won’t be the first time Major League Baseball has pulled the wool over the eyes of fans. In the 1960s and ’70s, the players were jacked on amphetamines. Greenies, dexies, ephedrine, “players’ coffee.” The public had no idea.
So there I am, contemplating the vast hypocrisy that pays my salary, when I realize I’ve finished my coffee. It’s nine-twenty, and Magnusson still hasn’t shown. I call his cell and get voice mail. I imagine him passed out on the sofa in the video room, oblivious to the vibrations in his pocket. Let’s hope he found the flaw in Dan Anglin’s swing, at least.
Then the police arrive. I hear the sirens first, the noise reflected off the stone stadium façade. Three cruisers squeal into the loading zone and park at jagged angles. They kill the sirens but leave the red-and-blue strobes pulsing. Half a dozen uniformed officers leap out. The kids on line stop bouncing; the parents put away their sunscreen and newspapers. They all just stare.
I toss my cup in the trash and leave the shop. A lump
forms in my throat, but I swallow it down. Couldn’t be.
I jog around back, to the players’ entrance, and show my ID to the guard on the stool. I ask if he knows anything about the police out front.
“Police? Like, DPD, or just security?”
“Police,” I repeat. “Three squad cars, with sirens and lights. You didn’t hear it?”
“Nope,” the guard says.
I don’t understand these stadium-security guys. Maybe it’s leftover resentment from my kid-with-a-glove days, but I fail to see what purpose they serve. They’re excellent at chasing away autograph-seeking kids but utterly useless when something truly bad goes down.
Under the ballpark, the maze of tunnels can be confusing to outsiders, because the walls all look the same, and there are never any windows. It’s hard to maintain your bearings. If you weren’t reading the signs on the doors, you’d have no way to know if you were two, three, or ten levels underground. Rookies sometimes get lost—it’s a rite of passage—but at this point I’ve wandered through so many parks that I have a sixth sense about where things ought to be. You could turn me loose in a brand-new major-league stadium, someplace I’d never been, and I would find the trainers’ room in fifteen minutes, blindfolded. Like a lab rat.
Coors Field I know well. I’m already down on the clubhouse level when a cop pushes past me at the fork where you go right for home and left for visitors. He fingers the radio hooked to his vest and barks a numerical code before taking off down the hall toward the Rockies’ clubhouse. The equipment on his belt rattles in time with his strides.
“Officer!” I shout. And then, because you never know what will stop a cop in his tracks, I add, “I’m a player!”