Stephanie Doyle: The Comeback of Roy Walker

He was pathetic.

“Of course...there is the alternative. I mean, you’re only thirty-seven. Who knows how many bullets you have left in that arm? You could go back to baseball, sign on with some team for a year, make a ridiculous amount of money and then start all over again.”

Start all over again. Back to baseball. Those two things shouldn’t be synonymous. There had to be other choices.

Because Roy was never going back to baseball.

Present day

ROY DROVE THROUGH the winding streets of the small town of Minotaur Falls, New York, with a sick feeling of dread in his stomach. The sick feeling had become fairly familiar to him. It had started when he’d learned he was broke and had pretty much continued ever since. All through November, when Frank had been proven right about the real-estate market being dead. All through December, when Roy had actually put together a résumé and started applying for jobs.

He’d been on three interviews. Two had been just baseball fans who wanted to the meet the legendary Roy Walker. Of course, since he didn’t have any actual skills, he wasn’t a fit for the company, but it sure was great to meet him. The third had been a nice older woman who knew nothing about baseball, but also told him that without a college degree or any real work experience he wasn’t qualified for the position. Again.

Roy had tried to explain to her that he’d once been famous and a multimillionaire.

That hadn’t swayed her.

He had considered going back to school. The money he could make from the sale of his town house would cover his tuition. But the idea of being a freshman at thirty-seven was even worse than the idea of baseball.

Which was what everything kept coming back to. Roy would look at his left arm and think if he could get back into shape, if he could get his velocity to where it had been, all he might need was one season. One contract.

“Is there anything left in you?” he would ask his arm.

Is there anything left in you? he imagined it asking him back.

Finally, he’d done the unthinkable and called his former agent. Charlie Lynn had taken his call immediately, which made Roy feel marginally better. Charlie loved the idea of a Roy Walker comeback.

Hell, Nolan Ryan pitched until he was forty-six. Mariano Rivera pitched until he was forty-three. It wasn’t unthinkable. There was only one catch.

Can you still throw?

Of course Charlie had to ask the question. Roy told him the truth. He didn’t know. He hadn’t put his arm through any kind of workout since leaving baseball. Which meant Roy was going to have to find some minor-league team who might take him on to see if he still had the goods.

Charlie started talking about bonus options if he made the team and incentive clauses for a multiple-year option.

All the familiar phrases and terms came back to Roy like he hadn’t been away for five years. Over the course of his professional life he’d earned eighty million dollars with Charlie as his agent.

Eighty million dollars gone. Because he’d put his faith in some programmers who ultimately couldn’t deliver on what they promised and he’d been too stupid and stubborn to realize that until it was too late.

Charlie told Roy to find someone he could trust. A place he could go with baseball people who would give him a workout but who wouldn’t be squawking to the sports reporters about what Roy was doing. They needed to establish if his arm still had the juice and what role he might play on a team. Maybe he couldn’t be a starter, Charlie mused, but with Roy’s sinking cutter, he might have closer potential. In baseball the only person who had the potential to make as much money as a starting pitcher was a lights-out closer.

One or two years playing, maybe an eight-million-dollar contract, and Roy could start over again.

Only this time he would do everything differently.

Roy shook his head. No, he couldn’t see that far ahead. He’d already failed once, so he couldn’t imagine having the confidence to try some other new business venture. Which meant he should stick to what he knew he could do. What he’d always done.

Throw a ball.

A ridiculous gift, really, that might set him up for life. Again.

Roy pulled up to the Minotaur Falls stadium, home of the Triple-A minor-league team for the New England Rebels. Minotaur Falls was also the home of the legendary Duff Baker.

Duff Baker, the only person in baseball Roy thought he might be able to trust. Duff had won four World Series titles as the manager of three different teams. Two of them with Roy. It was a remarkable accomplishment because it meant he could reach the top with different groups of players. That was because Duff had a better eye for talent than anyone in the game.

He had walked away from managing professional teams about eight years ago, but he hadn’t been able to leave the game entirely. Some might call being manager of a minor-league team a step down, but Duff just called it retirement.

Roy had phoned his former manager and asked if he could meet with him and if they could keep it private. Roy hadn’t given him a reason or any information, really.

That the old man hadn’t hesitated to say yes humbled Roy in so many ways.

Duff had been Roy’s first manager when he’d made it to The Show. Roy had been as cocky then as he had been through the rest of his career. In hindsight he could see what a handful he must have been to his manager. He used to shrug off bunting advice from the old man like what he was selling was old news. Duff had had every right to punch the upstart Roy had been, but he never did. Instead Duff just kept proving how his way worked until eventually Roy figured it out.

He’d been sad when Duff left the team. It was the first time Roy had ever felt any emotions for one of his coaches.

Excluding his first, of course. His dad.

Roy got out of the Jeep, grabbed his equipment bag, which still smelled like his basement, and hiked it over his shoulder. He hesitated before taking that first step, though.

It wasn’t the physical element of the game that bothered him. Either his arm could still do what it used to do or it couldn’t. There wouldn’t be much getting around that.

It was everything else.

Every failure out on full display, when he would have to tell Duff why he was here.

Well, not every failure. Roy didn’t plan to discuss the time he humiliated and hurt Duff’s daughter. That, Roy figured, he could keep in his pocket.

Lane Baker.

Hell, there would probably be a picture of her on Duff’s desk. Roy would have to brace for that. Maybe even a new wedding photo. Five years since the divorce, it almost seemed likely she would have moved on with her life.

Damn, that was going to hurt.

Don’t think about it. There was no backing down. He’d turned his life into this heaping pile of dung on purpose and now it was time to face the music.

Roy made his way through the stadium entrance to the second level, where the team’s offices were. Nothing fancy about minor-league security, so he was able to go wherever he wanted. He found a door labeled Private and Manager and knocked.

“Come in!”

It was a female voice who made the offer. For a second, Roy paused again. No, Lane couldn’t be here. She was in Virginia Beach last he heard. Helping wounded soldiers. Doing everything right, while he’d been doing everything wrong.

Roy put his internal pity party on hold and opened the door.

The woman standing in the office did remind him of Lane. Long hair tied into a ponytail, face devoid of makeup, wearing a heavy plaid shirt that might have belonged to a man at one point.

She stared at him for a good second. “You’re Roy Walker.”