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  For Dad

  FIRST

  Welcome to Salt River Fields, the newest spring training facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. Turn east off of Pima, drive down the fresh boulevard, Lions Way. You’re flanked by parking lots so new they still smell like tar, their white hatching wet: ample parking for the anticipated crowds, already sold out for opening day. Note the median’s plantings: environmentally sustainable xeriscape. Of course, this is 2011, and the club cares about our natural resources, is mindful of the perpetual drought in Phoenix metro. A few Christmas cacti bloom, despite it being February.

  And here, at the terminus of the boulevard, the centerpiece of the multi-field complex: the twelve-thousand-seat stadium that will be the new springtime home of your Los Angeles Lions. Take it all in—the crisp-chalked diamond, the ruddy arc of infield, the bright checkerboard of the outfield. It’s not easy to grow grass like that in the desert—I offer a hat tip to the grounds crew. And see out past the warning track and fence? There’s the shock-green tilt of a well-watered general-admission lawn. Farther still, on the horizon: a ridge of mountains, jutting into the blue like the teeth of some mile-high rusted saw.

  Take note of the architecture, too: the exposed steel beams and brick, a slate-gray cantilevered canopy over a sunken seating bowl, the polished concrete rotunda and concourse. A classic-looking stadium. Timeless in design, some might say, even if it’s anything but. Nothing is static, not the bluegrass-ryegrass blend growing out there, not the architecture, not the angle of the sun hitting the seats. And not a man’s career, especially not a ballplayer the first weeks of spring. His batting average, his ambition, his hopes: all is in flux. I’m looking toward Lions left fielder Jason Goodyear as I write this, coming off a Gold Glove and a close second place in American League MVP voting, coming off a possible divorce and a lonely drive across the desert in his busted old Jeep. (Doesn’t Cadillac give you a car if you do that many ads?) But that feeling of uncertainty isn’t reserved for All-Stars and the freshly dumped; it could apply to any player on the squad, any coach on the bench, any man in the executive suite, any fan in the stands. I’m looking at his entourage: his agent, Herb Allison, his maybe-wife, Liana, his favorite minor league batting coach, and the devotees who would give an eye tooth just to be near him. It’s all up in the air.

  Here’s the thing about baseball, and all else: everything changes. Whether it’s the slow creep of glaciers dripping toward the sea, or the steady piling up of cut stones, rock upon rock until the wall reaches chest high, nothing is still. Sometimes change comes as quick and catastrophic as a line drive—hear the crack of wood displacing a sphere of leather, yarn, rubber, and cork; watch how it pushes the ball flat and then, just as quickly, forward. The action springs the left fielder from his squat, and the man’s metal spikes tear into the turf, kicking up tiny wedges of grass, sending them toward the sky.

  Sure, I followed I-10 across the desert to write the story of one remarkable man, but baseball’s not that kind of game. It’s too long and complicated to say, He did this, he said that, then this happened. That sufficed when I was first working the beat, still wet behind the ears and liable to get lost on my way to the press room. Back then, it was Get the score, get the quote, add a little color, and file—162 times a year. (More if you were lucky and your team took any sort of postseason run. September, October, that was the only time the rest of the newsroom took us serious. And no editor was ponying up for spring ball—that’s what the wires were for.) I was such a kid, spooked by his own damn shadow, downright fearful of asking any kind of tough question, something that might be construed as disagreeable. Now, I’m no muckraker, and not setting out to take down a great man, but in this life things are complex, some questions are hard, and that’s why I drove to Arizona in the first place.

  It’s not that those early reports of mine were totally off the mark. Ask any fan, and she’ll tell you there’s something satisfyingly linear about baseball: three strikes, three outs. Four bases, nine innings. A lineup, for chrissake—you don’t need to be an etymologist to see the meaning in that. But at the same time as that steady progression of three up, three down, then the next, then the next, it’s going around and around, cycling through the order, running around the bases. Things get parabolic. There’s the arc of up and down through the organization, from Single-A Carolina to the big time in Culver City, the tight arc of an infield-fly out and the majestic one of a game-winning homer. Charting the line gets mighty complicated: there are so many men playing together, so many more behind the scenes, coaching and cajoling and sometimes sabotaging the game’s progress, pulling the line until it goes bonkers, more like a dance chart than any sort of arrow.

  None of that nuance goes onto the score sheet, none of it gets printed in the next morning’s recap. The paper’s box scores, like my early reports, don’t hardly scratch the surface of what happened: there are so many stories behind that neat summary. Triumphs, failures, vindications, yes. But just as many stories end not with “out three” but “out maybe”—fly balls that never do fall, men who never stop running ’round the bags.

  So to tell Jason Goodyear’s story will take a while, require not just Jason but a whole web of people who are touched by him, and a few who long to touch him, too. I know it sounds crazy, but when it gets down to telling the story of the league’s best outfielder, as much will happen in parking lots as on the field, as much in backyards as in deep left. So no, it’s not as easy as, He did this, he said that, then this happened. It’s more, He did this, he said that, and then the whole world unfurled.

  It’s how things go in baseball; after decades on this beat I should know. And so, I’d encourage you to find your seat, settle in, and get ready for a long game.

  WWJDD

  Audrey and Michael Taylor have been traveling all day, since before the sun rose on their daughter’s snowed-over Milwaukee suburb. Now, late afternoon, Michael directs the cabbie from Sky Harbor and Phoenix’s loop freeway into Scottsdale, toward their development—a square mile of adobe-clad ranchers—and finally, down their street.

  Theirs is halfway down the block on the left. “It’s that one,” he says, his wrinkled finger jutting into the front of the cab, indicating a house that’s so orange it’s nearly pink. “The salmon.”

  He tips the driver well—Michael always tips well; it is part of what he considers his character—and the young man happily unloads the Taylors’ coffin-size suitcases onto the curb. Forty-nine pounds each: the Taylors have been doing their off-season circuit for so long Audrey knows exactly which sundresses and sweaters to include, every wool blazer and light jacket and pair of slacks Mikey will need for Thanksgiving in Chicago, Christmas in Virginia, the month of January with Katie, their youngest, and her four kids in Wisconsin. And now, February and March in Arizona, where the desert can swing from the thirties at night to the nineties at noon.

  The lawn looks dried out—the timer on the sprinkler must’ve malfunctioned, Michael thinks. He’s bothered by this; he prides himself on his perfect little patch of bluegrass-ryegrass. The neighbors appreciate it, too—Mr. Baseball knows his grass.

  “How’s that for peculiar?” Michael says to himself as he jiggles the doorknob. He tries the key again, no luck. He checks the others on the ring—stadium entrance, supply room
, and office (all to the old stadium—was he supposed to turn those in? he forgot to, in any case); Scottsdale safe deposit; spare set to Betty and Dave’s (those he definitely should return); the Camry; and the new, beloved Cadillac. He cannot help letting his thumb linger on that smooth black pebble, its silver shield a pleasing ridge under his thumb. He tries the house key twice more before stalking past the picture window to the side gate. There is a hide-a-key under the back mat; he’ll get in that way.

  “What’s going on, honey?” Audrey missed his defeat at the front; she had her nose in her phone, texting one kid or another. “Did you forget your keys?”

  “No, Aud—my God!” Michael bellows. The gate, now open, reveals a backyard in disarray—trash is skewered on the spines of their saguaro, and it looks like someone played whack-a-mole with their potted plants. A tower of crushed beer cans is piled on the patio table, and pizza boxes, stacked like so many beach towels, sit next to the Taylors’ small in-ground pool. The pool’s water is murky, with strange, bright blooms skimming the surface.

  The cardboard panel in the back door’s French window leers at him like a smile’s missing tooth. Michael punches the cardboard out, reaches down, and opens the latch from the inside. The alarm system should trigger, but it doesn’t. Instead, he hears the sound of feet on gravel and Audrey’s gasp. He barks, “Now just hang on, Audrey.” His wife, fretting her hands by the patio furniture, nods like a bobblehead. “I’ll take care of this.”

  * * *

  When Michael bought their Arizona house, brand-new in 1971, guys on the team thought he was crazy. But Michael thought they were crazy not to buy. Why spend their meal money on six weeks of hotels every spring when they could be putting their stipend toward a mortgage? Scottsdale wasn’t quite tumbleweed-down-Main-Street back then, but it was a lot different. Small, for one. It stopped around Indian Bend, mostly just cacti and the old army airport past that, the ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright hanging out on some distant hill. Other players rented convertibles and bought clothes that impressed only whoever else was eating late-night at the Pink Pony; Michael paid down his banknote. A career in baseball, or at least one going the way he had imagined, was a looming unknown, but some things you could count on. By thirty, he and Audrey already had their retirement home. When it was clear his shot at the majors was done, that thrift felt more important than ever.

  And while their official residence is Salt Lake City, home of the Stallions, the Lions’ Triple-A affiliate, the Arizona house is their favorite stop on the yearlong, countrywide circuit. These days, now that all the kids are out and mostly on their own, Michael and Audrey spend eight weeks in Scottsdale every spring and fall. It is well lived in, and well loved, but not any sort of run-down—Michael makes sure of that, always sprucing up the yard and keeping the paint fresh. There is something very cathartic about everything being in its right place, especially after so many months on the road.

  * * *

  The first thing to hit him is the stench of decay, a garbage smell, but he also detects the acrid aroma of something not meant to burn having been burned. It is cool—downright cold—the thermostat doing its best to keep the house at sixty against an eighty-five-degree sun. Michael shivers.

  “Anybody home?” he calls. It sounds ridiculous, he thinks, yelling out as if he were some overcurious neighbor. Like this isn’t his own home. But Michael can’t think what else to say, what else to do. So he calls out again, and then he listens.

  No answer.

  He surveys the kitchen. Wadded-up Pop-Tart wrappers spill across the counter, dishes jam the sink, and then his eyes go to a dark, sticky-looking stain on the floor. Blood, Michael thinks, and his breath pulls up short. Only when he kneels down and sees the overturned bottle of Hershey’s syrup wedged underneath the fridge is he able to exhale. A trail of tiny ants march from the spill to some unknown world behind the cabinets.

  The security system, once mounted next to the thermostat, is now smashed plastic and a knot of clipped wires. The dead bolts in the front and back have been replaced with some cheapo set, the locks sitting loose in their casings. One mystery solved.

  Michael pops out the back door. Audrey is gingerly gathering takeout containers and depositing them into the trash. “Leave it be, Audrey. Those are filthy.”

  She looks up. “How is it in there?”

  “Not good,” he says with a grimace.

  He does a quick survey of the dining room. At some point, a meal had been set for four, premade lasagna by the looks of the caked tinfoil casserole. The Taylors’ nice china, stained orange with grease, is spread across the table, crusted and crumbed. He inspects the sideboard, the small liquor cabinet and wine rack atop it. Their visitors drank every ounce in the cabinet and every bottle in the rack, including a 1999 Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux Michael was saving for their fiftieth. “Those shits,” he mutters.

  In the girls’ room—now fitted with two sets of bunk beds, for when the grandkids visit—all four beds have been slept in, none of them made. Something squirreled in the corner catches his eye. An assortment of Michael’s sports memorabilia has been gathered from different parts of the house and deposited, improbably, here. The ball from his first home run. His collection of cards, all the way back to his squinty rookie year. He’d been handsome in 1965, even if the TOPPS photographer had surprised him, asked him to turn around and smile right into the sun. Michael didn’t know he could ask for a redo, not until the team set came in and the whole clubhouse laughed at his squished-up mug. He slips the card into his shirt pocket. Also in the pile: a framed clipping from 1974, that lucky moment when they made it all the way to the World Series, and he was the Lions’ backup left fielder. No ring, though—they’d lost in five to Saint Louis. His retired gloves, their leather gone soft and then stiff again. Ball caps from every level of the organization: Carolina, Kansas, Salt Lake. The medallion the Lions organization gave him for forty years with the club—for those, major or minor don’t matter, nor do player or coach. It is about being loyal—which he is, faithful as a border collie. If only the feeling were mutual. The last time he encountered Stephen Smith, the head of the ownership group, the man couldn’t be bothered to hide his sneer, making a face like Michael were a stain he’d have to scrub out.

  In the master bedroom, the bed is unmade, the sheets strewn like something violent happened. He stands in the threshold, listening to the ticking of a quiet house, wanting and not wanting to hear something more. As he waits, he can feel his blood pressure going up. He has meds for it, and he takes them dutifully every morning. But a tiny pill can do only so much when someone’s been living in, and messing up, your home.

  Those little white pills—he charges into the master bath and throws open the cabinet. He shakes one bottle after another, hoping for a rattle. They ate everything but the stool softener. “No respect,” he says to himself.

  Closing the cabinet, Michael catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Blue eyes rimmed pink, jowly, a carbuncly nose that keeps getting bigger, his hair bright white—he sees very little of that young man from the TOPPS card staring back at him. He’d been handsome, he’d been strong. He looks down at his wrist, the threaded bracelet embroidered with the letters W-W-J-D-D. What would Joe DiMaggio do?

  He wouldn’t blow his fucking cool, Michael reminds himself. So he ignores the ringed tub and the towels wadded on the floor. He steps back into the bedroom and closes the bathroom door so hard the whole room shudders. The pictures of his kids and grandkids, the black-and-white wedding photos of his folks and Audrey’s had been knocked askance anyway.

  WWJDD. “Audrey,” he calls down the dim corridor, “I’m coming.”

  * * *

  Audrey is in the kitchen. “They melted plastic onto the range,” she says, picking at the stove’s coils with a polished nail. She gives herself a manicure every Thursday, the same color of pale pink for the past twenty-two years. When a fleck of the color breaks off and skips across the range, she makes a concerned fa
ce but keeps going.

  “And look.” She holds up a crystal pitcher, a wedding gift from his long-deceased grandmother. “It’s chipped. And they cracked the Mr. Coffee.” She points to the carafe, and her eyes run over the counter. Michael watches them skim, skitter, and jump.

  “What? What is it?” Michael says.

  “Oh, it’s … nothing,” Audrey says, in a way that, Michael knows, after forty-eight years of matrimony, means it absolutely is something. Her eyes dart again, there and back.

  “What? Tell me.” His voice is stern, but then he sees what her eyes are unable to avoid: the turned walnut bowl that had previously held their spare keys. Now, save for some gum wrappers, a withered apple, and an oozing brown banana, it is empty.

  He feels a curse rising from the grumbling pit of his belly. Of course Michael left a spare key to the Cadillac sitting in the bowl. It’s his house, for fuck’s sake, and you leave your keys, to your car that is parked in your garage, attached to your house, in your fucking fruit bowl. He storms across the kitchen, throws open the door to the garage, and faces a big, empty space where his new car had been.

  “GODDAMN IT!”

  He punches a button, and the garage door begins its creaking ascent. With the light of the afternoon streaming in, he can see into the shadows on the far side of the garage. They also took Audrey’s car, an old Camry with a hundred thousand miles and a fritzy air conditioner. Tools gone, lawn mower gone. Michael kicks a bag of mulch because he has to kick something. He kicks it again, the bag giving way like someone’s soft middle. Then he stomps back into the kitchen and dials the police.

  * * *

  It’s not the Johnstons’ fault, he’d never say that. But next-door neighbors Betty and Dave Johnston always did look in on the place when the Taylors were away, and after Betty’s fall … well. Audrey and Michael sent flowers to Betty’s hospital room, and when Dave called to thank them, Michael steered conversation toward their street—he wanted to make sure they’d still be checking in. That’s when Dave confessed they’d not be coming around. They were moving into one of those retirement developments. Michael didn’t know what to say to that. The idea of giving up so much of one’s life—possessions, property, even the ability to set one’s own damn dinnertime—was terrifying. You sure about this? he asked Dave. His neighbor replied that the house was already listed, and he’d hired some college kids to pack up the place.