So, I get a bit of reprieve out here, and with the empty field and the silent stadium, it’s a good reminder of why I’m doing this.
I take a seat and inhale what feels like the first deep breath I’ve had all day.
It’s a beautiful evening in Chicago. The sun is starting to set, and the air is turning crisp from the lake.
It had been so long since I’d been back here, I almost forgot how much I love living in this city.
I almost forgot how much I love this team.
I always knew I’d come back, but I took enough time away to separate how I once felt about this team to how I need to view it now.
I grew up around this club, and this field holds most of my best childhood memories. I spent countless hours in my grandfather’s office, listening to him talk about all things baseball. I spent endless summers staying up late to watch live games from his owner’s box, all while cheering the players on by their first names because six-year-old me viewed them as my family. I mean, I practically lived at the field, and they did too, so I didn’t quite grasp the concept that the reason I was spending every day with them was because this was their job, and they worked for my grandfather.
At the time, it just felt like one big extended family. From the front-office staff to the players to the ushers and concession stand workers. I had this naïve perspective of this place, and as much as I wish I could let myself view this team that way again, I can’t.
Now that I’m in charge, I have to see it for what it is—business.
Baseball is a business.
Pulling my eyes away from the field, I refocus on the budget in my hands and flip to the coaches’ salaries.
Where there are stillthreevideo coaches listed.
Because Emmett freaking Montgomery still hasn’t let one of them go the way I told him to.
I still can’t believe he offered up his own salary to cover someone else’s.
I let my attention trail to his salary.
That number isn’t listed in red.
It’s printed in black ink but may as well be green because we’re practically making money off his contract. My grandfather signed him at a steal years ago when he was coming into themajors as a field manager for the first time, but this is the final year on that contract. His value is too high that next year that number is going to skyrocket, and any team in the league who has the space in their budget will jump at the chance to pay him if we don’t.
I truly don’t know how we’re going to afford him, and I’ve spent every day since joining this club trying to convince myself that he’s not worth re-signing.
Talk about being disliked. If I were to get rid of him, the team would hate me. The city would despise me. The guy is beyond beloved here and had my grandfather equally wrapped around his finger.
That reason alone makes me want to hire someone new because there’s not a world in which I’m going to bend to Emmett Montgomery’s whims the way my grandfather did.
A couple of years ago, the Warriors’ ace pitcher had a baby and needed a nanny. Emmett convinced my grandfather to have the club pay the nanny’s salary.
Oh, and the new nanny? Yeah, she was Emmett’s adult daughter. Convenient.
And of course, the pitcher’s little boy and the new nanny needed to travel with the team, so my grandfather reconfigured a whole freaking airplane at Emmett’s request.
It’s no wonder we’re so far in the red. My grandfather was throwing money at anything that would make his field manager happy.
That’s not going to be the case this year, and if Emmett doesn’t like it the way I suspect he won’t, then maybe he should find himself a new team next season.
There’s this buzz in my veins, this bubbling frustration just thinking about it.
I don’t know what it is that gets so under my skin when it comes to him. It might just be this anxious gut feeling I have,knowing that he’s not going to be able to view me as his boss. I’m a bit more than a decade younger than him. He’s spent the last seven years working for someone else.
Then there’s the fact that we couldn’t view this club more differently. Emmett has the freedom to treat this team like his family—shit, half of themarehis family—while I’m over here having to make the tough decisions that will cause people to hate me. Because this is abusiness.
I mean, he still hasn’t let one of his video coaches go, and now I’m going to have to do it myself. He’ll stay loved by everyone and I’ll be the bad guy.
Lovely.
