The Gravity of the Game

by Jon Del Arroz

  At the front of the table, Cespedes gave Hideki a look of pity. Hideki took that as a cue that he needed to take over the meeting. Cespedes had an impossible position, being a Hispanic board member himself and the deputy commissioner. Each side tried harder to curry Cespedes’s favor than many of the others. Any sign he gave one way or another would cause an explosion in the board room. The extraordinary efforts were foolish, since Jose’s vote counted the same as any other, but such was politics.

  “I move we table the discussion for the next meeting,” Hideki said, keeping a professional and disinterested tone.

  The other owners erupted in whispers around the conference table. The room became uncomfortable. Yonder Cabrera settled a cold stare on Hideki.

  “All in favor?” Hideki pushed aside the chair that blocked the way to his seat.

  Yonder Cabrera fumed. “We’re not doing this again.” He held his hand up as a wall against Hideki’s shoulder.

  “Take your hands off me, Yonder. This isn’t the time.”

  “It’s never the time! You’re bankrupting my team. Que chingados!”

  Cespedes’s eyes widened from the end of the table. “Calm yourself.”

  Hideki never learned Spanish, but he could tell by the tone that whatever Yonder had said wasn’t pleasant. “Yonder,” he said in a level voice, “I’m going to tell you one more time—let me pass and stop interrupting the vote.”

  Silence held for a long moment. Yonder stared at Hideki as if he were some sort of hellhound, but acquiesced and moved to the side.

  Hideki stepped through as if nothing occurred, smoothed his suit down and stood in front of his chair. “If there’s no further discussion, let’s proceed to vote on the prior motion of tabling this discussion.”

  A chorus of ayes came from around the room.

  Afterward, Hideki heard a lone “Nunca,” from where Yonder Cabrera sat.

  “The ayes have it. Let’s move onto the next topic of discussion,” Hideki said, seating himself at the end of the table, Jose Cespedes to his right.

  Topics changed throughout the next hour. Most went swiftly, regarding player or manager fines and suspensions for misconduct on the field. The most egregious came from a pitcher out of Montreal beaning three successive batters from Ottawa, trying to make a political statement. The board determined his punishment would be to sit out three consecutive starts.

  “What about your moon visit?” One of the board members asked from the other end of the table. A couple derisive laughs followed, though those responsible were careful to conceal their identities.

  “The agenda does list a formal report,” Hideki said.

  Cespedes tapped his tablet, broadcasting the report to the others in the room. “The Lunar Expansion proposal was brought forward by Commissioner Hideki Ichiro, in concerns that the World Baseball League had reached its market cap and that the sport appears to be on a decline in the earthbound market,” he said. “Physicist Dr. Joshua Gray was commissioned to provide a report on field dimensions that would create similar conditions for a pitcher’s velocity and batter’s ability to hit in a lunar ballpark. The dimensions of the field were determined to be—”

  “Yes, yes. We all read that report before your trip to the moon. Stop wasting our time,” Yonder Cabrera said icily.

  “We’ll skip to our conclusions then,” Hideki said, nodding to Cespedes to continue.

  “We found, after seventy-two attempts, that accurate pitching from a distance that would allow adequate hitting capabilities on the Lunar surface is impossible. A baseball game under current Lunar gravity conditions would similarly not be viable.”

  The room descended into chatter from around the conference table. “Why are we spending so much time and money on this?” one of the board members asked. “This is a fool’s errand,” another said. The indignant shouts continued.

  Hideki slammed his fist on the table three times. “Settle down, all of you!” He had placed too much emphasis on the Lunar expansion. Over the past several months, this project overwhelmed anything else he tried to accomplish as commissioner. For better or worse, this would be his legacy.

  The room quieted and all eyes rested on him. What would he say?

  He cleared his throat. “This news is a disappointment, to be sure. However, we will continue to seek out alternatives to our original proposal, and would appreciate any input the board might offer.”

  Janet Clark, owner of the Perth Dingos, scoffed from across the room. “Input? With all due respect, Commissioner, we’ve spent far too much time on this already. The game doesn’t translate to off-world markets. We need to focus on how to stop the bleeding and end these quixotic crusades.”

  “That’s right,” Yonder Cabrera said. “Why do we keep tabling important items, such as my team’s relocation? The commissioner here seems to have forgotten his job! Until we have someone who is willing to address real issues, I’m not going to waste my time on these meetings anymore.” He stood again, tipped his cowboy hat toward Hideki, and stormed out the door.

  For a moment, all held still. Then, Janet Clark stood as well, following Yonder’s lead. One by one, other owners began filing out with them.

  Hideki didn’t say a word, didn’t move. Each of the representatives comprising The World Baseball League council left, first in a trickle of a few at a time, then in a flood.

  The conference room’s central air overwhelmed the space, once devoid of bodies. A mass of more than a hundred empty swivel chairs remained.

  “That didn’t go over very well,” Cespedes said with the look on his face a cross between a courtesy smile and pity. He was sole person to remain.

  “Understatement of the millennium,” Hideki said.

  The holodisplay blurred before him. Hideki had been staring at a screen for too long. Message upon message awaited him in the vast wasteland of his inbox—casualties of the several days he’d spent on Luna. True, he had his tablet with him the entire time, but Hideki always maintained a focus when he took trips, business or personal. Only emergency messages filtered through for answering.

  The time read 16:00, about an hour before he typically left the office for the day. Not that his work always ended that early, as more often than not he had to attend games, press conferences, speeches, and charity events during the evening. Tonight, he looked forward to spending time home with Susan.

  It had been difficult to focus on returning his messages ever since the owners’ meeting the other day. The memory of the angry faces of the club owners stuck in Hideki’s head. He kept replaying those events, thinking of witty retorts to their condescension of his work.

  Nothing he came up with rang true. They were right in their anger. His expansion project for baseball had struck out.

  Or had it? “Computer,” Hideki said, greeted by a pleasant chirp of acknowledgement in response, “Call Dr. Joshua Gray, University of Michigan.”

  The holodisplay lit up with the word “connecting,” followed by dots as it attempted to do just that.

  A moment later, the image of the torso and head of an African-American man with wrinkles under his eyes and a prickly, short, white beard appeared above Hideki’s desk. “Hideki, good to hear from you,” Dr. Gray said.

  “You as well. I hope I’m not interrupting anything important?”

  “I’m critiquing a thesis paper from one of my students. Nothing that can’t wait.”

  Hideki nodded. “I was hoping I could talk to you about the Lunar expansion project.”

  “Let me guess—your trip didn’t go as you hoped?” Dr. Gray cocked his head.

  “No, it went exactly as you told me it would.”

  Dr. Gray chuckled softly, his deep voice reverberating through the speaker. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. Of course it did; I provided you with the mathematical calculations. How can I help you?”

  Hideki couldn’t help but let out a sigh, leaning in toward the holodisplay. “As it stands now, we’re stuck. Either we place the pitcher’s
mound at a current regulation distance from the batter, and throw so hard a batter can’t react quickly enough, or a pitcher stands so far back they can’t maintain accuracy and the ball still gets thrown too hard. That’s before we take base running into account.”

  “Which is a summary of my report,” Dr. Gray said.

  “Yes, yes. You’re the physics master. That’s why I come to you. Thank you, by the way.”

  Dr. Gray grinned in reply.

  What was the point in calling Dr. Gray? To reaffirm what he already knew? Perhaps Janet Clark was correct. He had spiraled into a quixotic crusade. None of this conversation impacted the current state of the game. The Lunar expansion proposal remained dead in the water. Hideki slapped his desk in front of him. “I’m sorry I wasted your time, Doctor. I want this so badly.” Not just for me, but for Lunar kids like Carl Suzuki.

  “If I hear anything that could assist you, you know I’ll call you,” Dr. Gray said. “And don’t worry, old friend—you can bother me any time.”

  “Thanks,” Hideki said, forcing a smile. “Goodnight.” He tapped the disconnect button on the holodisplay control panel.

  At three in the morning, Hideki resigned himself to a lack of sleep. Despite Susan’s reassurances, and ways by which she could soothe his stress, too many negative thoughts coursed through his head. It’s only a game, he kept repeating to himself. But baseball encompassed his job, and his life. It stopped being a game decades ago.

  With a tap to his display, Hideki looked up Luna City Standard Time. It’d be close to noon up on the moon. “Computer, contact Luna City Children’s Hospital.”

  A nurse answered, about Hideki’s age, appeared on the screen in her scrubs. “How may I connect you?”

  “I’d like to speak with patient Carl Suzuki, Room 323,” Hideki said.

  “Are you kin?” the nurse asked.

  “No, friend of the family,” Hideki said.

  “I’ll transfer you now,” she said.

  The screen fizzled to an image of the Children’s Hospital logo. Hideki waited while soft, uplifting music played from the speakers.

  Carl’s mother appeared on the screen. She looked ragged, like she’d aged years since the few days time Hideki had visited. “Mr. Ichiro,” she said.

  “Mrs. Suzuki,” Hideki said in return, bowing his head cordially. “Is Carl able to speak?”

  She frowned. “He’s not doing well right now, but he’s sleeping. Doctors say they can alleviate his current symptoms but he’s going to need some rest for the next several days.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Anything I can do?”

  “Pray for him. That’s all we can do, right?”

  “I suppose so. When he wakes up, let him know that I’m thinking of him. The league’s thinking of him. We’re doing everything in our power to bring baseball to the moon. Tell him to stay strong, and maybe he can see it one day.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Ichiro.” Carl’s mother managed a small smile. “I’ll tell him. When the foundation said you’d visit, I didn’t think you’d be so kind as to follow up. They said only to expect a one time visit. We’ll remember it here. Us Lunars don’t get a lot of that sort of kindness from Earthside.”

  “It’s the least I can do, Mrs. Suzuki.”

  Hideki took Susan to Brunch Alchemy the next morning, a restaurant on one of the lower levels in the downtown district. They had frequented the little hole in the wall since Hideki began working at the WBL offices. Most restaurants on the lower levels didn’t have quite the fresh food or flavors of their posh higher-level counterparts, but this particular restaurant held a unique charm.

  Hovercars flew by the deck outside. A holoscreen played sports highlights in the background. Checkered patterned retro-rubber tile adorned the floors. The chef kept his stove behind the counter, his frying open for the patrons to view. It filled the restaurant with scents of fried bacon and eggs.

  “Who were you calling last night, dear?” Susan asked before stuffing a bite of pancake into her mouth.

  “The kid from Luna City. I told you about him. Carl?” Hideki moved his poached eggs around his plate. Even the thought of Carl’s health made him lose his appetite.

  “Oh? Is he doing okay?” Susan asked with genuine concern.

  As long as Hideki could remember, Susan had a compassionate heart. When he blew out his knee in his final season as a professional player, Susan waited in the hospital, handling of all of his calls. Sure, they were dating at the time, but that amount of care took so much selflessness. It came across whenever they did charity fundraisers as well. She took the extra time to donate and make phone calls to make sure everyone helped the best they could.

  “The doctors say he’s having issues. He’s sleeping it off now. I promised his mother I’d do my best to bring baseball to Luna City, so he could see it.”

  Susan set down her fork. “Oh, Hideki.”

  He knew that tone, the one that warned him when he made foolish promises. The league wouldn’t let him work on this pet project forever. “You should see her face light up when I told her that. There’s real demand there on Luna City. Bringing the game there would be more than just providing entertainment, it’d give them a tangible connection to Earth.”

  “You don’t have to sell me, Hideki,” Susan said. “I’ll fight by your side for whatever you decide is right. You did say for yourself that there’s no way to make baseball work on the moon. And the board’s reaction to your trip…”

  “I know, I know. We need to find a way,” Hideki said.

  Behind them, the holodisplay drew his attention with the mention of baseball, causing his ears to perk. A young, female reporter took the screen. Behind her shimmered a small portrait of Yonder Cabrera, a smug grin under his trademark cowboy hat.

  “I’m currently outside Corona Stadium in Toluca, where owner and general manager Yonder Cabrera just gave a press conference regarding the move of his team. His announcement was twofold. First, that the Coyotes have struck a real estate deal to be able to make their move. Second, he is calling for the resignation of current Commissioner of the World Baseball League, Hideki Ichiro, for gross mismanagement in the situation. This is breaking news and we will have more as it develops. Back to you, Ricky.”

  Hideki jumped to his feet as the network switched back to its anchor dictating another story. “Of all the—”

  Others in the restaurant stared at him. One man immediately recognized his face and matched it with the face that had been on the holoscreen moments before. The man pointed at Hideki. Others stared.

  “Hideki, keep calm,” Susan warned, setting down her utensils with careful deliberation. “You don’t want to respond until you’re settled. You know how this works from a P.R. perspective.”

  Hideki swallowed, but the lump in his throat was thick. “I have to get to the office, at the very least.”

  Susan nodded. “Of course you do. Be careful, okay? We’ve weathered worse.” Her eyes shone with love and concern.

  “I will, I promise. Thanks for understanding, Susan. Sorry to ruin our date.”

  “You didn’t ruin it. Go on, step up to the plate.”

  Hideki came storming through the WBL main offices. He barely gave a nod of acknowledgement to the receptionist. His palm print accessed the door, which slid open a moment later.

  The WBL’s offices weren’t glamorous. Other than holodisplays broadcasting the baseball networks and scoreboards, little distinguished it from another business. Six foot by six foot cubes stretched for a long distance, filled with accountants, interns, marketers, and other office employees. Hideki’s office lay at the end of the row of cubes, a long gauntlet of a walk. Today, he moved quickly, eyes down but in front of him. He could feel the fear dripping from the others working there. He’d never considered himself a bad boss, never yelled at any of his employees. He couldn’t think of a time, even in having to fire someone, where he wasn’t as compassionate as possible.

  This news gave h
im the biggest sinking feeling he’d experienced since that last year of his career, when his batting average dipped below what was acceptable for a professional player. That feeling of not being long for the world of baseball consumed him. Worse, the others seemed to sense it as he arrived. The news made for an unstable situation for anyone here. If his tenure as Commissioner evaporated, would they be out of jobs as well? Who’s to say Yonder Cabrera wouldn’t make wholesale changes if he succeeded in ousting Hideki?

  None of that mattered at the moment. He let out a deep sigh, and leaned his head back against the wall. Worst case scenario would lead to a vote for his removal. There had to be a way to stop that.

  “Why?” Hideki asked no one in particular.

  A knock at his office door replied to him.

  “Not now,” Hideki said. His irritation seethed through his voice.

  “Commish, it’s me, Jared. I heard the announcement. Just want to talk.”

  Hideki didn’t want to talk to anyone, though that had been the concept of coming into work. They needed to discuss strategies, brainstorming, and plans for the coming months. During the ride over to the office, Hideki had found himself wanting to shut himself in and approach no one. Reluctantly, he turned and opened the door.

  Jared stepped inside, and passed him. Hideki shut the door behind him. “What a disaster,” Jared said, pacing in front of Hideki’s desk.

  “I’m already stressed enough. Sit down if you want to talk. Being antsy will only make it worse. We need to keep calm, stay rational about this,” he said, remembering Susan’s words to him earlier. She was right, as always.

  Jared pulled out one of the chairs in front of Hideki’s desk. The cushion was made of beige faux leather, with dark wooden arms and legs. Jared slumped over one of the arms. “We need to do a press conference. I’ve already got more than a dozen vidmails from reporters asking for my comments.”