The Hohokam may have had a winning streak, but for Jason, the bright afternoons are getting darker and darker. What’s the opposite of a trading surplus? He’s liquidated all he can (the Cadillacs, the memorabilia, the fancy furniture and kitchen gadgets) to cover his losses. Apparently his Pacific Palisades house was on the market in February, stripped clean of everything but the staging furniture. But its sale carried him only a few weeks; quickly, again, his bank account sloped into a sorry state. Sara, who has become an ally (like Liana’s housekeeper, she responds well to hundred-dollar bills), passes me details while she smokes in the players’ parking lot between innings. It’s Sara who confirms that he’s sleeping on a cot in the stadium’s supply shed; there’s no way Joe Templeton could say no to the MVP. She also tells me Jason asked Herb for money, but Herb, still pissed about Nike and his lost commission, thought Jason was joking. He told him to go fuck himself, in any case. It’s true, sometimes these athletes need tough love, but Sara, in telling me about Jason’s pitiful plea—how the three of them went to Herb’s favorite restaurant and Jason, mustering up the courage or humility to ask for help, looked like he was near about to cry—just shakes her head.

As the spring season sprints toward its close, as Jason’s debts continue to tumble down the mountain, the threats against him increase: of physical injury, of insurmountable indignity. Jason knows that if his lender goes public, all his endorsement contracts, present and future, will go the way of his Nike shoe. When was the last time anyone saw John Daly selling any damn thing? Maybe he’s more likely to get a suspension and a dozen league-mandated appointments with a shrink (though Liana’s already tried that, so much therapy, solo and couples’ and even hypnotism) than what happened to Charlie Hustle, but still—what would happen if Twitter got a hold of this? His money guy wasn’t exactly a check-cashing operation. These kind of associations, this kind of tomfoolery? They’d tear him limb from limb, and then, no one’d touch him. Why should the Lions be loyal to him when he’s fraternizing with scumballs, making poor decisions, acting highly irrational? When he’s sleepwalking in left field and skipping out on games for a round or three of blackjack? Even with his tank on empty he’s better than most players, but then he makes one error, and another; he’s swinging and missing more and more. Herb’s about to blow a gasket, Sara tells me one morning, and she looks like she’s running a bit ragged herself.