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.