We’ll see. Greg tried to tell himself there was hope in those words, a waver of it under the monotone. But the alternative, that backslide from three As to two, a career with the Kansas Oilmen, making a home in Lawrence, fifteen grand a season. That wasn’t any life.

So he agreed. Within an hour of Botter’s goodbye some woman called and scheduled him into surgery for the first week of October. Greg watched Jimmy and the Lions from his hospital bed: they were the wild card team that October, won the divisional round in a three-game sweep but then got swept themselves in the ALCS.

“How’d you sleep, Carve?” Jimmy plops down in the grass next to Greg, throws a thick leg out in front of him, and tries to wrap a finger around his cleat. He gets as far as his ankle and surrenders, pulling at his sock like that’s what he’d meant to do. While Carver was going under the knife, Jimmy spent the 2009 postseason playing backup catcher for the Lions. Even with his shitty bat he managed a couple of clutch hits that, along with his goofball grin, made Angelenos love him right out of the gates.

“Fine.” Greg and Jimmy had always bunked up, in spring training and during the Stallions’ season, an efficient two-bedroom in Salt Lake and double-queen hotel rooms on the road. But this year, with his starting role, Jimmy elected for a single room, his own California king; Greg, feeling as shaky about money as ever, asked the clubhouse coordinator for a new roommate. He got some kid bullpen catcher who snored like a chain saw—Greg has yet to sleep through an Arizona night.

“That hotel they’ve got us in is kinda ghetto, yeah?” Jimmy says, switching legs. They’ve been there four weeks, two weeks just of pitchers and catchers, and now two weeks of the season. “Found a gnarly bug in the bathroom this morning.” He struggles for his right foot. “Looked like a damn alien.”

Back in 2009 Greg could’ve told the Lions Jimmy would be their starting catcher, but who would’ve listened? No, Jimmy had to prove his worth in Los Angeles, and did: the least number of passed balls in the league through the first half of the season. American and National League, Jimmy would correct if he was trying to impress someone, usually a lady. Made pitchers look good, catching everything they threw. And all of a sudden every Lion liked to toss to the backup catcher. Even Stan Rogers, the team’s ace, asked for Jimmy rather than their old starter. Herb Allison signed him on, the other catcher went packing, and during this last off-season Jimmy renewed his contract for eight times as much as his last. When Greg heard that—Greg, living with his parents, struggling through four-a-week PT appointments at some dingy complex full of geriatrics and high school athletes, just starting to throw again, and without any sort of strength or control—his ears roared with a jealousy that came on so fast and strong it frightened him. Jimmy had been his catcher, before the team’s even.