8/8/2014: Tempe, AZ – “Jesus, Joe,” Len muttered around his unlit cigar, “we’re three games under .500 since that putz left. Can’t you throw me a bone here?” Tempe’s interim GM strode back and forth angrily in his office, arms folded. Knights’ manager Joe Moore sat awkwardly in a spare chair that teetered unevenly on its central support.

“It’s not like I’m not trying to win, Len,” Moore replied testily. “it’s the last year of my contract, my wife is all up in my business asking me if we’re gonna have to move again, and I’ve got a roster full of players who wouldn’t have been with the team past spring training two seasons ago! To make matters worse, I gotta watch that bastard Matterson trot Hancock out there every coupl’a days when I’m 23 games behind!”

“At least you won’t see him again ‘til the end of the month,” Johnson retorted. “I’ve got freakin’Van Hauter calling me every freakin’ fifteen minutes wanting an update. An update on what, for chrissakes? How we’re gonna catch Bakersfield?”

Len paused at the window and looked outside longingly. The sun was setting merrily. They were long lost friends; he hadn’t left his office during the daylight hours since former GM Sascha Tesch had been fired. Len had been an assistant GM with Tempe for years, and he had waited patiently for a shot to run the whole show for all that time. But when they had hired an inexperienced guy like Tesch, Len figured he would never get his chance. In fact, he had resigned himself to that fact. Hell, when it got right down to it, he had been pretty much mailing it in this season. He had given up trying to argue against all of the crazy stuff Tesch was pulling. So now here he was, finally with a chance to prove his mettle, but with this crazy, handicapped roster. It was like they had sent him to a gunfight and called him back at the last second to remove five bullets from his six-shooter.

He sighed and kicked his empty plastic wastebasket halfheartedly. Moore shifted uncomfortably. “Uh… you hear anything from the top yet, Len?” he asked.

Len shook his head. “You’d think you needed freaking government clearance to get any information out of them. For all I know, the God darn bat boy is higher up the list than I am.” He ran his finger along a Knights’ official calendar hanging on his wall. “We got Kalamazoo and Omaha coming up. You and me worked a long time together, Joe. Can’t you put a freakin’ winning streak together for me? I heard Chris say he’s making a decision soon.”

The Tempe skipper put his hat back on and stood up. “I’ll do the best I can, Len. You always done right by me. I might get the kid Kazu in there a bit more, if the staff’s okay with it. He’s been seein’ the ball real good. But I ain’t got no Hancock I can throw out there. You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Johnson as the door closed behind his manager. “Don’t I freakin’ know it.”

Len’s Decision

8/16/2014: Tempe, AZ – Joe Moore winced as the wastebasket sailed across the room and clattered against the window shades.

“That’s it, Joe! That’s freakin’ it!” Len bellowed. “I don’t know why I even freakin’ bothered to stick around here all of these years. I’ve busted my butt for Van Hauter, and for what?! So he can hire some freakin’… bookworm who probably ain’t never seen the inside of a locker room in his life?!? I been in this business for thirty freakin’ years! I hadn’t heard of no Sascha Tesch before! And we seen how that turned out! ‘Don’t trade Hancock in the freakin’ division,’ I said, and we seen how that turned out! And I ain’t never heard of no Steve Battisti, neither! Have you?! Of all the ridiculous, underhanded…” he paused, fuming, at a loss for words.

Len took a deep breath, and shook his head in frustration. “I quit, Joe,” he said quietly, giving a sardonic salute to his manager. “Nice workin’ with ya.” Muttering to himself, he swiped his team jacket from the coat rack angrily and stormed out of the office.

Joe sighed, feeling just a little bit older and more out of place. He stooped gingerly, one hand supporting his lower back, and restored the wastebasket to its home beside the desk. As he straightened, the door burst open again, and a red-faced Len Johnson reappeared in the doorway.

“On second thought,” Len shouted, brandishing the crumpled Tempe jacket, “do me one last favor, Joe. Stick this up Van Hauter’s butt for me!” Johnson hurled the jacket across the room. It swept across the desk, dragging reports and files along with it. It slowed and lingered for a moment at the edge of the desk, one sleeve outstretched towards them beseechingly, looking for all the world like a person trying to resist being swept over a waterfall. But over it went.