Jerome Powell spent the morning in the gym, as he always does. Some calisthenics, some weights, a bit of time in the sauna. Shower, dry off, and then he checks his phone.
Nothing.
He'd checked it when he woke up, and about every five minutes between that moment and the moment he stuffed it in his gym locker. It's nothing fancy -- a smartphone technically, though Jerome doesn't go in for the games or apps or whatever it is the kids are into these days. He uses it to talk. Preferably, he'd talk to his agent.
He's fully dressed by now, ready to leave the gym and head back to his house, maybe get a smoothie on the way. He runs a calloused hand through his thinning hair, and then checks his phone again. It's been a couple minutes, right? You never know. Maybe his agent got an offer, or heard of a team looking for some veteran bullpen help.
Nothing.
---
Jerome Powell got his first taste of the big leagues pitching for the Long Beach Surfers. You know, before they became the Tucson Cactus. He'd only had eight starts, and kind of blew it through all of them. Powell was used to adversity though -- really, for a third round pick to be starting games at all was to defy the odds already. He'd bounce back. And he did, following a trade to the Washington Bobwhites. You know, before they became the Halifax Hawks. He spent over seven years with the Bobwhites, mostly as a starter with some relief work thrown in, and then saw himself dealt again -- this time to Chicago (the first team he played for to not end up relocating, something of a relief to the superstitious Powell). He played in the Windy City for another few years, a pure starter now, established as a middle of the rotation kind of guy -- nothing fancy, but he showed up on time and worked hard and got his share of strikeouts. Before too long though, he was off to Omaha, and then Carolina, and then Atlantic City.
Powell never minded moving around. He had no delusions that he would ever be a franchise player, and if moving a few thousand miles meant he could keep playing baseball, well hell, what's the big deal? He always made some fans wherever he went, he was that kind of guy. He'd visit the hospitals, sign the autographs, and work so damn hard that it was impossible not to like him. A real fan favourite, locally. And if the national newspapers never bothered to mention him, well, that didn't bother him at all.
---
"Hey, Doug, you hear anything?"
Doug sighed on the other end. Doug sighed a lot. Doug was Jerome's agent, and Jerome had a feeling the sighing had something to do with the fact that he was Jerome's agent.
"I'm checking around, you know I am."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know Doug. Look, you hear anything, you let me know alright?"
"Of course. You're still sure you don't want to talk coaching?"
"I'm a player, Doug. I'm a ballplayer. I throw the ball. I'm not a coach. Maybe when I'm older, but not now."
Jerome was no spring chicken. In fact, he currently has the honour of being the oldest free agent in baseball. At 44, he's survived hundreds and thousands of baseball players (not to mention a couple of franchises), and he was determined not to give up the ghost just yet. He wasn't retired and he wasn't retiring -- he was just between teams, a free agent. Of course, he'd been between teams for a minute now; his last season of baseball had been in 2021, working in the bullpen for the EBA's Brussels Eagles.
---
At 40, Jerome still felt like a productive pitcher. He'd pitched in 36 games for Atlantic City, starting more than half of them. The year before that, with Carolina, he'd started 34 games -- that was more than all but two other pitchers in baseball! How could he be too old to play? But, the phone hadn't been ringing much from the majors, so he finally decided to take his agents advice and try his luck across the pond. An MBBA veteran could always count on finding work in Europe, and it was actually refreshing to have to pick and choose which offer to accept -- he finally agreed to a one year deal with Amsterdam. It would pay him almost a million dollars, which wasn't much baseball-wise, but would make him one of the wealthier EBA players. Pitch for a year in Holland, prove he still had it, then come back to America for another few years. What could go wrong?
Unfortunately, while his MBBA pedigree impressed the European GMs, he had a hard time impressing the European managers. Jerome found himself working the bullpen as often as he started, and neither role seemed to produce much in the way of results. Amsterdam parted ways with him at the end of the year, and now Doug could hardly get a phone call with American teams, let alone a contract. There was nothing for Jerome to do by then but grit his teeth, and find another European team willing to give him some starts.
Brussels was happy to give him a deal -- only for one year, and for chump change, but it was still a contract -- and Jerome found himself working out of the bullpen not half the time, but all the time. Three years removed from starting over thirty games in the MBBA, Jerome found himself for the first time a full-time reliever. Even more humiliating, however, was the fact that he was only four years removed from making $12,500,000 in Omaha, and now he was taking home less than one percent of that figure. And after his year in the bullpen with a 5.40 ERA to show for it, Jerome now found himself unable to talk his way into even a European contract.
Still. Forty-four wasn't old. I mean, it's not young, but it's not ancient either. Plenty of guys have played baseball at the age of forty-four. I mean, sure, not a lot have played at forty-four after taking a season off. But who knows, maybe Jerome will be the first? He'd even take a minor league deal at this point.
---
Jerome checked his phone again. It had been a few minutes.
Nothing.
