The Globe

Bats distributed to date: zero (per company auditors). Bats distributed to date: six (per the field correspondent). Equipment managers contacted: nine.

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I drove Tate into Seattle — my Seattle — on Friday afternoon. I had been pointing things out for the last hour: the Cascades behind us, the Boeing hangars around Sea-Tac, Mt. Rainier showing itself eastward through the haze.

Tate, pointing: "And that's the Space Needle."

I told him about my time at the Post-Intelligencer as we drove. The building stayed lit all night because somebody was always on deadline. We had a copy desk that argued about Oxford commas like it could change who got elected. My desk was by the window, and the glass rattled when the trucks left the loading dock. I loved it.

We pulled into a motel on Aurora. The rate was sixty-eight dollars.

Tate, in the lot: "You don't have a place here?"

"I sublet my apartment for this trip."

He nodded once.

The room smelled like every motel we'd stayed in.

Friday night the Seattle Dept. of Precipitation hosted the Kansas City of Fountains, and Tate had a man in mind. Mid-fifties, bench-coach lineage, currently in a quiet role he would rather not have written up. Tate coordinated the face-to-face the way he finds everyone in every corridor. The handshake was perfunctory — less intricate than the one I logged in Hillsboro, but still inside baseball.

"We were in Anaheim when your guys scored on bats that snapped," Tate said. "Let me show you wood that won't."

The man looked at the bat in Tate's hand. He did not reach for it. He gave us a name and a number at the Everett AquaSox, the High-A affiliate up the road.

Walking back to the wagon, Tate looked at the bat instead of me. "We'd be calling cold."

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Saturday I drove to the house in Wallingford. I had not been there since Christmas.

I had texted my 17-year-old son Asher on Friday night. Friday turned to Saturday morning without a reply. I drove over to the house anyway. I could find that block by muscle memory from any direction.

My ex opened the door before I rang the bell. The '91 Roadmaster's rattle had announced me. She wore a gray cardigan that I knew meant "lazy morning".

"Is he home?" I said.

"They," she said.

"Sorry?"

"They. They them."

"Since when?"

"Since new year's." She ran a hand through her hair. "It's been an adjustment."

A pause where I was supposed to know what to do.

"Is Asher home?" I sidestepped.

"I'm sorry, Marshall. It's Reed College admit weekend. They drove down to Oregon yesterday to check it out."

"By himself, or—?"

"Do you want to come in?" She opened the door an inch. The hallway. The diffuse light from the kitchen. There would be a cup of tea cooling on the counter.

"I… can't."

"Decision Day was yesterday. I assume the trip means no decision yet, but I think it's down to Reed or Grinnell."

"U Dub would be a great fit."

She suppressed an eye roll, but not before I'd noticed it building.

"They want to be away from here."

I slid my hands into my back pockets because my arms didn't know what else to do.

"Is he back tomorrow? I could swing by on my way out."

"They're driving back Monday."

I had once thought I might be able to come back.

I drove up to Spud Fish & Chips on Green Lake — a walk-up counter that had been frying fish in Seattle since 1959. A place I didn't need Yelp for, because Asher and I had been regulars for a decade. I took a stool by the window. The fish and chips arrived. I ate half. I refreshed my Wallop standings. We'd watched Julio Rodriguez go deep twice on Friday for Tate, who had not touched his roster since the draft. I had moved three players since Wednesday and scored nothing. My debit card was declined on the first try. It cleared on the second.

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Saturday night the Dept. of Precipitation retired Randy Johnson's number 51. He came out from the first-base dugout. He is six-foot-ten and stooped a little when he waved. The number was raised next to Ichiro's already-retired 51, the crowd cheered, and then the crowd cheered for the next thing.

Tate, before the first pitch: "You ever get to see the Big Unit when he played here?"

"I missed his perfect game," I said. "I was on the night desk writing about a tax measure."

"Perfect game was with the Diamondbacks against Atlanta," Tate said. "2004. It was a no-hitter here, back in '90."

"Did the two of you overlap at all?"

"He came through Tucson on rehab in April '08. Two starts. Coming off his second back surgery in a year."

"Did you talk to him?" I asked.

"Caught a bullpen session for him the day after he got there." Tate was gazing out at the field.

"And?"

"He was tall. The session was short."

"And now he's in Cooperstown?" I ventured.

Tate looked at me, chuckled. "Now he's in Cooperstown."

After the game I drove us north on Westlake. I told Tate about the rest of it.

Past the Spheres on Lenora, past the Doppler tower, past the Day 1 building — they call this the Amazon campus now. I had a cubicle one block off Westlake in 2017 and 2018, writing safety procedures for warehouses I had never visited. The layoff came in '18, about the time my wife made VP there.

I told him about the Sumner break room — south of here, in warehouse country. By late 2020 I was picking up warehouse shifts. A sheet of safety procedures was taped to the corkboard. I recognized my own sentence constructions.

"You woke up where you weren't supposed to be." He shook his head.

We took Elliott on the way back. I pulled over across the street from the old Post-Intelligencer building. The globe still sits atop it where it has always been. The neon went dark a few years ago.

Tate, looking up at it: "I grew up flipping to the box scores every morning."

I had once thought I might go in. I didn't.

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Sunday morning Tate offered to drive. I said I had it. We agreed Everett wouldn't move the count.

Instead we drove east. The radio lost the city by Snoqualmie.

— Freely