Unless you count the time he managed his fantasy team to a third-place finish in a ten-person league where two people stopped setting their lineups after April.
It was a Friday night when fate struck.
Graham sat at his usual booth at Señior Pedro’s Cantina, a place that smelled like three-day-old margarita mix and regret. His laptop screen glowed with the Global Baseball Consortium job board. He refreshed the webpage for what seemed liked the fiftieth time in the past hour, and suddenly three job openings smacked him in the face like a high and tight four-seamer:
He nearly spit out his room temperature Modelo Especial.OPEN GM POSITIONS:
• Tokyo Pearls
• Jerusalem Hebrew Hammers
• Johannesburg Gold
Tokyo. A baseball utopia. Graham had been to Tokyo once and returned with a koi fish tattoo, three pounds of matcha, and a deep spiritual connection to Japanese baseball so intense it once caused him to tear up during a YouTube montage of Senzo Sato bunt highlights. He owned three bonsai. Meditated to shakuhachi flute music.
But Tokyo didn’t need Graham Luna. They needed someone with, like, a resume. Or pants without cargo pockets.
Jerusalem? Hmm, a feisty overachiever. They reminded him of his own childhood—overextended, emotionally caffeinated, and filled with bar mitzvahs. Graham was a non-practicing Jew, but with very practicing guilt. He loved the Hebrew Hammers. He once pitched a blog series called Sabbath Sabermetrics that no one read, but he still felt spiritually bonded to the idea of managing a team with a menorah in the dugout.
And yet…
Johannesburg Gold. A reclamation project by every definition of the word. A team so bad their mascot became a meme when he slipped on a grilled boerewors and took out the third-base ump.
Graham had no ties to Johannesburg. Didn’t speak Afrikaans. In fact, until five minutes ago, he was 60% sure Johannesburg was coastal. (Spoiler: it’s not.)
He stared at the job board, chewing on a straw he had no memory of acquiring. All three teams flickered on the screen like blinking lights on a pinball machine: Tokyo. Jerusalem. Johannesburg.
One was a well-oiled dynasty-in-waiting. One was gritty and soulful. One was absolute chaos in cleats.
He reached for his keyboard.
Paused.
Cracked his knuckles.
Paused again.
Somewhere in the distance, a minor league game played on a dusty television. The crack of the bat. A roar from a dozen loyal fans. The smell of stale popcorn.
Graham closed the laptop without typing a word.
Not yet. Not tonight.
He’d sleep on it. Consult the bonsai. Maybe rewatch that documentary about the 2047 El Paso Chilis' 125 loss season.
But tomorrow? Tomorrow, destiny might just get an email.
Or maybe three.
