The apartment was quiet when Nina got home. Wesley was sitting at the kitchen table. The glove laid flat between them, initials up like evidence in a trial. “Mama, whose glove is this?” Nina set her bag down.
“Your grandfather's.” No, it wasn't. He turned the glove over, ran his finger along the stitching. Tight, professional, machine grade. “I looked it up. This is custom fitted. These stitches come from a factory that only makes gear for signed players.”
He looked at her. “Whose glove is this, really?” Nina sat down. Her hands were shaking. She looked at the initials, J I, and something behind her eyes collapsed.
She told him everything. James Irving, his father, the most dominant left-handed pitcher to come out of Chicago's amateur circuit in a generation. Scouted at 19, signed at 20. Fastball clocked at 96. The kind of velocity that makes scouts call their bosses from the parking lot.
They called him the next great arm. But James was loud. Not arrogant, honest. He saw black players paid less than white players with the same stats. Black coaches passed over for men with half their experience.
Scouting reports called white pitchers cerebral and black pitchers athletic. The same code words generation after generation. James spoke about it publicly, named names, cited numbers, made powerful people uncomfortable in rooms where comfort was the only currency. At 22, his contract was quietly terminated. No other team called.
James Irving was blacklisted. Not on paper, but in the silence between phone calls that never came. Within two years, warehouse nights. Within five, the warehouse had eaten his shoulders, his knees, and the arm that was supposed to change everything. He died at 29.