The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

ERWIN 33
Ryan momentarily forgot his conundrum. He stared at Collier, riveted, as if he hadn’t seen him dozens of
times before.
“You ate the button?”
“Yeah. Love doing that. It’s like, I took this and the only way you’re getting it back is to comb through my--“
“Okay, I get it. That can’t be good for you, though.”
“Well, I swallowed it whole, didn’t chew it. It’s about the size of a multivitamin so no big deal.”
Collier curled his index finger into the pad of his thumb to make a small circle in illustration. Ryan started
to worry about the last year and a half of his contract, which the Blue Jays now owned. What was he
dealing with here?
“That button is the property of the Minnesota Twins.”
Collier shrugged, thoroughly unmoved.
“Maybe if they didn’t employ guys who threw at people for no reason they wouldn’t have lost it.”
“It wasn’t for no reason,” Ryan said.
If he’d taken a second to think things through, he wouldn’t have said it. This was no way to prepare for a
relief appearance. But occasionally he did things as instinctually as sticking his glove out to snag a liner
back to the box.
“Hitting a home run’s not a reason,” Collier said.
“No, but he stood at the plate after he hit it. Stood there for 1.8 seconds. We timed it in the bullpen. You
know you can’t let that go.”
“One point eight seconds, big deal,” Collier said. “That’s like one Mississipp—"
ISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2021