Bob Melvin, manager of the San Francisco Giants, has just been suspended after a secret about him was unveiled.

Matt Williams was fishing in the pond he had stocked with bass in the backyard of his Phoenix house one autumn afternoon, not long after the 1996 baseball season. Williams’s life ahead of him looked so easy. He had performed the sanguine computation of a thirty-year-old baseball player, fully sure of the universal order. His stint with the San Francisco Giants would be coming to an end by the time he turned forty. Soon after, his three young children would leave the house to go to college and get employment. Along with his spouse, he would visit all the locations he had never been to: Asia, Ireland, or wherever else he desired. He said, “You have these ideas and these plans.”

He was a star thanks to baseball; he made all-star teams, amassed Gold Gloves while playing third base, and once came close to breaking the single-season home run record. Players who were terrified by him ultimately referred to him as one of their favorite teammates. His intense passion earned him the nickname “Big Marine” and unusual respect. He committed his life to his family; two years prior, his wife Tracie had told a reporter from Sports Illustrated, “I could tell when I first met him that this was a family man.”

The phone rang when he was fishing. He was informed that he had been traded to the Cleveland Indians by Brian Sabean, the general manager of the Giants. In disbelief, he recalls hearing Sabean inquire as to whether he could travel to Cleveland for a press conference.

He reported for spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, that February. When Tracie arrived at the door after arriving by plane to meet him, she declared her desire for a divorce.