Richard Fitts’s career-altering night in December did not begin with a warning. It did not begin with a dramatic, movie-like reveal to him, nor did it begin with a feeling or hint that his life was about to change.
It began with a sudden phone call.
And yet, that phone call was enough for Fitts to know something was up. The pitching prospect in the New York Yankees organization wasn’t much of a caller, so it was rare for him to feel his phone buzz in his pocket. But that phone just kept buzzing. And buzzing. Enough to where it took his focus away from the dinner he was eating at a Christmas party with some of the pitchers he worked out with over the offseason.