The spirit of baseball past was a young upscale professional-- exactly the kind of fan we're trying to bring to our ballpark. She wore a powder blue skirt with matching jacket, and looked like a stockbroker or financial consultant. "I'm Deirdre," she said.

"Deirdre?" I asked. I couldn't pronounce it correctly. I tried again, but did no better. "Deirdre?" I was in my suite at the Royal Crown, and she was standing next to the TV, which I had turned off after the news.

"You can call me Dee," she said. "I'm your guide, Mr. Courtland."

She gave me a business card that identified her as a spirit of baseball present. I was bowled over by the list of phone numbers: office, home, and car phone numbers, voice mail, fax, and pager numbers. "Looks like we'll be able to stay in touch," I said. Then I asked her why she was my guide.

"Because I'm a spirit of baseball present?" she asked. "Don't worry. I'm a total professional."

"You materialized out of thin air," I observed. "That's as professional as it gets."

"Downsizing," she said. "It's everywhere these days, and we have to be crosstrained for different jobs."

I nodded. Fans of Deirdre's caliber only come to the ballpark for special occasions: the playoffs, the World Series.

"I have to handle whatever comes my way."

They sit in the best boxes and talk on their cellular phones throughout the game, and I love to see them at the park.

"But I have to admit I've never done this past thing before."

"So this is your first time?" I asked.

"For the past, yes. But I've done the present lots of times."

"Well, there's always a first time for everybody," I said, trying to make a joke.

"I can't begin to tell you how many times I've done baseball present."

Dee was very attractive-- straight blonde hair that came down to her shoulders, wispy bangs over her forehead, intelligent eyes that were a no-nonsense blue, a wide sensuous mouth-- and I wondered what people would think when they saw us together.

I never stay at a hotel where any ballplayers stay, especially my own ballplayers, but there were other denizens of the game here at the R C-- front office people, media people, the shifty-eyed federal mediator from the Shane London arbitration.

"Look," I said. "If we're going down to the lobby I'm not sure it's a good idea for us to be seen together."

"You can't be seen with me?" she asked. Mock anger. "Is there something wrong with the way I look, Mr. Courtland?"

"Oh no," I said. "God no." She laughed, and I realized she'd been teasing me. "Look," I said. "Baseball's a competitive business. People see you with me they might exploit it for competitive advantage."

"Are you talking about Gerald Bicknell?" she asked. "The federal mediator?"

"Yes," I said. "I have two more players in arbitration."

She said nobody could see her. "It isn't possible for anyone but the client to see me."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" She looked very substantial. "You're invisible?" I reached out to touch her then, but she stepped backward, walked to the door, where she slid back the chain lock. "I'm not a special effect," she said. Then she made a point of opening the door, her hand in solid contact with the doorknob. "We don't go through walls."

I followed her down the corridor to the waiting elevator. It was empty. When it let us out on the ground floor, she said I should take her arm.

I did. It was a nice arm, and real. As was the heady smell of her perfume.

"Surprised?" she asked. "You didn't really think your hand would go through me, did you?"

She led me through the atrium lobby, with its waterfall and jungle plants and big chairs around glass cocktail tables and we walked right up to the federal mediator. He was talking to someone, but he seemed to nod at me and I nodded back in confusion.

"Are you still angry about Shane London?" asked Dee. "Or have you gotten over it?"

My eyes were on Bicknell, and he was gazing past me, through me, oblivious to me. I was invisible to him, but I lowered my voice anyway. "He won the Cy Young award, but he choked in the playoffs," I said. Bicknell was right next to me, and it was hard to believe he didn't hear me.

"Let it go," she said. "Just let go of it."

"Easy for you to say, Dee, but it's my money. "

She motioned for me to sit down at one of the glass-topped cocktail tables.

"He didn't deserve the eight million he demanded, and he doesn't deserve the six million you awarded him, Bicknell." I spoke loudly, looking right at him. He didn't bat an eye. Then I returned my attention to Dee. "He doesn't even deserve the four million I offered."

"Satisfied?" she asked. "Did I pass the test?"

"What do you mean?" She nodded toward Bicknell. "The invisibility?" I asked. "You didn't say I'd be invisible too." I wanted to enjoy the sensation. The man couldn't see me. Amazing. Nobody could see me.

She didn't answer, just smiled, a smug spirit of baseball present who would be taking me back to the past. You ain't seen nothin yet-- that's what her smile said.

A cocktail waitress came up to our table and said "It's good to see you again, Mr. Courtland, would you like something from the bar?"

I'm sure I turned white as a sheet. Dee was laughing. "Go ahead," she said. "You need a drink." The waitress was named Mandy. She knew me from other spring trainings.

My heart was racing, but I had enough wit about me to say "Only if you have one, Dee." I looked up at Mandy and said "I'll have the same thing she's drinking," and Mandy looked right at Dee, and said "Ma'am?"

So much for invisibility.

Dee ordered wine, and I maintained a courteous silence until Mandy left us. Then I addressed Dee. "So it's all a big scam," I said. I was angry.

"Because the waitress saw us?" she asked. "I'm just trying to prepare you. Take my word for it-- she's the only one who can see us right now."

I stood up and turned toward Bicknell, intending to tap him on the shoulder, but my leg was too heavy to move, as was my arm, and I sat down again.

"You need to be prepared before we leave."

When Mandy came with our drinks, I told her to put it on my bill.

"Mr. Courtland doesn't want to pay cash," explained Dee. "He wants it on the record."

"Will it be there?" I asked. "On my hotel bill?"

"Absolutely," she said. "You'll be able to prove later on that all this has happened."

"Prove it to whom?"

"Yourself," she said. "No one else in the world would believe a word of it."