The New York Yankees no longer wanted Alex Verdugo to play left field, so he decided he didn’t want to, either. It was the middle of September—a lifetime before he lifted the team to a 5–4 victory in Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday—and he found himself in his apartment at midnight with his hand in a bucket of delivery fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, searching for comfort. Something about the moment snapped him out of what he now calls a “spiral.
Man, he thought. I’ve gotta stop.
