Jed Curtis had just escaped a meeting, returned to his desk at Curtis Capital Group in Issaquah, Wash., when he saw a spasm of craziness filling his computer screen. Three thousand miles away, an otherwise unassuming Yankees outfielder named Brett Gardner was taking umbrage with an umpire named Paul Emmel’s strike zone.
Emmel didn’t care to debate. He threw Gardner out of the game.
“Well how about this bit of timing,” Jed Curtis said to himself.
Inside the home dugout at Yankee Stadium, Colin Curtis felt a brief surge of adrenaline. Curtis has settled comfortably into his role in The Bronx: support player, occasional starter, pinch-hitting option on a team that rarely pinch hits — in other words, a glorious alternative to spending a minor league summer in Scranton. A few seconds earlier, he had been sipping Gatorade and shifting anxiously on the bench.
Now, he looked at bench coach Tony Pena, jumped up, went looking for a batting glove and a bat and a helmet, and by the time Pena made it official that Curtis would need to finish Gardner’s at-bat, Curtis barely had time to think, let alone prepare.
“I didn’t even know if I was allowed to take a practice swing,” he said.
There were 47,523 rambunctious onlookers who had spent much of the afternoon savoring a Yankees romp, who spent some of it anxiously watching the Angels cut a 6-0 lead to 6-5, and who were now livid at losing Gardner with men on first and third, one out, the lead back up to 7-5 in the seventh inning. They barely noticed Curtis, who inherited an 0-and-2 count from Gardner.
Back in Issaquah, Jed Curtis peered in at the screen, watched his 25-year-old son take ball one, ball two, ball three. He marveled at the kid’s patience, especially since he had only one at-bat in the previous 10 days. Now, with a full count, Angels reliever Scot Shields would have to throw a strike.
Shields threw the strike.
And the next sound heard in The Bronx was the familiar gush of 47,523 voices tracking a baseball as it soars over the right-field wall, and the next sound heard at Curtis Capital Group in Issaquah, Wash., was the sound of a man who either had cashed a lottery ticket or stepped on something sharp, a roar that spilled out of his office, all but crashed out the window and down Southeast 56th Street, all the way to the Cougar Mountains.
“People weren’t sure if I was happy or if I had hurt myself,” Jed Curtis said. “When they came to check on me I just pointed at the screen.”
What they saw was Colin Curtis rounding the bases, getting pounded at home plate by his teammates, entering the dugout then being pushed out to receive a curtain call. Jed Curtis had grown up in Fargo, N.D., a Roger Maris fan, and Colin wore No. 9 at Arizona State and at Scranton to honor Maris, and now his teammates were doing to him what Maris’ had done on Oct. 1, 1961.
“Soon as it happened,” Jed Curtis said, “I got an e-mail that said, ‘Colin just had his Maris moment.’ ”
By this point, of course, father and son could feel the same lump rising in their throats even if they were separated by 2,831 miles. Ten years ago, the Curtis family had shared the joyous news that Colin was healthy again after fighting testicular cancer. That was a great day, probably the greatest day.
“But this,” Colin admitted, “isn’t so bad, either.”
Curtis tried not to be overwhelmed by the moment, because the Yankees still had to finish out a 10-6 win. But it was hard. First, there was Gardner, whom he saw by the underground batting cage.
“You’re welcome,” Gardner said, smiling.
Then Reggie Jackson found him, shook his hand, told him how proud he was of him.
“I have a ways to go to catch you,” Curtis said.
“Well,” Jackson replied, “you’re officially one closer. And I’m not going anywhere.”
As Derek Jeter later pointed out, “It was a memorable homer for him, but it was an important one for us.”
But it was important for Curtis, too. You want to savor every second of big league life, sure. But you have to believe you belong, too.
“I think he already knew,” Jed Curtis said. “But I think he believes even more now.”
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com