THE WATCH ON Gabe Kapler's left wrist started as a curiosity and traveled a smooth path to obsession. Big, chunky and obviously expensive, it was both striking and vexing. Morning or afternoon, the time on the watch bore no resemblance to the actual time of day.
Even more vexing, the time was never identifiable as being wrong in a way that made sense. It wasn't just a little off, and it wasn't aligned with a non-Pacific time zone. It was just wrong, randomly, and it made me wonder if the watch was some outward manifestation of the man's internal clock.