The President opened the strait before anyone signed the deal.

Out here I have poured coffee for every kind of confident man there is. The one who knows horses. The one who knows oil. And the one who tells you the deal is closed while the other fella is still out in the parking lot, deciding whether to come back inside. That last one always tips like the money is already his. It usually is not.

Saturday the President got on his website and made an announcement. The deal with Iran, he wrote, is scheduled to get signed tomorrow. And then, in capital letters, so the whole world would feel it: immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.

I want to be fair to the man. That is a fine sentence. It has a deal in it, a signature, a famous strait, and a promise. It has everything a good sentence needs except the one thing, which is the deal.

The other fella in the parking lot.

Same day the President was opening straits, the people on the other side of the table were reading off a different calendar. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, a man named Esmaeil Baghaei, said the thing would not be signed Sunday. He said the negotiators were not even packing a bag. He allowed it might get done in the coming days, which is the diplomatic way of saying we will see.

So one man says it is signed tomorrow and the water is open. The other man says nobody is traveling and nothing is signed. Those are not small differences. One of them is describing a finished deal. The other one is describing a phone call that has not ended well yet.

A strait is a real place.

Here is what gets me. The Hormuz Strait is not a mood. It is a stretch of water where about a third of the world’s tankers squeeze through single file, and a man cannot throw it open the way he throws open a barbecue. Open to all, he wrote, like he was cutting a ribbon on a new Buc-ee’s. The water does not read his website.

His own side knew it too. The American officials who actually do the work spent the day quietly telling reporters the agreement was not finished. Not open to all. Not signed tomorrow. Not done. Just close, maybe, the way a thing is always close right up until it is not.

I have watched a lot of men call the win in the top of the ninth. Out here we have a name for the fella who spikes the ball on the ten yard line. We call him next week’s news.