The Gift of a Coach: A Novel of Baseball and Friendship

Chapter Eight: Second Times the Charm?

Jake's phone rang at 5:30 am the next morning and he rolled over, groaning.

His phone ringing at that obscene hour only meant something was probably wrong. He pulled off his covers and sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to rid them of sleep before he answered.

"Jake Wolff"

"Jake, we got a problem" It was Nick.

"I kind of assumed that, buddy when you're calling me at... not even 6 in the freaking morning. Wait, why are you even up? You're the one who likes your sleep." Jake laughed at his joke.

Nick didn't.

"Oh shoot," Jake thought. "Is this serious?"

"I'm up because of that problem," Nick said. Jake put his phone on speaker and started getting dressed.

"Alright," he said, taking a deep breath. "Give it to me straight"

"So remember the other day when I told you Brennan had to do a fundraiser to get that $500 or else?"

"Yes?" Jake said although it was more of a question than a reply.

"Yeah, so that "or else" part is now"

"Nick, what are you telling me?"

"Jake, if Brennan doesn't raise that $500 by the end of the week, we lose the field, the team, the assets. If we can't do that, Jake... we're done"

Jake couldn't believe what he just heard.

"And that's not all. If we're fired, Sam Adair doesn't have someone else," Nick said softly.

"Okay? They would just have to hire someone else," Jake said, shrugging on his jacket. He couldn't help but worry though. Nick only used his name a lot when he wanted to talk about something serious or important.

"Jake, Adair wants to bring back Rick Lane"

And that... almost made Jake want to throw up.

Jake rolled into the parking lot at 2 o'clock. The team was gonna be there at three but Jake and Nick had to figure out this humongous problem that had been hanging over their heads for the past few days, but it was just becoming a more real reality.

Ever since Nick had called him that morning, Jake had been more awake at 6 am than ever. He paced the walls of his bedroom for almost an hour trying to rack his brain for how he was going to even begin to tackle this. He couldn't focus straight though because all he could think about was the kids. How much he hadn't even begun to show them all he knew. He still needed to teach them about life, teach Kevin how to throw a curveball like Nolan Ryan once used to, and show them how much bigger baseball actually was. He had worked on a list of ideas for another hour and a half and then he just gave up. Jake had so much bottled-up energy the only thing he could think to do was go for a run. It was pretty freezing but he needed it.

He was halfway up the sidewalk of the local park when Jim Krank came walking down. Jake slowed down as he got nearer.

"Hey, Jake," Jim said, smiling but stopping when he looked at Jake's face. "Uh, oh. I know that look. Gotta release some energy?"

Jake breathed heavily as they started walking towards a bench and sat down together.

"Yeah, unfortunately," he sighed.

"What's up?" Jim asked, looking into Jake's eyes with a wisdom Jake had only seen one other time.

His father.

Jake ran his hand through his hair taking another deep breath. "My team got some bad news this morning and I just needed to blow off some steam until I decided how I'm gonna fix it"