Chapter 5: Eight O'Clock
Dennis Ward's office was not impressive.
A single window faced the back of the stadium wall.
There was a metal desk, two chairs, a whiteboard with play diagrams from two seasons ago still faintly visible under newer writing, and a wall of photographs.
Some framed, some taped.
Players in various uniforms across various decades.
Dennis in catching gear that looked forty years old.
A handwritten note pinned near the window that read: *Details win games.
Pride loses them.*
Jordan sat in the chair across from Dennis and looked at the photographs while Dennis poured two cups of coffee, set one down in front of Jordan without asking whether he wanted it, and settled into his own seat.
"Did you sleep?" Dennis asked.
"Not much."
"Me neither." Dennis wrapped both hands around his cup.
"You eat breakfast?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good." He looked at Jordan for a moment.
"I spent last night making some phone calls.
I want you to know what I found out before we talk about anything else."
Jordan waited.
"Your father's baserunning record at Single-A.
Still intact.
Thirty-one stolen bases in thirty-three attempts in a single season.
The league record at the time was twenty-eight." Dennis let that sit for a moment.
"I also found out that the knee injury was mismanaged.
He should have been given six months and a proper surgical consult.
He was given four weeks and rushed back because the team was in a pennant push." He paused.
"That's not public knowledge.
But I know the trainer who was there.
He's been carrying that for a long time."
Jordan's hands were around the coffee cup.
He didn't drink from it.
"He never told us that part," Jordan said quietly.
"He wouldn't have." Dennis leaned back.
"Men like your father don't tell people when they've been wronged.
They just keep going." A pause.
"You're the same way.
I saw it yesterday."
Jordan looked up.
"You could have walked away when Chase laughed at you.
Most fourteen-year-olds would have."
"I'm not most—"
"I know you're not," Dennis said.
"That's why you're in this office."
He opened the top drawer of his desk and set a form on the table between them.
Jordan looked at it.
It was a Falcons organization letterhead.
The word *EVALUATION* was printed at the top.
"This is not an offer," Dennis said carefully.
"I want to be honest with you.
I can't make promises I don't have the authority to make.
What this is — is the beginning of a formal evaluation process.
You would come in three times a week.
I would work with you personally.
At the end of sixty days, I submit a report to the director of player development.
What happens after that is up to them and up to you."
Jordan stared at the form.
"I'd have to talk to my mom."
"She's in the hallway," Dennis said.
"I asked her to come."
Jordan looked at the door.
Then back at Dennis.
"You planned this."
"I planned the conversation," Dennis said.
"I don't plan outcomes.
That's the difference between a coach and a gambler." He nodded toward the door.
"Bring her in."
Tamara Price sat in the second chair with her coat still on and her hands folded in her lap and read the evaluation form carefully.
All the way through.
She turned it over to check the back.
Then she set it down and looked at Dennis.
"What does this cost us?" she asked.
"Nothing," Dennis said.
"Nothing is never nothing."
"Fair," Dennis said.
"It costs Jordan three afternoons a week for two months.
It costs you the uncertainty of not knowing what comes next.
And it costs both of you the risk of hoping for something that may not materialize." He met her eyes.
"I won't dress it up.
Baseball is a hard road.
Most people who start it don't finish where they wanted to.
But your son has something I have not seen in a fourteen-year-old in twenty-three years of coaching, and I would not be able to look at myself in that photograph—" He pointed to a picture on the wall.
A young Dennis in catching gear, grinning.
"—if I didn't at least open the door."
Tamara looked at the photograph.
Then at her son.
"Jordan."
"I want to try," he said.
Immediately.
No hesitation.
She nodded once.
Picked up the pen from Dennis's desk.
Signed the form.
The door opened without a knock.
Chase Dalton stood in the doorway.
He was not in practice gear.
He was in street clothes.
He was carrying a box.
He looked at Dennis.
Then at Tamara.
Then at Jordan.
"I knocked," he said.
"Down the hall.
Wrong door." He stepped inside.
Set the box on the edge of the desk.
"These are for you."
Jordan looked at the box.
Inside, nested in white tissue paper, were a pair of professional-grade cleats.
The right size.
New.
Laces still factory-white.
"Chase," Dennis said carefully.
"I'm not done," Chase said.
He reached into his jacket pocket and set an envelope beside the box.
"That's a check.
It covers six months of private coaching fees, equipment, and travel costs for evaluation sessions." He looked at Tamara.
"Not charity.
A debt.
I said something yesterday I shouldn't have said.
About Marcus."
Tamara's expression did not change.
"That doesn't make it unhappen," she said.
"No," Chase said.
"It doesn't." He looked at Jordan.
"I knew your father.
Not well.
But I knew him.
And what I said yesterday — that was wrong.
He deserved better than what this organization gave him.
And you deserved better than what I said in front of those men."
The room was quiet.
Jordan looked at the cleats.
"Do I still get the car?" he asked.
Dennis made a sound that was almost a laugh.
He covered it with his hand.
Chase looked at the boy for a long moment.
Then, slowly, something shifted in his face.
Not a smile exactly.
Something more complicated and more real.
"Let's see how the next sixty days go," he said.
Jordan nodded.
He reached into the box and lifted out the left cleat.
Turned it over in his hands.
Set it carefully back in the tissue paper.
"I'll wear mine today," he said.
"The ones I came in."
Chase started to say something.
Jordan looked up at him evenly.
"I'm not ready to stop wearing them yet," he said.
"My dad taped those."
Chase closed his mouth.
Picked up the empty box.
Set it by the door.
May you like
Nobody said anything after that.
But nobody needed to.
