It was a rare rainy day at the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas as Spuds’ General Manager Woody Donahue watched the rain pound against the convention center windows. It had been a stressful day of dodging reporters, who all kept asking questions to which he didn’t have the answers. Why did the Spuds lose 100 games last season? What will you do this year to turn the team around? He kept telling them the usual things: trust the process, two seasons aren’t enough of a sample size, especially to judge his work — after all, the highest-level player drafted under his tenure was only in Double-A — but he still got the impression they thought he was driving the team into the ground.
He was finishing a bagel sandwich and enjoying a nice moment of respite when he saw another reporter rounding the corner into the main hall. It was that idiot, Banjo Jackson, from Nashville, and he looked hungry for a story. You can tell when a reporter is “on the prowl”, they have this look in their eyes like they’re stalking their next prey, but also anxious because they have a fast-approaching deadline.
Donahue could think of nothing he wanted less than to endure another round of questioning, so he seized the opportunity to duck behind the buffet table. Carefully, he snuck around the perimeter of the room until he reached a door to a side hallway leading to who knows where, but it was his only hope. He pushed it open and bolted.
Almost immediately, he collided with a dark-haired woman in the hallway, sending them both sprawling to the ground. After a moment, he came to his senses, got up and extended his hand to help her, but that’s when he noticed two things.
- She was quite attractive.
- Wait… did he know her from somewhere?
That was where he knew her from — she was on the Spuds’ cheerleading squad, the Tater Thots. But what on earth was she doing here at the Winter Meetings? There weren’t any cheerleading shows on the program, at least as far as he knew.
“I- uh…” he stuttered, still a bit out of breath. “Wait, don’t you kinda work for me?”
“Oh, the cheer squad in Boise?” she said. “That’s just a side gig. Though I am impressed you recognize me.”
“I try to pay attention to all uniformed personnel on the field, to make sure the product is the best experience it can be for the fans.”
“I guess it’s admirable that you care about the fan experience,” the woman said. “But maybe you should focus more on the team. You know the offense was dead last in the Johnson in OPS+ last season.”
Donahue was taken aback. He didn’t just spend the whole day dodging reporters only to get negged in a hallway by one of his own cheerleaders.
“Who are you?” Donahue asked. “Who do you work for? The league?”
The woman smiled. “A bit higher up than that.”
Donahue tried to get a glimpse of her badge. It was one of those red ones, reserved for people with the highest security clearance. Jenn Sosinski, it said. All it said below that, where you’d normally see the name of someone’s organization, was THE MAN.
Who the hell was The Man? He needed to get to the bottom of this. He found his gaze shifting from her name tag to her body, the shape of which he could just make out under her suit. He needed to get to the bottom of that, too.
“Well, Jenn, maybe you can tell me more over drinks at Mike Morey’s tonight? Unless you have cheer practice, of course.”
She considered the proposal for a few moments. Finally she smiled. “That would be nice,” she said.
“Meet me there at 7:30. Hopefully the rain clears up by then.”
“It won’t. See you there.”
The woman walked away, towards the end of the hallway, but before she reached it, she called out, “By the way, you’re not supposed to be in here. You don’t have the security clearance.”
He sighed and made his way back into the main hall, steeling himself for the barrage.
“Mr. Donahue?” piped that annoying reporter as soon as he spotted him. “Banjo Jackson, Nashville Sun. Just a couple of questions, if you can spare a few minutes…”
Part III >>