Chapter 7

"Colleen, Honey?" I said as I walked quietly from the bathroom into our bedroom. "I'm heading to the office. When you are all up and around, give me a call and we'll plan the day for after our meeting. Love you..."

We kissed twice more and she settled back into bed. James was fussy during the night and she missed a lot of sleep. With Yolanda on hand for any medical need, it was probably time to employ nurses to help care for the children, so Colleen and Rebecca could get good sleep. Colleen needed to rest and recover. That was far more important than dragging her out of bed to meet the head of player development from the big club.

We'd have to talk about it, later. Mr. Bell was waiting with Buddy Keats to walk through our operation.

I knew he was due in town today, but not when, so I slept late, which backfired when Keats and his staff showed up early.

Oh, well ... As Mr. Bell says, "Best Laid Plans..."

"Mr. Keats, I'm Brian Nelson." We shook hands and he introduced a woman and two young guys, who assisted him. Mr. Bell had ordered coffee, orange juice and a variety of fruit and pastries for our guests.

Mr. Bell said to meet them on the first floor - in the big conference room - which was odd. I understood his plan as soon as everyone finished their continental breakfast. "Gentleman and Larissa," Mr. Bell said. "Now that you've had a chance to slake your hunger and thirst for a little while - until our caterers deliver lunch, at least - we wanted to give you a tour of the facility. Our head of Operational Security has organized some golf carts for the outdoor portion of our tour, and we are ready to go, if you are.

'Smart, ' I thought. 'Let them be stunned when they see our facility and understand our plans. Good work Mr. Bell.'

Jack had four, four seat golf carts with drivers waiting at the front entrance, in the shade. Buddy hopped in with me, and Larissa with Mr. Bell. The other two chose the same cart, and Jack used the last one for himself. I knew they were all armed and that Jack was prepared for an assault. We had nothing to fear but that doesn't mean we should let our guard down, according to Jack and Winnie.

Mr. Bell showed Buddy our practice facilities, such as they were. The construction process was underway, but other than bulldozers and graders, there was not much to see. When I handed Buddy our architectural drawing his eyes lit up. We had copied their spring training facility as far as layout and fields, but because we had lots of space, we added some amenities such as indoor and outdoor running tracks, multiple whirlpools and a medical examination center, which Rebecca designed, complete with x-ray, lab, MRI, CAT, and ultrasound rooms. She added massage rooms, and a covered area which would house our own ambulance and crews. If we needed to move an injured player to the ER, we didn't intend to wait on EMS.

Our temporary, athletic housing facility was a throwback to the old days, when players lived on site to cut costs. We wanted to have immediate housing for anyone sent to us by the club, without prior lodging arrangements in place. Many rookie minor leaguers had no idea how to rent an apartment, handle utilities, write a check, or balance their checkbook. Colleen had a woman on her staff, to help them make the transition. Housing was just part of it. Mr. Bell LOVED explaining our concept of offering new players a leg up on adulthood. Keats nodded like a bobble-head doll, and took notes like a maniac.

Our construction progress reviewed, we headed back to the office and escorted our visitors through the first floor operations, second floor support, and then brought them to the third floor for our meeting. Mr. Bell chose his conference room for our get together. Buddy seemed amazed, and said, "We have never seen a minor league operation with so much class, gentlemen. My boss is going to flip when we get him down here, once the facility is up and running.

"I can't wait!" He seemed to mean it, and we were pleased at his reaction.

"Guys," Keats hit the ground running. "We need a partner, at the Double A level who will allow us to operate twelve months of the year. Your vision for this campus is exactly what we are touring the country looking for, and I can tell you right now, we will pour money into your operation as long as you deliver this kind of state-of-the-art development infrastructure.

"My boss and the GM are fed up with penny-ante operations that suck the life out of our minor league talent, treat them poorly, and provide sub-standard facilities. You guys get it, and because you get it, we want to support you, and make sure you make it in this business." He stopped to see if we wanted to comment, but it was his meeting, so we kept our thoughts to ourselves.

"We have an action plan and needs analysis that will answer every question you might have about our intentions. Mr. Pendleton asked me to bring it with me, because he'd heard wonderful things about you all, and told me to show you our plans only if what we found matched what he'd heard.

"You are the real deal and we want to take it to next level, so who besides you two works with the players?"

Mr. Bell fielded that one. "We have a chief medical officer and her staff. Her staff isn't in place because we have no players until you assign Double A contracts, and no field to play on, yet.

"There is our travel office, and operational security. You met Jack, earlier. His staff will not only handle all things related to security at the stadium and on campus, but a sub-set will travel with the team and keep a lid on things while the team is away from home.

"That's it, currently. Of course, we have a Chief Legal Counsel, my daughter, Colleen. We've a Chief Financial Officer in house, who reports directly to me. I serve as Chief Executive Officer, and Brian is the Chief Operating Officer. Any of us will interact with the club when necessary.

"Do you want to suggest other staff positions we haven't anticipated?" Mr. Bell made presenting our corporate structure, a thing of beauty.