Forced Out by Stephen Frey Page A

glanced away. It was one thing when they were your wife's, quite another when they were your daughter's. Maybe he was too uptight. But he'd been raised in an uptight home, and he was too old to change. It took awhile to get the hang of it, but when he finally realized that using the Internet was as simple as typing in a few words, then pointing and clicking, he felt damn stupid.
    "Great, thanks." He patted her knee gently and nodded at the door. But she didn't get the hint. "Can you give me a few minutes?"
    Cheryl moaned. "It's almost midnight, Daddy. I want to go to bed." Jack clasped his hands together like he was praying. "Please, Princess."
    "Tomorrow's a workday," Cheryl reminded him. She was an administrative assistant in a real estate office. "I need my sleep."
    "This won't take long."
    She let out an aggravated breath and stood up. "When I get home tomorrow, we're moving this thing out in the living room because I can see where this is going." She tapped the computer. "You'll be addicted to it by the time I come back." When she was gone, Jack typed "Sarasota Tarpons" into the search engine and hit go. It didn't take long to get to the home page. At the bottom of it was a team picture, but there was no Mikey Clemants. He was listed as "Not Pictured" beneath the photograph, along with an assistant coach and a trainer. Jack clicked to the kid's personal page, but there was no picture of him there, either. Just a blank screen where the picture was supposed to be. The kid's bio mentioned that he was from somewhere in southern Minnesota. From some tiny town Jack had never heard of--and he thought he'd heard of them all. Thought he'd been to them all at some point in his scouting career. He scanned the stats quickly, noting the kid's last name was actually Clemant--no "s" at the end, as Bobby had pronounced it. Not including tonight's game, the kid had three home runs, fifteen runs batted in, and a so-so .254 batting average. He'd committed a bunch of errors, too. Bobby was right. This was nothing to write home about. The kid had all the physical tools to make it in the majors--the catch and the home run had convinced Jack of that--but there was something missing. Something very important. Hopefully it was something teachable. And Jack knew just the man for the job. That good-looking older guy he'd been admiring in the hall mirror a little while ago.
    "Daddy?"
    Jack whirled around. He'd been standing on the top step of the Yankee dugout in the Bronx, watching the kid's tryout. Watching the kid slam ball after ball over the blue wall. Enjoying congratulations from coaches, players, and front-office people. From all the people who'd been so skeptical when the kid was striding toward home plate at the beginning of the tryout. Cheryl's voice had jerked him away from that New York fantasy, jerked him back to his Sarasota reality.
    "I'm done," he said, standing up. "I'll scram and let you get to bed." He kissed her forehead as they came together. "Sorry I kicked you out."
    "It's okay."
    He could tell something was wrong. "What is it?" She was moving from foot to foot like she always did when she was nervous. "Come on, Princess. Out with it." She folded her arms across her chest. "Did you fake it tonight after the game?" Jack chuckled uneasily. "Fake what ?"
    "Your heart attack. Was that all an act?"
    He bit his lip, trying to mask the grin tugging at both corners of his mouth. "Well, I don't know if it was a heart attack, but I sure felt like I was going through something painful, let me tell you."
    "Don't split hairs, Daddy," Cheryl warned sharply, using a tone she rarely did with him.
    "You know what I mean. Did you fake it?"
    Finally Jack let the grin out of the bag. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." She gritted her teeth. "Look, this isn't a joke. This isn't like when you rigged Billy Martin's toilet to explode and framed Reggie. This isn't like when you let all those snakes loose in the players' dormitory in spring training and