Reese Takes Over the Warriors

Reese Remington has spent years preparing to take over the Windy City Warriors, the Major League Baseball team owned by her family. When her grandfather, Arthur Remington, finally retires, Reese becomes both the first female owner of the Warriors and their President of Baseball Operations. It should be the culmination of everything she has worked for. Instead, she immediately finds herself having to prove that she belongs there.

The media scrutinizes every decision she makes, and several members of her own advisory board are openly hostile to having a woman in charge. Scott is particularly eager to undermine her, while Phil treats her as though she has wandered into a job she doesn’t understand. Reese knows that any mistake she makes will be used as evidence that she was handed the position because of her last name rather than earning it.

Her biggest challenge inside the clubhouse is veteran field manager Emmett “Monty” Montgomery. Emmett has been with the Warriors for years and sees the organization as a family. That family includes pitching coach Kai Rhodes, who is engaged to Emmett’s daughter, Miller; star shortstop Isaiah Rhodes; and team doctor Kennedy Rhodes. Emmett is fiercely protective of his players and staff, which puts him immediately at odds with Reese’s more hands-on approach.

Their first major fight comes when Reese discovers problems in the team’s budget and tells Emmett that video coach Nate needs to be let go. Emmett resents being told to fire someone he considers part of his family and assumes Reese is another executive who cares more about numbers than people.

Unfortunately, he is also extremely attracted to her.

A Reluctant Partnership Becomes Something More

Reese and Emmett are forced to spend more time together during a league conference in Las Vegas. There, Emmett gets a closer look at what Reese is dealing with. Other owners exclude her and treat her as though she doesn’t belong, while her ex-husband, Jeremy, makes unwanted advances toward her. Instead of joining the crowd questioning Reese’s authority, Emmett begins defending her.

The hostility between them gradually turns into mutual respect, although the attraction underneath it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

That becomes especially obvious during a trip to San Diego, when a hotel maintenance problem leaves them sharing a bed. The situation gives them a rare chance to talk without the Warriors’ hierarchy hanging over them, and Reese learns more about the life Emmett has built outside baseball.

Emmett became a single father under devastating circumstances. His former girlfriend Claire died of cancer when their daughter Miller was only five, and Emmett adopted Miller and raised her himself. His devotion to Miller explains much of the protectiveness Reese sees in him: when Emmett considers someone family, he takes responsibility for them.

Reese and Emmett still resist acting on their feelings. A rumor about them even appears on Reddit, reminding Reese exactly how damaging a relationship between the team’s president and its manager could become. Emmett’s reputation might survive it, but Reese knows hers probably wouldn’t. She is already fighting the assumption that she isn’t professional enough to run the Warriors, and sleeping with one of her employees would hand her critics exactly what they want.

So they try to keep things professional.

It does not go particularly well.

Reese Makes Her Biggest Gamble

Reese’s first major test as president comes when she decides to trade veteran outfielder Harrison Kaiser to Houston. Harrison is talented, but he is also arrogant, patronizing, and openly disrespectful toward Reese. His behavior isn’t limited to her, either. He creates problems inside the clubhouse and treats members of the training staff, including new athletic trainer Natalie, badly.

Reese decides his talent isn’t worth the damage he is doing to the organization.

In his place, she takes a chance on Milo Jones, a raw young player she discovered in New Mexico. The decision looks reckless from the outside. Trading an established star for an unproven rookie gives Reese’s critics another opportunity to argue that she has no idea what she’s doing, and the backlash is immediate.

Emmett initially has his own doubts, but Harrison’s behavior eventually makes him understand why Reese was willing to take the risk. More importantly, he begins noticing the things Reese does when nobody is watching.

The firing of Nate, which had caused their first major argument, turns out to be very different from what Emmett assumed. Reese didn’t simply discard him to balance a spreadsheet. She quietly helped Nate find another coaching position so that he wouldn’t be left without a career.

She treats the players’ families with the same consideration. When she learns that the mothers of catcher Travis and first baseman Cody don’t have good seats to watch their sons play, she buys them prime seats herself. Reese may be ruthless about making the Warriors financially and competitively stronger, but Emmett realizes she cares deeply about the people behind the numbers.

By this point, his resistance to her has mostly disappeared.

Reese and Emmett Stop Pretending

Eventually, Reese and Emmett give in to the attraction they have been fighting and begin a secret relationship.

Keeping it hidden is necessary professionally, but within Emmett’s family, the relationship is hardly a scandal. Miller is happy for her father and encourages him to stop treating his own happiness as something he has to sacrifice for everyone else. Now pregnant herself and preparing to marry Kai, Miller wants Emmett to build a life beyond simply being her father and the Warriors’ manager.

For Reese, being welcomed into Emmett’s family gives her something she has been missing. Their relationship becomes increasingly serious even though they still have no safe way to acknowledge it publicly.

The danger becomes very real at Miller and Kai’s wedding.

Without Reese or Emmett realizing it, Scott has arranged for a member of the catering staff to photograph them together. The resulting pictures show Reese and Emmett kissing and embracing, giving Scott exactly the ammunition he needs.

He approaches Reese with an ultimatum: resign as President of Baseball Operations and name him as her successor, or he will release the photographs and turn her relationship with Emmett into a public scandal.

Scott knows the double standard Reese faces. A male executive dating someone within the organization might survive the gossip. For Reese, who has already spent her entire presidency being accused of not belonging, the story could destroy everything she has built.

Scott Tries to Take the Team

The conflict comes to a head at an advisory board meeting, where Scott expects Reese to surrender.

Emmett refuses to let her lose her career because of him. He offers to quit as manager, believing that removing himself from the organization will eliminate the conflict of interest and protect Reese’s position.

But Reese has no intention of sacrificing either of their careers.

Instead, she has been quietly working with Arthur and the team’s attorneys to restructure the Warriors’ chain of command. She promotes Ed, the one advisory board member she genuinely trusts, to Vice President of Baseball Operations. Under the new structure, Emmett reports directly to Ed rather than Reese.

That removes Reese as Emmett’s direct supervisor and neutralizes the professional conflict Scott planned to use against her.

Then Reese deals with the people who have spent her entire presidency waiting for her to fail. She fires Scott, Phil, and the other board members who participated in the disrespect and betrayal that have followed her since she took over.

Rather than allowing Scott’s photographs to become a weapon, Reese and Emmett decide to control the story themselves. They publicly confirm their relationship through an interview with a sports magazine, refusing to behave as though being together is something shameful.

The Warriors Win It All

A year later, Reese has the ultimate proof that her instincts were right.

The Warriors reach the World Series, and the championship gives her earlier decisions a satisfying payoff. The team they face includes Harrison Kaiser, now playing for Houston—the same veteran Reese was ridiculed for trading away.

This time, the Warriors win.

They capture the World Series at home, vindicating Reese’s leadership and the risks she took when almost everyone outside her inner circle was waiting for her to fail.

The celebration becomes personal as well as professional. On the field, surrounded by the team and family they have built together, Reese and Emmett get engaged.

Their relationship no longer needs to exist in secret, and neither of them has to choose between baseball and the person they love. In the months that follow, Emmett moves into Reese’s condo, and they continue working together to run the Warriors while building their life outside the stadium.

Miller and Kai begin the next stage of their family as well, welcoming a daughter named Emmy.

Reese began her presidency surrounded by people insisting she didn’t belong in baseball. By the end, she has reshaped the Warriors on her own terms, won a World Series, removed the people determined to undermine her, and found a family with Emmett that extends far beyond the team.