CHATHAM, Mass. — The cellphone has existed for a little over half a century. Its origin can be traced back to 1973, when Motorola executive Martin Cooper made the first mobile telephone call to Bell Laboratories engineer Dr. Joel Engel to gloat about his accomplishment. However, the prototype Cooper used to make that call — the DynaTAC 8000X — wasn’t commercially available until March 6, 1983.

At the time of its release, the DynaTAC cost an inflation-adjusted $13,000, weighed a kilogram and had a talk time of 30 minutes. Few people could reasonably afford to own one, and as a college student at the University of Texas at Austin, Tammy Cook was not among them.

Because of this, when San Francisco Giants reliever Dennis Cook flew her out to California after six months of dating, she didn’t have a phone to bring with her. On June 17, 1989, Tammy touched down in San Francisco, and the following day, she was picked up from her hotel by Melissa Manwaring, the wife of Giants catcher Kirt Manwaring. The Giants were just a few hours away from a series finale against the Cincinnati Reds.

The two drove toward Candlestick Park, listening to a Giants pregame radio show. Without phones, it was the only way for either of them to stay connected to the outside world. The show faded into background noise, but it came back into focus for a fleeting moment, just as the host revealed Cook had been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Oh, OK. This is what it's like. Great.

It wasn’t the only time the couple would have to uproot their lives on a whim. Not even close, in fact. Cook was traded six times, jumping around nine different organizations over his 15-year Major League Baseball career. Though his life has calmed down significantly since his retirement, his coaching career has brought him to 10 different teams, including a stint in Chatham from 2018-2022 as its pitching coach. He’s a journeyman. It’s the life he chose.

But at this juncture, maybe Chatham needs a journeyman. Since Cook left the Anglers, the team has cycled through five different managers in two seasons: Tom Holliday, Marty Lees, Todd Shelton, Jeremy Sheetinger and Eric Beattie. The Anglers could desperately use a season of stability. Cook could, too.

“We needed some stability,” Chatham Athletic Association President Steve West said. “I think he will provide that.”



The pair sat in Melissa’s car, stuck in the middle of San Francisco. Tammy tentatively understood that dating a major league pitcher could come with a fair share of instability. But she wasn’t even close to prepared for the possibility that Cook would be traded while she was en route to Candlestick Park. She blurted out the only question she had.

“Melissa, what do I do?”

“I guess I'll take you back to the hotel,” Melissa responded. “Then you take a cab to the airport, and you leave.”

Tammy was crestfallen. Melissa turned the car toward the hotel where her passenger had just arrived, carrying little but the fading hopes of an unforgettable weekend.

Back at Candlestick, Cook was similarly shocked. The Giants drafted him. They were all he had known. They had finally given him a shot in the big leagues.

Minor league baseball can be unforgiving. Coming out of Texas, Cook was an 18th round draft pick by the Giants, a slot that comes with a flat signing bonus of $1,000. He was subsequently assigned to the Clinton Giants — then San Francisco’s Single-A affiliate in Iowa — where he earned roughly $1,500 a season before taxes.

To save money, Cook rented a house with a few teammates and slept in the living room. Needing a bed, he went to a nearby dump and bought a $5 urine-stained twin mattress. Before he went to sleep, he would lift the mattress and lean it against the wall so everyone could watch TV together.

On off-days, Cook helped the house’s owner with his roofing business. He framed houses in other seasons. One year, he supplemented his income by selling jewelry, raking in around $3.30 an hour. The goal never changed: just make it to next year.

By 1988, Cook had worked his way up to Triple-A. He was amid a breakout season for the Phoenix Firebirds, pitching to a 3.88 earned run average across 25 starts, and he knew that he was due for a call-up when the roster expanded in September. All he had to do was stay healthy.

But that’s a tall ask in a sport as fickle as baseball. In mid-July, Cook keeled over in pain after throwing a pitch. He was diagnosed with a cracked rib, which was supposed to sideline him for six weeks. Cook knew he couldn’t make it off the disabled list before the minor league season ended, but he desperately wanted his shot. So, he picked up the phone.

After the Firebirds’ season ended, Cook called the Giants front office, asking them what he had to do to earn a call-up. To prove he was healthy, the organization asked him to spend 10 days in an instructional league. If he could pitch effectively, he might have a chance at getting brought up in September.

While he rehabbed at home in Texas, Cook began working out and throwing, wrapping an ACE bandage around his ribs for extra support. After weeks, he had fully ramped up. It was the day before his flight to Phoenix, and he was set to have one final dinner at a Mexican restaurant with his best friend, Steve Labay, and Labay’s wife, Clara.

The phone rang. It was Ralph Nelson, then the Giants’ assistant general manager.

“Hey, Dennis,” Nelson said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m about to go get some supper,” Cook replied. “And then tomorrow morning, I’m gonna get up, I’m gonna fly to Phoenix and go to instructional ball.”

“Well, cancel those plans,” Nelson said.

“What do you mean, ‘Cancel those plans?’”

“Because you’re getting on an airplane, coming to San Diego and you’re starting on Thursday.”

So, Cook cancelled his flight, went to San Diego the next day, and — still healing from his injury — hid in the Giants clubhouse bathroom, wrapping an ACE bandage so tight around his ribcage that he could barely breathe. On September 12, 1988, Cook made his MLB debut, pitching 5.1 shutout innings while fighting through the pain.

“I knew all along that if anybody was gonna make it, it was gonna be him,” Labay said. “There was nobody that competed as much as he did.”

Cook had come too far to leave San Francisco behind. He wasn’t ready to let go yet.

But he’s since come to view that trade as a blessing in disguise. When he was shipped to Philadelphia, the Giants were one of the best teams in the National League. Their rotation featured established veterans such as Rick Reuschel, Don Robinson and Scott Garrelts, and as a 26-year-old, Cook wasn’t going to receive enough starts to develop.

Philadelphia, on the other hand, was far from an NL contender. The Phillies won 67 games in 1989, giving Cook ample opportunity to break into the rotation. Across 16 starts and 106 innings with the Phillies, he tossed for a 3.99 ERA that season.

It all worked out for the best.


For a brief moment, Cook returned to Austin. It was early 1989, and the former Longhorn decided to visit his alma mater for the annual Alumni Game, a Texas tradition where alums play an exhibition contest against the varsity baseball team.

Needing a place to crash for the weekend, Cook ended up staying with Doug Lindauer, a former Texas teammate. At some point, a Texas student paid a visit to Lindauer's house, hoping to do her laundry. Cook was smitten from the moment he saw her.

“Damn, she’s pretty,” Cook thought to himself. “But I ain’t got no money to take her out.”

So Cook introduced himself, but he didn’t ask her on a date — he told her to meet him at the Dallas Club later that night. In a moment of desperation, she obliged, they hit it off, and they spent what felt like an eternity dancing to country music together in downtown Austin.

He was never supposed to stay that long. Cook’s intention was always to spend Alumni Weekend at Lindauer’s, head home to Dickinson, Texas, to see his family for three days, and then fly to Spring Training.

But Cook never made it back to Dickinson. He stayed in Austin until it was time to report to Spring Training, spending 24 hours a day with the woman who he had met that weekend.

Her name was Tammy. Three years after that weekend, the pair got married. They’ve been together ever since.

“From there, it was just perfect,” Cook said.

Eventually, Cook settled into a groove. About four organizations into his big league career, he abandoned his dreams of being a starter, evolving into a versatile left-handed reliever. Around the same time, organizations started recognizing the value in his archetype, especially as they prepared for postseason play.

“When (teams) were looking like they were going to the playoffs, they needed that stable, left-handed person that could get some people out,” Tammy said.

He spent a fair bit of his career playing for contenders. In 1995, he got traded to the Texas Rangers, where he won the American League West division. Two years later, he signed with the Florida Marlins, where he pitched a scoreless seventh inning in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series to defeat the Cleveland Indians. The year after that, Cook began an extended stint with the New York Mets, making two trips to the National League Championship Series and appearing in the 2000 World Series.

Tammy was there every step of the way.

She was in attendance for each game of the 1997 World Series, watching from the stands with triplets in her stomach as Cook shut down the Indians alongside Jay Powell — now Chatham’s pitching coach. She followed him to New York, where Cook riled up Atlanta Braves first-base coach Pat Corrales by scraping the baseball to raise its seams for a better grip, a trick he learned from Robinson as a rookie. He had a knack for getting under the Braves’ skin.

In the Shea Stadium bullpen — and in all bullpens he played in — Cook had a habit of gardening. He picked it up from his grandmother, and it helped him keep his mind off the game. He would grow bell peppers to give to the security guards, and sunflowers which grew over the 10-foot bullpen wall. Whenever the Braves visited, they forced him to cut them down.

“That really pissed me off, to tell you the truth,” Cook said. “Made me cut my sunflowers down.”

After the triplets — Makenzie, Asher and Dawson — were born, Tammy would take them to Shea to visit their father. Cook bought each of them toy tractors, and they drove them around through the underbelly of the stadium. In the early innings, before he was on the radar to enter games, Cook would sneak away from the bullpen to pull them out of the family room, take them into the Mets clubhouse and grab them chocolate milks.

But it was a lonely lifestyle for Tammy. With Cook often busy, she found solace among each team’s wives, but she was forced to relocate each time she felt a connection with them. Whenever he was traded, Tammy had to pack up and arrange their move. She can’t remember how many houses they rented during his playing days. She stopped counting around 33.

Cook never truly retired. Playing for the Anaheim Angels, he suffered a torn labrum which made the decision for him. While the Angels embarked on a World Series run, Cook underwent surgery on Oct. 4, 2002 — his 40th birthday. He always wanted to play until he was 40.

Labay believes that if opportunities hadn’t dried up, Cook would’ve pitched until his arm fell off. But it was time, even if he wasn’t prepared to admit it.

“I was ready for him to come home,” Tammy said.



Though his playing days were behind him, Cook was never going to leave the game. But he also wouldn’t put it over his family anymore.

He broke into the coaching world in 2004, working alongside then-Texas pitching coach Tom Holliday as a volunteer assistant. With the Longhorns, he primarily focused on helping develop the team’s left-handed arms.

After leaving his alma mater to focus on his children, Cook still had an itch to play. So in 2010, holding Swedish ancestry through his mother, he made an effort to play for the Swedish National Team. After failing to procure him a passport, the Swedish Baseball and Softball Federation made him a different proposal: managing.

Sweden was the best of both worlds. It kept Cook connected to the sport that he loved. He had the chance to fill his coaching staff with some of his best friends, Labay and Scott Scudder. And managing a European national team wasn’t a significant time commitment, as a lot of the work could be done remotely through video conference and he only had to be in Sweden for a month each year. He could remain fully present in his family’s lives.

“I don't ever remember him missing an event that we had, whether that be sports, little plays or field day in elementary school,” Makenzie said.

When he led Team Sweden into the European Championship, he took the triplets along with him to Europe. Despite having the opportunity to leave after 10 days, they loved it so much they stayed for the full three-week trip. In between stints as an assistant with other national teams, he even coached Dawson and Asher at Lake Travis High School (Texas).

But once the triplets graduated, Cook was ready to start committing more time to coaching. He knew he wanted to break into the collegiate ranks, and in 2018, an opportunity on the Cape presented itself that he couldn’t pass up. An old friend from Texas had just received Chatham’s managerial job. And he needed a pitching coach.

“(The Anglers) kind of indicated that, ‘Here's 10-15 names of people that applied for the job,’” Holliday said. “When I heard Dennis’ name, I said, ‘No kidding. Give me his number.’”

Cook took his talents to Chatham, making sure to bring his kids along with him. He added Asher — then a pitcher at Navarro College (Texas) — to the roster as a temporary player, while Makenzie joined the Anglers for two summers as a general manager intern.

Over time, the Anglers Cook coached became an extended family to him. During his first season in Chatham, Cook developed a particularly strong bond with Troy Miller, a reliever from the University of Michigan. In 2023, after years of continued contact, Cook and Tammy received invites to his wedding. Miller decided to call him a few weeks ago. It was Father’s Day, and he wanted to thank his coach for everything he had done for him.

“He was a father figure to all of us,” Miller said. “I know every player that he’s ever crossed paths with feels the same way about him.”

While Cook eventually left the Anglers in 2022, his desire to return to Chatham persisted. During a managerial stint with the Poland National Team last summer, he learned through X that 2024 Anglers’ manager, Sheetinger, had resigned. He immediately fired off a text to West.

“I want the job in Chatham.”


Cook has never been a crier. That’s not to say he doesn’t feel emotion, but he’s remarkable at controlling it, perhaps to a fault.

In October 2022, Makenzie got engaged to Jack Buford, who she had met through Dawson. After eleven months of extensive planning, the wedding was rapidly approaching. She was finally getting married, and Cook was as nervous as he could be.

Before a wedding, it’s tradition for the father to get one last glimpse of his daughter in her dress before the ceremony, known as the first look. In the preceding weeks, Makenzie constantly asked her father if he was going to cry when it happened. He didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t think I’m gonna cry,” Cook told Tammy. “I don’t think I will. I’m not really like that.”

The day came, and Makenzie had been up since six in the morning preparing. Cook was also preparing, albeit mentally, telling himself to just act happy for his daughter. If he couldn’t cry, the least he could do was act overjoyed on the best day of her life. Hours passed, Makenzie had completely finished getting dressed, and she tapped him on the shoulder.

It hit him like a semi-truck. He turned around, saw her and started bawling, overwhelmed with emotion as he struggled to stand on his own two feet. Everyone’s eyes were on him.

“It wasn't so much that I was crying because I was letting her go,” Cook said. “I was crying because I was happy for her, because she's got a good man.”

This is a story about choices. Cook has made plenty of them in his life.

His choices guided him through a journeyman MLB career. They took him to three different continents in a decades-long coaching career. And now, they have led him back to the Cape, where he’s tasked with bringing consistency to an organization marred by a lack of it. He rejected collegiate offers to return to Chatham. Only time will tell if he made the right choice.

“This is where I wanna be.” Cook said. “I'm here as long as they'll keep me.”

That day, Cook delivered a speech at the reception. He gave the newlyweds every piece of advice he wished he had known on his wedding day. He emphasized the importance of doing the little things, telling them to always be each other’s best friend. He held the microphone near his chest, keeping his gaze locked on the paper on which his words were written.

“One of my favorite sayings when the kids were little — you’re gonna know it, Makenzie — was always, ‘Choose wisely,’” Cook told her. “Makenzie, I am proud to say you have done just that.”