MITCHELL — Kelly Coates turned a hobby and his love for baseball into a book. 

In February, Coates released his debut book “Teammates”, a coming-of-age novel about baseball, friendships and growing up. Coates, an Aberdeen Circus Sports Bar amateur baseball player, was inspired after reading “The Art of Fielding” and that prompted him to write his debut novel. 

“There’s a lack of really great baseball fiction,” Coates said. “And I said I am going to try my hand at this. I have had too many good teammates that I have good stories from.” 

Ironically, Coates doesn’t have a writing background and was a math major at Northern State University. Coates, who is a math teacher at the Douglas School District, started writing as a hobby.  

“I studied a little English in college,” Coates said. “Self taught is probably too strong of a word. I have had too many great teachers to say self taught.I have had some good teachers in the past. But I wouldn’t say any formal training.”

Coates began writing “Teammates” 7-8 years ago and it motivated him to pursue publishing it into a novel. 

“I started exploring, sending out letters, doing the homework on it and I found a great publishing company and they were really, really good,” Coates said. 

Coates’ novel was published by Gatekeeper Press and he’s done a couple book signings, including at this weekend’s state amateur baseball tournament in Mitchell. So far, he’s received several positive comments about the novel and especially from his baseball teammates. 

“It’s been generally positive,” Coates said. “The ones that feel really good are a couple of teammates who said nice stuff about it and that’s kind of who it was for. I appreciated that.”

The novel’s description states: “The best friendships don’t often start with brawls on the baseball field. But when unassuming, under-talented Nick Davis and Ryan Winter each take exception to some hard-nosed baseball, a rivalry born of a mutual understanding of what it means to be a teammate is formed.

Nick, aided by his talented best friend Greg Romano, squares off against Ryan, along with his fiery younger brother, Henry. Aside from their on-the-field issues, each of them contends with the harsh realities that go along with being eighteen years old as they vie to become Iowa State Champions.

As the boys work, fight, and strive for their first chance at success, their mentor, Sheldon Hill, a former World Series hero, struggles to come to terms with the end of his playing career.

Teammates is a novel about baseball, friendship, growing up, and learning what it takes to become a good teammate and a good man.”

“It’s a high school baseball book,” Coates added. “My hope is that it is a series. I have got a handful of the others, in some state of a rough draft. But I wanted to follow them all the way through college. So it was kind of their senior year in high school and follow them all the way through.” 

Coates plans on releasing up to five books in the series and he’s currently working hard on the second edition.