The doors are about to close on another pre-dawn flight. Now, the flight attendant says, would be a good time to start powering down phones and electronic devices. This, of course, is the exact minute Kip Fagg's phone rings.

He sees an unidentified Columbus-area number calling. As it so happens, Fagg, the Rangers amateur scouting director, is on his way to Ohio's capital from Fort Lauderdale on one of his legendary pre-draft scouting runs.

This is going to be bad news.

Could be the weather; early April in the Midwest is notoriously dicey. Perhaps the game he was planning to see might be canceled. Maybe a problem has arisen with the meeting he's set up.

He has no idea.

"Do you know a Roger Coryell?" the female voice on the other end says as an introduction, referencing a Rangers amateur scout in the area. "I'm a nurse. He's had a stroke. It's bad. This is the only number I could access on his phone."

In his head he is thinking only: "Not again."

"It gets emotional," Fagg says more than a month after the phone call. "As a scout it's your biggest fear: Dying alone in a hotel room. It kills me when these guys have to endure these personal tragedies. It shows you how fragile life really is."

On a humid early May afternoon Fagg tells this story from the driver's side of a rented Buick. Once again, he's arrived at a game before the parking attendant. Today, he's four hours early for the Friday-night SEC matchup between South Carolina and Ole Miss.

He's here to see a handful of players in the middle of a 17-day run leading up to the Rangers draft meetings. Long road trips are part of the territory at this time of year for Fagg.

Fagg, 54, has worked for only one organization in his professional career. Hired sight unseen by then-Rangers scouting director Sandy Johnson in 1992, he signed a first-round pick in his first year (Rick Helling).

Rangers amateur scouting director Kip Fagg spends much of his time watching baseball -- or talking to someone about it on the phone. (Staff writer / Evan Grant)

He stepped to the next level as a regional crosschecker in 2002 and became a national crosschecker in 2007. Since 2010 he has overseen a department of 24 full-time scouts and a network of part-time associates. They are responsible for identifying and acquiring the 40 players the Rangers will select from the nearly 1,250 players taken in the draft.

Fagg, married with two college-age sons, spends more than 200 nights a year on the road. Most of his scouts spend upwards of 300 days a year watching baseball. And when they aren't at a game, they are usually on a phone talking or social-media stalking a player.

The amateur scouts are an organization's everyman. They are everywhere, yet rarely seen. They spend their careers an island, preaching the principles of a team they rarely, if ever, see live. It is not an easy life.

They work ridiculous travel schedules that strain family lives all in pursuit of making the right call on players. Take one five-day stretch of Fagg's schedule last April as he started taking final looks at players. He went from Tucson to Memphis to Valdosta, Ga., to San Diego and back across the country to Tampa. It is not an easy life. He also scooted out to see eventual first-rounder Bubba Thompson, whom the Rangers sent eight different people to evaluate over the course of his senior season.

Coryell was one of those everymen. His story does not end well. He never regained consciousness after the stroke and died April 5 at 71.

His story is but one of a number of tragedies the Rangers scouting department has dealt with in the last three years. Since the start of 2015, one scout lost his wife to a long battle with melanoma. Another's wife, a volleyball coach, suffered a massive stroke after a game and has required round-the-clock care ever since.

And then there is Fagg. In early 2015, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He got an assurance from doctors that surgery could wait until June then worked through the draft without telling anybody before the surgery.

"Having relationships and caring about your fellow employees is bigger than the game we watch," he says. "Our scouts live, breath and eat the Texas Rangers and spend their scouting lives on an island separated from the organization. When life-changing events happen to them, that relationship and caring for them helps to get them through the toughest times."

Baseball as an escape

West Coast crosschecker Casey Harvie, left, with late wife Crystal and son, Hudson. Crystal, known as "Chrissy," died after a fight against melanoma. (Courtesy Casey Harvie)

The weekend before the Rangers began their final two weeks of draft preparation with non-stop meetings, West Coast crosschecker Casey Harvie had one of those moments.

He took his 3-year-old son, Hudson, to the banks of the Stillaguamish River in Granite Falls, Wash., to scatter the ashes of his wife Crystal. Crystal, "Crissy," to friends and family, died in February after a 20-month fight with melanoma.

"It was the toughest moment of my life," says Harvie, whose job as crosschecker means he is the second set of eyes to see players across a region. "It was harder than I thought. It was like a final goodbye."

Crissy was diagnosed in July 2016. Hudson had just turned 1. Life stopped. Aggressive treatment produced initial positive results. Harvie was ready to go back to work. Or so he thought.

"My first trip, I'm driving up from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and I'm crying so hard I can't even see," Harvie says. "I would be in the rental car or on a flight and my mind would go to 'Oh my god, what is going to happen?' After meltdown after meltdown after meltdown and you are on your knees crying, looking at your baby boy, I said to Crissy: 'I can't think like this. I have to think we are going to win this thing. We have to stay pumped up.' It was my job to be her rock so that she's not thinking about death.

"The scouting part, bad as it sounds," Harvie adds, "that was an escape for me."

Gary McGraw, also based in the Northwest and responsible for the scouting and signing of Keone Kela and current prospect Scott Heineman, also has found relief in returning to scouting after missing nearly two years to care for his wife, Julie.

The former volleyball coach suffered a powerful stroke following a game in Salem, Ore., in early 2015 the day before McGraw was supposed to begin traveling in preparation for the draft.

Julie has required round-the-clock care since the stroke. Only in July will they move back into their home in Gaston, Ore.

1 / 2Julie McGraw, left, has required round-the-clock care since she suffered a stroke.(Courtesy, Gary McGraw) 2 / 2The McGraw family is thankful to the Rangers for allowing scout Gary McGraw, top right, to look after his wife, Julie, bottom left, after a stroke. Also pictured: daughter Jess, front right, and sons Jamie, top left, and Jake, top center.(Courtesy / Gary McGraw)

"When Julie started to improve a little, I said I needed baseball back in my life," McGraw says. "Everything was internalized. There was guilt and every emotion over what happened. Getting back to baseball has been therapeutic. I had to make it work. How could I not make it work? It's saved my life. Baseball is the love of my life after my wife and kids."

McGraw tells his story staring at bedroom walls decorated with inspirational moments from the last few years. One of them: A scouting report of Heineman, who played collegiately at Oregon. He was coming out in the draft in 2015, while McGraw was dedicated only to caring for Julie. During the time though, he stayed in touch with the outfielder, talked to contacts, watched some Pac-12 baseball on TV. It only reaffirmed his conviction in the player, whom he'd actually pleaded for in 2014 as an eligible sophomore. Every week or so, Fagg would check in. McGraw would mention Heineman.

As the draft approached, he couldn't help himself. He sent Fagg a few notes on players.

Of Heineman, he said: "As you know I love this kid. He's versatile, athletic, physical, tough. GET HIM. It [signing him] will sort itself out. HE SIGNS. GET HIM. He loves us. Round is important, money is not. True baseball rat. He is my gut baseball feel."

During the draft, the Rangers announced their 11th round pick on the MLB conference call: Heineman. They also announced the pick was dedicated to McGraw.

Heineman hit .522 in the first week of this season at Double-A Frisco. Since May 14, he's hitting .340. The consensus is he will play in the majors.

The lonely life

Texas Rangers Senior Director of Amateur Scouting Kip Fagg looks on during an NCAA baseball game between Radford and Georgia Tech, Sunday, May 6, 2018, in Atlanta. (Paul Abell / Special Contributor)

He walks.

A few minutes before 7 a.m. and he's doing laps around the concourse of the Columbia, S.C. airport awaiting a flight to Charlotte that will then connect to New York. Then he will have an hour drive to see a game, an hour drive back and a 3:30 a.m. wakeup call to catch his next flight.

So, Kipp Fagg knows that if he's going to get his 11,000 steps in, he's got to get them in early today. Hey, he was walking the parking lot of his hotel at 5.

"It's a total obsession and I'm thrilled," Deena Fagg, his wife of 23 years, says of his FitBit fixation. "He's a hyper dude. He's got an extreme energy. He goes non-stop. There are so many days of three or four hours sleep. Other [scouts] have died recently of heart attacks. I told him if he wants to have this job, he better get fit. Otherwise, this will kill you.

"These guys are crazy," she adds. "They have a different mentality and drive. It is a passion. They love what they do for sure."

You might almost say baseball is their first love.

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Scouting it out

A look at the roles inside the Rangers amateur scouting department and the way the department functions. It's a massive undertaking to boil down all the baseball talent in the U.S. and Canada into 40 names the Rangers will ultimately select. Touch graphic to see info:

SOURCE: Texas Rangers media guide; Michael Hogue/Staff Artist

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In Fagg's case, he actually might have told Deena that when they were dating.

"I was kind of an ass," Fagg says. "I think it was something like: 'I'm always going to love baseball more than you'. It was probably not the best move."

Deena laughs. It's not what he said.

It's true, she jokes, but it's not what he said.

"It's a different kind of love," she says of her husband and scouts in general. "In a sense, they really are wed to the game. He told me this is what he was going to do and that he was going to go where the job took us. In that sense the job came first."

Fagg knew this much: He worked one summer in one of the produce warehouses his father managed in Wenatchee., Wash. He was not going to work in a fruit warehouse. After pitching at Washington State and a couple of years as a college assistant coach, the last of which was spent as a glorified groundskeeper, he jumped at the scouting opportunity

There is no clear-cut path to amateur scouting. It used to be something of an old-ballplayers home. Guys who played in the minors and found no career ultimately wound up writing reports. In the case of the Rangers, nine of their current full-time scouts had even a dash of pro experience and only two appeared in the majors. Scouts now often come from college coaching ranks or from internship programs heavy on analytics.

Initially, as a Northern California area scout, Fagg was usually home every night. As the area grew, so did the time on the road. How much time? Put it this way: He's a Million Miler on both American and Delta.

He says Deena raised their sons, Jedd and Jaxxon, on her own, though he's proud he never missed a high school game. Deena later corrects this. He missed one: Oct. 28, 2011. Jedd suffered a high ankle sprain while the Rangers were losing Game 7 of the World Series. The boys are now at Georgia Southern. Fagg saw them play once this year.

Was he there to see them?

"Um, no," he sheepishly admits. "But it worked out."

In the movies, where the scouting life is romanticized, all scouts are old, gruff and wear Fedoras. Maybe that's not so accurate. More accurately portrayed: how hard and lonely the life is. Fagg has often lived that part. He does not want his scouts to become movie characters.

"He lost his dad a number of years ago while working here, and I think in some ways that's impacted how he's handled the recent situations with the other guys," general manager Jon Daniels says. "He doesn't blink -- it's always to take care of your family first, and we'll take care of the rest. It's not an HR situation to him, it's just picking up your friends."

Says Fagg: "All the things you miss, that's the biggest regret. I missed all my kids' [events]."

Building relationships

So, he ended up in a hospital yelling at a comatose man.

When he got news of Roger Coryell's stroke, Fagg was able to reach the scout's son, Todd, who is in his fourth season scouting amateur talent in Illinois and Michigan for the San Francisco Giants. Todd Coryell was a good four hours from Columbus. Fagg went directly to the hospital and sat with the scout.

Todd Coryell grew up around baseball. He understands the scouting life. The news didn't catch him by surprise. Nor really did Fagg's willingness to sit with his father.

"This is a great game with great people and sometimes that doesn't always get expressed," Coryell said. "You see the home runs and you see the strikeouts, but you don't always see how many good people there are in this game. My dad was kind of allergic to doctors and I always thought this might happen. But what Kip did, waiting for me, was top shelf. I'm all in on those guys."

In the meantime, Fagg did what he often did with Coryell. He yelled.

"That's just kind of the way we always talked and had fun with it," Fagg says. "I was yelling 'Roger, Roger, damn it. Let's go.' He kind of looked at me with some degree of recognition and then he was back in La-La Land."

He sat there for a couple of more hours waiting. And internally debating. He was there in Columbus. The kid he had come to see - a high school pitcher named Austin Becker - was still pitching that night. Should he stay? Or should he go?

He reasoned Coryell would be mad if Fagg had come all this way and failed to see the player in whom he had such conviction. When Todd arrived, he relayed that.

"I told him, 'You are right'," Todd Coryell said. "He'd be yelling that you are going to miss the bullpen. If he gets up, he's going to be pissed you are here."

So Fagg went. Drove 45 minutes down to the game. Watched Becker pitch. Informed the Beckers that the scout with whom they'd developed a strong relationship over the last two years had a massive stroke. And then Fagg drove back to the hospital.

When he got there, he found Austin Becker and his father Kevin in the room. They were presenting Roger Coryell with a game ball.

"It was just crushing," Kevin Becker says. "Austin insisted we go; he wanted to do something. It's more than just baseball. You develop relationships with people and this was one of the best guys we've ever met."

If ever there was an epitaph for a scout, that last sentence was it.

On Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant

Scouting it out

A look at the roles inside the Rangers amateur scouting department and the way the department functions. It's a massive undertaking to boil down all the baseball talent in the U.S. and Canada into 40 names the Rangers will ultimately select in the MLB first-year player draft:

Senior director, amateur scouting: Kip Fagg has been with Rangers since 1992. He oversees all scouting efforts, runs scouting meetings and has the ultimate call on draft choices. He sees almost all of the top-tier players at least once, usually more often than that, during their draft-eligible season.

Manager, amateur scouting: Ben Baroody is in his third season in this role. He is the department's chief administrator, responsible for coordinating all information on the amateur scouting side: evaluations, schedules, makeup reports, medical info, analytics, video, etc. He also scouts games. He assists Fagg with everything, including preparation for and running the pre-draft meetings, managing the signing bonus pool, and making recommendations.

Crosscheckers: The Rangers have seven. Two, Clarence Johns and Jake Krug, crisscross the country in much the same fashion as Fagg. Another, Bobby Crook, is specializing in small colleges guys and mid-round picks. The others have regions that encompass smaller areas that are the responsibility of area scouts. They serve as a second set of eyes in helping to pare down draft possibilities. And, on occasion, a regional crosschecker may be asked to go and see a player in another region to make a comparison.

Area scouts: The Rangers began the year with 17 before the passing of Ohio/Michigan scout Roger Coryell. These scouts are responsible for seeing players regularly, establishing relationships with players, coaches and families. They are also getting an early look at players who may be eligible for the following year's draft. Guys who get drafted in the middle rounds are often drafted because of the conviction of an area scout who makes a convincing draft presentation.

Associates: The Rangers have approximately 25 part-time associates and can tap in to a network of nearly 90 "bird-dogs" for more information and scouting looks.