Zack Gelof missed the call because his phone was dead.

The call every baseball player dreams of. The call he chased at Cape Henlopen, where he scored more runs (103) and stole more bases (81) in his four years than any Delaware high school player before him. The call he built towards at the University of Virginia, where he molded himself into a top-round talent over two seasons. The call that motivated him on eight-hour bus rides and through McDonald's dinners between anonymous minor league towns in Texas and Nevada.

Two hours after the ring that never rang, he picked up his phone from a charger in his childhood bedroom. The missed calls piled up on the screen. His Triple-A manager Fran Riordan left a text message, asking him to call back. It was important.

"I'm like, 'Oh, c'mon, this has to be it,'" Gelof said.

You never know when the call is coming. Teams don't provide a step-by-step plan. Something curious happens in baseball where highly rated and oft-discussed high school and college prospects get drafted and then fall off the grid for a few years. Then the call happens and everyone remembers what that kid from Cape has been up to.

Here it was.

In an act of baseball serendipity, Gelof was wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers hat. His brother, Jake, was drafted by the Dodgers two days earlier with the same selection in the draft — No. 60 — the Oakland Athletics used to get Zack two years prior.

Riordan started with small talk, asking about Jake. Gelof told him he wouldn't get used to wearing a Dodgers cap. That provided an opening.

"Good, because you're going to be wearing an A's hat Friday against the Twins."

Giving back

Gelof recounts the story over a plate of sweet potato fries and a burger at McGlynn's Pub on East State Street in Dover. Seated next to him are his parents, Adam and Kelly.

Gelof, who lives and trains in Florida in the offseason, was back in the First State for Thanksgiving week. He and Jake are launching the Gelof Brothers Foundation, dedicated to supporting youth development.

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The foundation's first activity was a camp that Wednesday for kids ages 8 to 13 in the Cape Henlopen gym. Sure, there were some baseball drills, but the goal was to get kids moving and having fun. Gelof wants to promote playing multiple sports, the physical and mental benefits of which are obvious to him.

In high school, Gelof felt he was more dominant in soccer than baseball. He crafted his mindset and built his confidence on the pitch, not the diamond. He thought about joining the basketball team his senior year, but a late-season tournament run would have overlapped with early-season baseball training.

He said his shot would have been rusty, but he could have run the point.

Gelof wants to be an example to kids that you can make it from the First State. At the same time, he's still piecing it all together himself.

Breaking into the big leagues

Two days before the call, Gelof was at Southwest University Park in El Paso, Texas, as the 2023 MLB draft began.

Gelof played second base and batted third for the Las Vegas Aviators that Monday against the El Paso Chihuahuas. He had two hits and two RBIs in six at-bats as the Aviators won 13-10 in upper 90-degree heat. His attention that July evening, however, was split.

Gelof spent much of the game pacing between the dugout and the clubhouse, glancing at the clubhouse TVs for Jake's name. He thought Jake had a shot at being a first-round pick, but the check-ins continued until the Dodgers made the selection in the second round at No. 60.

A four-day break for All-Star festivities followed the game in El Paso, so the next day Gelof flew home to Delaware where the celebration continued for Jake and would soon start for Zack.

Normally, a minor league manager calls a young player into his office to deliver the news that he is headed to the major leagues. In recent years, the moment has even become social media fodder with top prospects breaking into jubilation and/or tears on camera when the news arrives.

So this moment in his childhood bedroom — the dead phone now charged and off the cord — was not how Gelof envisioned it. But it was memorable nonetheless.

Gelof flew to Las Vegas to collect his belongings from his apartment, before flying to his new home, a hotel in Oakland.

By Friday, Gelof was hitting sixth for the A's with his parents and Jake in the stands.

In his second big-league plate appearance, Gelof faced an 0-2 count with one out and runners on first and second in the bottom of the third, trailing the Minnesota Twins 2-1. Twins catcher Christian Vasquez wanted seven-year veteran Kenta Maeda to put a slider down and away. Maeda missed up with the 81-mph pitch. Gelof lifted it to right-center off a State Farm sign near the 362-feet marker in the Oakland Coliseum.

Gelof stopped at second with a one-run stand-up double. He clapped once and motioned across his chest over the Athletics wordmark.

The television crew then switched to the stands. Kelly hugged Adam, then Jake.

Zack had arrived.

Being the same guy

The novelty of being in Major League Baseball wore off after two weeks, or maybe even sooner, Gelof said. At first, he marveled from the dugout at guys he watched growing up like Max Scherzer and Aroldis Chapman.

But then he realized that gawking for too long would give those flame throwers an edge.

"I want to be that guy," Gelof said.

Gelof came to the plate 300 times for the A's after his July 14 debut. He hit .267/.337/.504 with 14 home runs, 20 doubles and 14 steals, numbers good enough to consider him part of Oakland's core in the coming years. He was the American League's top rookie in August.

Most of his 69 games with the A's were spent on the West Coast. When they came to Washington, D.C., for a three-game weekend series with the Nationals in August, about 300 friends and family members came to watch. The volume made the logistics easy on Gelof. With so many people coming, no one expected a free ticket from him.

"I felt like I was living in a Hallmark movie," Kelly Gelof said.

Gelof learned early on that he has to physically keep his head down when he's in the on-deck circle or anywhere else on the fringes of the diamond. Any semblance of eye contact with fans, especially in rival towns, can set off a barrage of taunts.

Keeping his head down is also, in a way, part of his mental approach. Throughout the conversation, Gelof uses the phrase "be the same guy every day" several times. In a sport where success is failing 7 of 10 times and there's always another game tomorrow, succumbing to emotional highs and lows can be a weakness.

Gelof attributes a part of his success to "being the same guy every day." It helped him gain respect from veteran players.

Last year, between the minors and majors, Gelof played more games than he had ever played before. "I was ready to play another 100," he said.

At this point, he has little taste for reflection. After all, his story is only beginning.

"I never really want to look back at some of the great things I did," Gelof said, "because I think there are just so many more things that I want to do."

Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on X @holveck_brandon.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Cape Henlopen and Virginia infielder Zack Gelof's road to the MLB