The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Twenty minutes later, when I was up again, kids and coaches from all three tryout areas watched. That just made me faster.

  I swung harder, started earlier, flipped the bat a little higher, and dug straight for first. I hit every base with my left foot, and this time I didn’t stumble coming around third. My time was faster on both clocks. I had been 1.6 seconds ahead of the best-ever time for nine- and ten-year-olds and a tenth of a second slower than the best fourteen-year-old that day.

  Very few kids my age could catch a grounder or a pop-up without luck, and the coaches gave up trying to teach them after the fifth or sixth kid. They had been shouting, “Head down, glove down, butt down!” for ground balls, but most kids wouldn’t even stay in front of the ball.

  I had done this with Daddy so many times that when my turn came the ground ball right at me looked too easy.

  “Take two more,” the coach yelled, “and you guys watch!”

  The next was hit sharply to my left and would have skipped past if I hadn’t angled back and cut it off. I went down for the ball and came up throwing, right to the catcher. The next went to my right. I’m quicker that direction, and I hustled so I wouldn’t have to turn my glove over, and I kept my hands in front of me. I fielded the ball low and fired it home.

  My curiosity got the best of me. I knew parents weren’t supposed to ask, and I’d never have the nerve to call. But with everything going on at a noisy tryout, I knew I could walk right behind the coaches without being noticed. I heard, “Woodell.”

  “Birth certificate.”

  “Automatic.”

  “Best I’ve seen.”

  During the hitting tryouts I learned what Neal and Elgin meant by candy pitches. Easy, simple, slow, arching tosses were the only things these kids had a chance of hitting. Elgin came to the plate eleventh and, batting right-handed, ignored the first two pitches, one high, the other outside. No one else had let a pitch go without swinging.

  “Swing at this no matter where it is!” the adult pitcher yelled. He lofted a high outside pitch with a three- or four-foot arc on it. Elgin drove the ball over everyone’s heads, almost two hundred feet into right field.

  The boys whistled and gasped. The pitcher looked insulted.

  “I’m going to throw harder,” he said.

  Elgin nodded as if he appreciated that.

  The next pitch was a fastball, low and inside. Elgin stepped a little farther than usual and drove the ball right back up the middle, making the man dive out of the way. He lost his balance and fell. Most of the kids laughed, but Elgin didn’t.

  “Nice hit,” the man said. “Get ready.”

  “Can I bat lefty?” Elgin asked.

  “It’s up to you, hotshot. But I’m throwin just as hard.”

  6

  I hardly ever hit righty. Daddy was a right-hand thrower, so when he pitched to me, I usually hit lefty. I could hardly wait.

  A couple of dozen boys had ringed the infield, hardly any even on the outfield grass until I had hit the long one to right. Now everyone had backed up ten feet or so, but when I switched to hitting lefty, they moseyed back in.

  That was unlucky for a chubby kid with glasses low on his nose and his hat pulled down almost over his eyes.

  The first pitch was waist-high and harder than the ones before. I stepped and swung and the ball rocketed off the bat, rising and spinning left over to where the second baseman would normally play.

  It sounded loud even to me, pinging off that aluminum, and I noticed everybody turned to watch as the ball barreled into the outfield and kids scattered. Chubby ducked and turned his back, but the ball seemed locked on him like a missile and hit him in the right arm just below his shoulder as he spun.

  The ball bounced all the way to the fence while the boy went down squealing, his hat and glasses flying. I didn’t know what to do but run out there. Coaches came running too and surrounded him, telling the rest of us to back off. I couldn’t move. I was afraid I was going to cry myself. The kid was moaning now, and a bruise was already showing.

  “Can I apologize?” I said as they helped him up.

  “You don’t need to,” the boy said. “I never seen any kid hit a ball like that. I just couldn’t get outa the way.”

  “I’m real sorry.”

  “You ought to be!” a man shouted, rushing to the boy.

  “Now, Earl,” one of the coaches said.

  “Don’t ‘Now, Earl’ me! You’re as much at fault, lettin this big kid try out with these young ones.”

  “He’s ten, Earl.”

  “Ten, my rear end! If he plays in this league, my kid doesn’t! Somebody’s gonna get killed out here; then what—”

  “Dad,” the boy whined, “at least find out if we’re on the same team. I don’t mind if I’m on his team.”

  Everyone laughed, but the father said he wanted to see a birth certificate and that “something should be done.”

  I felt bad for Elgin and was glad the other boy wasn’t hurt worse. As we were getting into the car, a man with a clipboard came up.

  “Ah, ma’am, would you have a few more minutes? I’d like to see the boy throw a few.”

  “They didn’t say anything about pitchin,” I said.

  “I know, and usually we don’t worry about that until the teams are picked, but I know I’m going to get your son, so—”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, we’ve already flipped for first pick, and I’ve got it, and there’s certainly no one else out here who could compete with Elvin for first pick.”

  “Elgin.”

  “I have down here ‘Elvin Worrell.’”

  “It’s Elgin Woodell.”

  “Really? Is he related to—”

  “Neal is Elgin’s father.”

  “Well, that sure explains a lot.”

  Does it ever.

  I turned to ask Elgin if he wanted to try out for pitcher, but he was already out of the car.

  “You’re going to be on the Braves, buddy,” the man said, shaking Elgin’s hand. ‘Just call me Coach Kevin. Want to throw a few?”

  “Sure!”

  “My son John here is our catcher.”

  They walked off the distance from an imaginary rubber to an imaginary plate near the parking lot, out of the way, but still several dozen kids and parents crowded around.

  Elgin looked nervous, but I could tell he was excited. He reminded me of Neal, throwing easily and quickly, pitch after pitch right to the glove.

  “Just let John know when you’re ready to throw harder,” Coach Kevin said.

  “Isn’t he going to wear a mask?”

  “Not without a hitter in there. Just let er fly.”

  “My dad always wore a mask when he caught me, in case of a short hop or something.”

  “Just cut loose, Elgin,” the coach said.

  The pitch was a strike, but it wasn’t down the middle like the slower stuff had been. It came in like a laser, a pitch that would have probably crossed the corner of the plate. John moved late and the ball tipped the edge of his glove and whizzed past. He looked as if he knew he should have caught it, so he sprinted after it as he would have in a game. It bounced twice and rolled more than a hundred feet.

  John ran back with it, and Elgin wound and fired again, this time a pitch at John’s ankles that sneaked under his glove and rolled as far as the last one. John scowled at Elgin and swore, then jogged after the ball. When he got back he threw the ball hard to Elgin.

  “Sorry,” Elgin said. “I thought it was an okay pitch.”

  “It was low,” John said.

  “You don’t have to apologize for pitching a ball,” Kevin said. “That pitch was catchable, even if it wasn’t in the strike zone. Right, John?”

  John said nothing.

  “Right, John?” his father demanded. The catcher shrugged.

  “You got a curveball, son?” the coach said.

  “My dad said I shouldn’t throw a curve till I’m thirteen. But
I’ve got another fastball that I hold a little different and that moves some.”

  “Moves how?”

  “It’ll look to rise as it comes across the plate. Daddy says it doesn’t really. It just looks that way cause I throw it harder.”

  “Harder than the first two?”

  “I try, yes, sir.”

  “Be ready, John!”

  Elgin wound up slowly. Though he looked older than most ten-year-olds, he still had to kick high and follow through to create his tremendous arm speed. It was a good thing John had been warned. The ball smacked into the web and drove his catcher’s glove into his chest. He wound up on his seat, and some people laughed.

  “I’m not catchin this guy,” John said, his eyes filling. “He’s too wild.”

  “Wild?” his father said. “You just got knocked on your can by a strike. Give me that glove.”

  John skulked away.

  “Now, big boy,” Kevin said, “put me on my butt.”

  I couldn’t. In fact, Kevin caught everything I threw. I could tell he had done some catching.

  “How does 1.2 million over two years sound?” Kevin said when we were finished.

  I didn’t know what he meant at first. “What?”

  “Just kiddin. Show up Monday at six for practice.”

  * * *

  Even though most of the kids wanted to be on the Braves, probably because Atlanta was the closest big-league team, Coach Kevin’s team was pretty bad. He wound up with a bunch of kids who couldn’t catch lobs from the coaches, let alone hard throws from me.

  John and I were the only kids who could throw the ball over the plate, and even though I could catch John, John didn’t want to catch me. We both wanted to pitch and play shortstop. The kid I had hit with the line drive was on the Braves, I guess to keep his dad quiet.

  Elgin came home with his uniform T-shirt and cap, and displayed it for me. I thought it looked great, but he said he still wished it was a “real uniform.”

  He was also upset that whenever he came up to the plate, no one would play the infield. They would laugh and run for cover or play deep in the outfield.

  “Coach Kevin can’t even make them stay in the infield.”

  “You can hardly blame them if you’re hitting the ball that hard,” I said.

  “Momma, this is like a league for babies. Nobody knows what a force-out is. I said something to one of the kids about John and me being like Ruth and Gehrig, batting third and fourth, and the kid didn’t even know who I was talking about. How can somebody play ball and not know who Ruth is?”

  “Who is she?” I said, even though I knew, and he knew I knew.

  “Oh, Mom!”

  Kevin had told him he was going to hit him fourth in the lineup.

  “He said, ‘How do you like that?’ as if I was supposed to be thrilled.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “No! Nobody puts their best hitter fourth. That’s the place for your power hitter. Your best hitter hits third. And if your best hitter is also your power hitter, you hit him third and let your next best power hitter hit fourth.”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure your best hitter gets up in the first inning. It also gives him a better chance to come to the plate one more time during the game.”

  “Did you tell Kevin that?”

  “Yeah. He said, ‘You play and I’ll coach, okay?’”

  The Braves were the visitors in their first game. Elgin was on deck with two outs when John hit a one-hopper to left field and was thrown out at second trying to stretch it to a double. As Elgin was tossing his helmet in the dugout and getting his glove, he looked up at me in the stands.

  “See?” he mouthed. “If I’d been on base, that hit would have scored me.”

  Kevin motioned him over with a waggle of his finger and spoke loud enough for the adults to hear.

  “We’d better get something straight, superstar. You may know more baseball than me, but I don’t want to hear it, all right? And I don’t want you talkin to anyone during the games.”

  Elgin shrugged. I could see he was near tears.

  He threw about three-quarter speed so John could catch most of his pitches. The other team was out three up and three down on strikeouts. Batters ducked and stepped out as each pitch came.

  I sensed a rumble in the crowd.

  “Unfair.”

  “Too big.”

  “Gonna hurt somebody.”

  “Like to see his birth certificate.”

  “This isn’t right.”

  “How are beginners s’posed to hit this kid?”

  I couldn’t help but put myself in their position. I wouldn’t want Elgin facing a pitcher so much bigger and better and faster than he was. I mean, I was proud of him, but I didn’t want people thinking bad about him just because he was big and a good ballplayer.

  The pitcher on the other team was a right-hander who threw huge rainbow pitches, most over the catcher’s head. His first three to Elgin were balls, and I could tell by his pleading look to Kevin that he was hoping he wouldn’t get the take sign.

  He must have got the signal to hit away, because when the pitcher finally let one fly that came in close enough to reach, Elgin drove it between the first and second basemen. Each dove away from the ball as it whistled past, and the other parents gasped. It skipped past the right fielder and bounced, breaking a piece off the top of the snow fence and rolling all the way to another diamond.

  Elgin stood on second with a ground-rule double. I clapped, thrilled with his first ever official hit in a real game. But he looked disappointed. He couldn’t have been thrilled with hitting a double off a pitcher who could hardly get the ball to the plate. But what if he had pulled the ball a little more or less and hit an infielder in the face?

  One of the parents said something about his being “an older kid using his little brother’s birth certificate.” Others started in again about how dangerous it was to have a player like him on the field.

  It was hard to disagree with that.

  7

  No one on our team except John and me could really hit the ball, and we lost 12-2. With the ten-run slaughter rule, the game was called after four innings.

  I didn’t say anything to Momma all the way home, and when I got out of the car, I threw my glove on the ground and kicked it. I flung my bat so hard I had to crawl under the trailer to get it.

  “Stinkin, lousy, stupid stinkin team!”

  I let Elgin vent and waited to talk to him until he had flopped onto his bed.

  “Your temper reminds me too much of your daddy,” I said. “I pray you don’t inherit all his traits.”

  “Daddy woulda been disgusted today,” Elgin said. “Do you believe that team? We can’t throw, hit, run the bases, nothin.”

  “The other team wasn’t much better.”

  “They wouldn’t have been able to hit me if I’d had a catcher who could catch me.”

  Hardly any opposing hitters got the bat on the ball, but Elgin kept throwing slower and slower, hoping for some kind of an out. He allowed one hit and several grounders that should have been outs but weren’t.

  I could tell he was getting madder and madder as the score got worse, and in the third inning with two outs and the bases loaded, he lobbed a two-strike pitch to a decent hitter and saw him hit a sharp grounder to third. All the third baseman had to do was catch the ball and step on the bag for the force-out, but he bobbled it. Elgin charged over to him, yanked the ball from him, and fired it to first.

  The first baseman was startled and stuck his glove up in self-defense, and the throw pushed him back over the bag where he and the runner tumbled to the ground. Out.

  In the next inning, with a runner at first, Elgin got the next batter to hit a grounder toward the second baseman. But rather than let him try to catch it, Elgin darted back and snagged the ball, tagged the runner, then beat the hitter to first himself, even though the first baseman was standing on the bag.

  “Use
your defense!” Kevin shouted.

  Neither the shortstop nor the third baseman could throw the ball all the way to first, so Kevin told them to shovel it to Elgin. He would then relay it across the infield.

  Because he had pitched only four innings in the first game, he started the second as well. The defense was no better, and the Braves were massacred again. The trouble came with Elgin’s hitting. As I feared, he hit a ground ball so hard at the second baseman that the boy closed his eyes and turned away. The ball hit his foot, glanced off his glove, brushed his forehead, and rolled to a stop between the infield and outfield.

  As the boy went down, looking more scared than hurt, Elgin never slowed, rounding first as the center fielder checked out the injured second baseman and the right fielder picked up the ball and froze. Elgin didn’t even turn to look.

  “Third! Third! Throw it!”

  The right fielder finally threw the ball, which bounced and rolled to third just as Elgin steamed in. But he didn’t slide, didn’t stop, didn’t look. He made his turn and barreled for home. The third baseman bobbled the ball, then threw wild, and Elgin scored easily.

  “This isn’t even fair,” someone said. “He’s going to hurt somebody.”

  The second baseman stayed in the game, rubbing his foot. But when Elgin came up again, the first baseman backed fifteen feet down the right field line and the second baseman ran over and stood at second.

  I knew enough about baseball to know that Elgin could have pushed a bunt up the first baseline past the pitcher and probably run all the way around the bases again. Instead he launched a line drive through the hole at second that seemed to never get more than eight or nine feet off the ground. It didn’t drop until it had landed about two hundred and twenty feet from the plate.

  Elgin received polite applause even from the opposing fans, but a couple and another man left the bleachers, heading for the concession stand where the league officials hung out.

  By the time Elgin was up again, leading off an inning, several men from the league board were watching. With nobody on and nobody out, the opposing pitcher began walking Elgin intentionally.