“Ho! Wait! Time out!” the league president hollered.
The umpire, a young man in his late teens, whirled around and looked mad until he realized who was talking.
“Time is out!” the ump yelled.
The president went to the opposing coach and Kevin followed. “Clarence, what do you mean by an intentional walk with nobody on? We came down here to see this boy hit, not to see bad sportsmanship.”
“Bad sportsmanship? If we don’t walk this kid, he’s gonna take somebody’s head off.”
Some of the fans hollered that they agreed.
“Pitch to him,” Kevin said, “and I may have him bunt.”
“Don’t be doin that either,” the president said. He turned to the other coach. “Play your kids deep and let him hit. We’ll decide if he’s too big for this league.”
Elgin hammered a foul down the first baseline, and half a dozen fans dived for cover. Everyone looked at the president. He seemed to be pretending not to have seen.
Elgin drove the next pitch as far as he had hit his first home run, but foul. The other team was giggling, dancing around on the field as if looking for a safe spot.
A few wild pitches later, Elgin reached for an outside pitch but got too far under the ball and sent it into left field, the highest pop-up I could imagine. He looked disgusted and sprinted to first, making the turn and almost reaching second before the ball finally came down between the left fielder, center fielder, shortstop, and third baseman. The pitcher and catcher stood watching. No one was covering third. Elgin kept running and, though he was the only one near the bag, the center fielder threw the ball anyway. Of course, Elgin scored.
The league president slapped his palms to his thighs, rose, and, said, “That ball wasn’t gonna hurt nobody.”
He left amid a wave of boos and complaints.
“You should stay and watch!”
The Braves lost big again, but at least in the next game Elgin got to play shortstop. Unfortunately he couldn’t find the arm speed slow enough so his first baseman could handle his throws, yet fast enough to get the runners out.
“Mom,” he said later, “there’s nothing more fun than baseball, and nothing worse than playing it the way we are.”
By the end of the fifth game the Braves were one-and-four, but Elgin was ten-for-eleven, all extra base hits, including four homers, plus a bunch of walks. While we packed for our move, I asked him if he had had any fun.
“Not really. It was too easy. And our team was too weak.”
The phone rang. It was the league president.
“Mrs. Woodell, it would be very helpful to me if I could come visit with you this evening.”
“This is not the best time. In fact, we’re—”
“I would be only a few minutes. I have good news for Elgin.”
I didn’t know how to turn the man down, but I knew it would have to come out that we were leaving.
“Ma’am,” he said a few minutes later, a sweaty glass of tea in his hand, “we’re going to promote your son to the next level.”
“Sir?”
“He’s clearly too good for where we have him at now, so we’re making room for him on the Pirates of the eleven- and twelve-year-old league.”
“Yes!” Elgin said. “The Pirates! Just like Dad! And they have full uniforms, don’t they?”
“Indeed they do, son. I’ve got one in the car.”
I said, “Sir, I’m afraid I have some bad—”
“Just let me get that uniform, ma’am, and see how it looks on the boy.”
“Yeah, Momma, let me at least try it on.”
It was against my better judgment, and when Elgin came out of his bedroom looking like a miniature version of Neal at his first spring training, I could hardly breathe.
“The fact is,” I said, my voice shaky, “we are leaving, moving to Chicago this weekend.”
“Can’t the boy stay with friends or family so he can finish out the year? It’s hardly fair to—”
“The only person it’s not fair to is Elgin,” I said. “It won’t make a bit of difference to the Braves, and the Pirates don’t even know they have him yet, do they?”
“Well, their coach does, and he’s going to be plenty upset.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I can’t stay with Grandma, Momma?”
I gave Elgin a look that shut him up. Later, I scolded him for crossing me in front of somebody. “It was hard enough for me as it was,” I said, finally breaking down.
“I’m sorry, Momma,” he said, and I looked up at the emotion in his voice.
“This is harder on me than it is on you, isn’t it, El?”
He nodded. “I won’t miss the Braves, but I didn’t know about the Pirates. Playing with the bigger kids would have been fun.”
“But I can’t leave you here, Elgin.”
“I wouldn’t want you to, Momma. I wouldn’t want to be here without you, and I sure wouldn’t want you in Chicago without me.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Are you kidding? You’d get to watch two big-league teams play whenever you wanted, and I’d be down here hitting home runs and pitching no-hitters you’d never see.”
Three days later we headed north.
8
One thing that could be said for fastpitch was that I could play it until late fall when the sun set too early after school. Even then I played most of the day on Saturday and after church on Sunday.
“I kept track,” I told Momma after a nonstop, six-hour game with just two players on each team. “I had sixty-two hits today and thirteen homers.”
“Not a bad day,” she said. “Can’t do that in Little League, can you?”
We had been to see several games in organized leagues, including the one I would play in the next spring, when Momma could afford it. The league played all its weeknight games under the lights, and they had beautiful uniforms. The equipment and the field were not kept up the best, but the competition was way better than in Hattiesburg.
Elgin pestered me to take him whenever I could, and though I was exhausted from working all day, I often did. Tell you the truth, I was fascinated with Elgin’s baseball mind. He sat fidgeting, hollering, and pointing, and he commented on every play. Nearly everything reminded him of something he had seen on television or read somewhere. He gushed stories of baseball from the past and the present, and I wondered what else might be in that head of his.
“With guys on first and second,” he said one night, “they’re not even watching the guy at first. But unless they’re afraid the pitcher or catcher will throw the ball away, the first baseman ought to duck in behind him either just before the pitch or just after so they can pick him off. They’d still have time to get the guy going to third. They’re just handing him a huge lead this way. He’s got as much chance to score on a single as the guy on second does.”
I grew up with brothers. I knew how boys could be about sports they loved. But I had never seen anything like this. Not even Neal had loved the game the way Elgin did. It was too early to tell whether he had Neal’s ability, but if I could keep him off booze and anything else that might destroy him, his desire alone could take him far. If only Neal had loved baseball more than the buzz of a six-pack.
Maybe it was my loneliness that kept me from being bored by Elgin’s constant baseball chatter. The only thing I grew weary of was tossing a sock ball to him all the time. If I hadn’t protested, he would have kept me throwing it for hours. Whenever there was a commercial or a break in the action on television, he would toss me the sock and run and dive on the couch. I had learned to lead him so he could catch it in the air and then flop onto the couch, as if saving a dramatic home run.
In the late evenings, when I was watching an old movie on television and he was supposed to be asleep, he would call out to me.
“Momma, can I come tell you just one thing?”
“Just one.”
He would pad out with some bit of trivia I cou
ld hardly believe anyone could remember.
“Cool Papa Bell, from the Negro Leagues, could run around the bases only a second slower than Maurice Green can run the same distance in a straight line. That’s how fast I want to be.” When he was finally asleep I would pace and long for someone to hold me. I knew men noticed me. Here in the North they were bold enough to comment on my looks. They often complimented my clear, pale skin and my red hair. Three different men at my office had asked me out. Two of them were married.
It was nice to be noticed and thought pretty, but I didn’t feel available, didn’t feel free. I would have loved to have an adult to talk with about something other than business or kids—something I hadn’t had since the early days with Neal. We had halfway intelligent conversations at one time. But when the alcohol took the place of his career and he saw everything falling apart, he took it out on me. There was no adult conversation after that.
My family had been little help. My mother and grandmother reminded me that there had never been a divorce in our family, and that a real woman could hold a man, regardless. I could have “held” Neal. There would have been nothing to that. He wanted a punching bag and a bed partner who would pay his way, pick up after him, and let him do what he wanted. I might have done all that except put up with the beatings. The rest was not a fair trade, but it was a trade.
But who knew when the anger would be directed at Elgin? And what good would I be to him or any future children if I were injured? Sadly, I left one fight too late. And on those nights when I dreamed of a mature, soft-spoken, loving man merely holding me, hearing me, I could just as easily shift to a wrenching need to cuddle my baby girl in my arms.
Tears dripped in my lap as I sat curled up on the couch, watching TV but not really watching. I would fold my arms across my chest and imagine cradling a newborn, a helpless, feathery girl with wisps of hair and a pink bow, huge blue eyes and a rose petal mouth. In my mind I enveloped the child without hurting her, protected her, made her feel warm and secure and loved.
When I imagined that sweet, unnamed child at my breast, the pain became too intense, and my hands curled into fists and my nails dug into my palms. I wanted to scream, to wail, to yes, cry like a baby. Sobs caught in my throat as I forced myself to remain silent. Elgin would never understand.
I buried my face in my hands and wept, renewing my resolve. I would pour my grief, my loneliness, my passion, my motherly and wifely instincts into my surviving child. This was the reason I had fled Hattiesburg. I had hated the shame, but even more, I didn’t want Elgin to live with it. To have a daddy in prison, to have the whole town know of your legacy of failure—no, I would not subject him to that.
I knew Elgin had wanted to stay, to play ball, to be around friends and family. He had come because I did. I had tried to take the blame for leaving, making it sound as if it were my problem and that I hated to make him the victim. But if I had my way, he would not be a victim. I had already succeeded in getting him away from Hattiesburg, away from his daddy, away from bad influences and dead-end possibilities.
I didn’t know what Chicago held for him, but I had been able to find work and a place to live. We were getting by, not falling into debt as had always been predicted for me. I knew Elgin wanted nothing more than to play baseball, and if he was anything like my brothers and his father, he wanted to make a career of it.
But I also knew the incredible odds against that. I didn’t hope for a big-league career for him, even if that’s what he and every ballplaying kid his age wanted. What I wanted for him was an unlimited horizon. I based his privileges on his success at school.
“I don’t expect you to do better than you can do; I just expect you to do as well as you can do. Then you can play and have lots of time for fun.”
Elgin had risen to the challenge as I knew he would. He was such a good reader, so inquisitive. And competitive. Within the first two weeks of school, he’d told me he knew who the girl was he had to beat for best grades.
“She’s got me in arithmetic now,” he said, “but not for long.”
He had been right. By early spring he had the highest grades in the class, including arithmetic. I allowed myself to entertain broadcasting as a potential career for him in spite of his shyness. With my first raise, which came six months after I arrived, I began putting aside money for college.
I had asked my boss what he recommended for financing college for a kid who was almost ten now.
“How do you feel about crime?” he said, smiling. I laughed.
Maybe Elgin could earn a scholarship. Did colleges offer baseball scholarships? If I were trying to get him into the big leagues, I would have stayed in a climate where he could play year-round. Chicago held other opportunities. Reading did not depend upon the weather. With his brain, his memory, his scholastic ability, the future was his.
We rarely talked about it, but I could see him anchoring a sports roundup show, maybe doing play-by-play or even color work for major events on a network. I knew there were many levels of broadcasting before that and lots of competition—everyone in the business looking for the same plum assignments—but that didn’t have to deter Elgin any more than it had deterred me. Leaving Hattiesburg for Chicago in the face of uncertainty and criticism had been like taking off for Mars. But I had a feeling. I had to do what I had to do, and no problems were too great.
I wanted a nicer place to live, would have loved to be able to afford the suburbs, but there was no way. Any extra money would go for sports equipment, sign-up fees, and the college fund. Everything would point toward Elgin’s success. That was the greatest investment I could think of.
Could he be even more than I dreamed? Could he do something for people far beyond what would bring him success and money in a profession he loved? Was it possible he could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a college professor? Who knew? It was delicious to think about all the options. Everything about Elgin spoke of the future, not of the past.
The past was gone, a painful, bitter memory that sneaked up on me late at night when I needed a baby in my arms or to be a baby in someone else’s arms. In my mind, I would take Elgin’s face in my hands and turn him toward the future, toward the ris ing, not the setting, sun. I wouldn’t push; I would merely enable. I would steer, guide, help, provide. He had the tools, and so far he seemed to have the drive.
I would give him what I had never had: freedom. I didn’t want him to be perfect. I knew he was not. For all the skills and talents and the wonderful mind, he could still be selfish, sometimes obnoxious, sometimes angry. Sensitivity and maturity would come with age. I desperately wanted to stay close enough to be assured of that. But I also knew the day was not far off when I would have to let him become what he wanted to be, not what I had mapped out for him.
I was amused one evening when he did a play-by-play of our sock-tossing game.
“Woodell goes back, back. He may never get to this one!” He motioned to me to throw the sock ball. “He leaps!” I tossed it higher than ever, just missing the ceiling and heading for the faded drape above the couch. Elgin got a finger on the sock, causing it to tumble end-over-end. As he settled onto the couch, he reached up with both hands and gathered in the sock.
“He’s got it!” he cried. “Elgin Woodell, youngest player in the history of baseball, saves the game for the Cubs! The ten-year-old center fielder climbed the vines for that one, tipped it, and came down with it!”
That line of Elgin’s was one I had never heard from my brothers. They had always imagined themselves as Braves, making the game-saving catch or the game-winning hit when they grew up.
This was something else that set Elgin apart from others in my life. They all waited and hoped to get the big promotion, to win the lottery, to get a break. But Elgin didn’t dream about being a big leaguer when he grew up. He dreamed about being a big leaguer now.
9
I tried to get Elgin interested in football and basketball throughout the fall and winter, but though he enjoye
d following the Bulls and Bears, baseball remained his true love. How could a boy his age care so much about box scores and statistics? We were learning a lot from each other. He had inherited my knack for math, and he used fractions and percentages to teach me how to figure earned run and batting averages. I pretended to care.
“It isn’t just the numbers,” Elgin told me. “Every game starts with an empty box score, and no two are alike. There’s always the chance for a perfect game, or a no-hitter, or a shutout, or a blowout. Games have patterns. Sometimes you’ll go along with nothing happening for five or six innings, then one team will explode. Sometimes both do.”
One night he made me wonder if he was gifted. Was there some dormant gene from a distant ancestor?
“Baseball is, like, sort of balanced,” he said. “You’re supposed to suffer when you walk too many people, and usually you do. But sometimes you get out of jams when you shouldn’t, and then you see things fall apart with no one on and two outs. The best play of a game might not work. It’s just like how we live.”
Could he have been thinking of the choices I had made, the divorce, the move, my leaving him alone every day until I got home from work? I wanted to ask him, but he quickly moved back to baseball.
He went on and on about how sometimes a great play doesn’t work while a mistake can work out for good.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Don’t you see it, Momma? On a bad play, out of position, lucky, a guy makes a double play that gets his team out of trouble and keeps them in the game. Then, on the best play he makes all year, the runner is safe anyway and the game starts to turn. In the scorebook, his best play looks like his worst and his worst is scored a double play.”
“So what’s the moral of your story, El?”
He smiled. “The moral is, you talk to your mother about baseball stuff and you get to stay up later.”
I chased him to bed.
The Youngest Hero Page 5
