The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  I pulled back. “I love you, Lucas. You got it?”

  He laughed. I stood quickly. “That was not intended to be funny!” I turned to move away from him, but he caught my hand.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he said.

  “I’m the only one here!”

  “No! It’s funny because when I asked you if you cared to back up your statement, that wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “Well, I’m sorry! What did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking more of something like this.”

  He pulled from his pocket a small box. Before I could even reach for it, he opened it and the diamond caught the sunlight from the window.

  66

  I came down a tight spiral staircase, wearing my helmet and carrying my fungo bat. Momma and Luke stood there hugging.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, but they ignored me. “I just hit a hundred and five line drives, every one a solid shot.”

  Luke and Momma looked at each other, smiling. “Who cares?” they said.

  The ring had been the reason Luke could not afford to travel more with Elgin and me. We agreed we should put off our wedding until just before spring training. It would be hard on a new marriage for me to be on the road much of the baseball season, especially not knowing where Elgin might land in the organization. The only thing we knew for sure was that he would be in Florida for spring training, and that would make a nice honeymoon trip. Meanwhile, Luke expanded his business and put away profits so he could invest in a home in Georgia where the three of us would live during the off-seasons while Elgin was in the minors. Elgin would work out at his place in Buckhead and continue to furnish it for the day it would become his private home.

  During the off-season, Elgin’s time was taken with personal appearances, school (he was a full grade ahead already), and running through his three-hour-a-day workout. I told him often how proud I was that he was not living on past achievements.

  “Are you kidding, Momma? I haven’t made it yet, and even when I do, I can’t let up. The only way to be the best is to work the hardest, and the only practice that makes perfect—”

  “Is perfect practice,” I said. “Neal Woodell lives.”

  Luke purchased a Colonial in a modest section of Atlanta, and we did most of the refurbishing ourselves. It was during one of those sweaty, late-fall sessions with drywall dust in our hair and paint on our hands that I grew melancholy and told Luke one of my life’s secrets.

  “You know what I’ve always wanted to do? Ever since I lost my baby girl?”

  Luke was drilling. He spoke between punches on the trigger. “Tell me. Just don’t tell me that beatin story again.”

  “Why?”

  “Cause it’s ugly and it makes me want to kill a guy who’s already dead.”

  “I’d like to open a home for girls.”

  He slowly looked up at me. “I can’t believe you never told me that.”

  “Oh, honey, I don’t expect to still do it. My life’s going to be too hectic for a lot of years, especially if Elgin becomes a big leaguer and we’re married and all.”

  “No,” he said, “listen. Ever since I was in Desert Storm I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for orphans. Lucy and I had decided to wait to have kids till I got back, then I came back to bury her. Now it’s too late for me to be a father.”

  “So what are you tellin me, Lucas?”

  He smiled. “Keep dreamin, that’s all. You never know. You might as well have somethin to do that’s so big it would never get done.”

  “You mean taking in girls or finishing this monstrosity?”

  By spring, I was on a diet and weight program scoped out for me by the Braves trainer. It was working. I had grown another inch and bulked up. I turned down winter ball because Momma and Mr. Thatcher thought it would be better for me to be in school and live at home.

  I arrived in Florida with Momma and her new husband, and the media made all of us stars. Hardly anybody believed I wasn’t even fourteen yet, especially after the Little League scandal of 2001. My birthday a few days later made newscasts around the country.

  I asked my minor-league manager if he thought I was ready for second base.

  “Uh, no.”

  I shrugged and took the field. If there was a surprise at spring training, it was the sheer number of great ballplayers who showed up from various levels of the organization. I was most impressed to see the guys I had watched on television. I didn’t know whether to ask for autographs or make myself scarce. Some of them treated me like a batboy. Others just scowled at me and left me alone.

  Three of the big-league Braves starters were great to me. Bob Henson, the left fielder; Ken Clark, the catcher; and Luis Sanchez, the shortstop, asked my mother if they could take me to dinner one night.

  “We’ll baby-sit,” Luis told me. Elgin had a pleading look in his eye.

  I realized how thrilling this could be for Elgin. And these were all family men. “Come here a moment, Mr. Sanchez.”

  Luis giggled as he tried to mimic my accent in spite of his own and winked at his friends as I dragged him off to the side. “I’m inclined to allow this,” I said. “But you understand I don’t want him at any bars. I don’t even want you guys drinkin when he’s with you. No funny stuff. You’re responsible, and I want him home by nine.”

  “Oh, man!” Luis complained. “You sound like my father-in-law before he was my father-in-law!”

  “Any funny stuff, Luis, and you’re in deep weeds with me. And you don’t want that.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. We’ll just go to dinner and bring him home. We’re goin to a movie, but I just realized it’s probably one you wouldn’t want him to see.”

  “What is it?”

  “Let’s just say we’re not takin our wives, so don’t ask.”

  “Bring him home first.”

  “You got it.”

  I was a nervous wreck from the time Ken Clark raced out of the parking lot in his BMW until I heard him pull into our driveway just after eight-thirty. Elgin had had a wonderful time.

  “Man, it’s going to be great growing up on this team.”

  “If you make it,” Luke said.

  “C’mon, Lucky!” Elgin said. “You’re the one who’s always telling me to believe in myself.”

  “I just don’t want you getting overconfident.”

  “I won’t. Man, those guys gossip. It’s fun.”

  “It’s also wrong,” I said. “What’d they say?”

  Luke fell on the floor laughing.

  “There’s a guy on this club with drug problems,” Elgin said. “Cocaine, I think.”

  “Who?”

  “Gerry Snyder.”

  “The first baseman?” Luke said. “He’s been in rehab before. He’s hitting good right now.”

  “Yeah, but these guys think he’s still in trouble with the drugs.”

  “They shouldn’t be saying that,” I said. “Especially not to you.”

  “Oh, Momma, it makes me feel like part of the team.”

  Maybe so, I thought, but that was the end of his going out with the guys.

  Despite all the media attention, the Braves wisely kept Elgin on a B team in spring training, playing him sparingly against the regulars and keeping the pressure off him. When he played, he played first base, and there was no harassing him because the coaches protected him. When the team left spring training for the regular season, Elgin had hit a shade over .380 but with fewer at bats than most other players. He was assigned to triple-A Richmond where he played backup first base to an overweight twenty-four-year-old named Biff Barnett who hit towering home runs to the opposite field when he wasn’t striking out. He had hit .229 the previous season and showed a decent glove for a big man. The Braves had high hopes for him as a run-producer. Until Elgin Woodell showed up.

  Elgin went five-for-seven in a blowout first game of a double-header, and when the coaches approached Biff about letting Elgin play the second game too, just to se
e how many hits he could get in one day, Biff jumped the club and never came back.

  By the time Elgin had his first hitless game, seven weeks later, Biff Barnett was pumping gas at the family franchise station in Burns Flat, Oklahoma. Elgin was hitting over five hundred, and the country was following him in Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News and clamoring for his graduation to the bigs.

  The problem was Gerry Snyder. The Braves first baseman was leading the team in RBIs and batting .310. He was one of the best glove men in the majors, a left-hander who had the ability to almost always cut down the lead runner.

  The Braves contended for the Eastern Division lead during the first three months of the season, then hit a slump and found themselves ten games out of first and slipping toward fourth. Banners appeared in the stands:

  “It’s Time for Elgin!”

  “Bring Up Woodell, Woodja?”

  Had it not been for Snyder’s drug problem resurfacing, the Braves had planned to quietly bring Elgin up. They told Mr. Thatcher that they hoped to have him in uniform in Atlanta before the media found out. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to capitalize on his newsworthiness; they just didn’t want to appear to be doing so. They had planned to sneak him into the last three innings of a makeup game, and then start him in the annual Braves vs. Richmond game at Richmond.

  But two weeks before that, Gerry Snyder turned himself in. He was back on drugs and in trouble financially. He said he’d put off asking for help again because he feared his job would not be there when he got back, “and everybody in this city knows why. I played with the kid in spring training.”

  67

  Billy Ray Thatcher flew into Atlanta early on a Wednesday morning in July and headed for Turner Field. After an hour meeting with the brass and stopping by the clubhouse to pick up a package, he drove to Luke’s house.

  “Ready?” he asked Luke, shaking the smiling man’s hand.

  “You don’t even have to ask.” Luke was in a new suit with a tie and new shoes. He checked his watch and patted his back pocket for his wallet. “We gonna make it?”

  “Plenty of time,” Thatcher said. “Plane hits the ground at eleven.”

  Elgin and I had booked flights quietly, at Mr. Thatcher’s instruction. “Elgin doesn’t need a big welcome at the airport,” Billy Ray had explained.

  The secret arrival worked. The press missed us.

  “How’d you do last night?” Billy Ray said on the way to the condo.

  “It was only my worst game this year,” Elgin said. “I think that was the first time I ever struck out twice in a game.”

  “And in such a long career,” Thatcher said. “Any hits?”

  Elgin shook his head. “Hit one pretty good to center, but I’m still only getting em out there about three hundred feet. Grounded into a double play. Made an error.”

  “Hmph,” Thatcher said. “I don’t think I’d start you tonight. Leverance is on the mound.”

  “Nobody told me that. He’s gonna win the Cy Young this year, you know. That’ll be the second year in a row the Dodgers have had a guy win it. How do they always come up with that pitching? They’ve been doing it for decades.”

  Elgin tapped his foot and drummed his knee with his thumb. “Need to spend an hour or so with the machine this afternoon,” he said. “How we doin on time?”

  “Relax,” Billy Ray said. ‘Just treat this like any other game.”

  We all laughed and I dissolved into tears. “Right, El,” I said, “just another game for a fourteen-year-old starting for the Braves.”

  “I have to be there for the press conference at four, remember.”

  “I still don’t know why they’re doing that to you, Elgin,” I said. “You don’t need that today.”

  “Mom, if I can’t handle a press conference I sure can’t handle Leverance.” He shook his head. “Didn’t mean to bring up his name again.”

  As we entered the condo, Billy Ray trailing with his wrapped bundle, Elgin said he could just as well use a nap as batting practice.

  “But could you sleep?” Luke asked.

  “Like a baby,” Elgin said, smiling.

  “You’re not gonna get me with that old joke,” Luke said. He put his arm around Elgin and drew him close, whispering, “I couldn’t be prouder if I was your own dad.”

  It wasn’t like Luke to say things like that. I hugged him.

  “How far are we from the ballpark?” I said.

  Mr. Thatcher ignored the question and asked me to sit down. “First,” he said, “you need to know that no one in this room, yourself included, is more interested than I am in getting you to Turner on time. So please, quit worrying about that. You want to work out, fine. Don’t overdo it. Get yourself sharp, work off a little nervousness, whatever. No matter how much you work off, there’ll be plenty left over for the game.

  “Now, before you get all hot and sweaty, and before you have to dress in the coat and slacks your mother selected for the press conference, I want to give you a slightly belated birthday present.”

  “You already got me a birthday present, Mr. Thatcher. What’s this?”

  “Well, it’s not really from me,” Thatcher said, handing me the package. “It’s from your employers.”

  I removed the strings and tore away the brown paper, revealing the new home and away Brave uniforms. There is nothing like the real thing. I had worn leftover, football-numbered, hand-me-down jerseys in the minors that sometimes didn’t even match the pants. Here were beautiful whites and grays with shiny red numbers and letters, red piping, logos in place.

  “Turn that one over, honey,” Momma said. “The away jersey should have your name on it.”

  I turned the gray Atlanta jersey over and gasped. I bit my lip hard but lost the battle against tears. Under the crisp, perfect lettering that read WOODELL were two huge and beautiful digits: 16.

  My face contorted and the tears came. “Daddy’s number,” I said. “How did they know?”

  Mr. Thatcher put a hand on my shoulder. “I wonder,” he said.

  I was still dabbing my eyes when Elgin emerged wearing the away uniform. He padded around in stocking feet, looking in the mirror and tugging at the cap. I still couldn’t believe it. Elgin looked like a long, lanky teenager, maybe four years older than he was, but he still looked small in that uniform. Had it been that long ago that he begged to play on a team that had both shirts and pants?

  “Sure beats that old T-shirt, doesn’t it, El?”

  “I can’t believe this,” he said, turning to show me the back again. “I’ll always think of the name on there as Dad’s, not mine.”

  It was sad Neal wasn’t here to see this.

  Elgin tried on the uniform he would wear that night. Somehow, in the pure white, he looked even smaller. He’s a child, a baby, playing a man’s game. If people ever wondered what they came to the ballpark for, they’d know after they saw my son play.

  He would hustle on and off the field, would run out every grounder, encourage every teammate, know every situation. He played ball the way it was meant to be played, and he enjoyed it as no one ever had or ever would again.

  There would be those who thought no one so young and inexperienced deserved the break Elgin was getting. But I knew better than anyone that his life had been hard. He had seen his daddy beat me, and he had lost a sister. He had seen his daddy ruin his own life with drink and lies. Elgin had lived in poverty and had gone without in a society that treated lower-middle-class people like scum.

  If anybody deserved this, Elgin did. He had taken no shortcuts, never got discouraged, always bounced back. What other kid on earth would have spent as much time with that crazy machine that flung those rock-like balls at him from so many different directions at blinding speed? Gifted? Sure he was, but he had begun honing his gifts from the first day.

  Mr. Thatcher and Luke and I would be in a private box with Brave executives when Elgin was introduced to the standing-room-only crowd for the first time. I would be
good for nothing, probably not even able to clap for him. I stuffed two packets of tissue in my purse and dressed in a way I hoped would make Elgin, and Lucas, proud.

  I wished I could have been invisible. This was Elgin’s moment. I didn’t need or want the spotlight. Let him have it. He’d know what to do with it. I would have less and less influence on him as the season went by and as his career continued, but I felt good about that. I would stay close enough to keep him humble, to remind him who he was and who he wasn’t. But tonight he would become a baseball legend, and I wouldn’t get in the way of that for anything.

  I stood at the rim of the crowd of reporters and cameramen at the late-afternoon press conference. I couldn’t have imagined Elgin looking smaller or younger, with the manager on one side of him, the GM on the other, and the president and owner’s representative behind.

  “Gentlemen,” the GM intoned, “I know this is a historic day, but we’ll have to move it along, because this young man has to be on the field soon. He has a job.”

  There were the usual photos of handshakes and holding up uniforms. Then Elgin asked for the away jersey.

  “This is the one I’m proudest of,” he said. “My dad’s number was sixteen, and of course his name was Woodell. I’ve learned a lot from all the coaches I’ve had, but I’m here because of my dad. He’s gone now, but he was the one who taught me the game and made me love it and work at it. Thank you, Daddy.”

  68

  The Turner Field scoreboard flashed that the youngest player in the history of baseball would start at first base that night, as if it was news to anyone. When I ran out for the top of the first inning, having been announced as batting eighth, I received a huge ovation from the standing-room-only crowd.