The Youngest Hero (5 page)

“No,” Guesser said. ‘Just that this boy and his momma say he’s ten.”

Matt seemed to study Momma more than me. “Pretty little lady says her son is ten, he’s got to be ten. But ma’am, you understand
we’re gonna get challenged on this every time we turn around. You have papers somewhere, right?”

“Of course.”

“Just bring a copy of his birth certificate to tryouts.”

“My dad is tall,” I said. ‘That’s why I’m tall.”

He said, “If you’re as good as you are tall, you’re gonna need that birth certificate. If you’re not, nobody will care.”

“My dad is a good player.”

“Someone I should know?”

“Neal Woodell.”

“No kiddin? He was some kinda player before, ah—he was some kinda player.”

The man at the cash box said, “Maybe he would like to coach a team for us. We’re still looking for help for the—”

“Uh, no, Clarence,” big Matt said. “He’s, uh, not a local man. Now let’s get this boy signed up and tell him where to report
for tryouts.”

I was nervous at tryouts, but I tried to hide it. The other kids all seemed to be dressed in new shoes, sweats, hats, and
gloves. I wore raggy sweats, one of my dad’s old, too-big caps, and that floppy glove. I wore year-old sneakers that were
already smooth on the bottom.

I quit telling other kids about my dad after the first three didn’t know his name. But I couldn’t wait to run and hit and
throw and catch. I was glad Momma was there to watch. Matt explained to the parents how the tryout would go.

“We’ll run them for time, hit em a coupla grounders and flies, and give em three swings apiece. We grade em from zero to five
or A for automatic. Each coach gets a certain number of nine-year-olds
and a certain number of ten-year-olds on his team, and they bid on players of different levels. We don’t claim to be perfect,
and we don’t tell anyone what the ratings are. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”

They lined us up near home plate and told us to stand in the batter’s box, one at a time. We were to swing and drop the bat
and run all the way around the bases, touching each one. We were timed from the plate to the plate.

Most of the kids swung, set the bat down, and then ran. They ran in a huge circle, touching first base and running almost
into right field on their way to second and into left on their way to third. A lot of kids slid into home, even though that
slowed them down. Some stopped and jumped on the plate with both feet.

When my turn came I stepped quickly into the box. I crouched with the bat ready, pretending I was in a game. Daddy had drilled
into me that every play in practice came with a man on second and two outs, or bases loaded and no outs, or whatever. My dad
would tell me the inning, the standings, the score. “Practice doesn’t make perfect!” he would shout. “Perfect practice makes
perfect!”

I had to run out every ground ball or pop-up and step and throw on every practice toss. Now I imagined running out an in-side-the-park
home run where scoring would tie the game and being out would mean a loss. I stood in left-handed to give me an edge toward
first.

“You a lefty?” a man asked.

“Switch-hitter, sir.”

“Sure you are. Which hand do you throw with?”

“Right.”

“Bat righty for this.”

That made me mad. I moved to the other side of the plate, stepped and swung hard. I was moving before I dropped the bat, and
within three steps I was at top speed.

I heard other kids gasping and saying, “Whoa, watch this! Look at that kid.”

I raced toward first, sixty feet away, and I must have looked
like I would never be able to slow enough to make the turn. A few feet from the bag I darted to the right and leaned hard
to the left. My left foot slid into the bag and straightened me up and put me on a line toward second, where I did the same
thing.

I was hardly two feet out of the base path all the way around. I got ahead of myself on the way to home and almost stumbled,
then righted myself and sped across the plate.

“Man!”

“Wow!”

“Unbelievable!”

I peeked at Momma in the bleachers. She raised her fist and smiled.

The timers looked at their stopwatches and then at each other.

“Can’t be right,” one said.

“The watch doesn’t lie. He looked pretty quick.”

“He didn’t look this quick. I don’t think a fourteen-year-old has run this fast. Maybe I was late punching in at the start.”

“Me too. We were both off?”

“Could have been. He got out of the box fast.”

Another man came up to them with a clipboard.

“Time?”

“We’re not sure.”

Both showed him their watches.

“You want me to write that down? Or should I just note that you both think you’re funny? C’mon, what’s the time? I expected
him to have the fastest time, but faster even than the big kids by more than a second? Are we sure this kid’s only ten?”

“He’s ten.”

“Sure he is.”

“Woodell!”

“Sir?”

“When you catch your breath, get back in line. We need to be sure of your time.”

When I catch my breath
? I was hardly panting. I went to the back of the line.

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.”

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.