The Youngest Hero (6 page)

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.

N
o 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.

“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.”