The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

The pitches still hummed in, moving from left to right, coming on the inside corner to a righty. I took a few practice swings, ignored a few pitches without moving, then set myself and drew the bat back. I was ready for the next pitch, having memorized the timing from when I first heard the phfft! from the spinning wheels until the ball whizzed past me.

  I stayed in my crouch with knees bent, eyes on the ball, stepping slowly about six inches as the sound was emitted. I turned on the ball, driving my bat through the strike zone and keeping my chin down, eyes level. I smacked the ball on a direct line past the machine and into the hanging canvas. I dropped to one knee just to think about it and appreciate it. It had not been luck. I had nearly gotten to the place where I thought it might be possible. Pitch after pitch came banging off the wall as I knelt there, smiling. Man, that felt good! It wasn’t a foul tip; it wasn’t even a pop-up or a grounder. That had been a solid line drive, maybe a homer. So, it was possible to time these pitches, follow them in, and get the bat around!

  I couldn’t wait to do it again, and I didn’t mind that the machine emptied itself of golf balls while I sat reveling in my success. This was something to be savored, to ponder, to enjoy. It had been almost worth the wait. Almost, but not quite. If I could now get a shot like that during each set of fifty-seven pitches, then I might think the lengthy ordeal had been worth it.

  Batting lefty a few minutes later, I found that I could reach the outside corner by forcing myself to step into the pitch. I would rarely try to hit a pitch like this into left field because I simply couldn’t get enough on it, but until I was ready to adjust the machine to either start spinning the ball the opposite way, redirecting it so the ball cut across the inside or the heart of the plate, I would try this.

  I hit four foul tips and what would have been a weak pop-up, probably to the third baseman. In a way I felt better about that performance than even the solid shot I had gotten from the right side. I had come a long way, getting my bat on five pitches. It was less than ten percent, but it was so much more than I had ever done before. My goal was to be able to somehow drive the ball from both sides the way I had—one time—from the left.

  I refilled the machine and used my rubber-coated baseball for a little infield practice. My arm was still delicate and I felt feeble, not being able to snap the ball on the throw. Still, I knew it was good for the arm to just loosely arch the ball to the wall and then play the easy hops. I would take it slow, not try to hurry my comeback. I wanted to be ready by spring to become the best player on my team and maybe in the league.

  I was glad Elgin had found some success in the basement. I loved to hear him tell of his progress. Occasionally I would stand in the doorway and watch him, ready to duck behind the wall if necessary. The difference between the first time I had done that—just after Christmas when he was able to foul off maybe ten pitches out of a whole set and hit grounders on one or two more—and the second week in March was amazing. By then he was at least tipping every other pitch, and he hit a half dozen solid every time. Only once in every two rounds of pitches would he hit a hard liner, but I was still astonished by his progress.

  As the weather cleared and Elgin’s fastpitch buddies began making noises about starting up the games again, I cautioned him about throwing too hard too soon outside.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he told me. “I don’t ever want to go through that again. If I play, I won’t pitch, at least till next month.”

  The only problem I had with Elgin’s obsession was that it made me lonelier. He was doing homework or reading when I got home, for which I was thankful. We talked during dinner, and he helped me with the dishes. Then he finished his homework and headed for the basement, usually not returning until bedtime. We talked a little more when I was getting him settled in, but still I felt I had less and less time with him and for him. He didn’t seem any the worse for it, but I felt deprived.

  He was becoming a charming, quick-witted kid. He was sensitive, though a loner. I worried that all that time alone would affect how he got along with other people, but his teachers said he was an outspoken leader in class and everyone seemed to like him. He had a reputation as a local baseball star, but he assured me he had said nothing to anyone about his private training room and regimen.

  I used the time in the evenings to read and sew, and I watched more television than I felt I should. I worried when I began to pretend there was a man there, one I could talk to about important things, trivial things, anything at all. More than once I caught myself thinking aloud, imagining that someone who loved me cared about what I had to say. I spoke of Elgin, waited for a reasoned response, then talked some more. I knew it was silly, wondered if I was crazy, and eventually went to sleep trying to picture the man who would come into my life.

  My bed was lonely and cold until I curled into a ball and embraced the extra pillow, often waking in the morning in the same position, feeling as if I had hung on all night for my very life. But when I saw my son, my precious son, the one who was worth any sacrifice, I decided every morning to postpone my own needs for his. He didn’t know this, I recognized. He seemed to take life as it came, believed that baseball was all there was and, I hoped, realized that I loved him. That was all I wanted for now, for him to know that he was loved—to know something I had never really known or felt.

  There had been too many children in my family, too many sons, too many daughters. I felt as if I had slipped through the cracks, as if I were just one of the kids and not special to my parents. Being one of the youngest, I was convinced my parents had run out of time and energy for me. I was not a rebel, not a troublemaker, but I was a troubled soul. I desperately needed and wanted attention, and not being a socialite or a rich kid, I settled for dating the campus heartthrob. That was almost enough, but it had evolved into a nightmare.

  I had read and seen and experienced enough to know what it meant to be a caring parent. I didn’t want to overdo it, but I compared myself to TV moms, movie moms, even moms of my friends. Few had experiences any different from mine, but I had one friend whose mother was fun and funny, who listened and seemed to care. This woman didn’t embarrass her kids by trying to be like them or by trying to impress their friends. She just was who she was, and seemed comfortable with it. Who she was, was a mother who didn’t spoil her kids or let them run her, but who cared deeply for them—and it showed.

  That was the kind of a mother I wanted to be. I had friends and acquaintances in the work world, as I grew older and got married and divorced, who liked to blame their troubles, and mine, on the way we were raised. We commiserated about neglectful parents, too harsh parents, too permissive parents, too busy parents. I grew sick of it. I believed in my soul that what happens to you does not have to be the result of the way you were raised, but rather can be a result of how you responded to the way you were raised. For a while, especially when I doubted myself and believed I had brought many of these marital troubles on myself, I believed that my upbringing had a lot to do with it. Had I become an enabler? Was I making it convenient for Neal to be alcoholic, abusive, self-destructive?

  Eventually I separated myself from that kind of thinking. I convinced myself that I would be a good mother and could have been a good wife, not because of the way I was raised but in spite of it. I told myself that though, yes, perhaps my family was dysfunctional and never learned to interact properly, I had known all along it was wrong. I never got swept into believing that this was simply the way things were and the way they should be. I had a brain, I had eyes and ears, I had experience and years, and it was time to grow up, to take responsibility for my own actions.

  I still felt my divorce was not right in the eyes of God. I hadn’t felt good about giving up on the marriage, or giving up on Neal. But he had bled from me every vestige of energy and dignity. When my reserves were gone I decided that God would certainly not expect one of His children to live in fear for her life and that of her children, born or unborn. I wasn’t sure I was right, but I knew I had to
take control.

  In just seven or eight years I would see my son off to college, and maybe he could help me financially after that. Maybe I could be open to another relationship. For now, though, I was content to let my guiding principle be to devote myself quietly and almost secretly—for eleven-year-olds rarely sensed such things—to giving my son a life I would have died for as a child. I didn’t want to be blind and spoil him; I didn’t want to center my life on him to where I would have nothing to live for when he was gone. But in my small ways, with my humble financial means, I intended to deny myself—and him in many ways—so that in the long run he would have the opportunities I never had.

  Then, regardless what he did with those opportunities, he would know what I had tried to do. He could have obscenely expensive athletic shoes and other equipment now, and then have to work and not go to college one day. But I would not do that to him. I knew the day would come—in fact, I was amazed it hadn’t already—when his values might not be my values and he might start badgering me to give him what everyone else seemed to have. Then I would just try to explain things to him. I would tell him about my budget and why we lived beneath our means on a salary that would be poverty-level for most. Unless I missed my guess, Elgin was one kid who would understand. He may not like it or agree with it at first, but he would be grateful for me and for my philosophy one day, the day that it counted. He would not be looking for any ship to come in. He would know the value of love and family and work and diligence, and he would know that you make your own way in this world. He would become a man of responsibility and discipline. That I prayed for above all.

  Chico came by looking for Elgin one afternoon after I had returned from work. Elgin was in the basement, but I didn’t want to tell Chico that and make him feel bad that he couldn’t join him.

  “I’ll tell him you came by.”

  “Tell him we gonna play fastpitch till dark today. First game of the season.”

  After Chico left, I hurried to the basement to give Elgin the news. He was picking up golf balls and sweating.

  “I think I’m ready for a little fastpitch,” he said. “I’m not ready to pitch, though. Chico always wants to pitch. I’ll get on his team.”

  An hour later, just after dark, I heard Elgin on the stairs from a couple of floors below. He was the only person in the building who could run up that many flights. He rarely did it at the end of the day, though. Usually, especially after playing hard and long, he took the elevator. He must, I decided, have news.

  Did he ever.

  29

  I was sure it was Elgin banging on the door, but the rapping was so insistent that I peeked through the peephole just to be safe.

  “C’mon, Momma! Open up!”

  I removed the chain and twisted both dead bolts. Elgin had already turned the knob and the door swept in at me. I stepped back just in time to miss being slammed in the nose.

  “Elgin! What’s wrong?”

  Nothing was wrong. I could see that from his face, but I wanted to send him a message. Nothing but an emergency should require that kind of enthusiasm at this time of the day.

  “Momma, you’ve got to come with me right now. Chico is waiting.”

  “Why? What?”

  “Please, Momma, get your coat.”

  “Dinner’s on the stove, El.”

  “Turn it down, turn it off, put it in the oven. Just come on.”

  “No, you gotta tell me first.”

  “You just have to see this, Momma, what I can do in fastpitch. You will not believe it. Chico promised to throw his hardest and to do whatever he could to get me out, but you gotta watch.”

  “It’s after dark! You can hardly see the ball now!”

  “It didn’t make any difference when the sun went down. I could still see. I mean I see it leave his hand and—”

  “I thought Chico was pitching on your team.”

  “He was, but we won so big because of my hitting that the other guys finally left. Chico said he thought the other pitcher must have been throwing me candy pitches, because he sure couldn’t hit the guy. Momma, I must’ve made only three outs in an hour, and there were only two guys on our team, just Chico and me.”

  “Just three outs?”

  I could see there would be no bargaining on this. I put the pans in the oven and turned it on low, then grabbed my coat. We hurried a couple of blocks, and sure enough, there sat Chico.

  “I try to get him out, ma’am, I really do. I pitch after dark, my best, my fastest. I can’t even see the ball after the pitch, but he hits it and then I see it, very high.”

  “I’m watching,” I said. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. If I hadn’t been there myself, I would not have believed it. It wasn’t that Elgin was one to stretch the truth, but this would have been hard to swallow. He stood up to the chalked-in plate.

  “Tell her what happened first, man,” Chico said, grinning.

  “Oh, yeah, that,” Elgin said, laughing. “Well, when we first got here, nobody else was here, so we pitched to each other.”

  “You weren’t going to throw in this weather,” I scolded.

  “Oh, I was just lobbing it.”

  “Yeah, he was, ma’am. In fact, I was hitting him pretty good!”

  “But then when I tried to get some practice hitting against Chico, I couldn’t hit a thing. The bat seemed so light I couldn’t control it, and I was way out ahead of everything. He started throwing harder and harder, and just before the other guys showed up, I got used to it.”

  “Yeah,” Chico said, “and then—well, watch this!”

  Chico wound and fired, a high fastball, outside. Elgin turned and smacked the ball high off the eighth or ninth floor of the twenty-story building across the street. Chico chased the ball by listening for the bounce, then both boys looked to me.

  “What’s a home run again?” I asked.

  “Anything over the fifth story, ma’am,” Chico said, grinning and pointing.

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded.

  “That’s nothing,” Elgin said. “I can’t miss!”

  Chico fired again, hard and low. Elgin golfed the shot from his ankles, another fastpitch homer. Chico changed speeds. Elgin was way ahead of it.

  “Strike one, man!” the pitcher yelled.

  The next pitch nearly hit Elgin in the knee before he hit it for a homer.

  “Watch this!” Chico said.

  He bounced the ball to Elgin as hard as he could. Elgin hit it for a homer.

  Chico threw sidearm, then submarine, then an overhand pitch that dropped through the strike zone. Elgin hit them all out.

  “If he don’t quit this, ain’t nobody gonna want him to play fastpitch anymore!”

  “Okay, Chico,” Elgin said, “let’s show her the biggie.”

  I couldn’t believe there could be more.

  Chico said, “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Come here.”

  Chico cut the pitching distance almost in half. He was now throwing from about twenty feet away. His first couple of pitches were over Elgin’s head. I could not imagine how the boy could see them. They bounced off the wall behind him and almost all the way back to Chico. I heard the slap against the wall and then several echoes. From the sound of it, Elgin’s friend was throwing as hard as he could.

  “Be careful of your arm,” I cautioned.

  “No problem.”

  He finally found the range at the new distance. Of the next ten pitches, nine were hittable. Three were lined right past Chico for doubles low on the wall. One was slightly higher for a triple. The rest were homers.

  “Momma, usually I at least have a strike or two before I get a hit. This is unbelievable!”

  “It sure is,” I said. “It most surely is.”

  Elgin was still wound up on the brisk walk home. I tried to slow him down, trudging along with my hands deep in my pockets.

  “How do you account for this, El?” I said.

  “I don’t know! I just think
it’s fantastic!”

  “Now, hold on. Wait a minute. You can’t tell me, baseball mind that you are, that you haven’t tried to figure this out.”

  “I don’t want to think about it. I just want to do it.”

  “Think about it, El. Tell me. What’s happening?”

  I stopped under a street lamp. Elgin leaned back against a building.

  “Well,” he began, “I’ve been doing a lot more swinging with a heavier bat since the last time I played fastpitch. So I’m getting the broomstick bat around a lot faster.”

  “But you’re hittin fastballs pitched close up in the dark.”

  “I know. I guess that’s from hitting in the basement with the low light and the golf balls coming so much faster than the tennis ball. You know, the pitching machine must be throwing two or three times faster than Chico and the other guys.”

  “But you could see it almost in the dark! How?”

  “I wasn’t really seeing it all the way, Momma. It was strange. You know I’ve always had good eyes. That school doctor told you that.”

  “Yeah, better than twenty-twenty, he said, which I didn’t even know was possible.”

  “I know I can see things far away that other people can’t see.”

  “But how were you picking up that tennis ball in the light of a street lamp a half block away?”

  “I saw just enough of it as it came out of his hand that I could judge the speed and where it was going to be. I don’t know how I do it, I just do. I guess trying so hard to watch the golf balls makes this easy.”

  “It looked easy,” I said. “You made it look like you were tossin those balls up and hitting them yourself.”

  He nodded. “I felt like I could hit anything I could reach, and I could smack it anywhere I wanted. The ball looked huge and slow to me.”

  I signaled with a nod that it was time to keep moving.

  “Do you think this is gonna affect how the golf balls look to you tomorrow?”

  “I hope not. I’m gonna do both every day and see if I can get used to that.”