The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  The pitching was handled by a quartet of huge hurlers from the local American Legion team. Each was a big-league prospect. The youngest was twenty, the oldest twenty-two. Three were right-handers, two white and one black. The other was a bald lefty. He didn’t even have a rim of hair, nothing showing beneath the cap line.

  I was sent to second where I traded off with the veteran with each new pitcher. The black right-hander was on the mound, and apparently he and his cohorts had all been told the same thing.

  No mercy.

  47

  Though the sun was high and bright in Chicago, I sat at the tryout shivering in a light jacket, one I was embarrassed to be wearing in front of Lucky anyway.

  “Should have brought my winter coat,” I said idly, but I was certain he hadn’t heard. He was a mother hen with his nieces and nephews and always had an eye on them, even when talking with me.

  “Uh-huh,” was all he said. But as I stared at Elgin, who was apparently failing in an attempt at small talk with the big twin second baseman, Luke Harkness draped his huge, wool-lined leather jacket around my shoulders.

  I smiled a thank-you at him and he looked away. “I don’t want you to be cold now,” I said.

  “I’ve got a higher thermostat than you,” he said. “I’ll probably have to get rid of this sweater too, before long.”

  “Nobody seems to be able to hit these guys,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, my brother and me’ll hit em,” the second baseman said. ‘Just watch.”

  “I expect to hit them too,” I said, but the boy didn’t respond. “What’s your name, anyway?” I tried.

  “Dirk,” the boy grunted. “My turn.”

  “My name’s Elgin,” I said as Dirk glided into position to field a weak grounder. It was the first fair ball hit off the American Legion pitchers. Five hitters had gone down, and the pitchers kept rotating; sometimes two or three would throw to the same hitter.

  “We all know your name, buddy,” Dirk said. “You’ve got a lot to prove today.”

  I wanted to say I had proved all I needed to the last time I tried out for this team. But a buzz of excitement cruised from my seat to my head. This couldn’t be better. They knew who I was and were watching to see what I could do.

  “You’re not going to get any base runners this morning,” Hector Villagrande hollered, “so play every grounder as if you’ve got a guy on first and less than two outs!”

  “Lefty pitching, Dirk,” I whispered. “This guy gets a bat on Baldy, it’s coming to you.”

  Dirk straightened and turned to glare at me. “Baldy happens to be my cousin!”

  I wanted to apologize. I hadn’t meant anything by it. I hadn’t known the lefty’s name, and I should have called him Lefty. But the fair, thin kid who had been so impressive in the distance run—who had swung and missed weakly at the first three pitches, somehow got his bat on this one and it rocketed between first and second, just as I predicted.

  Dirk whirled too late and couldn’t get his glove down or his foot out of the way and took the liner off the top of his shoe. He spun and danced and howled as the ball skittered into right.

  Coach Villagrande screamed, “Are you all right?” marching from the third-base dugout to the foul line.

  “Yeah! Woodell was distractin me!”

  “Well, get out of there!”

  I thought Hector was talking to me. He was not.

  “If you can’t keep your head and your glove and your butt in the game, let somebody in there who can! Get in there, Wood-ell!”

  “Sorry, Dirk,” I said as we traded places. Dirk was red-faced and swearing.

  Two batters and a couple of dozen pitches later, a left-handed hitter grounded sharply toward first. The first baseman came charging, but I hollered him off. I speared the ball to my left in the baseline, and hopped to my right with both feet while drawing the ball back.

  I fired to the right of second, knowing that Dick, Dirk’s twin, would get there in time. I was right. Dick dragged his trailing foot across the bag as he gathered in the throw and rifled the ball to first.

  The crispness, speed, and power of the play left everybody speechless. The pitcher jogged over to slap gloves with Dick and me. I smiled. Dick scowled.

  In the stands, Lucas leaned close to me and bumped me with his knee.

  “That boy is gonna be your security someday, you know that? He’s got big league written all over him. I don’t expect he’ll hit these pitchers any better’n the rest, but he won’t do any worse. And he’s so much younger.”

  I just smiled. I had a feeling Elgin could hit these guys, any one of them, even the left-hander.

  One batter had hit a line drive to left after swinging and missing seven pitches. The only other fair balls had been the two to second, a couple of fly balls, a few dribblers to the mound, and some pop-ups.

  Elgin could have used one of the many aluminum bats, but it didn’t surprise me when he stepped in with his wood one. He was a purist, obsessed with the future. There was no sense getting anywhere with an advantage he could not carry with him to the majors.

  He looked like a big leaguer already, the way he dug in on the left side, pressed his helmet down with a free hand, and studied the pitcher. He took the first pitch, which was at the waist but outside by about two inches.

  “Close enough to hit!” Hector called.

  The next pitch would have split the plate if Elgin had not driven it to the left center field wall on one hop. The pitcher smiled and began to work harder. Elgin took every pitch that was off the plate, and none were off by more than inches. Hector barked with every taken pitch, but the line drives to all fields kept him mostly quiet.

  Elgin hit six liners, a foul homer, and two foul tips, swinging and missing once against the first right-hander. He started to leave the box when the pitcher tossed the ball to the bald lefty, but Hector told him to stay in.

  “I want you to take four pitches from each of the other three pitchers,” he said. “And I want you to swing at every pitch, even if it’s two feet off the plate.”

  Elgin nodded.

  “Do you understand, Woodell? Because I am serious.”

  Elgin nodded again, keeping his eye on the pitcher.

  “Let me hear you!” Hector hollered, and I winced. Why did he have to be so mean?

  I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I was facing the best pitching of my life, even better than Raleigh Lincoln Sr. These guys were big and young and strong and fast and smart. Their pitches moved. They had pride. They didn’t want anyone hitting them, and they didn’t expect many high schoolers would. Of course, they hadn’t yet faced Dick, the shortstop, who had hit over four hundred the season before. But they surely didn’t guess a twelve-year-old would make them look like batting practice pitchers.

  Their assignment had been—as Hector had told everyone—to show us kids what real pitching was all about. He had told us not to expect to get a bat on the ball off any of these guys.

  “Then you won’t be disappointed. And when they’re done with you, we’ll throw you some real BP and you can show us what you’ve got.”

  I made the first right-hander look hittable.

  “The other guys wore him out for you,” Hector said as the pitchers traded places. But that brought laughter from the crowd. They had to wonder if anybody could get me out.

  “You want any warm-up pitches?” I asked the left-hander.

  “Just get in there,” Baldy growled. “All I want is you.”

  I skipped to the other side of the plate and dug in, looking up just in time to see the first pitch sailing at my head. How dare this guy do that to me in batting practice? I ducked a couple of inches and the ball skipped lightly off my helmet and banged off one of the backstop posts, rolling all the way back to the mound. I pretended not to have seen or felt the pitch.

  Baldy picked up the ball and went into his windup again. He had seen me look up in time to make that small move. I was ready for the next one, which j
ammed me. I stepped toward third and dragged my bat through the strike zone, drilling the ball straight back at the pitcher, right to his glove. He stared at me. I stared back. The next pitch was hellacious. It came flashing toward the outside corner with as much movement as I had ever seen, other than off the machine. I swung late and missed.

  Baldy looked pumped, but the strike only got me into my rhythm. I knew he couldn’t sneak another hittable pitch past me. No one could. I could feel it. I was in sync, ready to hit, eager for the lefty’s best stuff.

  48

  Just before Baldy went into his windup, Hector Villagrande shouted, “Last pitch!”

  I backed out of the box and glared at the coach. I wasn’t challenging him. I was just disappointed. We had just started something, and it was going to be a show. Strength against strength. Who was the best?

  “I mean with this pitcher,” Hector said. “You still face the other two guys.”

  I stepped back in, but now Baldy was glaring at the coach.

  “Okay!” Hector said. “What do you want?”

  “I want to strike him out!”

  “Try,” Hector said, and I heard glee in his voice.

  I cracked a high, outside pitch into right center. I sent a low pitch, which would have nipped the corner, screaming past Dirk at second base. When I did the same with an inside curve, Hector chirped at me.

  “Hey, hey, hey, you’re not trying to show anybody up except the pitcher. You take the inside pitch to left. You can spray the outside pitches to the right side.”

  I had been caught. I liked seeing Dirk bend and stretch and grunt after a ball just out of his reach. These pitches, tough as they were, looked big and slow and fat compared to the ones off my pitching machine from twenty-five feet away. I had time to think, to calculate, to see the rotation, to make my judgment. I knew experts would think I was crazy if I ever said that I hit different pitches at different points on the ball.

  But it was true. Though most people believed it was impossible for hitters to really see eighty-five mile an hour and faster pitches hit their bats, I knew I could. This guy was easily throwing that hard, and I hit on top of the ball to create a spin that curled it over the infield and to the ground before the outfielders could get to it. I felt I could do that all day. When I wanted height and distance, say for a deep sacrifice fly, I hit under the ball. And with every swing, I believed I was seeing the ball and the bat meet.

  Baldy was sweating on this chilly morning. He made me swing and miss once and foul off three pitches. At one point he had me down one-and-two, before I flied deep to left. Hector waved the lefty out of there and let the other two righties have a shot. From the other side of the plate, I missed a few good change-ups and popped weakly twice—unusual for me—but mostly I continued to flare solid hits to all fields. I hit several grounders just out of the reach of the infielders, and when I hit one each right at the Dick and Dirk brothers, they were so eager that one overthrew first and the other muffed the play.

  No one would talk about anything else that happened there. Hector brought in a true batting practice pitcher and let everyone have his raps. Everyone except me. He asked me to go across the street and take infield practice.

  A coach drove hard grounders and liners at Elgin. The boy ran, crouched, dived, speared, pivoted, threw. He wasn’t perfect, but he was something. What other kid that age could catch such missiles off the bat of an adult who was pushing to see how good he was?

  The tryout broke up. Coach Villagrande addressed the adults, telling them when the next session would be, that some would be getting calls during the week informing them that their sons need not show up again.

  There was no way Elgin could be cut this time. He was the best hitter already. He was one of the best fielders and throwers too. He didn’t have the range or the arm of the twins, but they were eighteen.

  Luke’s relatives waved their good-byes and left with everyone else. Elgin’s workout across the street continued. Hector spoke briefly with his coaches before they headed for their cars. He knelt in front of the dugout to talk to the four Legion pitchers. When they left, only Hector and Lucas and I remained in the rickety park. He peered across the street.

  “Had enough?” he bellowed.

  “I can play all day,” Elgin said with the clear, high-pitched voice of youth. He would be thirteen in a few weeks.

  It would take all my reserves to keep from sticking up for my son, from demanding to know how he could have been passed over the year before. I stood as Hector approached with Elgin, climbing gingerly up the wood steps.

  “Please,” he said in a charming accent. “Sit down. I need to talk to you privately.”

  Luke began to leave.

  “Mr. Harkness is a friend of the family,” I said. “May he stay?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And Elgin?”

  “Of course. I have sent a coach to see if he can get hold of Jim Koenig, coach of the local American Legion team.”

  “Why?”

  “It may sound strange to you, ma’am, but Elgin is ready for that level.”

  “You know he’s had very little actual game experience. Just parts of a couple of seasons and one full one.”

  Hector smiled shyly. “And part of that is my fault, is it not?”

  I shrugged.

  “Of course it is,” he said. “But if my not finding him a spot last year—on my team or any other—had anything to do with the determination that made him work as hard as he has, I deserve some credit.”

  I smiled and said nothing. Hector continued.

  “Elgin,” he said, “I need to know if you felt you could hit the ball anywhere you wanted off those four pitchers.”

  I nodded.

  “You were hitting, in other words, at my shortstop and second basemen on purpose?”

  I hesitated.

  “You can tell me. I know they can be difficult. Both are excellent players.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “You made them look bad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But you did it on purpose.”

  I nodded. “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. They could have looked just as good if they had fielded those balls.”

  “You were hitting them just out of their reach.”

  I nodded again.

  “You showed hints of being able to do that last year when I thought you were not ready. But you were not hitting off the caliber of pitchers you hit off today. Do you have any idea of your potential?”

  “No, sir. That’s just it. I want to play. I need game situations. It’s killing me not to be able to do it in competition.”

  “I wish I could help you.”

  “I’m not going to make this team again?”

  Hector held up a hand. “Last year you had the ability and not the attitude. This year you have the attitude but you’re way ahead of us. I could use you. I could win the state again with you. But I would not be doing the right thing for you.”

  “But I want to play for this team! Put me anywhere! I need game experience.”

  “I know you do. But what good will it do you to hit eight or nine hundred in a league you’re too good for?”

  “I wouldn’t mind that.”

  Hector laughed. “I wouldn’t either, but it wouldn’t be fair. Not to our opponents. Not to your teammates. Not to you.”

  “But what if there’s no room for me on the American Legion team? Nobody’s gonna let me play in a league for eighteen-year-olds.”

  “Son, listen. You’re going to be playing somewhere this summer.”

  That was a relief. It scared me to think I had to jump two or three levels just to find a place to play. What if I wasn’t ready?

  Jim Koenig arrived, a tall, thin man with short black hair. “So you’re the one who humiliated my pitchers today, huh? I could use a switch-hitter. Hector tells me you’ve got skills in the field too. Frankly, we had our eyes on Dirk for second base, but we hate to break up the twin
s. Hector tells me Dirk is better than you in the field and has a stronger arm, but if you can hit my pitchers, you’ll hit a couple of hundred points higher than he would at this level.”

  I could hardly sit still. I wanted to discuss baseball with this fascinating, friendly man. But I couldn’t speak.

  “I’ll make sure my guys treat you right, and past that I won’t make any promises. If this was luck, if you’re a fluke, you’re back to Hector’s team in a New York minute. Got it?”

  I didn’t know what a New York minute was, but I got it.

  “We have ten preseason games. I’ll try you at second. Probably hit you seventh or eighth. That’ll tell us where you fit. I’m willing to start you and play you every inning of every preseason game, even if you bat zero. Get comfortable, find your rhythm, and show me what you’ve got. We start workouts Monday night and we practice or play every day for the next three weeks.”

  He turned to Momma. “Can he be there, Mom?”

  She smiled. “He’ll be there.”

  “And how do you feel about all this, ma’am?”

  Momma seemed to think for a second. “I may never be able to say,” she said. “Proud, for sure. I can’t tell you how marvelous this is.”

  “Well,” Jim Koenig said, “I just hope I’m not doing something bad for the boy. He deserves a chance, but I’d sure hate to ruin him for the future.”

  49

  Three weeks, five practices, and ten games later, I had made a believer out of Jim Koenig and fourteen teammates. As the only player on the team to play every inning, I had racked up these personal stats:

  At Bats Runs Hits Doubles Triples HRs RBI Sacrifices Average

  33 11 26 12 3 0 14 3 .788

  I had gone hitless in my first game but had driven in two runs on two sacrifices—one a fly and one a bunt. In the next nine games I had at least two hits per game, twice went four-for-four, and finished with ten hits in my last eleven at bats.