The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “I said you’d be a starter next year.”

  “Well, thanks a lot, okay? I’m nineteen years old, was a superstar high school player, started on a junior college team, and hit in the high three-nineties this spring. I’ll probably never play with anyone as phenomenal as you, and to top it off you’re thirteen years old. I should be encouraged when an expert like you tells me what a future I have with this club, but you’ll forgive me if that didn’t make my day.”

  “You want to start this year, of course,” I tried, knowing I had screwed up but not sure how.

  My eyes followed the crack of the bat. With a runner at third an easy double play was muffed when the third baseman dropped the liner.

  “You’re on deck,” Doyle said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know how to talk to people.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just in a mood.”

  “Can I make it up to you somehow?” I said, moving for my bat.

  “Yeah,” Doyle said. “Drive in Burke.”

  “How?”

  Doyle shook his head. “Sac fly to right.”

  “Wish that was a righty on the mound,” I said. “Now I have to get an outside pitch to push the other way.”

  “The guy’ll be trying to keep away from you, anyway,” Doyle said. “Should be easy.”

  “True,” I said.

  The hitter ahead of me grounded sharply to third. One out, runners at second and third. I hurried to the dugout.

  “Doyle, I’d rather try to drive em both in with a hit. Okay?”

  “Grief, Woodell! I was only kidding! Be sure to get one of them in anyway.”

  I fell behind oh-and-two and had to protect the plate, even on a pitch low and away like the next one. I golfed it into right, sending the fielder down the line into foul territory. Both runners tagged up and broke with the catch. The throw skipped past the cutoff man and both runs scored.

  When I got back to the bench, Doyle just sat there shaking his head.

  “Incredible,” he said. “You hit your sac fly to right and still drove both runs in!”

  “Guy should have let that ball drop foul,” I said. “Really a stupid play.”

  “With you hitting, he’s got to try to get the out.”

  “No, he lets that ball drop and I’ve still got an oh-two count. There’s still a chance to get me out with no damage. He had to know at least one would score if he caught that ball with his back to the infield.”

  Doyle stared at me. “You still need a couple of hits to reach seven hundred, Coach.”

  54

  I got the two hits I needed that night. In fact, I got three, but I was also out once. My average climbed to .704.

  We drubbed Arlington Heights 13-2, and I was surrounded by photographers and reporters.

  “Is it true your dad is Neal Woodell?” someone asked.

  I nodded.

  “Is he here?”

  “No, sir. He’s dead. He died in, in—Alabama. I don’t want to talk about it.” After a few more questions, scouts pretending to be reporters asked me where I went to school, where I lived, and about my family. I dodged them and Coach Koenig dragged me away. Mr. Thatcher, Momma, and Luke waited at the edge of the crowd. When reporters saw me with them, they tried to talk to Billy Ray.

  “I’ll not be answering questions tonight, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. He distributed several more business cards.

  When we were all in Mr. Thatcher’s rented car, I asked Luke, “You see that guy knock me over?”

  “Sure did, but by the time I got to the fence they were already kickin him out.”

  “I showed that guy,” I said, sighing. “And we pushed Arlington out of the race too.”

  I leaned forward and put my hands on Billy Ray Thatcher’s shoulders, whispering in his ear as my son and Lucas talked baseball.

  “I can’t wait to hear what’s going on,” I said.

  “Let me just say your lives will never be the same,” Billy Ray said. “Rafer Williams is already aware of Elgin.”

  The baseball commissioner? Williams was the first black and the first former player to become commissioner. He had built a reputation as a hard-nosed traditionalist. How could he have already heard about Elgin?

  Billy Ray’s room at the Hyatt made my mouth fall open. “Must be nice,” I said.

  “Get used to it,” he said. “It could become an everyday thing for you.”

  “I’m not sure I’d ever be comfortable.”

  Billy Ray took dessert orders and phoned them in. He amused me by eating his strawberry shortcake with a tiny, long-stemmed spoon clearly intended for something else. It made the big man look dainty.

  “You called me none too soon,” he said finally. “It’s darn good I was at the game. You were sitting on a bubbling cauldron and didn’t even know it. These scouts have been on Elgin’s trail since the preseason. Koenig has done a magnificent job keeping them from Elgin and you. They’re all aware of Elgin’s age, and every one started with skepticism. Once they saw the numbers he was racking up, they started studying him seriously. Was he strong enough to drive a big-league fastball? How were his mechanics? Did he work hard? Was he smart, a good base runner, have all the tools?

  “They have decided he’s pro material, but they’ve got a selling job ahead of them. They’re telling each other he’s a myth, not worth pursuing. But in private they’re begging their bosses to come see him. The brass of almost every club has contacted the commissioner’s office. They’re asking what they could do about signing an underage player. I doubt any of them have admitted they’re referring to a thirteen-year-old.”

  “What does the commissioner think?” I said.

  “I heard he pieced together a half dozen requests and called in the parties to find out who they were talking about. When it came out it was a kid, he hit the roof. He told them to get serious, that he was not going to be party to any publicity stunt. That scared everybody off until more teams started checking Chicago papers for Elgin’s stats. Now the commissioner has a problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He wants to check out Elgin for himself, but what’s the guy supposed to do? He can’t sneak into Chicago for a private tryout. The statistics convinced him Elgin is for real. Teams are demanding a decision about Elgin’s eligibility for the June draft.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be eligible now, if he’s good enough?” I said.

  “Miriam, let me give you an example. A few years ago one of our lawyers took a case from Alabama. Six batboys for a double-A team in Huntsville had to quit working every night before nine o’clock. A state statute says kids under sixteen can’t work that late.”

  “But surely batboys have been doing that for years.”

  “Right, until the parent of a boy who wasn’t selected as a bat-boy complained to the Department of Industrial Relations. Then they had to enforce the statute. The law is there to protect kids from unscrupulous employers, but if a kid wants to work and has parental permission, the authorities usually look the other way. These were kids living a dream, making a few dollars a game. Elgin, even younger than those batboys, stands to make millions and travel and work in several states.”

  I shook my head.

  Elgin piped up. “No American League for me. They’d make me a designated hitter, and I wouldn’t want to be a DH for all the money in the world.”

  Thatcher chuckled. “That may be how much you’re offered. But if you’re dead set that way, I’ll communicate that.”

  “If I decide my son can sign and travel and be up late enough to play night games during the summer, why should anybody be able to keep him from doing that? Isn’t this age discrimination?”

  Thatcher squeezed my shoulder. “I’ve never heard it used in behalf of a young person, but you have a point. You’re stipulating he will not miss school and that he would travel and work only with your supervision, so to deny him that would be wrong.”

  “Of course it
would,” I said.

  “Baseball is a law unto itself,” the old lawyer said, “so even though we’ll have to wrangle with a lot of opponents, if Rafer Williams can be convinced, we’re halfway home. I expect his office will contact me.”

  “You wouldn’t call him?”

  “The silent one is in control. The one with the commodity everyone wants need not appear eager in the least.”

  “So now,” I said, “Elgin is a commodity?”

  Billy Ray looked thoughtful. “He is exactly in the position he wants to be in. If you don’t want him to be a commodity, you can take him off the trading block any time you want.”

  55

  As the four of us got off the elevator, Billy Ray Thatcher told the rest of us to take the escalator down and wait for him at the front door. But before we reached the escalator, Luke, Elgin, and I met several men that Elgin recognized as scouts.

  “You must be looking for Mr. Thatcher,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  Elgin pointed to the front desk where Mr. Thatcher stood with a stack of phone messages. He hurried over.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen. Not tonight. Please, call me in the morning, after ten.”

  In the car Mr. Thatcher kept staring in the rearview mirror. At a stoplight he leaped from the car and stomped back to talk to the driver behind him. He returned before the light changed.

  “Really!” he said. “It’s like these guys are living in an old movie.”

  “A scout was following us?” I said.

  “They want to know where you live. They’ll try to get to Elgin through you or around you if they don’t get satisfaction from me. If anyone approaches you when I’m not around, just keep insisting that everything come.through me. When they find out I represented Pincham, they’ll know I’m not intimidated by big numbers. Who could calculate the worth of the youngest professional athlete in history?”

  Mr. Thatcher dropped off Luke at his place near the secondhand shop, then wheeled around the corner and walked us to our flat.

  “Just want to make sure there aren’t any scouts roaming the halls,” the lawyer said.

  “The man at the desk would not allow that,” I said.

  “The one who slept through our arrival?” Thatcher said. “He gives me confidence.”

  In the hallway I said, “What’s next?”

  “I’ll have my office draw up an agreement between us, but before I get serious with the baseball people, I need to know we’re all on the same page.”

  I looked at Elgin. His eyes were heavy. “You know what I want, Momma. I want to go as far as I can as fast as I can, and no DH.”

  I turned to Thatcher with my brows raised. “You heard him. What he wants is what I want.”

  “And do you want me to do my absolute best for him financially?”

  “Mr. Thatcher, I don’t even know what that means.”

  “If he is as good as he appears, he should be worth millions and millions.”

  “You’d better come in a minute. I want this boy to go to bed, and I need to talk to you.”

  I spent the next half hour telling Billy Ray Thatcher about the Clovis Payoff. “If Elgin gets his mind messed with all this money, it’ll affect his game, but more than that, I don’t want to look like a mother who’s used her kid to get rich. If Elgin comes into a lot of money—even if he never gets past the first level of minor-league ball—I am not going to let it get squandered.”

  Billy Ray removed his suit coat and loosened his tie.

  “That’s really all I need to hear, Miriam,” he said. “I would like to do for you what Neal would never let me do. People in our office can manage your money for you, saving it, investing it, accounting for it. I’ll keep you informed all the way. Every fast-buck artist in the country will be on your doorstep.”

  “I’m grateful,” I said. “I’m tired,” he said.

  I was awakened before dawn by thumping on the door. I sat up, reaching for my robe.

  “Elgin?” I whispered as loud as I dared.

  He hit the floor and hurried to me. “Who’s that?” he mouthed.

  I held him. “If it’s an agent I’m gonna beat him with a pan. Ricardo’s supposed to protect us.”

  The pounding continued.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Woodell! It’s just me, Ricardo! You have to see this!”

  I ran a hand through my hair and began unlatching the locks.

  “This had better be good.”

  Elgin hid behind me in his underwear as I cracked the door and squinted at the light from the hall.

  “Look, look!” Ricardo said, shouldering his way in. “Excuse me. Forgive me. But I knew you’d want to see this. A light, please.”

  I threw on a shirt and pants and returned to where Momma stood in robe and slippers and Mr. Bravura leaned over a table in his sleeveless undershirt. He spread the Chicago Tribune so we could both see it. My picture was on the left side of page one, announcing a story in the sports section: “Preteen Phenom Sets Sights on Majors.”

  In a huge story inside—with photos from the previous night’s game—my whole deal was played out. Somehow, the reporter knew everything—except about the pitching machine and the name of the “family friend” who attended the game with my mother.

  Poor Lucky, I thought. He would have loved the free publicity. He had introduced himself to the scouts, but not to the reporters.

  Most amazing to me were quotes from the Arlington Heights players, including the leadoff man and shortstop.

  “He’s a player,” Brian Ewart, 20, said. “I ran him over on a bunt in the first inning and he came up scrappy. After I leveled him at second on his inside-the-park homer, I got booted and he stayed in and killed us. He’s got it all.”

  The article made a big deal of my batting average and raised the question of whether I was too good for American Legion–level baseball.

  “Of course he is,” Coach Jim Koenig says. “You only want to hit over five hundred in a softball league. These few kids who run up astronomical numbers are showing they’re ready for the next step.”

  But the next step would be college, and Elgin Woodell just turned thirteen. He won’t be eligible for the professional baseball draft until he graduates from high school, five years from now.

  There is the possibility of some genetic advantage from the boy’s father, a short-term minor-league standout in the Pittsburgh Pirate organization.

  Neal L. Woodell died last year of an alcohol-related illness at the Alabama State Penitentiary in Birmingham where he was serving a lengthy term for reckless homicide while driving without a license.

  I was thrilled but Momma was in tears.

  “All our business, right out there for everybody,” she said.

  “Somebody famous right under your own roof,” Ricardo said. ‘They even have the address here, but not the name of the place.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said. “Otherwise your phone would be ringing off the hook, and we’d have to move.”

  “Oh, no, we don’t want that!” Ricardo said. “Stay here and I’ll protect you!”

  “May I keep this?” Momma said.

  “Of course! I’ll get more. I’d like to post this in the lobby, let people know who they’re living with! Elgin, you’re like royalty.”

  I didn’t feel so special. I had dreamed of this kind of a story, but the last thing I wanted was for it to hurt Momma.

  “I have to get going,” she said. “I can just imagine what kind of a day I’m gonna have at work.”

  “I’m sorry, Momma,” I said as Ricardo left.

  “I guess I knew this was coming,” she said. “I just didn’t expect it to wake me up and slap me in the face this morning. You’d better get some breakfast and get ready for work yourself, young man.”

  “Momma, you think I still have to work when we’re so close to going professional?”

  I could tell she didn’t think that was funny.

  “You are an employee, Elgin. You don’
t quit without notice, and you don’t quit without knowing where your next check is coming from. You could be years away from making money in baseball. I know everybody believes different, and I s’pose I do too. But don’t start—”

  “I know, Momma. Don’t start counting your chickens and all that.”

  “Anyway, you want to just leave Lucas high and dry? He’s grown fond of you, El, and he won’t be happy if you up and quit on him.”

  “Fond of me? C’mon, Mom, you think I’m blind? I think I’ll be seeing a lot of Lucky whether I work for him or not. Right?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Right?”

  She was fighting a smile.

  “Right, Momma?”

  “You’re obnoxious sometimes, Elgin, you know that?”

  “Course I do. Doyle told me that last night. I’m obnoxious and rich.”

  “Get some breakfast.”

  56

  “I’ve got a couple of errands this morning,” Luke Harkness told me. “Could you watch the place while I’m gone?”

  “Could I?” I loved the idea of selling, dealing, negotiating.

  Luke told me how to call for help if I needed it, what to do and not to do.

  “Your mom will probably kill me when she hears I left you here alone, but I won’t be gone long. I’ll call you in an hour or so.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Lucky.”

  I strapped on the apron Luke often wore, but I had to take it halfway around my body again before I could tie it. I waited behind the cash register, rehearsing my lines. “I can let that go for fifteen. The boss paid about ten for it, so it’d be a real deal.”

  But no one showed up. Not one customer. Two or three peered in the window and kept moving. One did some window-shopping, but scowled and walked away. After an hour, Lucky called.

  “One more stop and I’m on my way back,” he said. “Any customers?”

  “Nope.”

  “None?”