One Shot at Forever (29 page)

On this afternoon he came to offer information. Earlier that morning, Schooley had volunteered to scout Waukegan, which had whupped Rockford West 10–0 in six innings in the other semifinal, the only tournament game called on account of the mercy rule. Now he stood at the front of the room and looked at the boys. He wasn't going to lie to them.

“You ain't going to beat them,” Schooley announced. “There ain't no fucking way you can beat them.”

The boys stared, shocked.

“They're like a minor league baseball team,” Schooley continued. “They'll take the Commodores two out of three. Their catcher is a first-round pick for the Pirates.” He turned toward Sweet. “L.C., he completely eliminates your running game.”

Sweet looked sick to his stomach. Everything his friend said may have been true, but it should have been relayed in private. A few feet away, Shartzer stared in disbelief. He liked Schooley, and respected his baseball knowledge, but the guy clearly didn't know anything about communicating that knowledge. For one, he was selling the Ironmen short. Second, even Shartzer knew better than to say something like that in front of a bunch of young boys. Looking around, Shartzer saw that some of his teammates looked pissed. Others looked scared.

Sweet cracked a joke, trying to reassure the boys, but the damage was already done.

Delivery aside, Schooley was right: Waukegan
was
a powerhouse. While Lane Tech may have been the most talented team in the tournament, Waukegan wasn't far behind, and
no one was better prepared
.

A factory town of eighty thousand or so in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Waukegan was a conservative place, and the high school sports teams reflected that. A two-year ROTC stint had long been mandatory at the school and most of the players' fathers fought in World War II. The head baseball coach, a man named Jack Mallory, believed in structure and discipline. A tall, lanky man with a grandfatherly affect, he was both patient and persistent. His goal was for his players to become so well versed in the game that they never had to think, but instead reacted on instinct.

To enforce this, Mallory scheduled practices down to the minute: Bunting at 3:12
P.M
. in the northwest corner of the field, then pickoffs for pitchers at 3:17. The routine changed daily, and Mallory expected everyone to hustle between stations. He placed particular emphasis on situational plays. He wanted the boys to know exactly where to throw the ball in any given scenario, and split batting practice into multiple sessions—focusing on skills such as hitting the opposite way to advance runners.

The system worked. Waukegan was a perennial power that came within one game of the state final in 1967. Even so, the 1971 team may have been Mallory's most talented squad yet. Four players were named All-State, including star catcher Mike Uremovich. The son of a Marine sergeant, Uremovich had the whole package. He hit the ball a mile, ran well, and could throw a football sixty yards. He was in every way the team leader. Uremovich was the one who penciled in “Waukegan State Champs” when Mallory tacked a 1971 postseason schedule on the wall at the start of the season. He was the one who called the guys at home and got them to the field on the rare Sunday Mallory didn't schedule practice. He was the player who had the crispest uniforms and the straightest edge to his pants leg, the one who taught his teammates how to sew elastic bands from old garter straps into the bottom of their pants legs to hold up their sanitary socks and stirrups, a trick his mother had discovered.

In the eyes of the pro scouts, Uremovich was one of two or three surefire prospects at the state tournament, and his teammates had long since grown accustomed to seeing up to a dozen scouts at their games. These men loved Mike's size and power, and what
Journal Star
columnist Phil Theobald described as “the howitzer hanging from his right shoulder.” They also loved his attitude—not just the leadership but the intensity. In the conference playoffs, Uremovich had broken a bat with his bare hands after striking out.

Mentally, Uremovich had prepared for the chance to play Lane Tech. Then, on Friday morning, one of the coaches came into to his room, where he and a few teammates were watching TV. “I've got some news,” the coach announced. “Lane Tech lost to Macon.” The boys were shocked.

All Uremovich knew about Macon was that they were a tiny school and their team had “speed in centerfield, the big hitter, and the pitcher.” He'd learned long ago never to take an opponent for granted, though. There would be no giggling about peace signs so long as he was on the Waukegan bench.

By the time Macon and Waukegan took to the field at 4:30
P.M
. for the state final, the Ironmen had gone national. Charles Chamberlain of the Associated Press filed a story entitled, “At Macon High School Baseball's a Happening.”

Chamberlain referred to Macon as a “dot in Central Illinois,” noted that they became the smallest school ever to reach the finals in thirty-two years of Illinois high school baseball, and described the boys as “a bunch of rock music lovers with long hair.” He also mentioned Barb Jesse, the team's official scorer, “who sits on the bench wearing a ponytail.”

While Chamberlain was preparing his story, the Macon fans had continued celebrating. With five hours to kill before the final, the teachers and parents did what any sane Maconite would do on such a heady day. They made straight for the cool interior of a bar.

By the time they returned to Meinen Field, they discovered that the 4
P.M
. heat was even worse than the 11
A.M
. heat. Keeping their energy up was going to be a challenge. Even so, most of the fans were alert enough to notice that, with only half an hour to go before game time, Macon's coach and star player were nowhere to be found.

Not far away, Sweet and Shartzer fidgeted in Bradley University's training room. That morning's trip to wrap Shartzer's wrist had been a snap. This time, however, not only had the duo showed up late, but the process was taking longer.

Still, Shartzer wasn't too concerned. He didn't need long to get warmed up. As the minutes ticked by, though, he began to worry about how the delay would affect the perception of Sweet. As the season went on, Shartzer had begun to feel protective of his coach. Sweet could laugh it off when people mocked him, but Shartzer took it personally. He knew everything Sweet did to help the team. How he understood which players to boost up and which to take down a peg with a well-placed joke. How he invited the team over to play cards at his trailer, and how he took them hunting and fishing, making them feel not like boys but men. How when one of the freshmen got scared on an overnight trip and came to Sweet's door, the coach had invited him in to sleep in his room even though Jeanne was there and it was probably the last thing he wanted to do.

When together, Shartzer and Sweet never talked of bigger picture topics. Still, slowly and subtly, Sweet pushed the boy. When Shartzer had gotten sick of basketball and decided he didn't want to play, it was Sweet who took him for a walk, leading him down to the gym, where he pointed at Arnold and Glan and the others. “These are your teammates, Shark. They need you. Now get out there.” Peer pressure didn't work on Shartzer but this was different. This he understood. He rejoined the team that day.

Over time, Sweet and Shartzer had become closer than most in Macon knew. Now they had a chance to do something special. Just so long as the doctors finished the damn tape job.

At Meinen Field, the minutes ticked by. Now it was 4:10. Now 4:15. And still, the Area Player of the Year and Coach of the Year were nowhere to be seen. What's more, Sweet had all the gear in his car. With no other choice, the Macon boys borrowed a couple of baseballs from a kid who lived nearby. Finally, fearing the worst, Jack Heneberry walked over and told his son he should probably start getting loose. John's arm was shot from that morning's game, and he doubted he could get the ball over the plate with any snap, but he dutifully started preparing. Dale Otta, the most organized and conscientious of the boys, became particularly agitated.
This was the state finals, where was their coach?
Behind the bench, the parents fretted. It was decided that Bob Shartzer would take over as coach if necessary.

Finally, with only five minutes to spare, Sweet pulled up outside the field in the school van. Next to him, Steve Shartzer jumped out of the passenger seat carrying a crumpled-up ball of athletic tape, the remnants of the trainer's work.

With a quick hop, Shartzer made for the mound. Around him, the Macon fans rose by the hundreds in the heat and began cheering. Their hero had arrived.

From the press seating, Joe Cook watched and wondered if he'd been wrong. What if this kid
could
do it? By this point, Shartzer had pitched four consecutive shutouts in tournament play. Granted, he'd thrown seven innings only a day earlier and his left hand appeared to be bothering him, but Cook had learned not to underestimate the boy.

Then again, Waukegan had an ace of its own on the mound. Tall and with dark, Hollywood looks, Paul Waidzunas had pitched a five-hitter in the tournament opener and was 7–0 on the season. Though not overpowering, the junior reminded teammates of Orioles ace Jim Palmer, a pitcher who could move the ball around and hit his spots. He had a good fastball, a curve, a slider, and a changeup.

As Cook began to jot down the lineup, he got word that one of the Waukegan players, a boy named Frank Gaziano, wasn't playing due to heat stroke. It was going to be a rough one.

When Cook finished, the lineups for the thirty-second Illinois High School State Baseball Championship looked like this:

The game began and Shartzer felt it from the first pitch: Something was off. He walked the leadoff hitter, who then stole second base. The next batter, Rajcevich, singled and stole second as well. The Ironmen weren't accustomed to this. Usually they were the ones stealing bases. Behind the plate, Dean Otta smacked his glove in anger. On the mound, Shartzer, usually so proud of his pick-off move, stewed. Then Uremovich drove in a run with a ground ball: 1–0, Waukegan.

Up stepped third baseman Harold Hollstein. A dead pull hitter, Hollstein was a big, lumbering boy—“slow as the devil on the basepaths,” according to teammate Joe Mirretti—who could hit it a mile. Even so, he proceeded to do the most unexpected thing: He squared to bunt. Heneberry and Glan were playing a mile back at the corners and Shartzer was caught off guard.
Who puts on the suicide squeeze with their cleanup hitter?

What Shartzer didn't know was that, unlike so many teams that had taken Macon for granted, Waukegan had scouted the Ironmen. After the semifinal that morning, Waukegan assistants Rick Mowen and an old coaching friend of Mallory's, Tommy Correll, returned with two pieces of advice: You can run on them, and you can bunt on them.

This wasn't a big surprise. At the time, bunting was a common tactic in Illinois high school ball, and often an effective one. Given uneven diamonds, pitchers who were unsure fielders, and third basemen unaccustomed to making throws on the run, just getting the ball down often led to an error or a base hit. Whereas this was indeed a good strategy against Heneberry, who had limited fielding range (and who had pitched the semi that Waukegan had scouted), Shartzer was another matter. Not only did his fastball tend to rise, making it difficult to get down a good bunt, but his defensive range was such that when he played third, as Mt. Zion coach Ed Neighbors says, “It was like the kid was also playing short.” Put Shartzer on the mound and he could cover the whole middle of the infield.