The Youngest Hero (21 page)

There had to be something wrong with the machine. It was throwing the ball faster than I had ever seen and faster than I could
have imagined. As I reset the wheels to accept the golf balls, I thought of all the reasons I should not be able to hit them:

They would come in faster than it was possible to react.

The machine itself was a third closer to the hitter than it was designed for, even if it had been throwing at normal speed.

There was no clue as to the rhythm of the deliveries, as there was when you could watch a pitcher wind up. I would have to
learn to anticipate each pitch by watching the tilting of the trough.

The room was dark at both ends. I would see the pitch better when it passed under the light than I would when it left the
machine or reached the plate.

The balls were small. They were white, except for their rings of color.

The backdrop I had installed to keep the balls from attacking me from every angle was white.

The bat was skinny, like a fastpitch bat, but heavy, almost like a weighted on-deck bat.

Why did I think I even had a chance of getting the bat on the ball?

Still, I couldn’t think of any reasons not to try it.

I dumped the entire basket of golf balls into the container. With all of them in there, I could turn on the machine and run
to the batter’s box in time to set myself and take a practice swing before the first pitch came.

Before turning it on, I untied my shoes and pulled up my socks, then tied my shoes again, firm and tight. I loosened my belt
and tucked my shirt in till I felt comfortable. I put on my batting helmet and shoved it all the way down, banging the top
with my fists until it was snug.

I swung the bat above my head and stretched it across my shoulders. I was as nervous as if I was facing the toughest pitcher
ever. Daddy always told me to think only about looking for my pitch, having a plan, and attacking the ball. I was to work
for bat speed and confidence, not just trying to get the bat on the ball. That seemed impossible now.

As I put my fingers on the switch, I tried to talk myself out of this. Was I sure the machine had not shifted? Would it start
throwing several balls every few seconds, despite my adjustments? Would I be hit, drop to the floor, and be unable to get
out of the way of the rest of the balls? I told myself this was no time for more excuses. I had forced myself to become a
better-than-average player for my age by doing the tough things, working on the fundamentals, running longer, working harder.
Anybody could get along on his talent, but I was Elgin Woodell, son of a man who had almost made the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I flipped the switch and ran to the other end of the room, desperate to get in the box and stay there. The machine whirred
as I went, and I stepped in right-handed. I could almost feel the ball smacking me in the rear end as I hurried past the plate
and got set. I tingled from my seat to the back of my head.

“You’ll learn to hit the off-speed stuff,” Daddy always told me. “The curves, the changes, the sliders—they say that’s what
separates the big leaguer from the amateur, but don’t you believe it. The day comes when you hope a guy throws you junk because
it’s the only thing you can catch up with. What really separates the men from the boys is that drop-dead, freight-train fastball
that’s in on you and dancin before you can move. That’s the pitch you dream about. That’s the career-ender, right there. Show
me a man who can stand in there against a big-league fastball and I’ll show you a man who can hit a curve in his sleep.”

The balls were tumbling, then rolling smooth but loud in the container. I had reached the box quicker than I expected. I took
a couple of practice swings while trying to position myself where I could reach the ball with the bat but where I wouldn’t
get drilled.

I was as close to the back wall as I could be without hitting it with my bat, and I was as far from the plate as I could be
without being out of the box. If I couldn’t reach the first few pitches, I decided, I would just creep in until I could. I
had fifty-seven pitches’ worth of adjusting available.

The trough tilted back, picked up a few balls, and tilted forward. I saw and heard the cream-colored pitching wheels whine
into action. The first pitch would be at top speed, I decided. The mechanism was working. The wheels had reached their maximum
rpms before the ball was fed through.

I heard the
phfft!
and the
whoosh!
but hardly saw the pitch before
crack!
it slammed the wall behind me,
whoosh!
it flashed to the other end of the room,
thwack!
it smacked into the canvas and then bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, roll.

I had not even flinched. There was no swing, no half swing, no step, no thought except,
Don’t let that thing hit you
. I could tell from the sound that the ball had come through the strike zone
but that I probably would not have been able to reach it if I had swung at the perfect time. I was tensed and ready because
the next pitch would follow the first by just a second or so, enough time for me to pull my bat back and get set after each
hit—if I ever hit one.

I squinted and told myself to at least watch the flight of the ball this time. I heard the first two sounds almost simultaneously,
cocked my head and bat, almost stepped, and peeled my eyes. I saw the blur, heard the bang off the wall, and watched the ball
fly to the other end. I had just about enough time to appreciate my own handiwork with the canvas and wonder if I would hit
any of the balls, before the sounds came again and another blur hit the wall.

I had hardly stepped, still hadn’t swung, and was almost as amused as I was scared. For the briefest instant, every few seconds,
the brute seemed connected to the wall by a flash of white. The ring of color on each ball disappeared in flight, and I wondered
if my mind and my eyes would ever adjust. If they did not or could not, I would be forced to modify the machine and find some
baseballs.

But as the flashes kept banging and I noticed that the streak was whiter near the machine and a dirty gray as it left the
light and flew past me, I realized that I might be hundreds or even thousands of pitches away from actually making contact.
Yet somewhere deep inside me was the feeling that if I could somehow catch on to this, master it, practice it, it could make
me as a ballplayer.

What I did not know then and could not have realized was that I was facing an inanimate, brainless, muscle-less, tireless
thing that threw a ball tinier and harder than a baseball from less than two-thirds the major-league distance at a speed of
more than one hundred and thirteen miles an hour.

After about the tenth pitch, I made up my mind to start swinging, even if I was a half second behind. Which I was. I stepped
and swung at waist level, regardless where the pitch was, and tried to pick up the cadence so I would at least be stepping
and
swinging in rhythm with the machine, even if I wasn’t making contact.

I stepped and swung, stepped and swung, stepped and swung. Not hard, not overpowering, not much bat speed. I quickly came
to the place where all I wanted was to get lucky, to hit a foul tip, to dribble one away.

Step and swing.

Step and swing.

Step and swing.

Step and swing.

Miss.

Miss.

Miss.

Miss.

Step and swing.

Miss.

Thirty, forty pitches into it, I felt anger and frustration rise in me. I started swinging harder and faster, telling myself
that I could and I would catch up with a pitch. I seemed to be swinging through a couple of them, convinced it was only a
matter of time now. But then my timing would leave me and I felt as if I was swinging after the ball had already hit the wall.

The room was filling with golf balls, some rolling lazily almost back to the batter’s box. I would have to do something about
that, maybe drape a blanket or extend a rope across the floor to stop those so I didn’t have to worry about stepping on them.

I was determined to keep my head down, my swing level, my step the right distance.

“Perfect practice makes perfect,” my dad’s advice rang in my ears. “No matter what the drill—running, hitting, fielding, throwing—you
do it right every time. Even if you swing and miss, make sure your mechanics are right, that you’re puttin in your mind’s
computer a perfect picture of how it oughta be done.”

I imagined that I was hitting line drives with every swing, but I couldn’t beat back the truth. I was missing, missing, missing,
not even coming close. I guessed there were about ten balls left when I squared around.

I am going to make the ball hit this bat at least once
, I told myself.
At least once.

Strangely, squaring around allowed me to pick up the flight of the ball better. Man! That thing was moving! I carefully stuck
my bat out and kept it level. The pitch was high. I followed it, keeping the skinny, aluminum bat steady.

No dice.

I tried it again, and again. Just a few pitches left now. I just had to touch one, foul one off, get something on it, anything.

B
ut I didn’t. I was just enough afraid of the slamming golf balls to keep me a few inches from touching them with my outstretched
bat, even to bunt.

My anger and frustration exploded. I was madder than I had ever been. All the work, all the adjusting, all the waiting and
anticipation, and I hadn’t even been able to bunt or foul off or even tip one of the fifty-seven pitches.

I drew the bat back into my normal swinging position and whipped it through the strike zone, letting go of it with both hands
when I normally would have pulled the top hand off. The metal bat clanged off the side wall and whirled toward the machine.
I hoped it would bang it, but it didn’t. I couldn’t hit anything I wanted to that day, except the wall.

I wanted to kick something, but everything I looked at was cement or metal or round. I clenched my teeth so tight I gave myself
a headache, and as I cooled down, I got the wire basket and gathered up the balls. This time, I decided, I would hit lefty.
The balls were moving from left to right across the plate, so I told myself that I needn’t be afraid, even if the pitches
seemed to be coming at me.

As if I can see them at all.

But from the left side, I could. On the first several I bailed out
without swinging. It was one thing, I decided, to tell yourself you didn’t have to be afraid, but it was another to stand
in there with only a helmet on. I was grateful to find that the machine was consistent within inches, firing every ball to
almost the same spot on the wall. A couple of times I looked back as it hit. Eventually I became aware that the machine jarred
itself slightly out of position with each pitch and that I would have to re-adjust it with every two or three buckets of balls.

After more than twenty pitches, with no better luck than I’d had from the other side, I began wondering why I had made it
so difficult for myself. I wondered if I could adjust it to throw the old, torn-up baseball, my bald tennis ball, that box
of softballs I’d seen at the secondhand store. Mostly I wondered how my mind could mull over all those things while streaks
of light, as if from a laser, blasted off the wall behind me.
Concentrate
, I told myself.
Concentrate.

I was mad, frustrated, and sweating a half hour later when I had stood in from both sides twice and never touched a pitch
with the bat. I wondered if the pitches were catchable, let alone hittable. I got my glove, stood in the left-hand batter’s
box, and kept reaching farther and farther, getting closer and closer to each pitch.

Finally, one touched the web of my glove and the thing almost flew off my hand. The ball seemed harder and heavier than when
I hefted it with my hand. What was this? What did speed and movement do to a ball?

Five more pitches flew past before I touched another with the thumb and got the same sensation, that my glove could come flying
off at any second. How my father would ridicule me if he saw me like this!

“Only sissies step out of the way and catch the ball to the side,” Daddy had always said. “They’re afraid it’s going to hit
them or bounce off their gloves and catch them in the nose. You watch me and you watch your pros; we catch the ball right
out in front of us. Does it ever skip off and get us in the ribs or the face? Sure. But have you ever seen a guy go to the
hospital because he missed a ball in a game of catch? Nah! Maybe hit by a pitch or a
big throw by accident, but not from playin catch. Only guy I ever heard of gettin hurt from a ground ball was Tony Kubek
when he took one in the neck for the Yankees in the World Series years ago. A Cub got hurt playin catch in front of the dugout,
but that was only because he was talkin to somebody and the guy throwin to him didn’t know he had looked away. He turned back
just in time to take it in the mouth. Cost him a few teeth, but then he played eight more years. Catch it in front of you,
El.”

But here I was, standing gingerly in the batter’s box, reaching out on tiptoes, hoping to feel what those nasty pitches even
felt like. By the end of that basket of balls, I had caught two, but the first had made me overconfident. I reached a little
farther for the second, but the machine was just inconsistent enough to bring it a half inch closer to me. I got a bruise
just above the palm of my hand and just below my index finger.

I yanked my hand out of the glove and shook it, waved it, stuck it between my legs, jumped, and hollered.

“Nice pitch, you—”

Meanwhile, the machine just kept firing. I decided to try one last basket of balls to see if I could just hold the bat out
with one hand, moving it and adjusting it slightly with each pitch, trying to guess where it would be coming. I flexed my
left hand all the while I was picking up balls. I knew, as my father said, that I wouldn’t be going to the hospital, but this
was painful, almost like a bone bruise, and it would be a long time healing.