The Youngest Hero (43 page)

A right-handed reliever was on the mound with good speed but no movement. I knew it was crazy, but I wanted to clear the bases.
Somewhere in the count, I was going to have to forget about my wrist and swing away. That was going to hurt like the devil.

The pitcher missed close on the first two pitches, then threw two strikes, but not where I wanted. When the count went to
three-and-two, I stepped out and the base coaches reminded the runners to run with the pitch. I dug in again, hoping this
guy would try to shoot another one past me.

But I was fooled. The pitch was a change-up that seemed to die halfway to the plate, and as my bat started through the strike
zone, the pitch was still hanging out there, dropping.

I had planned to try to hit it to right. I was able to adjust enough to get the bat on the ball but was so far in front that
the ball shot past the heads of the third baseman and the runner at third, bounced fair at about two hundred feet out, and
skipped hard toward the cornfield. I yelled as I headed toward first, partly from the pain in my wrist, and partly because
a ground-rule double would drive in only the two tying runs.

But as I rounded first, the Mount Plaines left fielder made a colossal mistake. Rather than letting the ball go into the cornfield
for a double, he dived and snared it, rising to try to hit the cutoff man.

As the go-ahead runner came around third, I was waved on. I slid and the relay hit me in the helmet and bounded past everyone.
As the catcher raced back to get it and the pitcher hurried to cover the plate, I rounded second and stopped halfway to third.

Koenig waved and screamed at me to come, but I stood still, like a deer caught in headlights. The pitcher yelled, “Three!”
and the third baseman straddled the bag. I hesitated, started, and hesitated again. Then I dove toward third. The catcher’s
throw was high and got away, so I scored.

As soon as I had crossed the plate I ran back out to Coach Koenig, who was furious.

“I knew I had third no matter what, Coach. I figured if I could draw the throw we might catch a break.”

“But you also ignored me,” Koenig said, “and you showed me up. Tell Doyle he’s playing second in the bottom half.”

I ran red-faced to the dugout, wishing the crowd wouldn’t cheer me after I’d gotten in trouble. I was not unhappy about
being taken out with a two-run lead in the ninth. My wrist needed the rest.

Doyle ran eagerly to second for the bottom of the inning. Though he was normally an outfielder, he looked comfortable. Mount
Plaines scratched out an early run and had a man at third with two outs, but a pop-up to Doyle ended the game.

I had been excited about getting to meet the commissioner of baseball soon. Now I dreaded having to face my own coach.

A
s my teammates celebrated, I sat on the bench waiting for the team lecture. When Coach Koenig quieted everyone, I raised my
hand. “Coach, I want to apologize for that play.”

“What’re you talkin about?” someone said. ‘That was great!”

Koenig stopped the chatter.

“I appreciate that, Woodell. It was brave and it gave us the win, but you shouldn’t have done it on your own. I wish I’d thought
of it.”

I spent the next three days mostly in the basement. I let the machine pitch me infield grounders and liners, and though I
caught most everything, I threw nothing. For hours I crouched at the plate and caught pitch after pitch from different distances.
I hoped that would keep my eye and timing sharp.

The word came from Mr. Thatcher that Rafer Williams was flying to Chicago late Sunday night. He would stay with Ronny Dressel
at the Glen Ellyn Holiday Inn without registering under his own name, and Ronny would drive him into the city the next morning.
Then he would send for me from Lucky’s apartment.

“You’ll be with me, right, Mr. Thatcher?”

“Of course he will, honey,” Momma said, but Billy Ray cut her off.

“I’m afraid not. We’re not exactly in the driver’s seat. The commissioner has set a few conditions. He wants time with Elgin
alone first.”

“I don’t like that,” Momma said. “I don’t want Elgin having to wonder what’s being said.”

“Oh, Rafer has already assured me through Ronny that I’m next on his agenda. He’ll let me know how many hoops we have to jump
through. After that, it’s our decision. Then the conditions, terms, limitations, and dollar levels are ours to set. The club
that wins this prize will earn it.”

I found it easier and easier to flex my right hand. I felt the tendon strengthening and become more elastic. By Friday morning,
I was swinging a bat carefully, and it was not nearly as painful as it had been.

I had a night game Friday and a home doubleheader Saturday. I wanted to go into that once-in-a-lifetime meeting with Rafer
Williams still hitting over seven hundred, more than twenty-five games into the regular season.

I was fifty-three for seventy-five for the season, hitting .7067. I could go seven for my next ten at bats and see my average
drop almost a point. One more at bat than that without a hit and my average would drop to .698.

My goal with Mr. Williams was to be honest. If he wanted to know what I wanted, it was to become not just the youngest professional
baseball player ever, but the youngest big leaguer ever.

By Sunday night three more victories were in the bag and the Chicago American Legion team was almost assured of a state berth.
Friday night I had gone three-for-three including a home run, my batting average a tick under .718. In the Saturday doubleheader
it plummeted to .682. Though I went only one-for-three in the first game and one-for-four in the second, I hit the ball as
well as I had all year. I also walked twice and hit a sacrifice fly so deep to center that two runners tagged up and scored.

“I feel like DiMaggio when his hitting streak ended,” I said.
“He hit harder shots in the fifty-seventh game than he had in the five games before that, but none of them fell in.”

“Yeah,” Doyle said, smiling. “I’d sure hate to be hitting in the high six-hundreds. You must really be down.”

“Shut up, Doyle.”

Mr. Thatcher’s parting words to me that night: “Talk baseball with Rafer Williams. He knows the game as well as anyone.”

“I know,” I said. “I remember in a play-off game when—”

Mr. Thatcher held up a hand. “Excuse me, Elgin, but I have to go. Tell him that story. He’ll love it. Honest.”

I wanted to tell the story, and Luke and my mother were the only available ears. “Bottom of the ninth, Reds leading by one,
Mets with runners at first and second with one out. Williams catching for the Reds. Mets try a double steal. Williams sees
he can’t get the lead runner but that the tailing runner is dogging it. He guns down the guy at second; they hold the lead
runner at third. They go on to win. Gutsy, man. Gutsy play.”

Luke smiled at me. “You’re a little wired.”

“Am I ever.”

I paced.

Momma just sat, her eyes full, her face blotchy. “This waiting is gonna drive me crazy,” she said. “How am I supposed to sleep?
How am I supposed to work tomorrow?”

Luke put his arm around her. “You just heard a sermon on worry,” he said.

She snorted. “It was pretty good too. It just didn’t take, that’s all.”

“You think you’ve got worries,” Luke said, “I’ve got scads of cleaning to do before my company comes tomorrow. I hope that
gentleman from baseball doesn’t mind drinking out of an old jelly glass!”

“Lucas!”

“Oh, I’ll take care of him. Sounds like all he needs is a chair and something to munch. You guys go till late morning; I’ll
cater a fast-food lunch.”

I slept no better than my mother. I heard her sighing, tossing, and turning all night. All while I was doing the same thing.

I
showed up too early at Lucky’s Secondhand Shop the next morning. The place was locked and the street deserted. I thought
about moseying over to Lucky’s flat, but that was not the plan. Once Rafer Williams showed up and Luke spirited him to his
apartment, Luke was to meet me at the store and send me there.

I whiled away the longest hour and a half of my life sitting on the pavement, looking in the window, lying on the pavement,
and hanging over the curb to watch insects in the gutter. I rested my back against the short brick wall beneath the window
of Lucky’s and closed my eyes against the morning sun. I was wound tight, wishing the clock would move, wishing Luke would
show up.

I scrambled to my feet when I heard Luke’s boots on the sidewalk.

“There’s been a screwup,” he said. “Mr. Williams thought everybody understood he wanted to meet with your mother first. I
called your place, but that guy Bravado or whatever his name is said you’d left two hours ago and your mother an hour ago.
You’d better get goin. You know the place.”

I hurried toward Luke’s apartment and was almost past an old man with a cane when the man stopped and said, “Woodell!”

I spun and stopped. “Yes, sir?”

The old man reached out a huge, strong hand. “Dressel. I been scoutin ya.”

“Yes, sir. Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Don’t let that guy bully you now, hear? Don’t let him compare you with big leaguers. All we’re sayin is that physically you’re
ready for the minors. Whether you’re ready in any of the other ways, who knows?”

Without another word, Ronny Dressel waved and moved on.

I felt a tingle up my spine. Who would believe I had just met a Hall of Fame pitcher and was about to have a secret meeting
with a Hall of Fame catcher who was also commissioner of baseball? Would I be able to speak, or would I just melt and have
to be scooped up and poured back onto the street?

When I reached Luke’s apartment I thought of my dad and how proud he would be of me. I knocked.

“It’s unlocked,” came the huge, bass voice.

I turned the knob and pressed my knee against the door where it always stuck. It squeaked and broke free. A few feet from
the door stood a chuckling giant of a black man. He was shiny bald with a rim of long, curly hair. His feet were spread and
his arms folded across his chest, making his shirt cuffs and suit coat arms ride high off his wrists. Mr. Williams was about
six-four and had picked up at least forty pounds since his last playing day nearly ten years before. He had become a broadcaster,
then—of all things for a National Leaguer—American League president before becoming the surprise choice for commissioner.
In the meantime he had become a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

“You’ve been here before?” Rafer Williams said, his voice too loud for the room. I looked puzzled. “You knew just how to open
the door!”

When he shook my hand, my fingers disappeared. Mr. Williams pointed to the couch, and I sat. “It’s mighty nice to meet you
finally,” he said. He removed his brown, pin-striped coat and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair, then took off his
tie and stuffed it in the pocket of his coat.

I sat with my feet flat on the floor, knees together, fists on my thighs. Williams pulled the coffee table away from my knees
and settled his expanse right in the middle of it. The table bowed.

I felt more at ease as Rafer Williams made himself comfortable. There was a sparkle in his eye and excitement in every move.
The man sat forward, elbows on his knees, not two feet from me, and smiled. Then he pulled up his socks, still not taking
his eyes from mine. He tugged at his pant legs until they rose a few inches above the tops of his socks.

The commissioner crossed his legs and held his ankle to his knee with both hands. He had a gold ring on each hand, a gold
watch on his left wrist.

“See that briefcase over there?” he said.

The satchel-style bag was stuffed, papers peeking out the top.

“That’s full of you. Videotapes, charts, graphs, radar gun printouts, timings of you to first, you to second, you from first
to third, you around the bases. If you can measure a ballplayer by the numbers, you’ve been measured, buddy.”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“But you and me both know you don’t measure a ballplayer like that, don’t we? A ballplayer is measured by his head and his
heart, am I right?”

I nodded. “But you can tell a lot about a guy by his numbers.”

Williams stuck out his lower lip and nodded. “True enough. Like the numbers I’ve got on you show that you’d be about, oh,
tenth or eleventh fastest runner on a big-league club, maybe third or fourth on a rookie-league team. Your arm is remarkable.
You throw the ball like an eighteen-year-old. But I s’pose you know that most eighteen-year-olds would rank last on a big-league
team in throwing.”

I nodded.

“I thought maybe we’d talk some baseball,” the commissioner continued. “You know how rarely I get to do that? Seems all I
talk about is other junk—legal stuff. Contracts, deals, negotiations. If I didn’t insist on goin to a ball game at least once
a week I wouldn’t even see one. Let’s talk baseball.”

“Okay.”

“Let me tell you what makes you such an unusual hitter and you tell me if I’m right. It’s all bat speed, right?”

I hesitated. “I used to think bat speed was pretty much everything, sir,” I said. “But when I started facing faster pitchers,
guys who throw in the low eighties, I had to start getting stronger. The faster the pitch, the harder it is for the bat to
change its direction.”

“You’re right!” he chortled. “It’s not just bat speed, or all these little guys would be hitting home runs all the time! You
think pitches in the low eighties make a bat hard to push through the strike zone, try to turn around one in the high nineties!
That ol bat seems to recoil in your hands. Ever hit offa one of those superfast pitching machines? Same feeling. You face
that kind of pitching all the time, you’ve got to be built for it.”

I nodded.

“Are you built for it? Let me see your hands.”

I held them out. Williams took one in each of his.

“Resist me,” he said.

He pulled my hands toward each other. I resisted but not successfully. I was off balance, had no base. My rear end was on
soft cushions. The more I fought, the more Williams was able to make me lean from side to side. I planted my feet.