The Youngest Hero (47 page)

“So what are you tellin me, Lucas?”

He smiled. “Keep dreamin, that’s all. You never know. You might as well have somethin to do that’s so big it would never get
done.”

“You mean taking in girls or finishing this monstrosity?”

By spring, I was on a diet and weight program scoped out for me by the Braves trainer. It was working. I had grown another
inch and bulked up. I turned down winter ball because Momma and Mr. Thatcher thought it would be better for me to be in school
and live at home.

I arrived in Florida with Momma and her new husband, and the media made all of us stars. Hardly anybody believed I wasn’t
even fourteen yet, especially after the Little League scandal of 2001. My birthday a few days later made newscasts around
the country.

I asked my minor-league manager if he thought I was ready for second base.

“Uh, no.”

I shrugged and took the field. If there was a surprise at spring training, it was the sheer number of great ballplayers who
showed up from various levels of the organization. I was most impressed to see the guys I had watched on television. I didn’t
know whether to ask for autographs or make myself scarce. Some of them treated me like a batboy. Others just scowled at me
and left me alone.

Three of the big-league Braves starters were great to me. Bob Henson, the left fielder; Ken Clark, the catcher; and Luis Sanchez,
the shortstop, asked my mother if they could take me to dinner one night.

“We’ll baby-sit,” Luis told me. Elgin had a pleading look in his eye.

I realized how thrilling this could be for Elgin. And these were all family men. “Come here a moment, Mr. Sanchez.”

Luis giggled as he tried to mimic my accent in spite of his own and winked at his friends as I dragged him off to the side.
“I’m inclined to allow this,” I said. “But you understand I don’t want
him at any bars. I don’t even want you guys drinkin when he’s with you. No funny stuff. You’re responsible, and I want him
home by nine.”

“Oh, man!” Luis complained. “You sound like my father-in-law before he was my father-in-law!”

“Any funny stuff, Luis, and you’re in deep weeds with me. And you don’t want that.”

“You’re right. I don’t. We’ll just go to dinner and bring him home. We’re goin to a movie, but I just realized it’s probably
one you wouldn’t want him to see.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s just say we’re not takin our wives, so don’t ask.”

“Bring him home first.”

“You got it.”

I was a nervous wreck from the time Ken Clark raced out of the parking lot in his BMW until I heard him pull into our driveway
just after eight-thirty. Elgin had had a wonderful time.

“Man, it’s going to be great growing up on this team.”

“If you make it,” Luke said.

“C’mon, Lucky!” Elgin said. “You’re the one who’s always telling me to believe in myself.”

“I just don’t want you getting overconfident.”

“I won’t. Man, those guys gossip. It’s fun.”

“It’s also wrong,” I said. “What’d they say?”

Luke fell on the floor laughing.

“There’s a guy on this club with drug problems,” Elgin said. “Cocaine, I think.”

“Who?”

“Gerry Snyder.”

“The first baseman?” Luke said. “He’s been in rehab before. He’s hitting good right now.”

“Yeah, but these guys think he’s still in trouble with the drugs.”

“They shouldn’t be saying that,” I said. “Especially not to you.”

“Oh, Momma, it makes me feel like part of the team.”

Maybe so, I thought, but that was the end of his going out with the guys.

Despite all the media attention, the Braves wisely kept Elgin on a B team in spring training, playing him sparingly against
the regulars and keeping the pressure off him. When he played, he played first base, and there was no harassing him because
the coaches protected him. When the team left spring training for the regular season, Elgin had hit a shade over .380 but
with fewer at bats than most other players. He was assigned to triple-A Richmond where he played backup first base to an overweight
twenty-four-year-old named Biff Barnett who hit towering home runs to the opposite field when he wasn’t striking out. He had
hit .229 the previous season and showed a decent glove for a big man. The Braves had high hopes for him as a run-producer.
Until Elgin Woodell showed up.

Elgin went five-for-seven in a blowout first game of a double-header, and when the coaches approached Biff about letting Elgin
play the second game too, just to see how many hits he could get in one day, Biff jumped the club and never came back.

By the time Elgin had his first hitless game, seven weeks later, Biff Barnett was pumping gas at the family franchise station
in Burns Flat, Oklahoma. Elgin was hitting over five hundred, and the country was following him in
Sports Illustrated
and the
Sporting News
and clamoring for his graduation to the bigs.

The problem was Gerry Snyder. The Braves first baseman was leading the team in RBIs and batting .310. He was one of the best
glove men in the majors, a left-hander who had the ability to almost always cut down the lead runner.

The Braves contended for the Eastern Division lead during the first three months of the season, then hit a slump and found
themselves ten games out of first and slipping toward fourth. Banners appeared in the stands:

“It’s Time for Elgin!”

“Bring Up Woodell, Woodja?”

Had it not been for Snyder’s drug problem resurfacing, the Braves had planned to quietly bring Elgin up. They told Mr.
Thatcher that they hoped to have him in uniform in Atlanta before the media found out. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to
capitalize on his newsworthiness; they just didn’t want to appear to be doing so. They had planned to sneak him into the last
three innings of a makeup game, and then start him in the annual Braves vs. Richmond game at Richmond.

But two weeks before that, Gerry Snyder turned himself in. He was back on drugs and in trouble financially. He said he’d put
off asking for help again because he feared his job would not be there when he got back, “and everybody in this city knows
why. I played with the kid in spring training.”

Billy Ray Thatcher flew into Atlanta early on a Wednesday morning in July and headed for Turner Field. After an hour meeting
with the brass and stopping by the clubhouse to pick up a package, he drove to Luke’s house.

“Ready?” he asked Luke, shaking the smiling man’s hand.

“You don’t even have to ask.” Luke was in a new suit with a tie and new shoes. He checked his watch and patted his back pocket
for his wallet. “We gonna make it?”

“Plenty of time,” Thatcher said. “Plane hits the ground at eleven.”

Elgin and I had booked flights quietly, at Mr. Thatcher’s instruction. “Elgin doesn’t need a big welcome at the airport,”
Billy Ray had explained.

The secret arrival worked. The press missed us.

“How’d you do last night?” Billy Ray said on the way to the condo.

“It was only my worst game this year,” Elgin said. “I think that was the first time I ever struck out twice in a game.”

“And in such a long career,” Thatcher said. “Any hits?”

Elgin shook his head. “Hit one pretty good to center, but I’m still only getting em out there about three hundred feet. Grounded
into a double play. Made an error.”

“Hmph,” Thatcher said. “I don’t think I’d start you tonight. Leverance is on the mound.”

“Nobody told me that. He’s gonna win the Cy Young this year, you know. That’ll be the second year in a row the Dodgers have
had a guy win it. How do they always come up with that pitching? They’ve been doing it for decades.”

Elgin tapped his foot and drummed his knee with his thumb. “Need to spend an hour or so with the machine this afternoon,”
he said. “How we doin on time?”

“Relax,” Billy Ray said. ‘Just treat this like any other game.”

We all laughed and I dissolved into tears. “Right, El,” I said, “just another game for a fourteen-year-old starting for the
Braves.”

“I have to be there for the press conference at four, remember.”

“I still don’t know why they’re doing that to you, Elgin,” I said. “You don’t need that today.”

“Mom, if I can’t handle a press conference I sure can’t handle Leverance.” He shook his head. “Didn’t mean to bring up his
name again.”

As we entered the condo, Billy Ray trailing with his wrapped bundle, Elgin said he could just as well use a nap as batting
practice.

“But could you sleep?” Luke asked.

“Like a baby,” Elgin said, smiling.

“You’re not gonna get me with that old joke,” Luke said. He put his arm around Elgin and drew him close, whispering, “I couldn’t
be prouder if I was your own dad.”

It wasn’t like Luke to say things like that. I hugged him.

“How far are we from the ballpark?” I said.

Mr. Thatcher ignored the question and asked me to sit down.
“First,” he said, “you need to know that no one in this room, yourself included, is more interested than I am in getting
you to Turner on time. So please, quit worrying about that. You want to work out, fine. Don’t overdo it. Get yourself sharp,
work off a little nervousness, whatever. No matter how much you work off, there’ll be plenty left over for the game.