The Youngest Hero (7 page)

“Bad sportsmanship? If we don’t walk this kid, he’s gonna take somebody’s head off.”

Some of the fans hollered that they agreed.

“Pitch to him,” Kevin said, “and I may have him bunt.”

“Don’t be doin that either,” the president said. He turned to the other coach. “Play your kids deep and let him hit. We’ll
decide if he’s too big for this league.”

Elgin hammered a foul down the first baseline, and half a
dozen fans dived for cover. Everyone looked at the president. He seemed to be pretending not to have seen.

Elgin drove the next pitch as far as he had hit his first home run, but foul. The other team was giggling, dancing around
on the field as if looking for a safe spot.

A few wild pitches later, Elgin reached for an outside pitch but got too far under the ball and sent it into left field, the
highest pop-up I could imagine. He looked disgusted and sprinted to first, making the turn and almost reaching second before
the ball finally came down between the left fielder, center fielder, shortstop, and third baseman. The pitcher and catcher
stood watching. No one was covering third. Elgin kept running and, though he was the only one near the bag, the center fielder
threw the ball anyway. Of course, Elgin scored.

The league president slapped his palms to his thighs, rose, and, said, “That ball wasn’t gonna hurt nobody.”

He left amid a wave of boos and complaints.

“You should stay and watch!”

The Braves lost big again, but at least in the next game Elgin got to play shortstop. Unfortunately he couldn’t find the arm
speed slow enough so his first baseman could handle his throws, yet fast enough to get the runners out.

“Mom,” he said later, “there’s nothing more fun than baseball, and nothing worse than playing it the way we are.”

By the end of the fifth game the Braves were one-and-four, but Elgin was ten-for-eleven, all extra base hits, including four
homers, plus a bunch of walks. While we packed for our move, I asked him if he had had any fun.

“Not really. It was too easy. And our team was too weak.”

The phone rang. It was the league president.

“Mrs. Woodell, it would be very helpful to me if I could come visit with you this evening.”

“This is not the best time. In fact, we’re—”

“I would be only a few minutes. I have good news for Elgin.”

I didn’t know how to turn the man down, but I knew it would have to come out that we were leaving.

“Ma’am,” he said a few minutes later, a sweaty glass of tea in his hand, “we’re going to promote your son to the next level.”

“Sir?”

“He’s clearly too good for where we have him at now, so we’re making room for him on the Pirates of the eleven- and twelve-year-old
league.”

“Yes!” Elgin said. “The Pirates! Just like Dad! And they have full uniforms, don’t they?”

“Indeed they do, son. I’ve got one in the car.”

I said, “Sir, I’m afraid I have some bad—”

“Just let me get that uniform, ma’am, and see how it looks on the boy.”

“Yeah, Momma, let me at least try it on.”

It was against my better judgment, and when Elgin came out of his bedroom looking like a miniature version of Neal at his
first spring training, I could hardly breathe.

“The fact is,” I said, my voice shaky, “we are leaving, moving to Chicago this weekend.”

“Can’t the boy stay with friends or family so he can finish out the year? It’s hardly fair to—”

“The only person it’s not fair to is Elgin,” I said. “It won’t make a bit of difference to the Braves, and the Pirates don’t
even know they have him yet, do they?”

“Well, their coach does, and he’s going to be plenty upset.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I can’t stay with Grandma, Momma?”

I gave Elgin a look that shut him up. Later, I scolded him for crossing me in front of somebody. “It was hard enough for me
as it was,” I said, finally breaking down.

“I’m sorry, Momma,” he said, and I looked up at the emotion in his voice.

“This is harder on me than it is on you, isn’t it, El?”

He nodded. “I won’t miss the Braves, but I didn’t know about the Pirates. Playing with the bigger kids would have been fun.”

“But I can’t leave you here, Elgin.”

“I wouldn’t want you to, Momma. I wouldn’t want to be here
without you, and I sure wouldn’t want you in Chicago without me.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Are you kidding? You’d get to watch two big-league teams play whenever you wanted, and I’d be down here hitting home runs
and pitching no-hitters you’d never see.”

Three days later we headed north.

O
ne thing that could be said for fastpitch was that I could play it until late fall when the sun set too early after school.
Even then I played most of the day on Saturday and after church on Sunday.

“I kept track,” I told Momma after a nonstop, six-hour game with just two players on each team. “I had sixty-two hits today
and thirteen homers.”

“Not a bad day,” she said. “Can’t do that in Little League, can you?”

We had been to see several games in organized leagues, including the one I would play in the next spring, when Momma could
afford it. The league played all its weeknight games under the lights, and they had beautiful uniforms. The equipment and
the field were not kept up the best, but the competition was way better than in Hattiesburg.

Elgin pestered me to take him whenever I could, and though I was exhausted from working all day, I often did. Tell you the
truth, I was fascinated with Elgin’s baseball mind. He sat fidgeting, hollering, and pointing, and he commented on every
play. Nearly everything reminded him of something he had seen on television or read somewhere. He gushed stories of baseball
from the past and the present, and I wondered what else might be in that head of his.

“With guys on first and second,” he said one night, “they’re not even watching the guy at first. But unless they’re afraid
the pitcher or catcher will throw the ball away, the first baseman ought to duck in behind him either just before the pitch
or just after so they can pick him off. They’d still have time to get the guy going to third. They’re just handing him a huge
lead this way. He’s got as much chance to score on a single as the guy on second does.”

I grew up with brothers. I knew how boys could be about sports they loved. But I had never seen anything like this. Not even
Neal had loved the game the way Elgin did. It was too early to tell whether he had Neal’s ability, but if I could keep him
off booze and anything else that might destroy him, his desire alone could take him far. If only Neal had loved baseball more
than the buzz of a six-pack.

Maybe it was my loneliness that kept me from being bored by Elgin’s constant baseball chatter. The only thing I grew weary
of was tossing a sock ball to him all the time. If I hadn’t protested, he would have kept me throwing it for hours. Whenever
there was a commercial or a break in the action on television, he would toss me the sock and run and dive on the couch. I
had learned to lead him so he could catch it in the air and then flop onto the couch, as if saving a dramatic home run.

In the late evenings, when I was watching an old movie on television and he was supposed to be asleep, he would call out to
me.

“Momma, can I come tell you just one thing?”

“Just one.”

He would pad out with some bit of trivia I could hardly believe anyone could remember.

“Cool Papa Bell, from the Negro Leagues, could run around the bases only a second slower than Maurice Green can run the same
distance in a straight line. That’s how fast I want to be.”
When he was finally asleep I would pace and long for someone to hold me. I knew men noticed me. Here in the North they were
bold enough to comment on my looks. They often complimented my clear, pale skin and my red hair. Three different men at my
office had asked me out. Two of them were married.

It was nice to be noticed and thought pretty, but I didn’t feel available, didn’t feel free. I would have loved to have an
adult to talk with about something other than business or kids—something I hadn’t had since the early days with Neal. We had
halfway intelligent conversations at one time. But when the alcohol took the place of his career and he saw everything falling
apart, he took it out on me. There was no adult conversation after that.

My family had been little help. My mother and grandmother reminded me that there had never been a divorce in our family, and
that a real woman could hold a man, regardless. I could have “held” Neal. There would have been nothing to that. He wanted
a punching bag and a bed partner who would pay his way, pick up after him, and let him do what he wanted. I might have done
all that except put up with the beatings. The rest was not a fair trade, but it was a trade.

But who knew when the anger would be directed at Elgin? And what good would I be to him or any future children if I were injured?
Sadly, I left one fight too late. And on those nights when I dreamed of a mature, soft-spoken, loving man merely holding me,
hearing me, I could just as easily shift to a wrenching need to cuddle my baby girl in my arms.

Tears dripped in my lap as I sat curled up on the couch, watching TV but not really watching. I would fold my arms across
my chest and imagine cradling a newborn, a helpless, feathery girl with wisps of hair and a pink bow, huge blue eyes and a
rose petal mouth. In my mind I enveloped the child without hurting her, protected her, made her feel warm and secure and loved.

When I imagined that sweet, unnamed child at my breast, the pain became too intense, and my hands curled into fists and my
nails dug into my palms. I wanted to scream, to wail, to yes, cry
like a baby. Sobs caught in my throat as I forced myself to remain silent. Elgin would never understand.

I buried my face in my hands and wept, renewing my resolve. I would pour my grief, my loneliness, my passion, my motherly
and wifely instincts into my surviving child. This was the reason I had fled Hattiesburg. I had hated the shame, but even
more, I didn’t want Elgin to live with it. To have a daddy in prison, to have the whole town know of your legacy of failure—no,
I would not subject him to that.

I knew Elgin had wanted to stay, to play ball, to be around friends and family. He had come because I did. I had tried to
take the blame for leaving, making it sound as if it were my problem and that I hated to make him the victim. But if I had
my way, he would not be a victim. I had already succeeded in getting him away from Hattiesburg, away from his daddy, away
from bad influences and dead-end possibilities.

I didn’t know what Chicago held for him, but I had been able to find work and a place to live. We were getting by, not falling
into debt as had always been predicted for me. I knew Elgin wanted nothing more than to play baseball, and if he was anything
like my brothers and his father, he wanted to make a career of it.

But I also knew the incredible odds against that. I didn’t hope for a big-league career for him, even if that’s what he and
every ballplaying kid his age wanted. What I wanted for him was an unlimited horizon. I based his privileges on his success
at school.

“I don’t expect you to do better than you can do; I just expect you to do as well as you can do. Then you can play and have
lots of time for fun.”

Elgin had risen to the challenge as I knew he would. He was such a good reader, so inquisitive. And competitive. Within the
first two weeks of school, he’d told me he knew who the girl was he had to beat for best grades.

“She’s got me in arithmetic now,” he said, “but not for long.”

He had been right. By early spring he had the highest grades in the class, including arithmetic. I allowed myself to entertain
broadcasting as a potential career for him in spite of his shyness. With my first raise, which came six months after I arrived,
I began putting aside money for college.

I had asked my boss what he recommended for financing college for a kid who was almost ten now.

“How do you feel about crime?” he said, smiling. I laughed.

Maybe Elgin could earn a scholarship. Did colleges offer baseball scholarships? If I were trying to get him into the big leagues,
I would have stayed in a climate where he could play year-round. Chicago held other opportunities. Reading did not depend
upon the weather. With his brain, his memory, his scholastic ability, the future was his.

We rarely talked about it, but I could see him anchoring a sports roundup show, maybe doing play-by-play or even color work
for major events on a network. I knew there were many levels of broadcasting before that and lots of competition—everyone
in the business looking for the same plum assignments—but that didn’t have to deter Elgin any more than it had deterred me.
Leaving Hattiesburg for Chicago in the face of uncertainty and criticism had been like taking off for Mars. But I had a feeling.
I had to do what I had to do, and no problems were too great.

I wanted a nicer place to live, would have loved to be able to afford the suburbs, but there was no way. Any extra money would
go for sports equipment, sign-up fees, and the college fund. Everything would point toward Elgin’s success. That was the greatest
investment I could think of.