The Youngest Hero (45 page)

“Elgin, if I compared you to Jackie Robinson, do you know what I’d be saying?”

“Sure. He was the first black ballplayer to play in the major leagues. Someday I’ll be the first kid.”

“The question is, do you bring to your job what he brought to his? First, he was a great, great player. That helped. But when
he made an out, had an oh-for-four game, made an error, well, he was everybody’s nigger.”

I was stunned. Momma didn’t even allow that word in our house. And here was a black man saying it.

“They told him to go back to the jungle,” Mr. Williams said. “He even had a rough time with his teammates.”

“Yeah, until he won Rookie of the Year.”

“You know your history, don’t you?”

“I read a lot.”

“But Jackie Robinson was a big enough man to not fight back. He had to get angry and had to feel the injustice. If just once
he had attacked somebody or treated them like they treated him, he’d have ruined it for all of us. Think I’d be commissioner
today if it weren’t for Jackie Robinson? Not on your life. But let me tell you this, he won over a lot of people, but not
everybody. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Now tell me, son, what kind of heat you’ve taken. There had to be a lot of kids who lost jobs because you came along.”

I told him I had suffered some but that it didn’t seem like much, now that I was thinking about Jackie Robinson.

“Otherwords, you’ve never been spit at.”

I shook my head.

“Ignored?”

“Not really.”

“Shunned?”

I shook my head again. “I don’t guess I’m a Jackie Robinson.”

The commissioner finished off another burger and took a long pull on his Diet Coke.

“See, there’s where we have our problem. I don’t know how much you know about the legal side of this thing, but to get you
into the June draft I would have to make an exception to an old rule. Breaking old rules is part of my heritage, so I’m not
against that. I’m not even all that concerned if the worst that happens is that you’re a paper tiger and you flounder in the
minors and never see a major-league inning. That makes us look bad, sure, for exploiting you, ruining your childhood, all
that. But even if that happens, you and your mother will likely be set up for life.

“My problem is if you’re good. You’re not going to have any
trouble with the fans. The difficulty will come with your teammates and your opponents. See what I’m saying?”

“Jealousy?”

“That’s part of it. But think about this. You’re in American Legion ball and let’s say you’re hitting, oh, almost seven hundred
halfway through the season. You’re two hundred points ahead of everybody else and cruising toward a big-league career, way
ahead of schedule. Now in your next game, you’re gonna face a prodigy. This is a baby. Can barely walk. He’s still in diapers,
get it?”

I laughed.

“And this kid is a pitcher nobody can hit off. I mean, he’s allowed four hits in five games and has an ERA of zero. Okay?”

I nodded, grinning.

“He walks your leadoff man, and now you’re up. What’re you thinking about?”

I had been caught off guard. I said nothing.

“Are you thinking about what pitch he might throw? Or are you thinking about bunting, where to put the ball, what’s the situation?
What are you thinking about?”

My smile was gone. “I’m thinking how embarrassing it would be to strike out against a baby.”

Rafer Williams slammed both palms on the table, crossed his arms and sat back, glaring at me. “There you go,” he said. “Let
me be the older guy now. I’m a catcher for the Reds. I’ve got a lifetime average of over .280 and I’ve hit over four hundred
home runs. I’m gonna be a Hall of Famer, and everybody knows it. Now I’m catching and a child comes to the plate to hit. Do
I want my pitcher to give up a hit, or even a walk, to a child? What am I thinking? I’m thinking,
This kid wants to play with grown-ups, he’s gonna have to face grown-up pitches. This kid’s gonna be on his butt the first
three times my pitcher tries to put one in his ear
. Then what?”

“Am I that kid?”

“Course. Now what?”

“I’m looking for the green light on three-and-oh.”

Williams shook till he almost left the chair. He raised his head and shrieked. He clapped. “You’re lookin for the green! I
love
it! I love you! You
are
Jackie Robinson. That’s just what he woulda said!”

“I hear you, sir. Nobody’s going to want me to steal a base off them, get a hit, draw a walk, throw them out, tag them out.
I figure I’ll have to watch for hard slides, roll blocks, beanballs. I s’pose people will bunt at me, rag on me, taunt me.
It’ll just make me more determined.”

The commissioner had a hand over his mouth, studying me.

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “I’m concerned about your power. You probably haven’t hit a live pitch farther than
three hundred feet, right?”

“About three-ten.”

“You know what that’ll get you in pro ball.”

I jerked up my thumb like an umpire.

“Precisely. So, let’s say you can plant liners into the outfield and maybe the occasional double in the gap. Here’s what clubs
will do. They’ll bring that outfield into two, two-fifty or so, maybe even put one of the outfielders in the infield. Then
they shift the infield to take away the ground-ball hit. With two guys in the outfield, faster than any you’ve ever seen in
Legion ball, they’ll run down those flare hits. All of a sudden you’re hitting a hundred.”

“Then I get sent back down.”

“Then you get sent back down.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Oh, you’d get sent back down.”

“If I was hitting a hundred I’d expect to be. But I don’t think I could be held to a one hundred average. I know I haven’t
faced live, ninety-mile-an-hour pitching, but I believe I can put the ball where I want to at least half the time. And I have
a good eye. I’ll walk a lot.”

Mr. Williams cleared away the trash and motioned to the other room where this time he sat on the couch and directed me to
the coffee table.

“I like your confidence,” he said. “It’s naive, but it’s confidence. Let me ask you this: Do you have any idea how noisy it
would be if I allowed you into the draft?”

“Noisy?”

“Big. Newsworthy. I know you’ve been drawing crowds and getting a lot of publicity, but I don’t think you realize the magnitude
of this. You would be known all over the world. It wouldn’t be long before you wouldn’t be able to go out alone. You’d be
on all the talk shows, there’d probably be apparel deals, shoe deals, you name it. But I’ve seen superstars come and go. I’ve
seen kids pitch in the majors right out of high school, then never pitch in the bigs again. I saw a kid come up from A ball,
fresh off a perfect game, only to be hit all over the yard in a third of an inning and never come back. That’s the kind of
thing I need to think about.”

“I probably should tell you that I have no interest in the American League.”

“What?”

“They’d make me a designated hitter, and I’d hate that.”

“I hated that too. That’s why I never thought they’d make me president of the AL. How strongly do you feel about it?”

“I wouldn’t sign with an AL team unless they guaranteed in writing I wouldn’t be a DH.”

“Hm. That could make you look bad.”

“Maybe just American League teams would have to know.”

“Elgin, if I allow you into the June draft, you won’t have any more secrets as long as you live.”

“You’re going to let me in?”

The commissioner’s arms were spread on the back of the couch.”So, you come right out and ask me, do you?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I was hopin you would, because if you didn’t, I wasn’t supposed to discuss it. But I’ll tell you, in this
day of agents and lawyers and spokesmen and all that, the guy who knows the least is always the guy we’re all talking about—the
player in question. That’s not right, especially with someone like you, the Jackie Robinson of kids. So, just so you’ll know
from the beginning, here’s where I am on this:

“A lot of people think that once we crack this door open, we’ll have all manner of high school kids dropping out and running
off to play baseball like they do in basketball. Well, I say we keep some limitations. Most of all, the kid would have to
agree to tutoring and would have to maintain a certain grade point average and graduate. If he fell behind, he would be on
the shelf until he was back on track.”

I nodded and couldn’t quit smiling.

“Don’t get ahead of me now, son. Just because you qualify on all those doesn’t make it so easy. This gets kind of complicated,
so stay with me. I couldn’t make it appear I was doing this on behalf of baseball, even though you and I know that if you
succeeded and made the majors at some ridiculously young age, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the game. But
see, if
we
came after
you
, rather than the other way around, and I allowed you in the draft because I thought you’d be exciting to watch grow, we’d
look like zookeepers.

“What has to happen is that you push your way in. You’ve started that with your performance and your stats. But if my hand
was forced, we’d look better. Understand?”

“No.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

I nodded.

“I’m going to say no. No way I can let you into the draft. Now don’t look at me that way. I’m going to take a position that
this would not be in your best interests, even if it might be a good thing for baseball. Then I need you to force the issue.
I need your attorney to threaten a lawsuit accusing us of discrimination on the basis of age, hammering away that you and
your mother both want this, that she will be with you all the way, that you will be tutored, the whole bit. Public outcry
will be incredible, and at some point I’ll give in. I may throw out a few conditions of my own, but I’ll concede that we really
don’t have a case and that we don’t want the expense of a lawsuit we’re sure to lose.”

“Then what happens?”

“Then your name goes into the June draft, the Astros take you, and you’re off to the races.”

I felt a lump in my throat. “You mean it’s up to me? If I tell
Mr. Thatcher to make you let me in the draft, that’s all there is to it?”

“Except this. I wish I could guarantee that you’ll be the best thing that ever happened to baseball and that you’ll make the
majors in a few years. I doubt you’ll make it while you’re still younger than Joe Nuxhall was, but I hope you make it as a
teenager. I will not be a happy man if it all falls apart for you. If you get hurt or disillusioned, or if we put you in over
your head, I’ll feel bad and hope the money has been worth it for you. Let me remind you that it’s the baseball playing itself
that has gotten you where you are now, and what you do on the field will always determine how everything else goes. You quit
playing at a top level, your money dries up, your endorsements disappear; your other-than-true friends, your popularity, everything
else tumbles.

“But you conduct yourself like a pro, keep practicing and perfecting your skills, you will have no limits.”

The commissioner reached to shake my hand.

“I want to talk to your mother. I want to talk to Mr. Thatcher. And then I want to get back to my office. Between now and
the draft, you and I are going to be busy people.”

I shook his hand and wanted to thank him, but no words would come. The commissioner rose from the couch as I stood. He embraced
me as I fought to keep from crying.

“You’re welcome,” Rafer Williams said with a smile.

Within a week, the baseball commissioner’s office announced it had been petitioned by the representative of an underage ballplayer
to be allowed into the June draft. The commissioner denied the request, but soon anyone who had not heard of Elgin Woodell
before was well aware of him because of Elgin’s network television appearances, rallies for him, call-in shows, letter-writing
campaigns, and daily news reports of the lawsuit filed by Billy Ray Thatcher of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Even Billy Ray took
on Lincolnesque proportions.

A meeting with my American Legion coaches and teammates convinced me they would be thrilled if I was drafted and left them
immediately. “Thanks a lot,” I said, pretending to be insulted, but they all told me they would be proud to say they had once
played with me.

“We’ll win the thing without you anyway,” Doyle said. Everyone laughed, but that proved true. Without me the rest of the way,
they would win the state and wind up third in the nationals.

Meanwhile, the commissioner held a news conference to announce what only Momma, Luke, Mr. Thatcher, and I knew:
that Williams was, “with great fear and trepidation, making this very unusual exception in the case of one very unusual young
man.”