Twelfth Angel (13 page)

We bounced back on Wednesday evening against the lowly Cubs. Everyone in our lineup—that is, everyone except Timothy—managed to get at least one hit, and three of our guys had perfect nights, three for three! Final score was 13 to 4. Todd experimented with a few new pitches, including a knuckleball his older brother was using successfully in high school, or I’m certain he would have had another shutout. Timothy took some good cuts, but went down swinging on four pitches. He did, however, finally catch his first fly ball of the year, a fairly well hit ball that went right at him. He just held up his new glove and caught it as any major-leaguer would. Of course that produced another chorus of cheers from all the Angels, whether they were in the field or on the bench, and gave him another chance to doff his cap. What a little ham! And when he arrived in the dugout, he shouted, “Day by day, in every way, I’m really and truly getting better and better!”

Now, with only four games remaining, the Yankees had a record of six wins and two losses, and we were second with five wins and three losses. Since the top
two teams would play a single game at the conclusion of the season, for the league championship, I would have been satisfied if the regular season had ended right then. But we still had four more to play, and both the Pirates, with three wins and five losses, and even the Cubs, with two wins and six losses, could possibly catch us. We couldn’t relax yet.

 … And Timothy Noble, still without a base hit, was running out of games.

XII
 

M
ost New England towns fire off as large a display of fireworks as they can afford, usually on their most spacious athletic field, in celebration of Independence Day. Not the township of Boland. Of course most of its citizens drive to nearby Concord to enjoy fireworks displays on July Fourth, but then they have their own special celebration. Since town hall records show that Boland’s first settler, Isaac Thomas Boland, arrived among unfriendly animals and natives on July 17, 1735, that was the day when most of the townspeople always gathered in the grandstand and parking lot of Boland Little League Park. When darkness fell, rockets, Roman candles and a varied assortment of aerial bombshells were launched from the outfield area, exploding high above in a noisy and brilliant spectrum of blazing colors while the crowd “oohed” and screamed and applauded.

Since July 17th fell on a Monday, our scheduled games, normally played Monday through Thursday each week, were all moved ahead a day, and our game against the Pirates was listed for Tuesday evening. Bill had phoned, sometime in mid-afternoon on Monday, asking if I wanted to go to the fireworks with him and Edy. I thanked him but declined. After some pastrami on rye with a glass of skim milk for supper, I went out on the deck, settled into my favorite chaise lounge and had almost dozed off when the first aerial bombshell exploded, almost directly over the house. Startled, I looked up just in time to see scores of flaming stars of all colors falling lazily out of a swirling pillar of white smoke. I sat up and watched as glowing rockets and bright balls of light climbed, one after the other, high into the heavens, arching up from the playing field a half mile or so away, which was hidden from view by tall pines and oaks.

After several minutes it became very difficult for me to watch. Almost from Rick’s infancy, fireworks had fascinated him. From the time he was only three, back in Santa Clara, and then for the two years in Denver, Sally and I had always taken him to see “the works!” on each Fourth of July. I remember holding him on my knees for the first couple of years. He would bounce up and down constantly while the rockets soared higher and higher, his big blue eyes opened so wide that there were deep furrows in his forehead as he pointed upward with the forefingers of both hands and shrieked his appreciation of each swishing rocket when it exploded to discharge
multicolored stars and glowing balls of magnesium while the odor of burning sulphur and charcoal filled the summer air.

I watched the Boland township’s celebration of lights in the sky for perhaps twenty minutes. It was probably the loneliest twenty minutes of my life. Then I went into the house and climbed into bed, hoping that I would never awake.

Our kids were obviously getting a little cockier with each game and there was already talk of the big championship game against the Yankees, even though Bill and I kept reminding them that they hadn’t clinched anything yet. On Tuesday evening the whole team seemed higher than a kite at batting practice, and they were teasing Timothy because he had arrived wearing a brand-new pair of white Nike baseball shoes with molded cleats of black and red. When he saw me, he came running over and said, “See my new shoes, Mr. Harding.”

“They look great! How do you like them?”

He nodded eagerly. “They’re nice. Doc Messenger took me to Concord this morning and bought them for me. He said my old sneakers were no good to play ball in!”

With that he turned and ran to the outfield, arms pumping furiously, straining to land on his toes with each step like the most graceful of runners.

Our game against the Pirates began as a real pitchers’ duel. For the first two innings neither team was able to
get the ball out of the infield, and Paul Taylor was throwing harder than I had ever seen him throw. Then, as swiftly as the wind can change directions here in New England, the game turned into a wild slugfest after both Todd and Tank hit home runs, back to back, in the third inning and our guys followed by scoring seven more. Tony Piso and his boys came right back with six of their own when Paul lost his control in the fourth inning, although I did let him stay in the game and he finally got the side out.

In the fifth inning, as Timothy was walking to the plate, his teammates commenced their chanting, “Timothy, Timothy, never give up, never give up!” Then they began clapping their hands in rhythm, and soon the crowd directly behind our dugout started to clap until the entire grandstand had joined in. Everyone was rooting for the little guy to get his first hit. He tried. Oh, how he tried! Looked good at the plate, took smooth cuts at the ball, but … he struck out on three pitches as the crowd groaned their disappointment.

We did finally win the game, sloppy as it was, 14 to 9.

He was leaning against the trunk of an old Jaguar sedan, parked next to my car in the parking lot, and although he didn’t need to introduce himself because I recognized him, he did anyway.

“Mr. Harding,” he said, smiling and extending a large hand, “I’m Doc Messenger. When someone told me that I was parked next to your buggy, I couldn’t pass up the
opportunity to hang around long enough to tell you how much I admire you, your courage and the great way you handle your team. Kids always see right through phony adults, and it’s obvious that the Angels respect you and enjoy playing for you.”

“Thank you, sir. Much appreciated. I’m so glad to finally meet the legendary Doc Messenger after all I’ve heard about you. Timothy Noble talks about you often. He’s a lucky kid to have you keeping an eye on him.”

The old man folded his arms, smiled, and replied in a deep baritone voice, “Well, I don’t know about that. What I do know, for sure, is how fortunate he is to be playing for a man like you.”

“Doc, is Timothy okay? Sometimes he seems to lose his balance, and other times he looks as if he’s in pain when he runs, but he says he isn’t.”

He stroked his long white beard several times before replying, “He’s okay. Just a few childhood problems, but I’m keeping an eye on him. I’ve even come to all your games.”

“Day by day, in every way …”

He smiled. “The little fellow has really taken to those old self-motivators, hasn’t he? I only taught him two, but they seem to keep him positive and with a good outlook on life, even if they haven’t produced a hit as yet. Amazing and powerful tools, self-motivators. They could be a miracle treatment for so many if only we could get more people to believe in that mysterious power contained in simple words. All we have to do is program our subconscious mind with positive thoughts
and words, and when we do, we can work wonders in our lives. So many of us, perhaps all of us, talk to ourselves throughout the day anyway, so why not feed ourselves positive words and ideas that are beneficial. ‘I can win, I can get the job done, I can make the sale’ are just as easy to say as ‘I can’t win, I can’t complete the job, I’ll never make the sale.’ Norman Vincent Peale, W. Clement Stone, Napoleon Hill, Maxwell Maltz and so many other great minds have tried to teach us this simple technique to change our lives for the better. Self-affirmations, employed by man or woman to improve production, behavior and even thinking have been used successfully for thousands of years. Did you know that Epictetus, the old Roman philosopher, even offered us special words to help us deal with the terrible loss of a loved one? He said, ‘Never say about anything, I have lost it, but only I have given it back. Is your child dead? He has been given back. Is your wife dead? She has been returned.’ ” He leaned over and patted my shoulder. “Keep up the good work, Mr. Harding. I’m so glad we had this chat.” Then he turned and unlocked the door of his car, and I turned toward mine, unable to say anything.

Thursday’s game against Sid Marx and his Yankees turned out to be another nail biter, with Todd Stevenson pitching against their best, Glenn Gerston. No one reached third base, on either side, until Justin Nurnberg cracked a double between left and center field that rolled all the way to the fence, and then he advanced on
Paul Taylor’s infield grounder to second. However, we couldn’t bring our man home, so we had a scoreless tie on our hands as we began the fourth inning with the top of the Yankee batting order coming to the plate. Todd struck out the first two, but then he walked the next, and Sid’s cleanup batter followed with a line drive down the left-field line that kept rising and rising until it disappeared over the fence, and we were suddenly trailing by two. The next batter, after fouling several pitches, hit a high fly to right field, and Bill West, sitting next to me, buried his head in his hands and groaned until the crowd roared and nearly everyone rose to their feet as Timothy, after making a fine two-handed catch as I had taught him, came jogging into the bench while the crowd applauded. Then he glanced over toward me and shouted, “Nothing to it!”

At the plate things were not so productive for Timothy. After fouling off several pitches, he finally went down swinging. Actually none of our bats were very potent against Gerston, and we suffered our third defeat against only one victory for the year against the Yankees.

On the following Monday, with Chuck Barrio on the mound for us, we handled the Cubs easily, 17 to 5, and that win clinched second place in the league, which meant that a week from Saturday we would tangle once more with the Yankees, this time for the league championship. Ben Rogers and Bob Murphy both had three hits, and Tank poked another home run in our lopsided
victory. I let Andros, Lang and Noble play the entire final four innings, and Timothy got to bat twice since all our guys were really pounding the ball. He struck out both times, but both times he came back to the bench with head still held high. What a special kid!

While our team was running out onto the field for the sixth inning, Bill West came over to where I was standing and asked softly, “Have you heard about Timothy?”

“No. What’s wrong?”

“Well, the kids were telling me that his bike is out of commission again. Apparently the new chain his mother bought snapped on the way here today, so I guess he just left the old thing by the side of the road and ran the last couple of miles to be here on time. How’s that for desire?”

After the game, as we were loading the equipment into the trunk of Bill’s car, I called to Timothy as he trotted by.

“Yes, sir?”

“How about a ride home?”

He sighed, and dragged his new shoes in the sand. “Someone told you about my stupid bike?”

“Yup.”

We had been riding for perhaps ten minutes before the little guy exclaimed, “This isn’t the way home.”

“It is for me.”

“We’re going to your house? Why?”

“Wait and see. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

I finally turned into my driveway, drove up the grade, pushed the button on my garage-door opener and
waited until the door was all the way up and the lights had turned on.

“Timothy, jump out for a minute. There’s something I want to show you.”

He followed me uncertainly into the garage. I walked over to where Rick’s new red Huffy “Street Rocker” bicycle was hanging on one of the walls, suspended by two large metal brackets. Holding my breath, I reached up to feel both tires and was relieved when they felt hard. Then I grasped the frame in both hands and lifted Rick’s last birthday present from its place on the wall. I lowered it to the concrete floor, in front of Timothy, and said, “This is yours. It’s not giving enjoyment to anyone, just hanging there, and I’m sure Rick would want you to have it if he knew you.”

Timothy’s two tiny hands moved slowly across the chrome handle bars and down the dusty but bright frame. “It’s brand-new, Mr. Harding!”