Heart of a Champion
Copyright © 1993 by Carl Deuker
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First Edition
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ISBN: 978-0-316-07349-3
Heart of Champion
CARL DEUKER
They say that baseball is like a fever, and that once you catch it, you never recover. That day I caught it.
From the day Seth Barham first learns about earned run averages, slugging percentages, and walks-to-strikeouts ratios, he and Jimmy Winter are best friends. Over the years they eat and breathe baseball, and it seems as if nothing can ever break their bond. But good friends rarely act just as one would have them, and as Seth discovers, gifted athletes like Jimmy are rarely perfect idols but rather complex, unpredictable people in their own right. Here is a heartfelt tribute to those friends who come but once in a lifetime—the kind that change one’s life irrevocably and can never be forgotten. And here, too, is a moving testimony to the strength and courage that grow out of loss.
As with his highly acclaimed first novel, On the Devil’s Court, Carl Deuker has written another truly rare sports novel: one with depth and dimension, gripping sports action, and unforgettable characters.
Contents
Copyright Page
Heart of Champion
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Praise for Heart of a Champion:
For Anne Mitchell and Marian Mitchell Deuker
The author wishes to thank Ann Rider,
the editor of this book,
for her assistance and encouragement.
Part One
1
My father’s game was golf. He was great at it, too. There is a box full of his trophies in our attic. If he hadn’t died, golf would have been my game too. I would never have played baseball, would never have been best friends with Jimmy Winter. I’d have heard about what happened to him while I was hitting a bucket of balls at Palo Alto Muni to prepare for the high-school tournament.
But my father did die, and I’ve spent the last five years living and breathing baseball. Most of the time Jimmy Winter has been by my side. No, that’s not right. The right way to say it is I’ve been by his side.
I was born in San Francisco, but I’ve lived all my life in Redwood City, a boring suburb south of the city. My father was a traveling salesman for IBM. He died ten years ago, when I was seven. He was in a hotel in Los Angeles when he had something like a stroke. He called the lobby for help, but his speech was slurred. The switchboard operator figured he was drunk and ignored him. In the morning a maid found him dead. It’s a horrible way to die — alone in a hotel room begging for help, with people thinking you’re just some boozer.
People say I look like my father, and I guess I do a little. From old photos I can tell he was tall and thin and had brown hair, like me. But his face was broad and fleshy, and mine is all angles and bones.
My mother says that every once in a while I’ll do something small — scratch my head or plop down on a chair — and it will be exactly the way he used to do it. I always feel strange when she tells me stuff like that. His blood is in my veins, but I never got to know him.
The day of my father’s funeral our next-door neighbor, Mr. Mongolin, crouched to my level and looked me in the eye. “You’re the man of the house now, Seth. You have to take care of your mother.”
I remember my throat going tight, and a panicky feeling coming over me. “Yes, sir, I will,” I stammered, and I meant it, even though I didn’t have a clue how.
My mom must have overheard. She flashed Mongolin a dirty look, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me to a quiet corner. “Seth Barham, you’re a little boy,” she said. “You don’t have to take care of anyone.”
2
My mom waited a year before suing the hotel. She told me she waited because it didn’t seem right to act like money could replace my father. She said she finally sued because she felt she had to make the people who were responsible feel responsible.
The hotel was owned by some huge corporation. They had a team of lawyers and buckets of money. My mother had one lawyer and no money.
It took four years before the case made it to court. We flew down to L.A. for the trial. One day I was in my sixth-grade classroom at St. Pius diagramming sentences; the next I was on a jet plane with my mother and grandmother.
I thought it would be exciting, but that courtroom was not fun. On a table in front of the jury was a model of a human head. The doctors used it to explain how my father died. I’m not stupid. I knew it wasn’t my father’s head. But that model looked so real it scared me. And the way the doctors picked sections out, turned them over, pointed to this vein and that artery — I still have nightmares about it.
On the third day of testimony something went wrong and the judge declared a mistrial. Then the corporation offered to settle. We flew back to San Francisco and took a taxi home. My mother wanted to talk with my grandmother, so I was sent outside.
I remember feeling disappointed as I closed the front door. I was back in Redwood City, and it was like nothing had changed. Whenever I’d asked my mother questions about my father, she’d described him as a saint, a perfect husband and father. I don’t blame her — what else could she do? But I didn’t have a strong sense of who he was. I’d hoped to learn from the trial what he was really like, good and bad. But to the doctors and the lawyers, my father was nothing but bones and blood and tissue. I hadn’t learned anything.
I stood on the front lawn that day wondering what to do, where to go. Guys from St. Pius lived in the neighborhood. I wasn’t best friends with any of them, but if I showed up at Briarfield Park I could usually hook up with somebody.
But that day I didn’t much feel like seeing guys from the neighborhood. I didn’t want to talk about where I’d been. I didn’t want to think about that model on the table. So I walked a half-mile to Henry Ford School. I didn’t know anybody who went to Henry Ford.
Once I reached the playground I climbed onto a swing, pushed off, and started pumping. When I was soaring, I’d jump out into the sand as far as I could. The whole time I was pretending I was a fighter pilot, one of the Blue Angels, parachuting from a smoking jet. It’s a dumb thing for a sixth-grader to do, but that’s what I did.
I’d been there about half an hour when I heard a man’s voice boom across the playground. “Use your new glove, Jimmy. You need to break it in before the season starts.”
“But the new one hurts my hand.”
“I said to use the new one.”
That was the first time I saw Jimmy.
He was about my age, but a little taller than me, a little stockier, and his hair was maybe a little darker brown than mine. Other than that, we looked alike. Over the years people have sometimes mistaken us for brothers.
The Super Bowl was one week away, but Jimmy was geared up for baseball — and I mean geared up. He had on a Giants cap, jersey, and pants. He wore orange wristbands and black, cleated shoes. He even had flip-up sunglasses.
I had a glove, but baseball had never been my favorite sport. All you did was stand around waiting for something to happen, but nothing much ever did. I hadn’t even gone out for Little League.
But watching Jimmy play catch opened my eyes to the game. His arm was loose and free, and as he released the ball, he’d snap his wrist down and through. The ball would cut through the air like a frozen rope and smack into his father’s glove. His father would fire it back. While the ball was in the ai
r, Jimmy acted like he didn’t know it was coming. But at the last second his glove would flick out and snare it.
Once they’d warmed up, Jimmy’s father hit him grounders. Whenever anybody had hit a grounder at me, I’d stabbed at the ball, my eyes half closed, afraid of taking it in the face.
Not Jimmy. He’d glide over glove down in the dirt — scoop up the ball, and toss it back. Then he’d pound his fist into his glove, ready for the next one.
Jimmy was a better fielder than any player at St. Pius, but listening to his father, you’d have thought he was terrible. “Use two hands!. . . Keep your glove down!. . . Don’t let the ball play you!”
A guy at school, Mike Dokes, had a father like that. Mr. Dokes would scream at the refs and coaches during the basketball games. But mostly he screamed at Mike. As I sat on the swing, I wondered whether it was better to have a father like that, or not to have a father at all.
Just then Jimmy’s father hit a ball over Jimmy’s head that rolled out toward me. I slipped out of the swing and tossed it back. “I’ve got an extra glove,” Jimmy said, and he fixed me with his fierce green eyes. “You want to play?”
They put me at second base so Jimmy could practice the throw starting a double play. Mr. Winter would hit a grounder to Jimmy. He’d field the ball and — depending on where he was — either fire it or flip it to me on the bag.
After twenty-five grounders or so, Mr. Winter called out, “One more!” Then he smacked a rocket at Jimmy. For the first time, Jimmy backed off and the ball screamed by him.
His father came unglued. “That was a gutless play, a minor leaguer’s play! You get a bruise on your chest, and it goes away. But if a run scores because you let a ball get by, that run stays on the scoreboard forever!”
Jimmy’s shoulders sagged and the color drained out of his face. I found myself shaking.
“Try it again!” his father yelled.
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy answered.
Mr. Winter laced another grounder, even harder than the one before. Jimmy took it off his chest. “That’s better!” his father said, nodding.
I looked over at Jimmy. He had to have been in pain, but his eyes were shining with pride.
Mr. Winter pointed his bat at me. “Now it’s your turn, son. Just field the ball and throw it to Jimmy. Okay?”
I was terrified waiting for that first grounder, but when the ball came, it was just a little roller. I fielded it okay, but my feet were tangled when I made my throw. The ball flew about twenty feet over Jimmy’s head. Instead of going into a rage, Mr. Winter smiled. “Kid,” he said, “let’s take it one step at a time.”
For the next half hour Mr. Winter showed me how to field a ground ball, set my feet, and throw. He didn’t yell once, or act bored, or make me feel stupid.
After that he hit Jimmy and me fly balls and pop-ups. It was the same thing again. Mr. Winter got all over Jimmy if he made the slightest mistake. But he never barked at me. He treated me a thousand times better than he treated his own son, which is one of those things that makes no sense at all, but is true anyway.
Finally Mr. Winter called, “That’s it boys.”
After Jimmy and I had loaded the equipment into the trunk, Mr. Winter opened a cooler he’d pulled from the backseat. He leaned against the car and drank a beer while we sat behind the backstop and split a Coke.
“What do you think of my father?”
It was the one thing I’d hoped Jimmy wouldn’t ask, and it was the first thing he said.
I looked at the ground. “He’s okay.”
Jimmy frowned. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking he’s mean. But he isn’t. He wants what’s best for me. My dad made it to Triple-A ball. He says that with a harder push from his father, he could have reached the majors. He’s giving me that push, and I’m going all the way to the major leagues.” Jimmy took a sip of Coke. “What’s your father like?” he asked.
“My father is dead.”
“Really? How did he die?”
I told him what had happened.
“I can’t imagine not having a dad,” he said when I’d finished.
“It’s not so bad. I’ve got my mother.”
Jimmy picked up a pebble and threw it. “My mom doesn’t understand my dad. They argue a lot.”
Mr. Winter called out that it was time to go.
Jimmy stood. “What are you doing next Saturday?”
“Nothing much,” I said.
“Come here and we can play some more.”
“Maybe,” I answered.
He started off, but after he’d gone about five steps he turned back. “I’m sorry about what happened to your dad,” he said.
3
I’d missed a week of school because of the trial, but when I returned nobody asked me where I’d been. I knew they knew, though, because they all went out of their way to be nice to me. Girls who’d hardly talked to me were lending me pencils. Teachers told me I could take my time making up my assignments. But not one person came right out and said he was sorry.
Maybe that’s why I thought about Jimmy so much during the week. When Saturday morning rolled around, I headed straight to Henry Ford. I was half a block away when Jimmy started calling my name and waving. It was as like we’d been best friends for years.
That day the three of us played pickle, a baserunning game. The guy in the pickle would keen running, back and forth from first to second, second to first, until he was caught and tagged out. Whoever made the tag would take his place.
Jimmy had a quick first step, and he had baseball smarts. I didn’t have either. So it always seemed like he took off when I was sure he wasn’t running, and like he hugged the bag when I was certain he was going. He stole base after base. Once he slid into me so hard I flipped in the air and landed flat on my back. He didn’t apologize or even help me up.
Mr. Winter came over. I figured he was going to give me a hand, but he didn’t. “You were out of position, Seth,” he said. “You’ll get hurt if you don’t play right.” Then he explained what I should have done.
Later Mr. Winter had us take turns hitting. Jimmy had a pure swing, even then. Every ball was scorched. But hitting the ball hard wasn’t enough for Mr. Winter. “Take outside pitches to right,” he’d say. “Drive this one up the middle. Turn on fastballs on the inside part of the plate.” He had Jimmy using every inch of the field. I should know — I had to chase the balls down.
I’d never been able to hit a baseball well. I figured it was because I’m not real strong. But Mr. Winter told me I was swinging with my arms. “Start with your weight back. As you swing, firm up your left side and drive through the ball with your legs. Line drives and hard ground balls, that’s what you want. Fly balls look prettier, but nine times out of ten they end up dying in somebody’s glove.”
Around four o’clock we stopped. Mr. Winter drank his beer while Jimmy and I had our Cokes. I was tired. but it was a good tired feeling — until Jimmy started in.
“Listen to my father,” he said. “Listen and you’ll learn a whole lot really fast.”
“I listen,” I said.
Jimmy shook his head. “Not hard enough. You’ve got to pay more attention. He knows everything about baseball.”
“Your father isn’t God,” I snapped.
After that we sat in silence until Mr. Winter called that it was time for Jimmy to leave.
Jimmy stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, won’t I?”
There was something desperate about the way he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll be here.”
4
The next day I was at Henry Ford at noon sharp, and so was Jimmy. I was looking forward to a long afternoon playing baseball. But that was Super Bowl Sunday, and Mr. Winter had a hundred-dollar bet on the game. We’d hardly started when he called it quits. “Can Seth at least come over?” Jimmy asked.
“Fine by me,” his father answered.
“I have to check with my mom,” I said.
“You can call from our house,” Jimmy said.
“Tell her I’ll give you a ride home,” Mr. Winter added.
Jimmy lived on Massachusetts Avenue in a house exactly like mine. That may sound weird, but there must be a thousand homes in Redwood City exactly like mine.
After I called my mother, Jimmy pulled two peanut-butter sandwiches out of the refrigerator. “My mom made these this morning. She goes out whenever my dad watches football. She says he gets too loud.”