Beyond Belief Read Free Page B

daddy said. “I’m done for the day.”
    “You know, I need you here this afternoon. You need to stick around.”
    My daddy explained the arrangement he had with the bosses at the factory. As long as he completed his work for the day and it didn’t cause any disruption — and it wouldn’t have in this case — then he was free to go. He was a dedicated worker and went out of his way not to cheat anybody.
    The new boss wouldn’t hear any of it. He repeated his desire to have my daddy stick around for the rest of the afternoon. At this point, my daddy felt he was being tested, challenged just to see how he would react. This was not always a smart move for the person doing the challenging. My daddy just stood there with his timecard in his hand, waiting for his boss to make the next move.
    “Tony, I’ve got a question for you: What’s more important, the ballgame or your job?”
    My daddy didn’t hesitate at all. He didn’t answer him directly, but he looked this new boss right in the eye and slid his timecard into the clock until it clicked. He put the card back in the slot, calmly walked out of the factory and never worked another day for Wonder Bread.
    We went to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, one year for an all-star tournament, and I pitched the first game. Early in the game I threw a pitch behind a little kid on the other team. When it was his turn to hit the next time through the batting order, he dragged his bat to the batter’s box with tears running down his cheeks. He stood outside the box, crying and looking at the third-base coach to see if he might spare him this moment and send him back to the dugout.
    Instead, the third-base coach walked toward him and said, “It’s okay, get up there and hit. He’s not going to hit you. Be a big boy.”
    He looked at the coach and sobbed, “It’s too fast.” By now everyone in the stands was trying not to laugh at this poor kid, who probably should have been allowed to walk back to the dugout and put his bat down rather than be scarred for life by his behavior in a Tar Heel League game.
    Finally, he agreed to get in the box. Everyone cheered and told him he could do it. He stood as far from the plate as possible and looked ready to bail at any moment. He held his bat on his shoulder, showing no intention of even thinking of swinging.
    And so I wound up, and threw.
    I was eleven years old, and I threw the ball about seventy miles per hour. The problem was, I didn’t always have any idea where it was going. Pinpoint control was not part of my game. I don’t know whether hearing the coach promise that I wasn’t going to hit him messed with my head, but I wound up and threw a fastball that thumped into the kid’s back, right between his shoulder blades.
    I felt terrible. This was the last thing I wanted to do, and maybe I tried so hard not to do it that I guaranteed that I would. I don’t know, but if you thought he was crying before he got into the box, you can’t imagine what he was doing now.
    He was lying there perfectly still and screaming at the top of his lungs. “He hit me! He hit me!” It was like the ball stunned him or something, hit him right in the spine. The coaches and the umpire ran out to him, trying to convince him to get up and take his base, and he kept screaming: “I can’t move! I can’t move!” The only body part undamaged, it seemed, was his mouth.
    In the course of all this screaming and crying, someone decided it would be a good idea to call an ambulance. I stayed on the mound, flipping the ball to myself repeatedly. It was a habit I had, part of my inability to be still, and also something I did when I was nervous or embarrassed. I didn’t go down to the plate and get involved with the kid, though, because I was always taught to just throw the ball and not worry about hitting someone. I felt bad for him, but at the same time, it was his job to get out of the way of a bad pitch.
    He stayed on the ground for what seemed like