Twelfth Angel Read online

  It had been one thing for me to walk out on a quiet and empty field the other afternoon with Bill, but this was much tougher. I don’t know what I expected, but the kids didn’t look much different or sound much different or even act much different from the way my young buddies had, almost thirty years ago, when this field had been the most hallowed ground in the entire world to me. I closed my eyes, listening to the sounds, and tried to remember my very first Little League tryout. I was just a few days past my ninth birthday, nervous and frightened, and my dad had driven me here, to this same field, in his pickup. Just before I turned away from him, in the parking lot, and ran out on the diamond for the first time, he extended his hand, smiled and said, “Break a leg, son!” I knew what he meant because that strange phrase had come up at dinner one night, and mother had patiently explained to both of us that those words were how show people always wish each other good luck before a performance. Break a leg!

  “John?”

  I opened my eyes. Bill was several yards away and frowning. “Are you okay?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and nodded. He pointed toward the first-base dugout. “Let’s go meet the league officials while we’ve got time.”

  Boland Little League’s president, Stewart Rand, was already an acquaintance, since he was an officer in the local savings bank and we had met on that morning when Sally and I had opened our checking and savings accounts. He rose from the dugout bench when he saw us approaching and extended his hand toward me before Bill could say anything. “Mr. Harding, I can’t tell you how pleased we are to have you with us. We all welcome you, with open arms, as well as extend to you our deepest sympathy. Thank you for your willingness to share your time, your effort and your considerable baseball knowledge with our youngsters. I’m certain they will be better players and citizens because of your counsel, leadership and example. Forgive the speech”—he grinned—“but I truly mean every word of it. You are a very special man, and I’m glad we’ve got you.”

  I mumbled my thanks. Then Bill introduced me to Nancy McLaren, the league’s secretary-treasurer, followed by three members of the board, the other three managers and their coaches as well as several parents, all of whose names I forgot soon after the introductions.

  At last, in response to a single shriek from a whistle that had been hanging around President Rand’s neck, the players ceased their throwing and running and noisily took seats in the lower rows of stands behind the dugout. Parents, who had been scattered throughout the grandstand, now began moving to positions in upper rows, behind the boys, in order to hear, while the league president waited patiently for everyone to get settled, waving and nodding constantly to people calling out his name. When the chattering in the stands finally subsided, he raised his right hand and said loudly, “Good morning, parents and players and friends of Boland Little League. My name is Stewart Rand. As this year’s league president, I welcome you to the opening session of what will be our forty-fourth year as a chartered Little League. That means that, through the years, we have proudly sent several thousand of Boland’s youth out into the world, imbued, we hope, with qualities of teamwork, fair play, courage, persistence and discipline that have made them better adults and better citizens.”

  Stewart Rand paused, smiled and then said, “We have a good deal to accomplish in the next couple of hours or so and we shall try, with the generous assistance of our managers and coaches and several parents, to give every player an opportunity to show what he can do at bat, on the bases and in the field. And, while all that energy is being expended on our historic field, our four team managers, upon which so much responsibility rests for the next two months, will also be moving around the field from group to group, observing and judging and making notes so that on Monday night, at the draft, they will be able to assemble four good competitive teams for our exciting twelve-game pennant race.”

  Bill and I had been standing, with the other managers and coaches, behind Rand. Bill turned and said softly, “I’ll get together with you later.” Then he moved slowly toward the league president just as Rand was saying, “And now I’m going to turn this morning over to an old friend of mine and many of you, Bill West, who will coordinate the various activities.”

  The tryouts lasted until well past noon. Each player was allowed half a dozen swings at the plate, hitting pitches tossed by one of the coaches who had the unique ability to throw ball after ball in the strike zone. During the long hitting session at least six boys took their turns behind the plate, catching. Four were allowed on the infield at one time, while the batting was taking place, and they were told to go to their position of choice and to field anything that was hit toward them. While all this was happening, another coach and parent were stationed in deep right field, behind the foul line, hitting towering fly balls to a second group of youngsters. After perhaps forty-five minutes the outfield group came in to the dugout, batted, and then assumed positions in the infield, while those who had been batting and playing the infield moved to the outfield. As all that organized chaos was transpiring on the field, another, smaller group had gathered behind the first-base dugout, where there was a pitching rubber and plate. They threw to catcher candidates for more than half an hour while all four managers watched intently. Often, at the request of a manager or coach, another young athlete would be called in from the field and asked to pitch for several minutes with the emphasis on control—how many pitches were near or over the plate.

  Not until just before noon did I get a chance to confer with Bill. Swinging a bat as he would a golf club, he came over to me and said, “Well, skipper, what do you think?”

  I handed him my clipboard, saying, “Pretty tough to really evaluate all these kids in just a couple of hours, but I did take a crack at grading them numerically, ten down to one, plus jotting down a few comments to help me remember some of them on Monday night at the draft.”

  He studied my board for several minutes, nodded and handed it back. “John, you don’t need any advice from me. What did you do about pitchers?”

  I handed him the clipboard again and said, “I marked the best pitching prospect P-one, the next P-two and so on, but of course everything will depend on when we get to draft. Whoever drafts first will no doubt go for my P-one, he’s that much of a standout.”

  Bill nodded. “You’re absolutely right. Todd Stevenson was not only the best darn pitcher in the league, last year at age eleven, he also batted over four hundred, hit five or six home runs and played first base when he wasn’t pitching. He was very special. Didn’t you say you were rating the kids from ten down to one?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there’s nothing next to this kid’s name,” he said, handing the clipboard back to me.

  “I know. Number thirty-six. God love him, he’s so tiny and slow and uncoordinated that … I just didn’t know what to put down. But he never quit, never stopped running and never seemed to get down on himself after missing pitch after pitch at the plate. Do you know him?”

  Bill leaned closer to the clipboard and squinted.

  “ ‘Timothy Noble.’ No. Must be a new family in town.”

  I pointed toward the group in center field still taking turns catching fly balls from a coach’s bat. “Third from the left, Bill. In those baggy pants. See him? Your list shows he’s an eleven-year-old, but he’s got to be the smallest player on the field.”

  As we were talking, the little guy moved away from the other players, who turned and watched, nudging each other and snickering. Obviously the next fly ball to be hit was his to catch. Leaning forward, he flexed his knees and pounded his right fist into his glove again and again.

  “My God!” I said half aloud.

  “What’s the matter … what am I missing?” asked Bill as he glanced around the outfield.

  “Nothing … nothing.”

  How could I tell him that Timothy Noble, not much bigger than my beloved seven-year-old, looked just like Rick from a distance as he crouched and leaned forward on hi
s toes, waiting. The coach swung his bat and arched a long fly ball toward Timothy, who circled helplessly beneath the ball, waving both his arms toward the sky. As the ball descended, he first turned to his left, then to his right and began to run, but somehow his feet got tangled and he fell headfirst onto the grass while the nearby group of players moved close to each other, almost in a huddle, with several holding their hands over their mouths as they fought back giggles.

  A few minutes later the youngster failed, once again, to get under a fly ball hit to him, and it landed several feet away. He raced toward it, picked it up and threw it back toward the batter. The ball landed no more than forty feet from where Timothy had been standing and the other players turned away, smiling. Timothy momentarily brushed the back of his right hand against both eyes.

  “He sure is tiny,” said Bill. “How old did you say he was, according to our list?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Well,” sighed Bill, “he’s certainly going to be a challenge for the manager and team who end up with him. Probably will be one of the last kids drafted. Still, according to the rules, he’s going to have to be played in each game, for a minimum of six defensive outs, and he’ll have to go to bat at least once per game. I’m afraid that any balls hit in his direction, wherever he’ll be playing, even for two innings, could prove very costly.”

  We looked up to see Timothy Noble on the move again. This time he overran a tall, lazy fly ball that dropped behind him. As he tried to stop suddenly, his tattered sneakers slipped on the grass and he fell, tumbling over onto his side. Still, he jumped up quickly, wiped the grass clippings from his T-shirt, yanked down firmly on the bill of his old baseball cap, retrieved the baseball, ran in several steps toward the coach who had hit it and threw the ball with so much effort that he fell over backward. The ball, after completing a small airborne arc, rolled along the grass until it finally came to rest at the batter’s feet. Those who were watching cheered loudly while they mockingly applauded. Timothy Noble turned, faced his hecklers and tipped his cap.

  “Look at him, Bill,” I said softly. “The kid is smiling.”

  VI

  Saturday afternoon, or what remained of it after tryouts had ended, was spent behind my house, on the deck, reading, rereading and highlighting in glowing yellow many paragraphs in the Little League Baseball Official Regulations and Playing Rules.

  Soon after I had started my second pass through the sixty-four pages of rules, I found myself reading a small piece, written by the Chairman of Little League Baseball, in which he briefly presented leadership qualities by which any local manager could be evaluated. Many of them sounded familiar to me until I realized that the traits necessary for good leadership, including many I had worked hard to acquire and live by in my own business career, were universal and as old as time and that they would certainly work in successfully guiding a Little League team as well as they worked in any board room: compassion, understanding, setting a good example, cooperation, teamwork, reaching toward mutual goals, encouragement, praise, and always striving to improve. Each of the activities listed were indeed vital to a good leader, in any enterprise, but somehow I had never expected to find such wise and valuable advice in a baseball book of rules.

  Reviewing the hundreds of “shalls” and “shall nots” among the pages of playing rules brought back memories of my own Little League experiences, but they faded quickly from my mind. The Chairman’s brief but powerful message was forcing me to take a long look at myself, and what a sorry image it was. John Harding, widower, no immediate family, currently on “employment leave,” despondent, aimless, potential suicide. Should that John Harding be leading a Little League team? Never! What I was about to become involved in was foolish and irresponsible, and those great kids I saw trying so hard this morning certainly deserved far better than me. How could I encourage them? How much sympathy and compassion did I have to dispense? How could I make any attempt to understand their home life while I was struggling to deal with the grim fact that I no longer had one of my own? And how could I possibly set a good example for them, fill them with enthusiasm and desire, teach them how to think positively—and never quit, never quit(!)—when I, their manager, their leader, was ready to quit the greatest game of all—life—and really didn’t care if I even lived to see another sunrise? This situation was truly my fault. In my depressed condition I had bought Bill West’s great sales pitch because he had always been such a special friend, but it just wasn’t fair to those young and impressionable boys at an age when they already had enough problems. Not fair! However, I still had time to bail out. Then I remembered how Sally had always acted as my manager whenever I had been confronted with situations in the corporate world that I didn’t think I could handle and didn’t want to deal with. She would cup my face in the palms of her hands, look straight into my eyes and say, “Hon, I’ve never, ever seen anything or anyone beat you and I positively have never seen you give up. You can handle this problem just like you’ve handled every other. Just be yourself and you’ll come out fine.”

  I shoved the rule book into my back pocket and slid open the glass door leading to the living room. After walking slowly across the room, I paused a yard or so away from the fireplace, leaned forward and stretched out my arms until both hands were tightly gripping the wooden mantel. I stared down at the hearth. To my right was a small copper pail filled with kindling wood and an old folded newspaper, and next to it was a brass log holder piled high with split maple logs. Sally had insisted that we really couldn’t claim to be official residents of our new home until we christened it with our first fire in the fireplace, so she had quickly located a local source for wood and had it delivered and stacked along one wall of the garage. I recall, so vividly, that chilly evening back in March when I had come home late after a very rough day at Millennium, found a roaring fire in the fireplace and a proud wife anxiously waiting for my reaction. With her tiny hands clasped tightly together, as if she were pleading for mercy, and blue eyes opened wide, she had asked anxiously, “Well, how did I do?”

  I remember saying, “You’ve just bought yourself another chore, lady, especially on Christmas morning.”

  Rick was already in bed, so the two of us had sat on the sofa, very close to each other, holding hands and touching heads, staring contentedly into the gold-and-crimson flames.…

  I pushed myself back from the mantel, turned and stared at the empty sofa, feeling so lost and alone. Then I pulled back the black-mesh screens covering the fireplace opening, reached inside and opened the chimney damper and within ten minutes I had a fire blazing. After stacking logs on the fire, as high as the top of the andirons, I slid the mesh screens closed and slumped down on the sofa—only now it was early June and I had no Sally to hug.…

  For municipal budgetary reasons it had almost become general practice throughout New Hampshire in the past twenty years or so to have consolidated school districts, each composed of students from clusters of small adjoining towns. But the very independent town of Boland had remained autonomous, with its own school system. And so, when Bill West drove into the parking lot at Boland High School on Monday evening, it was another trip backward in time. Twilight was falling, but I could see that the red-bricked, single-story exterior looked almost exactly as it did when I had graduated in 1967. Inside we walked down a polished-tile corridor. The walls, which held several cork bulletin boards filled with notices and student artwork, were painted in familiar beige. I paused outside one of the doors, on which the gold numeral four was printed high on the frosted glass. Bill turned, staring at me until I pointed toward the door and explained, “My homeroom. Senior year. Suppose it’s okay to peek inside?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  The door was locked.

  We continued down the hall and entered Room 8, where the draft was scheduled to be held. Stewart Rand and Nancy McLaren were both standing near the teacher’s desk. Behind them, on the large blackboard, were printed the names of every player
who had participated in the Saturday-morning tryouts.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Stewart called out. “Please take seats anywhere, and we’ll be ready to commence in just a few minutes. Thank you.”

  First I followed Bill as he went up aisles, shaking hands with his old friends. Although I had met them all at the tryouts, I was introduced to the other team managers and coaches once again. We found two empty seats near the front and tried to force ourselves behind two small desks.

  “I guess we’ve both grown a little since the late sixties,” Bill said, chuckling as he tapped his stomach. Stewart Rand began striking the side of a drinking glass with a ruler, and all conversation and laughter gradually subsided.

  “Okay, everyone, before we begin this year’s draft, let me quickly review a few points. The fact that a player was on one particular team last year does not automatically place him on that same team this year. There is no team-player carryover. All players will be drafted by you to the team on which they will compete this season. Is that understood?”

  Rand glanced around the room until several heads nodded.

  “I’ve been asked why there are no girls involved in our league. They are, of course, entitled to participate as well as the boys, and of course they have in many past years. However, the girls’ softball program in this town, for all age groups, has become so popular that apparently the young women seem to have elected to compete in their own league, so this year, for the first in several, our teams will be composed totally of males.

  “Now … before we begin our drafting process, I ask a small favor. Would each of the managers kindly stand, introduce himself, name his team and tell us in a few short sentences what he hopes to accomplish this year.”