was a strike,” Ron chortled. The next pitch came in with a high arch. Gerry swung at it, but fouled it off, over the backstop. On the third pitch, Gerry reached back and hit the ball squarely on the nose. The ball bounced off the bat in a straight line up the middle for a nice hit, a rarity for our side. I was the next batter.
“Where do you want them?” Ron called in. I hesitated.
“He likes grounders,” someone cackled from the outfield, knowing I couldn’t hit a ball out of the air.
“Do you want grounders?” Ron asked. “Sure,” I said, as I nodded my head.
I placed my bat so that it lay across home plate, my hands on the end of it. Ron rolled the ball in. I swung and would have hit it except that the ball hit a pebble and bounced over my bat.
“Strike one,” Ron called, as he prepared to roll in the next pitch. “Strike two,” he called when I missed it as well. With that, Mike called in, “he’s going to strike out with grounders,” he laughed with a mocking tone.
I looked over to Jim for moral support and encouragement. “Time! Ump,” Jim said to Ron as he strode over to talk to me. “Don’t be nervous,” Jim said. “Keep your eye on the ball. You can hit that thing. I’ve seen you do it.”
“Okay, Jim,” I replied.
Now, with added confidence, I settled in at the plate, holding the handle of the bat as it lay across the plate.
“Hey,” Mike said as he ran in from third base. “Come in here, Jim,” he said. “Stand over here. Jim’s twice as big as you guys,” he announced with glee to the crowd gathered there.
“Look at this,” he said. “Jim is twice as tall, his chest is twice as big, and his arms are twice as strong.”
After Mike and several others had had their fun, Jim came over to me again. “Never mind them,” he said. “Just concentrate on hitting the ball.”
“Okay, Jim,” I said.
Ron pitched the ball in for the third time. If I missed it, I was out. I watched it roll in carefully as Jim had instructed me to do. I readied to swing the bat forward along the ground when the ball was close enough to hit it. I started to swing, then, I noticed the ball again hit a pebble or small hump in the ground. It bounced up about six inches into the air. As I swung the bat along the ground, I instinctively lifted it into the air and toward the ball. The ball bounced off of the bat toward third base, in the direction of Mike. I started to run to first base. I heard Ron shout over at Mike. I glanced over quickly. There was Mike, squatting on his haunches, facing away from the ball, bouncing pebbles off of the dirt midfield.
He was explaining to the short stop how, “this is absolutely useless, letting guys play that can’t even hit the ball—absolutely useless,” he said, as my foot hit the bag at first base for my first hit of my life against big guys.
“I knew you could do it,” Jim called over. “You hit it out of the air too,” he added, as I smiled in a wide grin.
Next at bat was Jim Mahon.
“Get ready to run,” I imagined him saying. In reality, he hadn’t said anything. He was too quiet, too modest to say much. Ron didn’t call in his usual chant of “Where do you want it?” because he knew Jim could hit anything. Ron, instead, tossed the ball up into the air. Jim looked at it and let it land, well wide of the plate. Jim was using the heaviest bat we had, the one usually reserved for the older players. He twirled it around effortlessly. He looked like a major leaguer to us. Again, Ron tossed the ball up into the air. Again, Jim watched it and didn’t swing as the ball landed on the wrong side of him.
I had a great view of the third pitch. Jim was a right-handed batter and I was standing there on first base with a full view. As the ball floated in, Jim reached back and with a quick twist at the hip and a snap of the wrists, he sent the ball screaming toward the school. The ball carried over the center-fielder’s head, and landed on the gravel laid out for the school buses to travel on. The ball had cleared the entire outfield in the air, took one bounce past the school and rolled all the way into the ditch by the road. I ran as fast as I could rounding second, headed for third.
At third, even Mike coached me. “Slow down, you’ve got lots of time.”
I rounded third, as quickly as I could and steamed home. I touched the plate, and turned around to see where Jim was. As I did, he touched the plate too, having slowed down, not to pass me. In the excitement, I was bumped to the ground. I got up quickly, slapped him on the back and said, “Way to go!”
“You too,” he replied. “We’re ahead three to nothing.”
The big guys came in to congratulate Jim. Everyone wanted to talk about his big hit. After a few moments of celebration, Mike and several others didn’t want to play anymore. It was too damp, they said. “We’ll play tomorrow.”
“We have to go too,” Jim replied. “We haven’t eaten lunch yet.”
“What about us,” Ron called in. “When do we get to hit?”
“You’ll have a chance to hit tomorrow,” Jim said, as we walked up to the school to measure the hit.
“We beat the big guys today,” I said to Jim. “Yeah, you had a big hit too,” he replied.
By Grade Four, Jim was completely overpowering at softball. He would prove he was the best at the school.
The Grade Eight’s had organized a hitting and throwing contest. They wanted to determine the best player at the school. The winner was a big strapping farm kid who was a couple years older than the rest of his classmates.
The Grade Eight’s then pitted him against Jim. “Gary, you hit first,” they said.
Gary threw the ball up into the air and with a mighty swing, hit the ball a long way out into the outfield. Jim was next.
“It looks impossible to beat that hit,” someone said, as Jim launched one that landed further than Gary’s had rolled. “I take that back,” he said quickly to roars of laughter.
The throwing event was a repeat of the hitting event. Jim threw the ball so far that all those who were there could only laugh. He was the undisputed hitting and throwing champion of the school, and he was only in Grade Four.
III—WAY DOWN UPON THE SWANEE RIVER
“Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away…” so the song goes in words that I still find distasteful. Our Grade Three teacher standing at the front of the class was all business that day.
“Sally, recite Swanee River.”
To our surprise, Sally stood up and effortlessly recited every word of the song. Donna did the same. So did Marjorie and Martha after her.
With the boys, it was a different matter. Pete started it off, then Scott, then Charlie, then Jim, then me. None of us, except for Paul got past the title.
“Okay, you guys,” the teacher said, “you’re going to stay inside every recess and noon hour until you can recite Swanee River from memory. And then I want you to sing it to
